Winning the Game without Falling Behind

[APhoenixSoaring]

How do you win this game? I always find myself being cremed by the AI right out of the gate, they always beat me to upgrade their stuff first, and I'm always the first player to be bought out. The game isn't fun, just frustrating, because I can't see what I could do to improve.

First off, because I'm sure it's my start that screws me over - how do you upgrade at the same pace as the AI on Manager difficulty? I'm playing the Managing Expectations Learn to Play map, and keep losing.

[OutStaff]

Practice,Practice took me all day of 10 h to win vs last AI in tutorial

[APhoenixSoaring]

I think you misunderstand.

Practice doing .... what?

I don't understand what I am not doing.

[DohItAgain]

I definitely suffer in the early game. On Mananger I plop down and usually with a mere minute or two, the AI has upgraded some HQ and I'm struggling to get the cash/resources to do it.

[Namekujisennin]

Some of the recent posts on these forums have been real eye-openers to me.
One of the big things for me was to learn that upgrading your HQ at all costs wasn't the goal of the game, and being 1 or 2 level behind is all right as long as you got a plan to stick to. I learned to not stress about seeing the AI getting the lead as far as this goes.
Another thing is to not hold too tightly to your factories and learn to destroy and rebuild to exploit the market.
Those are just examples, but there is a lot to absorb, and some stuff that you only get a feeling for after being humiliated a bit (what level of debt is manageable, for instance, or to learn to study the map quickly, as it might be the single most important aspect of the game?).
That being said, I still lose most of my games to the Manager AI, but they are close games so there is a progress ;D

[SirKnechtalot]

It took me a while to figure out how to beat the second last special mission. until i fugured out how the ressources´re set.
I think the A.I. is realy good or at least until you get another concept of the game.
I like demanding games.

[SirKnechtalot]

Use mutiny to access expensive ressources?
Don´t allways go standart necessities, ie. buy aluminun cheap f.ex?
Also the A.I. is hard to beat because of their imidiate reaction time but i´ve seen them hesitating to buy me out for minutes ... probably because some detail i still havent figured out.

[Gerd]

How the AI after one minute ot two upgrades his HQ?

[HORSEPIE]

It's pretty easy to land and upgrade right away but not necessarily the best. Get a cheap claim on the black market and early game power will help. What the AI is doing is landing on a high resource area, selling the stuff they get from landing, and upgrading asap.

[Gerd]

Yes but the problem is not money but the resources. i have the money but i still don't have (for example) the iron to upgrade and i have to buy it.

[OpHeroList]

I have been having the most success using a well-rounded strategy of getting my colony's basic needs handled. That seems to be the easiest way to stay in the game without falling behind. Typically that means: HQ1: Specifically mine and produce the resources u need to upgrade. HQ2 Get a Power Plant, water, and either fuel/O2 or Food. Build from there.

[Concerned West Virginia Resident]

The key is to not build stuff that has a low price. A 4,000 stock of aluminium from 3 mines or whatever working it while the price stays below 20 is just so much wasted money in many ways.

[WolfLeBlack]

With a focus on food early on you can't go too far wrong as its prices usually stay quite high and production costs aren't huge. Don't worry about upgrading your HQ right at the start; you begin with the resources to do it, but it's better to get a basic economy set up first.

Hovering over a building with the mouse tells you its net profit. Between this and the market prices on the right you can always have an idea of what's hot and what's not. Don't be afraid to destroy your existing factories, reclaim the claims and move on to something else, especially if you have the patent that lets you recycle buildings.

It's tempting to move fast on to electronics and such, but remember production costs can be high; unless you're willing to buy in resources you need to have three different mines running to fuel an electronics factory, plus power costs and fuel costs as well. You've got to be sure you're turning a substantial enough profit to make the effort worth while. Something like food, steel or 02 might seem like it's worth much less, but in the end they can be a more valuable choice.

If you're buying in resources keep a close eye on those prices. A spike or two can leave you hurting badly.

Don't sell stuff of in huge bulk. You affect the market prices, too, and ditching a pile of food or something on to the market lowers the prices. The exception is if you're ditching a production, in which case you could always unload everything fast to drop the prices so a competitor loses out when you switch.

Focus. Don't try and cover a load of different resources. Pick a few and build toward good production of those.

Use the black market carefully. Check out what your opponents are doing and target weak spots. Are they producing a lot of steel? An underground nuke on their iron mine could leave 'em hurting.

[APhoenixSoaring]

Guys I won! I had a dream game selling food and fuel, then electronics, and thrashed the AI on Manager difficulty

Thanks for all the help, I really appreciate it.

[Keks]

Just produce and sell expensive products.
Build your claims flexibel, so you always can change the production for profitable products if needed.
Think before you build.
Thats all :)

[Gazelle]

Thanks for these great tips. I finally won the 'proof of employment' scenario of the tutorial.