Advice for a new player

[Hans]

Hi all, have gotten into the game recently and understand the basics so far. Was just wondering if anyone had tips around how to gauge you’re doing the right thing at the start.

Seems like every AI can outdo me in grabbing land quickly or doing crackdowns or research and I was just wondering if there were some good start tips.

[gimmethegepgun]

Crackdown and Purge are generally a waste of time right at the start. Your councilors just aren't going to be up to the task in decent nations, especially if the enemy uses Defend Interests. Focus on the Control Nation land grab first, force others out later once you get more INV from levels and orgs.

[Littletinker]

still learning my self tend to find rushing to mars a good strat as with mars you can end up with alot of resources to fund your space forces most youtubers i watch tend to try for eu then work towards china or usa. any nation with no space project worth pushing them to get one done but honestly im still learning so i might be wrong in how i do things but it seems to work for me.

[Rekoom]

Use Spoils. Dont be afraid to capture an African or Latin American country and set it to 100% spoils. That will give you some money that you can really use early on for various things.

[Littletinker]

i tend to use spoils and space program in africa helps alot early game to get ahold of decent orgs

[Damedius]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s1tEWyGfPIMFoF9icR32xGUDz_qS0s13FMc7cV_fGyo/edit?gid=0#gid=0
Here's a spreadsheet for spoils. They are good for the first few years to fund all your Org's and amass a nice Cash Surplus. The down side is if you go heavily into spoils you end up ruining the nation. So you don't want to do it to nation you want long term.

Eventually you should transition to Nanofactories and/or direct investing using influence to increase funding.

[Hans]

Cheers guys, appreciate this!

[Projectmayhem]

People sleep on funding but its great for funding your future space infrastructure.

[Vacknishkara]

Originally posted by Hans:

Hi all, have gotten into the game recently and understand the basics so far. Was just wondering if anyone had tips around how to gauge you’re doing the right thing at the start.

Seems like every AI can outdo me in grabbing land quickly or doing crackdowns or research and I was just wondering if there were some good start tips.

Here is an advise for you to make it much easier in early and up to mid game.

Don't let aliens (or servants) sit in low earth orbit, as long as you keep a small fighting force, it will prevent direct ground invasion (because they will need to bring in space fighting forces), giving you more room to breath and focus on something else until you can build attacks fleets to take care of aliens bases.

[Blaarg]

My advice for a player starting the game would be:

Don't play Academy or Protectorate for your first playthrough. Academy is the hardest faction & Protectorate feels a bit wonky atm.

Do not use full solar system when starting a new game. The potential late game lag isn't worth it when it does not have much, if any, change to the gameplay.

Do not be afraid to restart a new campaign if it is fairly early in campaign & you think it is borked. A first campaign isn't going to win before at least the 2050s. If it is the late 2020s and you feel hopelessly behind & you feel you have learned some things you might do better, restarting might be more enjoyable than slogging 80+hours through something you think is already lost.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Blaarg:

Do not use full solar system when starting a new game. The potential late game lag isn't worth it when it does not have much, if any, change to the gameplay.

^^ a good advice, Medium Solar System is more then enough for a prolonged campaign.

I would also recommend to play with LESS factions (3-4 is the best for beginner IMHO). Reasons: due to how diplomacy is working, if you're not going for early NAP ASAP (read you already a veteran player) - all other factions will eventually became your enemies. And that's a nightmare for a new player (basically 6 their agents against each your).

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by corisai:

I would also recommend to play with LESS factions (3-4 is the best for beginner IMHO).

Definitely not. Unless you're playing as Servants, fewer factions makes the game harder. There will be less global research done due to less of the world being held by a faction, and fewer factions that are fighting the Servants or the aliens, both on Earth and in space.

[corisai]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

There will be less global research done due to less of the world being held by a faction

Factions (both player and AI) receive additional CP capacity if there are less then max amount of factions so it isn't an issue.