[Godzilla Blitz]

In case people are interested, I posted this on a different board, but thought some people might be interested here...

These are some random strategies for success that worked well in my first two “real” games (at normal and bright AI levels with a small galaxy). Not sure if these strategies will work equally well against higher levels of AI or in different galaxy sizes, or even if they really are good strategy (I’ve only played three games, and still don’t have a good sense for what’s going on).

(MIGHT BE CONSIDERED SPOILERS…)
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1. Successful, aggressive expansion seems to be the key to survival. The AI’s at normal and above expand lightning fast. It is imperative to get more planets than anyone else. What you do in the first twenty turns can go a long way to insuring victory. To open fast you’ve got to get as much money as possible devoted to building colony ships. There are some tricks you can use to do this. First, crank up your taxes at the start of the game to the point where your approval rating is at or less than 60%. Your initial rate will give you too little money. Second crank up your spending to 100%, even if it means burning heavily into the 1000bc buffer the game gives you at the start. Third, crank up the percentage of these funds devoted to building ships. I don’t remember the exact figure, but I think in the last game I set my ships, social, and research numbers at somewhere around 80-0-20 for the first few turns. This will give you rapidly accelerated colony ship production. The key is that you only need to do this until you’ve cranked out enough colony ships and constructors to support your expansion. Fourth, get all planets making colony ships and buy these ships when it makes sense to do so, but use the lowest initial payment so that you spread your debt out over the longest amount of time. Do this sparingly, though: I would think a 50bc debt load each turn could kill you in the middle game. In the last game, I accelerated construction on one colony ship and one constructor to insure that I got a contested resource point and a distant colony. That left me with a 14bc stream of debt for effectively the rest of the game, but there are things you can quickly do to offset this, and 14bc late in the game is chump change if things have gone well elsewhere.

2. Once you realize you don’t need any more colony ships or constructors, switch to a research heavy spending rate. I went to 30-15-65, or something like that, and even switched down to 0-45-55 once I had a some planets loaded with “constructor build bars that were almost full” (these can be converted to warships with no loss, so you can stop production fully and yet be ready on a moments notice to fight a large war if you need to). The key is to get a couple of techs that your opponents don’t have. Once you do that, go trade them, preferably to the good civilizations (who should now have less planets than you do and can’t keep up research-wise). Aggressively trade for other techs, and keep track of the value of techs so that you aren’t getting screwed. Also, use your brain here and don’t give good military stuff to the Drengil, who will use it against you later. At least at the bright level and lower, the AI isn’t aggressively trading tech, and this will give you a large tech lead over the other nations if you do it right. The key here, though, is to be sure to tweak the trades by asking for cash, and spread it out over 50 turns. An AI will pay a lot more money if it is allowed to spread the payments out over a longer period of time. Also, sell techs that for similar income streams. In the last game, I quickly had that negative 14bc stream from expansion covered with a positive 24bc income stream for 50 turns from other countries’ payments to balance tech trades.

3. As the game moves on, adjust tax rates to keep happiness about 60% (set happiness higher if you need to spur population growth, I think), and adjust spending to keep your total about 100-200bc in the black. It’s important to keep your eye on this, as you easily can be burning a 75bc debt per turn later in the game if you aren’t careful.

4. In the expansion, prioritize on identifying systems for your colony ships. Don’t chase after out of the way anomalies early in the game. You can build another survey ship towards the end of the expansion period to try to get some of these. The exception is the floating metal, but even then I would still probably prioritize on system exploration. However, the metal spots have the potential of adding a weapon rating to your survey ship. If you get attack power with your survey ship early in the game, you now have the capability of dramatically weakening the expansion of a neighbor that is competing for systems. If you can take out one enemy’s colony ships and get a couple of systems because you found one of these things (and you think he didn’t): DO IT! A two or three planet lead in this early stage will make your life so much easier later, and winning this war can pay huge economic dividends a few years down the road.

5. During the expansion period, concentrate on getting into as many sectors as possible so that you can keep expanding. If there are two good planets around the same solar system, save that second planet for later, as once you own a system, no one else can grab a planet on the same system (“system”, not “sector”). Grab 14-rated planets (maybe 13-rated if that's the only option) if it is a good way get a foothold in a sector to allow further expansion. At the bright and lower levels, the AI isn’t doing this, and it weakens its opening. Get these planets building soil improvement right away, and then add habitat improvement once you get the tech for that (usually you can trade for this one early on). Be careful though. Too many of these planets will put you in the hole economically, as each one seems to carry a 7-10bc debt with it until it gets to level 15, which appears to be some kind of a break even point. Get only ones that will allow you to get to the next galaxy and continue expanding. Come back and grab more if you have leftover colony ships and can afford the debt.

6. If you are winning a war against an opponent, they will come to you for a peace deal. Never take it straight up unless you are absolutely desperate to stop the war. At some point (it might be the first time, might be later), they will let you can add cash (and maybe tech) to the deal and they will still take it. At this point, it is very likely that they will accept a peace deal that includes massive payments over 50 months. In the last game, I found a weapon upgrade for my survey ship during the expansion, weakened one opponent’s expansion with it, and then got a peace deal from them a couple of years later that paid about 90bc/year for 50 years during the middle five to ten game years.

7. Get the trade tech, make freighters, and set up distant trade routes with good neighbors.

The goal of all this is to survive the lightning expansion with more planets than anyone, have a positive income stream from payments from opponents, and have the tech lead within a few years of the expansion period’s end. Once you get this slight edge in planets, tech, and income, you can add more resources into more research, which will give you a larger tech advantage that you can use to build a solid economic lead. With that, it should be easier to deal with all the stuff the game throws at you.

Hope that helps. Again, take all this with a grain of salt, especially the exact numbers, as I’m doing it from memory, and have a lot still to learn about the game and how it works.