Hi Galaril, definitely, welcome to the forums.
Right now the wiki is the only manual-style reference, but really it is more of a reference or strategy guide than a true manual (well, at least the style of low-content manuals that companies often put out these days). The game was originally designed so that almost everything you need to know is in the tutorials or in hover-tips inside the game itself.
Of course, in practice, advanced players have wanted to know all sorts of detailed questions about the game, and so the wiki was born and has been growing substantially over time. A more traditional manual is something we're considering, but it's not going to be a super short-term thing unfortunately.
By the by... I assume you are the same Galaril from the
Front Office Football forums?
I saw the link from that thread over to the Arcen site, and I went over there to comment, but I'm still waiting on a moderator to approve my request days later. I guess they are really backed up.
But, since you came over here I'll go ahead and post a few responses to items from that thread, since I can't yet get over there. I know you didn't ask most of these, but if you point the other people here then they can also have the answers to their questions.
How the hell could one control 80 simultaneous battles?
You'd never be actually fighting on all 80 planets at once. Usually the max number of simultaneous battles that require your attention is about 3, although in multiplayer it is more. The idea is to try to choose your battlefields wisely, and keep the number of fronts low enough to handle. And keep some planets protected and hidden so that the AI isn't bothering you everywhere at once, etc.
I can't get the video trailer to work.
Presumably that's some sort of issue with flash. There's a version (lower quality unless you hit HQ) on youtube also, if he wants to try that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPyrZ-Ktlw0Gave the demo a whirl last night. I think I'm completely lost, there are just WAY too many options of things to build, and it will take a long time before I remember what tab things are on, etc.
The version that just came out today, 1.011, should make the buttons a bit easier to understand and learn. But I suspect that he didn't play through the tutorials, which is going to make anyone lost.
I wish there was a way to auto-gather resources, where I just build like four metal miners and four crystal gatherers and they go off and find and gather without me having to hunt over the map and click on the specific resource site to work it. Just go to the closest one that is not manned yet.
Just Ctrl-click the harvester buttons to do build all your harvesters automatically. It says that in the description on the harvester screen, and I think one of the tutorials mentions that, too. Hence why I thought maybe he skipped the tutorials.
I also wish my fleet would stick together. You make a big fleet and then send them at someone, and all your fighters get there and try to fight for 2 minutes while waiting for the next fastest class to show up. That defeats the purpose of having a fleet.
As someone else pointed out there, there's a "lone move" button on the quick-buttons row that can be toggled to "group move" instead to have it work like this. Or you can hold G to make it work like that for just one movement order. Both ways of moving are of use in different tactical situations.
I've got to do more reading of the manual/FAQ/something because I keep running into stuff that is 2 and 3 times stronger than anything I own and the enemy just wipes my ass. Today i tried start a new game and the very first system I go into has a group of "Leech" ships. these guys apparently STEAL your ships from you and turn them over to the AI.
Some planets are tougher than others, so you have to pick your battles. Some of the planets you can't take until you get much further along in the individual game. Some of them you might never want to take, just because they aren't worth the time/effort/AI-progress-increase that comes with them. In an average game on 80 planets, you'll take at most 30 planets. Picking which 30 is part of the challenge.
I may be mistaken but the game is designed partly so that you will always be fighting superior forces that also much large in size than your own. The only exception is you go more intot he game and steal the AI factories or artifatcs a that will seed you advanced ship types.
Generally speaking, you should be mostly fighting forces that you have equal numbers to, or even that you outnumber. That's not always the case, especially on the higher difficulties, but generally if you strategise and group your ships and attack them post-by-post, you'll often have the advantage in numbers in individual battles, despite the fact that they outnumber you 100:1 in the galaxy as a whole. It's basically guerrilla tactics on your part, in many cases.
If thats the case then you can never expect to win as a single player, you are required to have more players?
This game is equally playable with any number of players. If there are more players, then there are even more AI ships, which means that the players often need to work together on offense and defense, etc.
yeah to be honest i am guessing you aren't suppose to win this one. it is more about the journey to oblivion kind of thing iguess
Goodness no! If you aren't winning, you might want to tweak the difficulty level. The lowest difficulty levels are completely pushover, but the highest one is probably unbeatable by any but the very best players, if even then. There is a huge range of all sorts of difficulty levels between those two extremes, though, so you should be able to find something that fits. If you've played other RTS games, a good place to start is Difficulty 5 or 6. People on these forums will tell you that the real game starts at 7, which is true in the sense that the AI is way smarter and more interesting there, but it's also a lot more difficult than even difficulty 6. Just depends on what kind of experience you are looking for.
Thanks for stopping by, and let me know if there are any other questions I/we can answer for you!
