Final Frontier on high levels - strategies?

[Thrar]

Hi,
I have just started playing FF again, after reading the walkthrough and some general advice. I normally play Civ at Emperor or Immortal, so I figured, let's jump right in at Emperor.
I'm now in the process of my second game, and I think I understand the concepts quite well - yet I'm absolutely astonished by the pace the AI is keeping in both games.

What are your experiences in FF at high levels? Are there any strategies or recommendations that I should keep in mind?

To give a better understanding of my shortcomings, here's a kind of list describing all the difficulties I encountered:

Right from the start, I noticed that someone had founded Survival, while I didn't even have 2/3 of the beakers required (on some other tech, though). Wealth fell a few turns later, with me still being far from having that amount of beakers accumulated.
In addition to that, the AI apparently expands like mad. By the time I get my first colony ship (2nd build after scout, at size 2), they have already settled their first colony, and before I can even think of getting a third one, most of the AI civs have 4 already.
The tech pace seems crazy, the first game they left me behind from the start, in the second one I managed to keep up to some extent with some fortunate trading - not parity, but only 3 or so techs behind the leaders.
In both games, I was boxed in with 3 colonies, but managed to acquire some more through war - build 10-20 invasion ships, and they will take down the usual 3 delta defenders plus a bunch of destroyers.
Finally, what's amazes me most is how the AI gets colonies size 15+ while my biggest ones are at 8 or 9 at best.

So, what can be done against that? Are there players here that regularly play and win Emperor or above? What is the secret for success?

 

[DarkSchneider]

I have been having relatively good luck at Monarch level, but doing worse than I would be at Monarch difficulty of a regular Civ game.

One thing that seems definite though. The Civilization that you should play should be the Red Faction. Once you have at least four connected cities you will be getting +3 production, +3 food and +2 commerce over what a regular Civilization will get.

 

[Inky]

It is hard to beat the AIs on tech at higher levels. But if you want an early value, one way to get a shot at it is to build research. The AI definitely does so. Because your starting system makes a big difference in commerce, there is a huge luck factor. Red Syndicate and Paradise have a big edge, Avowers aren't bad either with their starting tech and science bonuses. Still, it often comes down to luck, nothing you can do about your starting situation.

You must build key buildings on all planets as much as possible. This isn't easy to do, but you can't grow huge populations otherwise. You need nutrition and habitation systems in order to expand, and of course the right sort of planets in your systems.

Starbases are really valuable. First for the critical resource grabbing, second for defense (the AI is bad at taking down starbases), and third for power-graph position (as they count as units and deter hostile AIs). Fourth thing is anti-piracy defense, and general border defense. Don't be afraid to build a starbase in a location without resources, if you need defense there.

Scouts can give a big payoff in wreckage searches, but that is luck dependent and subject to your competition's efforts to steal the same things. I find it worthwhile to churn out a few more scouts before colonizing. I can catch up with a steady stream of colony ships (in number of systems, population takes longer). Syndicate, with its trade route bonus, needs colonies sooner.


Even with the change to one bonus trade route, I still think Red Syndicate is overall easier to expand with, easier to keep up in tech with. Others have their own fun advantages, but many require you to go to war (and win) in order to get the most from them.

 

[EugeneStyles]

Yeah, after playing one game without building many starbases and then another where I put them near every close resource and several other places near my borders, starbases are essential - almost overpowered, since it seems like the AI doesn't put as high a priority on them.

Also, as far as building research, I was really upset when, playing as Syndicate, building research, I still managed to get beat to Wealth. How much production/commerce was that AI able to produce? Because I would consider building research right off the bat before Scouts or PD's to be bad play, but the AI does it and still manages to have a million ships. This wasn't on a particularly high level, so either the AI cheats at all levels, or I still have a lot to learn about maximizing production and research.

 

[heliostellar]

I can never get either Survival or Wealth. I can usually get Knowledge, but I have to bee-line for it right from the start. Also, I've been able to knab Religion too. The two combined are pretty good, additional research (obvy for Knowledge) and more happy faces for Religion. Happy faces are harder to come by since there are few resources that create them (crystals and gold are the only ones I know of) and they are pretty rare on the map.

One thing to note about the Values though: it's not as critical to own the founding city for a value as it is a Holy City in Civ4. There's no Great Prophets, so there's no gold bonus from cities that have your value in them. Actually, I don't believe there's any specific bonus for the founding city at all. You really only need a single city to "catch" the value you need and you're all set to expand it yourself around your empire.

 

[Tatran]

This wasn't on a particularly high level, so either the AI cheats at all levels, or I still have a lot to learn about maximizing production and research.

The AIs have a huge growth + production bonus.
I consider this a serious mistake. I like some competition, but this is ridiculous.

From espionage :
1) At Monarch the AI has a 36% production + growth bonus.
2) An example at Deity, human star system size 2 requires 66 food to become size 3, while the AI only need 21 food .