How to play as the Ithkul?!, Theyre my favorite race but wth!

[IthkulEmpire]

I play Strawberry and played on a 150 star 2 arm galaxy with 5 opponents. So naturally the game starts me away from the core(ok, good)but then blocks me in with 3 other opponents! Theres a huge galaxy and they have to put almost all empires next to me? I guess im suppose to conquer one of them to give me a way out but thats impossible when your industry is trying to keep up with 3 opponents. How should I play with the Ithkul? Like step by step. Ive read all the strategies I can find but unless you set up an empire before meeting another race or three, its next to impossible to play as them. Not to mention their favorite planets are hard to find.

[loodwig]

I've played successfully as Ithkul on Strawberry and Vanilla, and they're one of my favorites for many reasons. The first thing I'd emphasize is that creativity and manufacturing are your most important stats (Creativity means less in Strawberry than Vanilla). The other thing is that you should NOT rush to get many worlds. Try to remain hidden for the first few turns, or if you end up being cursed with being near an AI, quickly dispatch them with laser fighters (you can build recon ships with laser fighters and no engines that do tremendous damage the first few turns). Another thing to keep in mind is that you will only establish contact with an alien once you have a planet a few jumps from them. You can use this to your advantage if you build a lot of IF ships that can annihilate fringe worlds. The first several turns will make-or-break you, and you'll need to balance tech with manufacture. I'd say the money techs to get to are fighter fusion cannon, anionic warhead, point defense (assuming you have it patched), and battle cruiser. From there, my build out goes like this:

Carrier - BC
Best Shields + Armor
System Speed 1000
The most interceptors you can fit
2-3 point defense fusion cannons

Indirect Fire - BC
Best Shields + Armor
System Speed 1000
The most warheads you can fit (2 per rack)
two spinal mounted hard beams / rail gun

Point Defense - BC
Best Shields + Armor
System Speed 1000
ECCM (one of each that you have)
As many point defense fusion cannons as will fit
two standard / heavy mount hard beams / rail guns

Recon - LC+
Best Shields + Armor
System Speed MAX
Best Sensors
two standard / heavy mount hard beams / rail guns
two fighter fusion cannon
the rest given to IF (2 per rack)

You'll be making two types of groups (4 if you count colony detachments and troop ships), ones dedicated to recon, and others dedicated to IF / Carrier armadas (mix and match, you'll want both in every battle). With enough missiles, any enemy will melt when encountered. Baby step your way in, and try your best to remain hidden until you're significantly more powerful than the Orions on the victory screen. At this point, you can chose to keep playing, or go try another race... as you've won.

[KlackonRush]

After playing several diplomatic races I think the Ithkul might be the most overpowered, and here's why, crazy diplomacy and chains of alliances. With a diplomatic race you can easily find yourself with 3+ nations with current relations 120+ attacking you. So knowing how to fight solo is key to winning this game Ithkul or not. There is something funny when all the nations declare war on the Psilons I don't know why, they have the best diplomacy, yet even they end up fighting every other nation.

First and foremost is your friend the troop ship. You could colonize that yellow or red planet and wait a long time for it develop. I've Red2 planets finally turn into a full colony on turn 260, only 200 turns after I landed the colony ship. Or you could steal that size 6 hard scrabble planet with all those delicious aliens.

Now understand this you are war with everyone all time, except the New Orions. Just because the enemy is at war with you does not mean they like each other. The game I'm playing know two insect races, both Tachi are beating the crap out of each as I invade their planets. The Evon are between the two insects and are getting walloped. Use the insane diplomacy to your advantage and take the most delicious, but unguarded planets first.

1. Use chaos to your advantage, play on a 16 opponent small cluster galaxy

2. Grab what you can first, don't bother with a system with 17 system ships that's well defended.

3. Grab the juiciest planet first, don't bother with those 500 red 2 planet the scattered silicion have retreated too. Let the Silicion develop for you before invading muwhahaha.

4. Don't worry, the computer should mostly do a good job beating the freaking crap out of each, even though the Etherans look powerful with all their alliances, the alliances could quickly swing the other way and everyone is at war with the Etherans just keep taking systems and don't fret over possible diplomatic victories.

Now for a step by step guide for planet taking. Note this applies for every race, the Klackons or Humans could quickly play like weak harvesters due to alliances, in other words at war with everyone. I know you said 150 star galaxy, but you need to practice on easy mode in a 16 opponent small cluster.

Turn one set oppressometer to zero, yes zero on turn 5 we will set it back to 6. Build infantry x10, switch government type to your favorite, that's why the oppressmeter is being set to zero, to offset the unrest from changing governments. Land colony ship in order of terraform zone, even if you have to land on a red. Send scouts to check out nearby stars, probably just a guardian anyways.

