[Michlo]

I'm really good at this now so here goes.

Torpedos are your best friends for the fast fighters which will accompany the larger bombing vessels. The reason being that they have splash damage so they can take out more than one at a time. Once you're up to Photon and above you'll be taking out six ships in a couple of seconds.

Only use your laser on the larger bombing vessels (or pirate vessels since they can outrun the torpedos).

When in combat remember to keep moving around a little until you're powerful enough to take a beating. You can definitely move and fire (just hold both mouse buttons down) and the numeric keys will correspond to the weapons you wish to use. The auto-turrets should just be toggled on and left.

Now, once you have all or most of their ships taken out, approach a colony. Do NOT fly over the top of it unless it has no defenses.

Fly close to the turrets and start taking them out (you may use your laser or torpedo here or even a bomb if you have one that has the range).

Move around the colony to take out the others. Their main damage comes from you being silly enough to hover over the top of the colony where they can all hit you at once you see (mind you even this isn't a problem once you have more HPs on your ship and / or a shield).

Once the defenses are down drop some bombs on the town hall until their surrender flag goes up. Stop dropping and move off to rinse and repeat on another colony. If you have a habit of over-bombing then of course switch to your laser. Once their colonies have surrendered you'll be given the option to capture the system.

During the colony take-downs they will spawn other ships so watch out for these and move away from the defense turrets to take care of them if you need to.

Once you have the planet, terraform it up and put down your defenses because you WILL have retaliation and usually pretty quickly.

Of course, all of the above is a lot easier once you have some allied ships with you.

Good luck.

[LoginToDownload]

Not quite sure I understand the mechanics behind surrendering... I'm currently going after a worthless barren colony (Even though there was an uninhabited wild planet right next to it... ) primarily because I'm annoyed that they kept on demanding tribute and put one of my "experiment" planets in their zone of control. Taking out the garrison is easy, and they don't have any buildings aside from the City Hall on account of the planet's barren status. I've tried bringing their hall near death by both laser and bombs, but I tend to just wait a minute until reinforcements arrive and smash me because my attack strategy was based on having a shield up. I also tried lasering the civilians with no result. They don't surrender.

Not that it's a huge loss if it's just that planet's design, like I said it's rather worthless, but I'd like to know what's causing it...

[Michlo]

LoginToDownload, on Sep 16 2008, 08:09 PM, said:

Not quite sure I understand the mechanics behind surrendering... I'm currently going after a worthless barren colony (Even though there was an uninhabited wild planet right next to it... ) primarily because I'm annoyed that they kept on demanding tribute and put one of my "experiment" planets in their zone of control. Taking out the garrison is easy, and they don't have any buildings aside from the City Hall on account of the planet's barren status. I've tried bringing their hall near death by both laser and bombs, but I tend to just wait a minute until reinforcements arrive and smash me because my attack strategy was based on having a shield up. I also tried lasering the civilians with no result. They don't surrender.

Not that it's a huge loss if it's just that planet's design, like I said it's rather worthless, but I'd like to know what's causing it...

Ah, sorry, I ought to have mentioned this. Some races are too stubborn to surrender, unfortunately and so you'll have no option but to umm, remove them. heh.

Cheers.

[LoginToDownload]

Then it's time to peel me some Bananaz. Many thanks.

[Vagrant0]

When you attack the city hall, the building in the center, the little meter should show, when it reaches all the way to the right, the colony will surrender. If there are multiple colonies in a system, you'll need to do this for all.

If you're attacking the building, but no meter is showing, or it isn't moving, target some entertainment and housing structures. When you destroy those, the city will become unhappy, and the little meter will move faster when you start attacking their city hall. The city hall will not take damage until after they have surrendered, however it doesn't take much to bring it down afterward, so mistakes when using bombs or pulses can happen.

As for fighters, I've found lazer to be a bit more effective for all enemy craft once you've powered it up a few times. Torpedoes just use up too much energy It may not be fire and forget like torpedoes, but that is what the autoblaster and alliance ships are there for. It's also easier that way since you can use the same weapon for almost everything, so don't have to switch around every time something new starts attacking you. You get lazer upgrades from doing ecological disaster missions, one of the few good things about them being so frequent. or from having alot of colonies. If you were a carnivore in the cell stage, your lazer will eventually be your most powerful targeted weapon for the energy it uses.

As far as allies go, it's usually best that you not try to claim a planet that they are currently attacking for you, for some silly reason they have a tendency to undo your progress in forcing cities to surrender, or destroy colonies. If you're having allies attacking, it's best to focus your efforts on other planets owned by that empire, and then go over to finish the job once they've left. The purpose of allies is more to divert attention away from you, and if the empire is small, they'll only be able to launch their own attack against one of you. Or if you're the economic type, you can use allies to capure other planets for you to buy, while you do stuff elsewhere. This is also one way to help get rid of some of those empires who you do not agree with, but don't want to attack outright, have allies weaken them, then go in for the kill yourself. This can, however work against you if your allies are weak. You can usally judge ally strength by the number of systems they own.

In the later game, there are also a few other things you can do to beseige more defended colonies. In addition to just dropping the T-Score of the planet, forcing them to lose buildings/colonies, you can also turn several of their local wildlife into giant creatures, and watch as the creature attacks the city. Keep in mind that the creature may actually destroy the city, so use of this method to keep a poorly defended colony busy may work against you. On one of those fully defended T2, or T3 colonies however, it can do wonders to keep the turrets busy while you take them out... Just be sure to kill the creature (now weakened significantly, if not dead) before trying to take that city. It's more of a way to keep the turrets busy for awhile so that you can focus on other ships or buildings. It's also fun to watch.

[LoginToDownload]

Capturing is working fine now that I've stopped targeting completely barren planets, even for the Bananaz... And I do love my Mega Laser, even if it guzzles energy like nothing else. I've stopped bringing allies along due to their tendency to fly right beside me and get hit. I've also experienced the "Alliance" problem myself.

Very much looking forward to getting Maximize.