Hey, in this other game I play I am in the “middle” bordering 4 players. 1 is replaced by an AI, another 1 I made a nap with and we’re activelly discussing strategies. A third player (red) doesn’t seem to react and is expanding towards…
But then there is the 4th player, he is at a peninsula of the map, only bordering (at least till hyperspace 5) me, and on my question about how he felt about doing things together he replied “aggressivelly” demanding my home planet and several others as he would ‘need to pass through me’.
Now I am in techs etc all equal to him, however he is moving to one of my planets in 17 hours from now (game is only 36 hours underwayk, and there’s only 1 planet in between). He has weapon tech lv 2 already (I have 1 still and a solid day off as I invested in something else first). I am really anxious as I can’t see what is coming, and wonder how I could repel this? I could send all my fleets to this key planet (the one he reaches in 17 hours can then reach 5-6 others of mine). But that would leave me open to red & yellow (AI player).
My ally really can’t help me as he is on the other side of the map.
So shoudl I try to defend that single planet? Or should I just give that one up and defend the 5 stronger main planets? And should I build a factory on this “key planet” - that planet is only lv 6 though, so I would spend my whole income to build a lv 2 factory.
What kind of fleet should I expect? And how should I react? I was preparing a fleet to do a pre empty strike at red. but that seems to be not a good idea now.
The middle spot in a random hex map is always difficult. You are right to try to be friendly with all your neighbors.
This corner fellow sounds bound and determined to be aggressive. Oh well. Don’t build on the star in question until you are sure you can hold it. But do play defense there, and try to kill what you can. Battles at such low weps levels are strongly biased in favor of defenders. Maybe he’ll smash against your defenses for a few then quit, as he sounds rather impatient.
No worries about yellow, AI don’t attack, although it will expand into empty stars. Do what it takes to make peace with red.
Heh that’s good too know about AI - is there also a way to “trade” with ai?
I just noticed something even worse: apparently the corner person and my so called ally decided to team up (they both are far ahead in victories in this game). And I actually see two incomming attacks now. The top person agreed for a nap, “Though I will have to attack you once I get all neutral planets”.
So right now I feel between hammer and anvil, seeing two fleets of 40 ships zooming in. And I wonder if I should just turtle up at my home planet and maybe 2-3 more planets. Is that even a viable tactic to not grow and stay at one planet?
Depends on what you are trying to achieve. In the long term you will be eliminated, with a little luck you could get rank as 3rd place. Considering the current rule change this tactic gets even less appealing.
Yes, you can send techs to AI and there is a 80% chance (I think) that they send you a random tech back.
Yes you can trade tech with AI… it has a high but not 100% chance of working (as was coded in deliberately). If you send the AI a tech, they will either send you one straight back or not bother… so after you’ve sent it, refresh your game and if there’s nothing for you then it didn’t work. Sometimes it didn’t work because the AI had no money to send you something, so if you’re desperate then send money first, then your tech straight away.
Re your overall predicament… it’s not looking good if you have 2 players against you so this game may be a write-off. As wfmcgillicuddy already said I’d absolutely critical to be friendly with as many of your neighbours as possible when you’re in the middle. I think the best strategy is to make as many friends ASAP (and it doesn’t hurt to mention that you’re in a tricky position) then identify which player is most likely to attack you (often the one who has the least other neighbours and thus less options for expanding) and try and get someone on board in helping you take them out. If you can push out to the edge of a map rather than continuing into the centre then at least you have one area of your empire which you don’t need to defend.
I don’t want to dispute that this could have been true when you wrote that but is it still true now?, the ai in my game have shown the ability to alter relational status even without diplomatic or aggression inputs from the players. It came as a shock to at least two players when they found themselves under attack from an ai they had never interacted with.