Turn two: Get rid of those useless research deas. Seriously it takes so much research at first to get what, interchangeable policy structure. Instead of the research dea a mining dea would be great. Mark obsolete all ships, especially those useless colony ships, troop ships are so much more efficient. Build a troop ship of your own, 4 pod light cruiser. Be sure to put an interceptor on your troop ship so it can chase away colony ships and recon, if you just have a laser cannon recon ships will just move out of range and the battle will end in a draw. Make your favorite attack ship, Loodwig is right laser fighters are sick at first. So build some. Your military queue should be 1. 10 Infantry 2. 5 attack ships. 3. One troop ship.

Turn 5: Now you should have at least 10 infantry, your laser fighters underway, and your 5 attack ships in the military queue. Now your playing in a 16 opp small cluster right? Set your opprsometer to max or one below max tolerance. For Ithkul Monarcy its 8 so set it to 7. From here on times will vary for race, I will assume a base Ithkul no mods adjust accordingly patch 1.25.

Soon you should have enough ships to overpower the enemy 3 hawk defense and it will be time to eat! 10 infantry should be more than enough so attack your neighbors home planet. Try to get an enemy with just one planet in the system, or simply attack your closest neighbor using retro engines from your home system as your measuring stick. A system 3 turns away can attack you sooner and you them, is more profitable than a system 4 turns away.

I wanted an easy win to pump up my power base so I went east and took out the human hawk defense. With only one planet, there was only one planet to land my troops on a turn later. Meanwhile a huge invasion of enemy spies was terriorizing my citizen, I pumped my opprossometer to 8. It wasn't long before I build a 2nd troop ship and another 10 infantry and took over the Meklar to the left, my humans got bombarded by some lizard people, and of all things landed a colony ship in my system.

Turn 20: You should have at least one enemy home world. Build some defense on the homeworld and infantry, since you don't need those space environment modules. If you really want to micro and push the advantage you can build all your ground troops on the planets with 50 or less production and your ships on those with more. Keep cranking those attack ships out, since you will be attacked, oh yeah and build some system ships while your at it. A nice light cruiser packed with laser/fusion interceptors make a fine system ship, build one every 5 turns and you'll never worry about pirates or being invaded again.

Conquered home world military queue: Missile base, fighter base, beam base. When you get Mobilization center build: Mobo center, shield generator, missile base, fighter base, beam base. In that order. The reason you build the Mobo center first is your attack ships should be guarding the planet and you don't need the protection at first. Once you have the Mobo center you will be able to deploy task forces directly at the system, including transports. Your transport task force will be created land and disband all on the same turn! So even an 85 system speed transport is useful later in the game.

Ground combat: Use ruse, ambush, surprise, and trap I've had the best luck with them. Don't use low battle intensity tactics nor massed assault. Seriously I've lost with like 10x the strength with massed assault it might be the worst of all tactics. Ruse seems the most powerful and mostly likely to take the planet in one turn. Always set collateral damage to high and all three weapon authorization. Time is crucial and the damage is never high, once you become an expert you can experiment with low collateral damage. After you take the planet disband your ground troops, they will go back to the pool with experience.

Turn 50 or so: After I took three homeworlds the Evon were a real pain in my side. I had to set my opprossmeter to 9 and train economic spies, they build the fastest, just to keep my imperial seat of government from being destroyed every 6 turns. Yes 9 is above the threshold and no my people didn't go into unrest level 3. Though I turned it back to 6-7 soon. At some point, around the time you get spaceport you will need to build up your worlds. Go into obsolete ships, give your system colony your best armor, may be Duranium by now and confirm design. As long as your building spaceports and changing over from Titanium to Duranium you should build up the rest of your systems. Turn on auto colonization.

As you noted with your old veteran infantry, they are insanely useful, don't just have them sit on planets use them, even if you have marines and mobiles. Can never have enough ground troops. Ships are the same way, Warp speed 85 tit laser carriers can easily take care of a missile base and some system ships, let them go out in a blaze of glory. You can also use your titanium carriers to guard conquered planets until system ship can take over.

Soon you will have Duranium, Nuclear engine,and cruiser. Though you may miss Nuclear engine, I've never missed Duranium, is it guaranteed in every tech tree? If your lucky you will have fighter fusion cannon. Soon fueled by space ports you will have a whole new powerful attack force. From here its rinse and repeat. Keep taking worlds, take the easier worlds. The Evon three worlds was battered from two insect races in my game, so it was a quick 60k population annexation.

