You only have one though, and it makes sense to me that a small civilization would at least have one powerful warship. But if you look at your fleet supply, you'll see there's a heavy cost to that capital ship, and you won't be building a whole bunch of them right away. And I find it's a fun and challenging balancing act to determine whether to spend my resources on planetary upgrades, research, ship upgrades, increased fleet capacity, etc.

It seems to go fast to me because I'm having a ton of fun, but when I look up at the clock after building up my empire only a little bit and realize a couple hours have passed, then it becomes obvious to me that it's not all that fast in reality (although I admit I use the pause button quite a bit, as I'm still just learning the ins and outs of the game).



As noted, they're just minor players in the galactic scheme of things. Good practice for your fleet.



Yes. It's handy at for the first couple games so you don't have to worry about the added factor of trying to keep them off your butt. After that though, they add a nice bit of spice to the game (good for levelling your cap ships and it adds another tactical factor in your game).



While I can see what you're saying, I don't think that would be a good idea, as many games don't last hours and hours (from what I've read). If it takes that long to build a cap ship, then you'd a have a lot of dissatisfied players. People just wouldn't like playing game after game and not being able to get their most powerful ships launched.

I'm no modder (yet), but perhaps it's possible to mod the time required to build the cap ships if you really want to adjust it.

For the struggling starting player, this is the best advice.

Except I'd say "frequently and see what you're doing." rather than just when you're feeling overwhelmed. Look at your resources - are you completely overloaded on one type that you can sell on the black market? How's your fleet supply? Do some of your planets need more defenses?

-- Retro

It's not the first time this kind of post shows up. The game should offer an option, similar as the one mentioned, for novice players. Starting players usually don't know how to do that themselves in the first place.

A pre-arranged map for novice players would go a long way to make one understand the complexities of sins. It sure beats reading a manual, go through the forums, pulling hair, kick one's beloved pet, or get a divorce because of it.

It would be a nice starting point to the game...

Usually (not always) that function is provided by the campaign. Firs tfew maps are an easy slide into introductory gameplay.

The tutorials were okay, but didn't give an overriding introduction to how the economy really works most effectively, which is crucial to get at least approximately right at the game's start.

-- Retro

Seems you need a different strategy. Take your time with this game, no need to rush. For instance I like to take over one planet at a time. Go in and destroy whatever resistance is there, colonize and set up the infrastructure and defenses. While I'am doing this my fleet or part of of it stays and protects the new territory until it can defend itself and then i move on. Works very well for me, don't recommend for multiplayer though.

Are they complete PC gaming noobs? This, and playing in an empty LAN server, is how you learn EVERY game. I guess he could be new to gaming, but seriously, this is pretty common-sense stuff, you have to assume a level of familiarity...

Building that first free capital ship is key to survival. They should make sure every player knows that before their first game.

I agree about it not being a slow-paced game. There are mods that slow it down.

To all those that think this game is easy, its not at a first. Last time I sat down and played it for my first time. I was completely owned. Today I sat down again and was able to do far better. Its not that easy of a game to pick up. esp if your not a regular to RTS such as myself. Sure I got expreience with games like starcraft, and RTW however i'm hardly a expert.

One simple way to fix this is for the Tutorials to improve to include more strategy and tactics. They explain how to use the UI to do stuff, but not really why you need to do certain things.

The game model is fairly complicated for RTS noobs. This is great for hardcore gamers or people with infinite time to learn it all the hard way, but is bad for the beginners.

And most [with this forum the exception] of the online help is spread sheets which smells a lot like work and less like fun - unless you are a wargaming grognard. You know who you are...

Perhaps a mini-campaign where are you asked to do things like you would in a normal game, and explain why: Advent is good at culture, so lets get it fast and build a communion... etc.

1. build a CS and N frigates. take over and capture asteroid/planet
2. research culture/trade and build one in each. watch credits go up. watch culture spread.
3. improve asteroid/planet to increase pop, build more logistics/tactics. build more research buildings.
4. increase fleet size
5. take over another planet
6. increase number of commanders
7. build another CS
8. etc...

That would require a lot of resources/time from IC/Stardock that are better reserved for other more important things.

This is the first time I've ever played an RTS and I haven't had a problem understanding the game. The tutorials were fine in explaining the way the game worked, and in a strategy game, the point is to develop your own strategy, not follow step by step what a tutorial tells you to... That ends up being just as fun as having the computer play the game for you.

My first time with a game of this type as well. I actually found the tutorials only helpful to a point. After having played for a bit, I can see they'd be useful for someone that's seen this type of game before, but for the complete noob, they can be confusing (you're getting a lot of info but not really shown how it all interacts with each other).

That being said, I just jumped in on a small random map 1v1 against the AI (normal). Got my butt handed to me, but I learned a lot from that. Next up was a medium map with pirates off and 4 teams (locked) FFA with normal AI. I won that one. Learned a bit more.

My third game is a 5 star map with 4 teams (locked) FFA and pirates inactive again. I'm doing quite well in this as also. Again, learned quite a lot.

(All games I played as TEC).

So what's the point? There's no better teacher than just getting into it and playing. Pay attention to what's going on and, as many others have said: use the Pause button. It's invaluable for giving you time to see what the enemy is doing, what they've fielded, and what the techs are going to do for you in the research tree. Watch your fleet supply and battles. When you lose ships, replace them immediately. Unused supply is a waste.

And read some of the advice/suggestions on these forums. I doubt I would have a prayer of winning on-line, but I'm still having fun in single player and still learning with each game. I'll keep upping the difficulty (and make the pirates active), play various different maps/scenarios, and try out the other races as well. Sure, the learning curve is steep, but I wouldn't agree that it's 'punishing'. It's a helluva fun game though.

Pause, yeah. Why isn't that listed in key bindings, it's the most important
one.
Fleet supply: how to increase that? I didn't notice pop upgrade
or additional planets increased it?
With a small assortment (6) of frigates plus cap ship plus researchers it's
not possible to build a second cap ship. Costs 50 fleet supply.
So...where's that no-pirate button? Where are additional commanders?

In the map builder I specified 2-4 planets per star but got 9 anyway.
Random mysteries happen in what should be a controlled environment.
I guess that's good because aside from the battles not much is happening.

I think this is also a matter of expectations, namely I didn't expect to win my first few games. I never expect to win a strategy game the first time, that would be like expecting that you could play the entirety of Half-Life 2 without dying once the first time you put the disk in the drive. And sure enough, I got totally stomped my first match, and my second and third. Because I had been fairly sure that would be what happened, it didn't dissappoint me or make me feel deficient, and merely gave me the information I needed to figure out what I had done wrong and what I had done right, by varying my strategy between the first few games and paying attention to what got me the farthest along and what did not. For example the first game I played I think I built two or three colony frigates right off the bat, my second game I only built one and noticed that it didn't slow down my expansion at all. Hence I stopped building masses of colony frigs right away, since I could save resources for more vital projects like cranking out a research lab or two.

The bottom line is not be discouraged by losses, but to look at what you did and try something different where you feel that stuff didn't work and try to improve the stuff that did.

It's in the keybindings (I remapped it from the default Pause key to the Space bar).

Fleet Supply: to increase your fleet, you need to hit your Research button and go into the Fleet Logistics tab. Fleet supply is the lower section. To oncrease capital ship crews is in the upper section.

Pirates inactive is in the Game Options button (appears at the bottom of the screen when you choose a new game or load a saved game).

Don't have an answer for the planets, unless you had 3 stars in the map.