Drengin way too powerful...

They do seem to be the smartest of the bunch. I'm sure it's not a typo or a bug. It's Brad's little pet! It's not a coincidence that it's not "Arcean.net".

They do well early on due to their extortion techniques, but once other civs ally against them they hardly ever remain powerful in my games.

Ironically enough the Arceans are normally the best of the bunch in my games.

~SDC~

Yup, I have yet to get past the battlecruiser rush, except for one game where the Torians took them out, just before taking me out.

And I hate sitting there with a starbase and three battlehammers in orbit 'defending' Earth only to have them invade and win anyway ignoring my orbitting defense force.

~SDC~

So far the Drengin seem to be the most powerful race in my games. I think I'll have to specifically work on knocking them down, in conjunction with other races. Not a big deal, but it would be nice if the Drengin's weren't always the ones in my face- I could use some variety in the races that annihilate me.

C&P

The Drengin rush down the military tech tree fairly quickly. It is possible to do the same, but you'll lose out on galactic wonders and trade goods.

~SDC~

I've noticed from the in-game messages that the Drengin get a -lot- of benefit from extorting other races. Money, tech, etc. Money is especially important, as any human player knows if you have the money coming in then you can set your expenditures to 100% which makes a huge difference in developing your race.

In my games so far the Drengin have also been the most dangerous AI civ, I probably should start taking that into account and working some diplomatic magic to ensure they have plenty of challengers facing them.

The Drengin dont beat my Ultra-Smart Technologists anywhere. By the time they have battlecruisers my first frigates are rolling off the assembly line. Put those apes in check!

My strategy for dealing with the Drengin is like most people's I guess. I make sure that everyone else is at war with them too. I usually rely on other races to "screen" their ships for me, while I pump out tech advances as fast as possible, providing support for those friendly to me. This does backfire though. In my last game the Torians turned against me after I gave them and the Altairians Battleship tech. Eventually the Torians and Drengin ended up allying against my team with the Altairians and Fundamentalists. That was a tough match up.

Well, how cna I beat their Battle Cruiser rush? Which is the best path in research I can take without affecting too much on my "social" research. How do I make other races turn against the Drengin? I seriously can't get past that rush for about 5 games now.

I've never had that much trouble with them. In the games I've played through to completion (all on gigantic or huge maps), its always the Altarians that are my biggest rival. My strategy to deal with them is pretty simple: get defenders fast, and build four of them in every colony before I switch to a constructor program to max out starbases. The worst thing you can do is to ignore military early on. The drenging look at your rating, figure that there are easier fights to pick, and usually start war with someone else. Usually the Altarians, who are always a major player. I read somewhere where the Arceans are the "big rival". That just goes to show you how good this game is, how much it varies, because they are without a doubt the weakest of the teams overall in the games I've played!

In the games I've played, eliminating the drengins is a top priority.

Usually when I play they are the pop leader, and they are way ahead in military. Their economy is boosted by extorting everyone under the sun (hmm, that expression doesn't really apply here).

To defend against them I build either defenders, battle-axes, or battle hammers. I don't try to launch any type of offensive campaign until I feel my colonies are secure.

Usually for me whoever had the best starting position is going to be the enemy. Last game it was the Yor. They managed to get 8 planets and found a precusor device which made one of them class 35. (that planet alone had almost 50k million pop which was more pop then some of the other races entire empires) It took me, the Torians, the Altarians, and the Drengin to finally push the Yor's midgame military push back. Things got really hairy when they allied with the Arcaens. It was like Galaxy War II.

In my current game, I had a long-term arms race with the Drengin that ended with the breaking of the Drengin as a military power. Now, the Yor I had to wipe out, because they had way too much production for four systems. I let the Drengin live mainly to serve as a foil to the Arceans, but they're not even a power anymore (and probably can't become one given what happened to them).

Still, before I took them down, if they'd attacked me first, I probably would've been hard-put to hold them off.

~SDC~

Try making them good.

Evil will always triumph because good is dumb.

Generally speaking, one of three races will tend to dominate - Drengin (most often), Arceans (almost as often), and Altairians (very close to Arceans). Changing alignment doesn't seem to alter this, they just seem to be much better at expansion and warfare than the Torians or the Yor.