Keep building up system ships and defense. You never know when an angry new Orions will decide to take a short cut through your system. Yes you will probably have at least one battle with the New Orions, but if they only send two ships they may not bother to attack your 8+ ships. Every 16 opponent cluster I've seen the etherans enrage the new orions, look out!

Keep taking planets, make good use of old ships and old troops. Don't build colony ships, the ai always sends them into enemy territory or reds, build system colonies and troop ships instead. As you build up a system full of system ships, advance your old ships, they make great scouts. Eventually you will want to include some missiles and such, have fun and if you have any questions ask me. Basically the ai will either destroy each other and you clean up the mess or they will unite against you and win a diplomatic victory. There is a lot of luck in this game. I don't believe every game is winnable.

[danib]

get 1 of the UOP
in the encyclopidia look for FFLLHH
ther a very good description of how diplo works

in the atari furom if thay get back ther a post whit an exmpel as well from the writer of the help post
pedxing the master diplomat
alsa she is no longer loging in or working on MUUBAA

This post has been edited by danib on Oct 24 2012, 09:27 PM

[KlackonRush]

" get 1 of the UOP
in the encyclopidia look for FFLLHH
ther a very good description of how diplo works

in the atari furom if thay get back ther a post whit an exmpel as well from the writer of the help post
pedxing the master diplomat smile.gif
alsa she is no longer loging in or working on MUUBAA "

Thanks, I'll try to look it up. Just beat the game my sixth total time, and as sole survivor as Ithkul 16 opponent medium difficulty 50 star cluster patch 1.25.

I had to steal sanitation infrastructure and didn't steal science guilds to turn 260 or so. I'm thinking original is better than imitative, even though you get technology that can slow you down, the ai builds hydroponic farms and bio monitoring stations in every region, instead of building an industry dea or automated factories. On the other hand missing a tech like hard beam and fusion fighter can slow you down quite a bit.

I think the real trick to beating this game is to know how to build your ships. The ai tries to put plasma cannons as your main pd when you autobuild pd ships. Also larger recons get 12+ eccm, what the hey? I know I got frustrated trying to send frigates against light cruisers when I first started playing, and not knowing why I lost.

Aggressive race/playstyle seems to almost always win for me. I've only lost once playing aggressive to diplomatic victory. Diplomatic seems hit or miss, either I get to the fish or the ai does, whoever gets there first secures an alliance, and gets the squids/trils to declare war on the slow poke. In short, if I start out in the senate as a diplomatic race I win too easily, otherwise I almost always lose. Aggression race, Ithkul, have a nice middle of the road. Exception is if I can get in the senate early, even if I don't start out.

[KlackonRush]

I found this thread relating to diplomacy:

http://www.moo3.at/board/index.php?showtopic=1479

I understand the Fish Friend, Lizard Lovers, Human Haters. Yet, it still doesn't help me much, understanding is one thing, figuring out a counter-strategy is another. One thing that would be useful is how to trade for missed techs, even with original creativity its possible to miss some key techs, and the ai stubbornly refuses to trade unless the A.I. makes the offer, which could be a long time.

Most useful part was this:

Pedxing "third, once empires start to run out of room to expand, they begin to resent their neighbors for being in their way. this causes a gradual decline in relations, until war starts. once war starts, they try to pull in their allies."

I've been boxing in empires and not understanding why they declare war on me. In fact with the star lanes boxing in is a huge part of the game. For example I started a new game with Imeasis, 10 opponent large cluster, and my homeworld was 4 turns away from the Ithkul's homeworld. Also my second closest nation was the Meklar. I stopped the Meklar expansion from the west and Ithkul from the east. Now I ran into the Raas to the south and I'm completely boxed in before turn 100. I formed an Alliance with the Raas, but only have retro engines, missed both nuclear and sub-light and can't trade for one.

With no room to expand I have to send colony ships really far away for red 1 and 2 planets into Raas or attempt to beat up the harvesters. Problem is the harvesters had a lot of room to expand than me and now have more worlds/5 tech levels on me, and more ships/ and same population.

Second most useful was "finally, there is a bug in the way the effects of Gifts are calculated. never ever give gifts. they cause a rapid decline in relations."

I've read plenty of strategies that say to give "gifts of tribute", I interpret as give the ai a tech. I'll look more closely at the diplomatic relations. Diplomacy really makes sense after reading the post. Have you ever been nice to someone and it made them hate you? It makes sense that giving gifts makes a rapid decline in relations. Its makes the game kinda hard though if you get on the bad side of the ai, without gift giving what can you do?

I'm gonna give the ai lots of tech and see what happens.