Judging from the lack of MWC forum activity, there is either a lot of RL holiday travel or a lot of mad playing. No matter what the exact effect, there had better be a lot of playing if the Euro horde is to be held off for long. War is war, even if one side does not see a reason to fight. The Euros are on a mission. And that mission is to regain their old place as a Meta superpower.

HAIL TO THE VICTORS VALIENT. HAIL TO THE CONQUERING HEROES. HAIL. HAIL. TO MICHIGAN THE LEADERS OF THE WEST...

Don't ask. It was the west when that thing was written.

Thank you Wolverines for exposing the Luckeye Fraud for what it was. The only two decent teams they played on the road in 2 years beat them.

LETS GO BLUE!!!!!

I suspect it's RL holiday travel. Unfortunately for me this year I had no vacation left, so my family is all deserting me and I'll be pretty much by myself on Thanksgiving. (:(

Let it snow let it snow let it snow. 64 degrees in Western Michigan yesterday, 20 degrees and snowing today. Gotta love that Lake Effect. Here is the trick MWC'ers let the enemies eat there turkey (which we harvested for them).WHile they sleep we shall play like Banshees.

The Metaverse Review is updated!

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And More!

Note: The Metaverse Review is going to start highlighting Top 5 empires. This is against normal policy, but to be fair will extend to the other Top 5 empires in coming weeks.

We had more drastic changes. 74 last Thursday down to -3 below on Saturday... Brrr. Back up to 50 today, thankfully. I'm in Colorado (yeah, yeah, not the mid-west but close enough We still farm out here)
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I can't play this week. I'm house-sitting with no galciv. It's all very sad and depressing.

sell the house buy a PC and then live in the box the PC came in.

Most of the MWC is bound to ground to a halt on at least Thanksgiving. If it isn't family and/or travel during the holiday, football will be your doom. And, just to make sure it works out that way, Evil Gerakken can always try to persuade his pirate captain to come on over and give you a football lineup and commentary that will seal your Thanksgiving fate. Muwahahaha!

*Gerakken runs off after swiping some more MWC popcorn*

Mmmmm popcorn.

Jordan, could you elaborate on your early game strategies? I do not normally play militaristic and am intrigued by those who say they are able to stay ahead tech wise in the game. I am always playing catch up from a tech standpoint which always placed me at a military disadvantage.

I must admit it has been some time since I have played a game and actually kicked AI behind.

BTW, these comments are intended for playing at Maso
~SDC~
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Yes what are the Great Pontius's predictions for the Bowl series??

Yes Jordan would be nice to see what your points are, I have tried the Masso quite a few times and I always get busted. LOL

Well, sure I'll share with you all what I do, but I don't think my strategies would necessarily work with the huge and gigantic map sizes, just so you know. But since I don't play those sizes, I don't care.

Anyway, I have been playing around with the starting options quite a bit, but this is what I'm doing currently (I think--if the points don't add up it's 'cause I'm trying to remember this from memory): Technologists Party, Research +10, Trade +20, Influence +10 and Diplo +60. I had been playing with a lower diplo and the PQ bonus, but I didn't think it was really worth it.

Generally on the tiny and small maps I play abundant planets, and I play rare or uncommon on the large maps (don't like having to deal with all those planets).

I never go with the all or nothing colony rush. I start with setting my military to 60 and 20 and 20 for the other two. I build 1 colony ship from Sol followed immediately by a scout, followed by a constructor. As long as there are planets around, I follow the pattern of making the new colony build a colony ship followed by constructors (or scouts depending on map size--large maps I need more scouts).

My scouts go on their merry way to contact all other races asap. It's pretty essential to meet minors quickly, but I find there's usually one of them hanging around near me anyway. (Of course, it's really swell to get the Alexians really fast to get money out of them, but that's not always possible).

Generally, I start trading like crazy with anyone I meet. I try to go down the tech tree that they don't go down right away and then play round robin with the trading only stopping when nobody else has anything to offer or I have nothing new to offer. If you research weapons/photons/phasers/corvettes pretty quickly the minors will give you anything ever for corvettes, which is nice. Of course, I always start with comm theory, univ. translator and diplomacy. It's really nice to find a minor to give diplomacy to (even if you can't trade it for anything) because they'll likely build the diplo translators which you can buy off them for much cheaper than from the majors... Of course, I always try to research down the tech tree that they majors don't. I have no hard and fast rules on this, I just go with the flow. I try to get the ones that give you more trade routes fairly early (cultural trade, congolmerates...) The majors will trade quite a bit for these.

Anyway, once I get my first constructor built, I switch my production to 30 military/20 social/50 research, and I keep it there for most of the game. I usually can get at least one tasty resource as long as one's near me. If I can't get one this early then I just start a starbase in my home sector that will be used to boost production and trade income. Of course, as soon as I get trade, I also have someone start building freighters. Sometimes, if I have the tech to spare, I'll buy some freighters off the AI, which has the advantage of being able to establish the route relatively quickly. The drawback is that that freighter might have been bound for you and then you miss out on that trade route. Though, it seems the AI builds way more than they need anyway... May as well buy them.