This may be due to start positions and I have seen both the Torians and the Yor excel, just not nearly as often.

~SDC~

Yep, I almost got my butt kicked by the Torians once. Then I used a couple terror stars to obliterate an entire cluster of their systems, causing their entire economy to collapse. They never really recovered from that.

Oops.

~SDC~

Start off strong. Crank your military spending to 100%, and your Govt. spending to 100%, and keep cranking out colony ships from earth every 2 turns. Only load about 100 per ship to keep from stripping Earth's pop too much. In the first 20 turns you'll have 11 colony ships (from earth).

Only colonize 1 planet per system, and work outside in, going further away first. You could have 10 systems colonized within 20 turns, with the 11th ship on it's way. In systems with multiple planets, create colony ships upon initial colonization, otherwise start building constructors. If you're playing on "abundant planets", you may want to pump out colony ships from all newly colonized planets. Keep this up until you run out of planets, or your BC runs negative. This will get you the initial "push" you need to keep ahead in population and economy.

At this point, switch your Govt. spending slider back until you're in the black, and adjust your sliders in tech until it's getting about 45 to 50% of your spending, with social around 30, and military about 20. What you research is up to you, but at this point you should have a solid foothold, and are at this point filling in all your systems with multiple habitable planets.

For an extra push, select for your attributes before you start +15% planet quality. It's 9 out of your 10 points, but you will be able to colonize planets the other races leave alone, and turn normal planets (15+)into class 25+ by the time you have all the upgrades (Soil Enhancement, Habitat Improvement, Terraform, etc..).

I've done this on difficulty up to "intelligent" for all, and I have the Dregin offering me tribute throughout the game to keep me out of their business, which is attacking everyone else. I usually get the offer to snuggle also, and they're set to Pure Evil! So, you know they're afraid of something.

It's all about the intial rush. Get out there strong, and keep building! Don't let those "Snuggly" Dregin get ahead of you, otherwise they'll be dropping by for a HUG!

~SDC~

I disagree, they're not too powerful right off the bat. They're just fine.

~SDC~

The strongest race: THE YOR!!!!

With all the other races I can wreck their economic development quite easily => giving them techs + trade goods they can´t resist for a lot of money (or spending more money they have )+ when they are strong desstabilize them and they get never out of deficit spending and I remain tech + econmic leader. The Yor somehow always escape my evil plots (playing with all AI set to intelligent

The Yor always seem to be nice to me. Never had a problem with them getting too powerful. My main problem is that the Drengin get too powerful too early, and the Arcean then take over later in the game. I never seem to be able to be on their good side neither. I really wanted a technology tree. The game should of come with one, but I understand that there are always new ones in development and it would defeat it's purpose. The ones I find online, are always 30 pages long and I don't want to sacrifice that much ink cartrigde on it. Anybody find a smaller tech tree out there?

In my first Huge map game, the Drengin started in a corner beyond my reach... a corner that had six yellow stars! All of a sudden, wave after wave of Battle Cruisers began annihilating my outward bound Colony Ships, freighters, and my far flung resource starbases.

Then the USS Hero wandered into the neighborhood. It seems the Hero had been researching anomalies for the last several decades, and was now a Weapons 13, Defense 22 warship with 85 HP.... and the waves of battlecruisers (and even the Drengin's new frigates) crashed harmlessly against the Hero's armored hull. Suddenly the Drengin were willing to make peace, at the cost of their Diplomatic Translators and their entire treasury (468 bc... for the next 20 months!).


Gotta love the late-game survey ship!

No-one has mentioned the most powerful race.

Every game I've played so far has ended with the Terran Alliance wiping the floor with all the other races.
Occasionally they allow one or more of the other races to ally with them but they're virtually unstoppable

~SDC~

@ButtFutted

Somebody else made a nice printable techtree no more than 3 pages long. You should hunt around in older threads or start a new thread called "techtree now!!) and see you comes calling...

I've noticed the same thing. The Drengin or the Arceans are always the most powerful.

I guess the Drengin benefit from their evil choices, and both races extort money.

It's strange that the Yor always seem to do so poorly. They are evil too. Maybe their "chaotic" alignment means that they don't follow a consistent strategy?