Good Starter Tactics

Almost the very first thing I do is raise the tax rate from the starting 33%. You can push it to 39% and still have happy colonists.

Generally I don't buy any ships right off the bat anymore, but buying that first colony ship is quite feasible.

The first things I build on my homeworld: factories. I like good production early on, so I'd go for two or three of those, buying the first one and enqueuing (sp?) the others. I'd also add to the queue two labs, an entertainment network, and two trade buildings. I'd just let these finish on their own good time.

Remember that your economy probably will go into a slump at some point. What do I mean? You will reach a stage in your game in which your colonies are still busy growing and have not yet begun bringing in money for you. If you've colonised many worlds quickly then the economic drain can be considerable indeed, and you might be forced to turn down your Production slider so that you don't go into debt (you know, however, that these worlds just need time to become independent; as your cash flow begins to strengthen you can slowly raise production again until you're at 100%).

Anyway, most players find it quite normal to have a negative cash flow until after you've recovered from the dip; thus, it's generally accepted that, early in the game, that starting 5000 is meant to be lost, so it's about making it stretch as far as possible.

Until that depression strikes, though, your civilisation has one prerogative: expansion. Get as many planets and starbases as you can before you run out of cash.

I'm sure that not everyone does it this way, but I thinks it's a decent way to start. When you're comfortable with this start you can begin focusing on making the early game less of a rollercoaster by optimising sliders, getting more cash, colonising wisely and getting those colonies to grow as fast as possible.

J.

Strategy for Twilight varies by racial traits, selected abilities, and politics, what I will point out though is a few interesting ideas on how to start so that even if you do go into the red your back out in time to not get your tail ripped off in the upcoming free for all. Please remember that I typically play on immense or huge galaxy settings at tough and painfull, not suicide and maschistic.

1) Set tax slider to 40% if you have no morale bonus, higher if you do, as long as your popularity stays in the green all is good, your not running for election, tax them folks.

2) Production to maximum - 100%

3) Build that colony ship, select to build 2 factories, 2 research labs, and at least 2 economy units. Policy for me is a for every 4 tiles on my planets to begin with I build economy on 1.

4) Do not build squat.. nada.. nothing on newly colonized planets at the beginning of the game. Don't do it. Spaceports cost 1 bc... not alot but it all adds up, until your at least even or 5 to 10 BC ahead on that planet.

5) No matter what race, get to a planetary money making solution first. See 3 above. Make them your first tiles / units placed. Than put a spaceport, factories etc.

6) Research the basic weapons area, next. Get that military bonus plus another economy building that helps with population which can go on again... every planet.

7) Research your diplomacy next and work toward trade fast after that. Not advanced trade, just trade, build your economy capital unit.

8) Start thinking about constructors, freighters & colony ships, alternating as required. At this point you can either shift to speed and or weapons, but usually its weapons as in about 20 to 25 turns in my game play I start getting threats and warships stop that cold...

You should be near or broke by this time. So make sure your capital world is set to make ships, even if broke and not gaining cash, some shipwork is better than no shipwork.

Lastly, don't just sell off your second hand or even third hand ships, use them in trade, trust me, if you have systems on them that the aliens do not, they will give away their "birthright" to get them. Probably should be changed, but not my call.

Good luck,

W/R
Suralle Straykat
Kat Lord @ Large

Is there still the break points in tax rate/happiness in ToA?

At least in DL and DA, tax rate should alawys be set at something ending in a "9". At every 10% increment there is a major break-point in calcuating your people's happiness. You will notice this anytime you adjust it one higher from 39, 49, etc where you will see the happiness drop significantly.

Sentient species taste better...

Well it depends on the kind of empire you want to run, and what your immediate needs are. There is not one "right" way on how to spend that starting money, but generally you want to pick one or two things to do with it, and just stick to your plan.

I guess my question is what is "not off the ground"?

If you are playing on a larger map and are having problems colonizing I would suggest the following basic starting approach:
Put your sliders to 100% production, and then 1% military, 99% social, 0% research spending. Don't rush buy anything with that starting money, keep it around so you can run for longer while you wait for your population to breed. Build only factory type buildings on your main world... taking advantage of bonus tiles. You will probably want somewhere between 2-5 new factories right away. Then put your main planet to building colonizers.
The colonizers won't start building until the factories are done building, so its a balance as to how long you want to wait to kick out those first few ships. Once you are able to kick out a steady stream of ships from your home planet, then its time to think about changing your sliders, building some other kinds of buildings, and doing some research.
When your colonists make it to new worlds, don't build anything on those new worlds until your new colonists have had a chance to breed and are producing money.

If your problem on any size map is more money, I suggest the following basic approach:
Early on, focus on breeding. Your population gets a boost to how fast it breeds at 100% approval and at 75% approval. Rather than raising taxes, drop them as low as you need to to get that 100% approval early. You are sacrificing a few bc today for a much stronger tax base a few months from now.
Be sure to put your survey ship on auto-survey. If there are a lot of anomalies on the map, make researching sensors and impulse drive an early priority, so that you can build one or two new survey ships. Anomalies can provide free boosts of money that help a lot in the early game. You will need to design these survey ships once you have finished researching sensors. Go to the ship designer, and choose a cargo hull. Add a survey module, and then as many engine and range modules as will fit. If you are playing DA or TA, you will want to use lots of Ion Drives for speed. If you are playing DL, you will want to use the highest level engine you have researched.
Also, don't try to develop every world you colonize by building right away. Don't be afraid to just let your colonists sit there and breed until there are 1-2 billion of them on a world, and THEN start queueing up buildings.


These basic strategies should help you get out of the gate on games beyond beginner.

~ Wyndstar