To keep my military even with the AIs, I will also use excess tech to purchase ships from the AI. Sure, they won't give you too many, but every one you buy off them boosts you and weakens them. I don't really get how military rating works though. I think the game must count freighters because I've seen AIs with nothing but freighters with military ratings way above mine.

I really don't focus on trade goods or anything in the early game. I hope that the minors get them and trade them for them. Obviously, I never boost my social spending too high, so I use starbases to make my colonies produce very well.

I actually do research battleship and dreadnought tech fairly quickly, because I need to get to dreadnoughts to be able to build AMMs, which I use to keep my military rating high (and they work great for defense if you pay attention to the other ships coming)

I can't say that I'm always ahead of everyone in tech. There's usually one guy that's ahead of me throughout the early to mid game (usually the Torians!), but as long as I trade with everyone else, I can do alright. I like to keep the weaker majors and minors caught up with tech too, so that's where ship trading comes in pretty handy (well for the majors). And if you keep them supplied with tech, then it's easier to trade with them later when they research something you don't have.

The rest of the game just depends on my mood or what's happening. Sometimes I like being evil and just destroying all of them. One game I was really evil and bought transports from the Altarians then turned around and invaded their planet with them... Mwa ha ha ha ha. Some games I like being good. Sometimes I go for alliance victory if I'm not strong enough to win a military victory (or I get bored). Usually I culture flip quite a few (lately without even trying) and then finish off the rest with terror stars.

I guess the main focus for me is trade and research. I don't know if this has been helpful, but I'm pretty consistently ahead in tech using this strategy, so I don't think it's a fluke.

Of course, I also employ the scavenging strategies of others... Having constructors sitting around resources ready to take the resource when the other SB is destroyed. I don't really do the vulture strategy of hanging around AIs planets while they're at war waiting to swoop in with combat transports. It's not very sporting. I'll sometimes do that with the minors when they're getting beaten down, though I TRY to keep the minors around as late game trading partners as long as I can.

Sigh... I really wish I was able to play right now.

Sounds good, Jordan. I'd think you'd need to push the colony ship building a little harder on larger+fertile maps, but the rest sounds solid. I prefer Medium, Large and Huge maps, with all sorts of fertility. Small maps seem more bent to conquest, while gigantic are almost like a different game altogether.

Here's one reason to consider the all out colony rush: if you delay early social spending, your planets "grow up together", where the early ones don't run out of good things to be building while later ones are still building the basics. I usually go 100% military (spending at whatever rate puts out 17 shields at Earth -- varies based on Earth's PQ) and maybe some scouts on larger or less fertile maps. Then when I think I have enough, I stop and go max research for a few turns, by which my colony ships arrive. Then when I'm ready to go 100% social, I will awaken waiting colony ships in orbit around any PQ13 and PQ12 I intend to settle, and settle them at that point. So I minimize the waste of paying life support maintenance. All out social spending until my worst planet has built soil and habitat. This strategy lets me build those borderline 12-14 planets game after game and not regret it. From there, my strategy usually varies according to the map, my trading options thus far, my political party and bonus picks, etc. And of course, even this formula must adapt to the specifics on the ground, so to speak.


By the by, just want to express renewed appreciation for the MWC statbot. Man, I love that thing. Very useful, and can't beat the licensing cost with a birch walking stick. LOL


- Sirian

Well, I haven't really found the need to go all out on the colony rush. I almost find I have an easier time managing my economy and such with less planets, and on the map sizes I play there aren't *that* many to colonize anyway. Heck, on tiny you usually don't even need to build colony ships (even when playing abundant). I don't like lowering my research spending to 0 because then I *do* get waaaay far behind the AI in tech and have a hard time catching up. I've tried that tactic before (when that's what everyone else was doing), and I just didn't think it worked that well for me. I guess that's what's cool about this game. There are many ways to play and win.

Definitely. I'm quite pleased with the versatility and balance of the bonus picks, for instance. I have tried quite a few combinations and found something good in almost all of them. The political parties, too, although the Populists are clearly the strongest bang for the buck.

Falling behind the AI techwise isn't that big of a deal for me. Minors keep you afloat, and the AI's will all race down the military branch anyway, so at the point where I usually divert from them, I'll be researching stuff nobody has, even if the AI's are way ahead. And then the overdrive of my larger economy kicks in, and/or my trade will start to grow.


- Sirian

Thanks Jordan for your insights, what happened to MWC eating too much turkey on Thanksgiving LOL LOL The Euros had take over the 4th place. (:(

Too much turkey....must wake up and push back against Euro's....Damn them and there 30 hour work weeks

I'm still in exile without galciv. Stupid lack of galciv. I get to go home tomorrow, and I'm sure I'll get a game in!

Well spent a good portion of the weekend playing WC3:The Frozen Throne. Was able to get on galciv game in - and to my horror, foung that now we are in 5th place!! (:(

Wha happened?

~SDC~

What happens to you Midwesterners at Thanksgiving? Surthur overeats, Jordan gets testy, kasual just plays something else completely...man, if I ever visit the States, I'm gonna have to be careful about which season I choose to hit the Midwest.... LOL

GO YOU FARMERS!!!!

I didn't end up with any time to play a game yesterday. Kasual, I just don't think anyone in the MWC was playing this week.

Too much turkey and gravy LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL