Mrrshan, Impossibe difficulty, Raging Barbarians, Conquest victory
1) Ok, introducing the Survival Tactics (TM). Tha means, go for Marines, then for Knowledge (for the sake of it) then for Bombers, while spamming Marines and Research Labs ASAP. Before you get Bombers defeating a stray Battleship is a nightmare on its own... Yes, and don't even think about building Construction Ships - that's a waste of a turn ot two.
2) Now, we got the Bombers. By now (turn 40-60) a couple of opponents are already down, another couple is at their last breath (but we know nothing of it). Spamming Bombers and going for Bomber-2s, with a "stop" to get Hydroponic Farm. Else the growth rate is hellishly small. The barbs are still a problem.
3) Discovered Fusion Rifle. From now on, all those Marines and Armour (yes, we DID research Armour) will have a chance at capturing a unit.... well, a Destroyer would probably be the first) And NO Invasion Ships, you just DON'T want these guys around on THIS difficulty -they are a priority target for bombing runs, similar to Battleships.
4) Now all we do is sit down and build-build-BUILD. Founded another colony and secured a good bunch of bonus resources by two Starbases (again, NO noncombat vessel goes out of a Star System without escort. And I mean SERIOUS escort. A Battleship or two at least.) Yes, and the VERY FIRST thing to build in a colony is a Marine Barracks. Just so.
5) All the while you have units accumulating due to capture. A huge number of Destroyers, several Invasion Ships, some Battleships. My way is: bomb them down to 1-2-6(BS) power, then attack. For this matter, the research prioryty should go to Troop pods and such.
6) Okay, now starts the fun part. By now there is only one rival left (Elerians, my case) and he is sitting somewhere out there sulking. He definitely declared war on you for at least one time and got his Big Bad Invasion Fleet (tm) bombed into oblivion and further. DO NOT EVEN THINK about "little piecemaking". You'll have to fight against both pirates and enemy... and that sucks. For now.
7) "Finish them". You have Stellar Converter, Mauler Device, Battleship III and Doomstars and are researching DoomStar II. Your two colonies have a horribly high population (I finished with 95(!!!) in the first and 63 in the second). Build BS-III. Give the Stellar converter< Mauler Device and whatever-else-you-want. Kick arse. Leave a BS-III in a colony to defent it. There is little in the universe that can outshoot a well-upgraded BS-III. If there is a colony that manages to say something against it, build some DSs and kick arse some more.Yes, and ANYTHING you build in the colonies takes one turn to complete... well, except the Dimensional gate. Finish.
BTW, when I went out to conquer, I was surprised to see that the Elerians had nearly all the star systems under their control... Although viewing the aftergame turn summsry I saw that several times they had only one colony left... I suppose that it was the discovery os BS-II that did the trick.
So, the feedback:
a) Population BUGZ. It is good for your development, but it is totally IMBA if handled properly. It is just lame that a civ with two colonies can be more powerful than one with ten. I don't know why, but the planet limit doesn't work at all.
b) Why do Ground Forces and Squadrons receive only 4XP even if the system that builds them provides 30-odd? BTW, was it intentional that the XP from MArine Barracks, Armour Barracks and Space Academy all stacks from ALL planets in the system? At the same time, why doesn't the defence bonus from, say Missile Bases on different planets stack?
c) Don't know whether it is possible... but could a "autobomb anything hostile in sight" feature be introduced for Squadrons and Starbases?
d) Again, don't know if it's possible... but the ability to "guard noncombat ships" would be invaluable. It horribly annoys me, when I lose Construction Ships to hostiles coming out of the Fog-o-war. If I could assign a couple of Destroyers to each one... and not move them manually!
e) And again, the AI doesn't understand the problems it gets when attempting to colonize a system. During replay i've seen several times that a newfounded colony is captures on the next turns by Aliens. I suppose it's because the AI still believes Destroyers to be the best defenders against anything.
Ok, that sums up everything I have been able to recall. If the "guide" provides anyone with clues as to improvements, feel free to use it.
