Alright.
I suppose this doesn't qualify as Double Godlike any more, but after beating my head against that for several games now, I've given up on it for now. I don't have the skill/experience for it at the moment.
Having said that, I started a game going for Double Paragon and I am doing not too badly. (Paragon is the same as Godlike, except the bonus percentage modifiers are used.)
However, I know I am using tactics that are wasteful in resources so I'm not sure how much of what I learn from this I'll be able to transfer to a Double Godlike game.
My exact setup is as follows:
Map Seed 188476563, 80 planets, Realistic, Grenade Launchers selected, 300% Player Resource Bonus.
AI 1: Entrenched Homeworlder, Diff 10, No Resource Bonus/Penalty
AI 2: Grav Driller, Diff 10, No Resource Bonus/Penalty
Complex Ships, all enabled except Astro Trains are disabled.
Fast & Dangerous, Full Fog of War, No Cheats, Unexplored Planets Shown
All minor factions enabled, no AI modifiers enabled.
No AI plots enabled.
As of 6:30 play time, my galaxy map looks like this:
http://members.shaw.ca/diazo/AIwarMapDiazo.jpgI've captured four planets, two were Mk I worlds, one Mk III and one Mk IV. I had no choice but to capture a Mk IV this early in the game. The Mk IV world was the one with 62 of my ships on it at the moment. Note how that blocks my starting position in with a Mk IV world one or two hops in any direction from my homeworld.
My next observation is that scouting is hard. I've only scouted as far as I have due to sacrificing transports to get my scouts though the first and second worlds. I don't have Mk II scouts unlocked yet, but I can't afford the knowledge. :/
The reason for that is among my first unlocks were the Jammer command stations and Counter Missile Turrets. Those 2 things alone cost 9000 knowledge. But they are the only reason I have gotten as far as I have. Note the wave size coming at me in the attached screenshot, while that is a larger then average wave, it is not much larger then average, I can only afford to have one open warp point at a time to defend, hence the jammer stations. The 5k knowledge is more then saved in the reduced turret counts I need to defend only the single wormhole, but it still hurts this early in the game. Counter-missile turrets are to neutralize the frigates. Surprisingly, in the numbers coming at me, a wave of frigates is more dangerous then a wave of bombers and the counter missile turrets negate frigates totally.
As for tactics and the wasting of resources on them, some of what I've been doing is a follows:
To neutralize a ion cannon: Transport my full ship cap of fighters/bombers/frigates in, unload right on top of the ion cannon. With only a little luck, the ion cannon will go down, but I lose every ship I send in. This was on a Mk IV world mind you, but without starships I really have no other way to do so.
The Jammer Command stations. At -20 metal/crystal and 35k energy, it costs me 36 metal/crystal and 75k energy to use a jammer station instead of a regular command station.
The transport scouting: sacrificing a transport to get my scouts a planet farther out.
Sacrificing gravity turrets: I haven't bothered building any tractor beams as even Mk III turrets can't stop enough ships to be useful so I went straight to gravity turrets. However, I'm losing 2 of these on average every time a wave comes which adds up and 5k crystal per turret. At least they are usually the only turrets I lose. :/
Anyways, my immediate goals now are to knowledge raid and scout farther out somehow. The knowledge raiding is straightforward, but the scouting is still stumping me. I may have to go Mk II scouts, but I really want to spend the knowledge on other stuff..
D.
