Final Frontier Walkthrough / Guide (Very Basic)

[Hamarabi]

For those of you that have been waiting for my update, I just finished a trial run to see how long it was going to take me to complete and it only took about 25 minutes to win a conquest victory.

I simply directed two small colonies to build wealth, directed the larger colonies to crank out battleships (I built 6, which took 16 turns), chose economic builds for the other colonies that could not build ships very fast, and the research path didnt matter because victory was right around the corner. I built a starbase and gold extraction facility, as well. At the state we left the game in, it would be nearly impossible to lose. In fact, the goal of losing would have to be our focus, otherwise it is an effortless win.

I'll run through it again and take screenshots and do a write-up later tonight. I'll then post it on my website by tomorrow (Sunday, November 25 2007).

Hamarabi

P.S. During my playthrough, neither competitor brought a single battleship to bear on our empire, so not only were we massively superior in power and production, but also technologically.

 

[Hamarabi]

I just stopped in to let everyone know that I played through to the end again and this time took screenshots and wrote descriptions and a bit of discussion for each image. I couldn't believe it took 6 hours this time when it only took 25 minutes to "just play" it the first time! Wow! I never realized how much longer it takes when you have to think of something to say. LOL!

Nonetheless, I have completed the write-up, but I still need to create the thumbnail images, and proof-read, spell-check, and format the text. It shouldn't take too much longer, since I already got a good start on it. However, I am exhausted now and I can't keep my eyes open any longer. I'll have the pages up in approximately 10 hours (give or take).

Cheers!

Hamarabi

 

[Hamarabi]

I just finished the last two chapters of my Final Frontier walkthrough, entitled "Gears of War" and "End Game" and uploaded them to my web-site.

I apologize for being so late in submitting the completed guide. The project took far longer than I thought it would and because of my miscalculation, I did not give myself enough time to meet the announced schedule.

I would like to thank the person responsible for the kind donation! It was a pleasant surprise! Also, I would like to thank everyone for the wonderful compliments and constructive criticisms! I hope to improve my process as a result!

Cheers!

Hamarabi

 

[tour86rocker]

Mr. Shafer-

Kudos to you; I played the Final Frontier demo and didn't realize "Beyond the Sword" contained anything else; like the Civ4 demo I was hooked and had to buy it. Unlike the original Civ4...I am still playing this. Will you be updating Final Frontier any further? And does the regular BtS 3.17 patch take care of patching the FF mod as well?

 

[tour86rocker]

Hamarabi-

Your guide is a fun read and I learned a thing or two! It helped me to realize that this mod does contain quite a bit of battling against bankruptcy and that I wasn't just playing it wrong!

I wanted to offer a couple of suggestions:

I agree with other posters that your writing style IS very engaging and I enjoy the guide. However, your exclusive use of "it is" instead of the word "its" grates on my eyes. It really, really makes it noticeably less readable for me. "It's" (the word you use) is a contraction of "it is", sort of like can't or don't. It is weird, but "its" (without the apostrophe) really is the "possessive" form of the word.

Everything else about your writing is very professional! It's very refreshing for me after reading guides for other games on other sites over the years.

As far as Health of cities: I have a different approach. In FF I've noticed no negative effects of allowing pollution other than a reduced food yield. I've personally not seen it affect happiness or have any lasting effects.

Instead, I look at how many food units are produced by a planet. If I want to see faster growth, my math says that building Nutrition buildings on populated planets should be more effective than building recycling centers.

My reasoning is that +1 food * population on the planet >= the +1 food liberated from waste by building a recycling plant. For your time and hammers, Nutrition buildings appear to me to be a better choice until you run out of populated planets.

Now if one has the survival "value" seeded in their empire, I could definitely see building survival domes on 1-population-max planets because of the culture growth it adds on top. I also tend to pounce on Health buffing resources.

 

[tour86rocker]

Hold the phone: I see posters saying the subsequent factories and other buildings that you can build on multiple planets are more "expensive" as you build more. Is that in hammers or upkeep?

I must admit that I haven't looked closely at what individual buildings cost in upkeep. I've assumed they're all 1 gold like in Civ2 back in the day (I think) and that wealth-creating buildings were maintenance free.

 

[tour86rocker]

How do I get multiple trade routes? Many times my star systems trade with only my capital and nobody else, even when they're linked by lanes to other empires. I've never seen the point of trade centers when trade incomes tend to be 1 or 2 gold.

Also, is there an easy way to "double-track" your warp lanes without micromanaging your Construction ships?

 

[deanej]

In civ 4, buildings don't have any upkeep cost at all. So it's cost in hammers.

Check tech/buildings to see what gives more trade routes. A city will automatically trade with the city that offers the most commerce.

What do you mean by double-tracking warp lanes? A tile either has a warp lane or it does not. Routes in civ 4 don't care about capacity.

 

[tour86rocker]

deanej,

I was borrowing a phrase from SM's "Railroads!" when perhaps I should have explained it instead.

To makes it harder for enemies to easily snip your routes between planets, one strategy is to build parallel routes. If they demolish the warp lane in one tile before they're caught, you can usually respond in force before they snip the parallel track.

Right now, I know of no easy way to automatically build parallel tracks, as the "route to" feature (whatever it's called) tends to employ the already created tracks to get to the point you designate.

I assume that the only way to "double-track" the warp lanes is to do it manually, for now.

 

[Shadowhal]

Hold the phone: I see posters saying the subsequent factories and other buildings that you can build on multiple planets are more "expensive" as you build more. Is that in hammers or upkeep?

I must admit that I haven't looked closely at what individual buildings cost in upkeep. I've assumed they're all 1 gold like in Civ2 back in the day (I think) and that wealth-creating buildings were maintenance free.

if you are interested, I looked at it once and it seemes to behave like this.

1st edition of building in star system normal cost, i.e. 100%
2nd edition double the normal cost, so 200%
3rd edition tripple the normal cost, thus 300%
... and so forth.

so, it may be useful to build multiple editions of planets in a single star system, but the cost/ benefit ration is diminishing, so it may be that at some point for the same cost you can have greater benefit.

also, an item which may interest you, and I hope I am indeed right on this one: + xx% buildings (like banks for example that give +25% wealth) are built on planets, but their effects are system wide. so if you have a 3 pop planet that offers you 6 gold, it doesnt matter where you build the bank, you will get the benefit on those 6 gold per colonist anyway. I mention it, because from the description I didnt think it worked like this.

 

[Inky]

deanej,

I was borrowing a phrase from SM's "Railroads!" when perhaps I should have explained it instead.

To makes it harder for enemies to easily snip your routes between planets, one strategy is to build parallel routes. If they demolish the warp lane in one tile before they're caught, you can usually respond in force before they snip the parallel track.

Right now, I know of no easy way to automatically build parallel tracks, as the "route to" feature (whatever it's called) tends to employ the already created tracks to get to the point you designate.

I assume that the only way to "double-track" the warp lanes is to do it manually, for now.

Same as in the normal game. You can use the route-to feature, but you must watch the path and set it not to your actual target endpoint, but to some point where it won't use existing roads.

Warp/Jump lanes are more important for trade in FF than the normal game, because there are no river/sea routes. You can't get trade routes without building and keeping lanes.

 

[Johann khan]

This is an announcement of my Final Frontier Walkthrough / Guide. Rather than retype everything, I'll just quote what I wrote in the other thread.



If you would like to leave feedback or share some hints and advice about the module guide, you can do so in this thread. Oh and please, keep it civilized! No pun intended.

Hamarabi

Link is broken :'(