Colonise or conquest?

[stardust]

I'm trying to figure out the best strategy to go into an MP game.
I know eventually i'll have to engage (and hopefully conquer) my opponent, but i'm seeing a couple of distinct ways of playing the game.

First way is the way i've always played. Start slow, don't expand too quick, so the bloody Cardies can't start spying on you, colonise the few nearest star systems and in each immediately buy a power source and whatever intel /research structure your empire can churn out. That way, although afterwards i'll set it to auto and leave a list of things for the colony to get on with, it'll be immediately contributing a 100 or so points to intel or research.

Then there's another way i've heard talk about. Don't bother with colonising. Use the colony ship you have at the start to nab a particularly juicy system in your area and throw loads of money rapidly developing it's industry to tech 8/9 so it can help build a warfleet that's second to none and go out and conquer the galaxy. But you'll won't have those fledgling colonies propping up your intel / reseach effort and being able to get raider II's so quickly.

i'm just wondering what other people think.

[trevtones]

Well I can tell you this. In MP if you start colonizing right off the start, especially in a small map, you just give your enemy an easy target. Before you even get to build food and industry you'll see a fleet and a couple of TT's overtop of your newly founded colony. And they're not just coming for a visit! ;-)

I prefer conquest to colonization just because if you lose the system it's no big deal because it wasn`t yours to begin with! :-) However, if you're the federation you have to be careful subjugating minors.

From turn 1 you need to quickly scout the area around your space and find a system with dilithium. If it's uninhabited use that colony ship, if it's a minor race conquer them. If there`s no dilithium available I might scrap the colony ship for extra credits.

Shipbuilding is crucial to victory. In SP you can beat the AI with only 1 shipyard in your home-world, not so in MP, you`ll need at least 3 ASAP.

But I`ve seen many different methods used in MP and they all seem to work for that person. Another way to do it is to terraform a single planet in every system you see and colonize them all one after the other. This gives you crazy morale boosts which allows you to build ships and research faster, I choose not to play this way because it can get pretty hectic with regards to micro-managing. Also it leaves alot of vulnerabilities in your empire.

[stardust]

Just had a quick warm up game against the AI, small galaxy, vanilla, all t5 as Ferengi. Had a go at the conquest only method.

Worked surprisingly well, though i had two garbags starting systems to play with, but i found a nearby star with dilithim and kept the feds away long enough to nab it. The AI hardly bothered to make a fleet to oppose me. it was poor even by it's own standards

Rolled into Cardassia with 9 war cruisers 9tt's and about a dozen smaller ships to give cover. i reckon the Romulans must have eaten most of their fleet up.

war cruisers were just about able to handle orbitals at lv8 energy. LITERALLY had about 10 hull points after each conquest.

Federation will be a challenge for me because i've never won by conquest. it's always by colonising half the galaxy, making an alliance with one power and building up a fleet to keep anyone else out of my space.

bout time i had a go at putting the theory of doing that with them into practice

[sean_west]

If you have one dilithium, and 3 ship yards, you need to find a ship that will build in 3 turns, and stagger them so that a ship is produced each turn.

This glitch works, because the dilithium is only used on the last turn. your dilithium counter will be -2 and when you are in system management, it will say dilithium shortage, but ignore it.

I played as Cardies with carcher the other day, and had dreadnoughts bulding on 6 systems with only 3 dilithiums, giving me 3 ships every turn, the klingons did not know what happened to them when 36 dreads arrived in qo'nos for a visit.

[RSE_Dissy]

Visit the strategy sections of the forums, my lil guide and ruthless's blitzkreig post are good rough guides!

Should answer all your questions + more.

Colonise for dilith + extra research/intel points
Conquest for expansion.

Only make colonies if you feel you will benefit from their possible research/intel output later in the game/ or if you need dilithium.

As sean points out, phantom dilithium is very useful at times when low on dilith :p

[stardust]

Oh yeah, i've used that once in a while if i've needed to rush a colony ship out and bought it, rather than staggering build times...i'll have to give it a go.

My Federation game's going all right, i'm balancing conquest with other things that'll boost morale.
Stroke of luck I was able to take Cardassia while at the same time liberate a small colony the Klingons lost to them.
Another stroke of luck the Ferengi overran the Romulans and the Cards didn't discover me until i'd researched the heavy cruiser II so i was able to fully concentrate on reseach and now fully concentrate on intel, and not be torn between the two