                             Information : Hints

My  rule  of  thumb is, divide dust price by 2 to figure how many days it will
take to recoup the investment. The divisor varies with the rate of  return  on
gold bars.

New  players  should  note that its a good idea to put demobilized military on
active reserve. They should also consider whether they need an enlistment cen-
ter  to generate more military. You can't "enlist" more military than you have
military reserves. The "nation" command will tell you how  many  reserves  you
have.  Be  careful,  as  many  players have lost their countries in past games
through carelessness with their military right at the start of the game.

Actually, the enlist command cannot  activate  more  mils  than  you  have  on
reserve.   Enlistment sectors can produce as many mils as they are capable of,
but will never produce past 1/2 the civilian populace there.  So ya gotta keep
moving them out, or demobilizing them, etc...  Also, the more mils you have in
an enlistment center, the more mils per update get trained.

                             Information : Hints

Any civilian may be enlisted (no restriction on the efficiency of the sector).
No  more may be enlisted than the number of reserves.  Enlistment costs mobil-
ity (if the sector has any), while demobilize costs cash.  Military  can  only
be  demobilized  in  60%  efficient  sectors.  No more than half the number of
civilians in a sector may be enlisted in one "enlist" command, but  if  it  is
issued  many  times,  virtually  all  civilians  in  a sector may be enlisted.
Right? [That's right. -Tom]

When distributing stuff to a warehouse, set the thresholds in the sector  that
is  sending  to/receiving from the warehouse, to the amount that you want left
in that sector. No use setting threshholds for the  warehouse  itself  (unless
its also distributing to *ANOTHER* warehouse :-)

The minimum threshold for distribution is 1. A threshold of 0 means no distri-
bution of that commodity will take place.

1000 reserves is enough for defense, although I figure I always  put  them  on
reserve when I demobilize, at least up to 10,000, for attacking purposes.

                             Information : Hints

Depends on how you want to use reserves, I guess. I figure with 200 jet trans-
ports at 127 mobility I can land 20,000 mil in an enemy country in one  night,
so  I'd say 20,000 is a safe upper limit for reserves.  I've never needed more
than that.

So you don't need to push for more reserves now, but might  as  well  put  all
demobilized mil on reserve.

You  make  back the cost of demobilizing mil in just 2 or 3 days I think, so I
generally demobilize the mil I don't have any use for, and put 'em on reserve.

An education level of 5 is required to build tech.

It  makes it much easier on the player if he doesn't have to regularly do any-
thing to keep his country running, but can just devote himself  to  doing  the
things  that interest him.  There's also the problem of what to do in an inva-
sion.  I guess if invaded I just accept the damage, and don't try  to  fix  it
until the war ends.

                             Information : Hints

So  in a war zone I generally follow 1 of two basic plans. If I'm the invader,
I either leave the sectors as is and let the country being invaded fall apart,
or if I can do something to make it worse for the enemy I sometimes do that. I
sometimes designate conquered sectors to aggies if they need  food,  banks  to
reduce  shelling  damage,  enlistment  centers  for  mil, forts for firing and
attack, harbors to get ships in, warehouses to get  and  move  and  distribute
supplies,  *  for  planes,  +  for  easy movement, # to build bridges to cross
rivers in order to continue the assault, and - to slow up  counterattacks  and
hide  information  on enemy maps. Also ) to make radar maps, and c to fool the
enemy (and make reserve capitols).

When being invaded, I also generally postpone any long  term  development  and
just concentrate on the basic sectors types for combat (a,b,c,e,f,h,w,+,#,*,))

I've found its a mistake to worry about long term development in a  war  zone,
until the battle is over.  I will let a warzone be completely wrecked in order
to achieve victory. So you need to keep your home base area away from any war-
zones.

                             Information : Hints

Fake capitols are sometimes useful.

Anyway, so far the method of treating warzones and peace zones differently and
keeping them seperated has worked pretty well. The mistake I made in the  past
was  to try to develop a warzone before the fight was over. Now I'm willing to
completely wreck the area to win, and in fact you pretty  much  have  to.  The
guerrillas take several days to get rid of even when the war is over.

I've  found  it good policy to produce a large surplus of food and aim to have
at least 100 food in each sector, when I have enough. Actually I now  put  990
food in each sector, except for aggies (100) and warehouses (9990).

Before  moving  civs,  check  the work in the sector the civs are in. If its <
100% *DON'T* move any civs out.  The reason: work in  the  destination  sector
will drop to the same level as the starting sector.

"Selling"  is  counterintuitive. Experiment carefully with it so you learn its
tricks before you do anything major.  The "amount" it asks for, is the  amount
to be left in the sector, *NOT* the amount to be sold.

                             Information : Hints

I  advise  less  experienced players *NOT* to do any global selling. Condition
checking is unreliable, and many players have accidently sold all the food  in
their entire country, resulting in mass starvation.

"World tech" and "world research" means: some of the research and tech made by
other countries will automatically leak to the less developed countries.

If you let education get higher than happiness, then find work going to 0%  in
your sectors, don't say you weren't warned :-)

Just  a tip on empire tactics: mobility is the key to dealing with many empire
problems. Its often the bottleneck which interferes with various  things,  and
the decisive advantage that gives victory to the attacker.

Its a good idea to check after every update, to see if any sectors have work <
100%.  "cen #0 ?work<100" is what I use.  If work is  <  100%,  workers  won't
work  at  full  efficiency,  and  if  it gets very low the civs may revolt and
you'll lose the sector.  Build lots of happiness, and keep extra mil  in  sec-
tors  with  work  <  100%. That seems to help.  Don't move civs out of sectors
with work < 100%, or work will go down in the sector they move to.

                             Information : Hints

Just a note on nukes: in this version, there is a nice balance  between  nukes
and  economics.  So if someone really wants to, he can do a lot of damage with
nukes, but it costs him a *lot*. So its rare  that  a  country  is  completely
annihilated by nuclear attack, as used to be the case in PSL empire.

No, my formula is civ = 2.8 mil + 8, to enlist the maximum of 0.4*(mil+10) per
8-etu update.

The trick for boarding destroyers: you need a bunch of cargo  ships,  both  to
make several boarding attempts and to tend mil.  When you try to board a ship,
both the boarder and the boardee lose the same amount of mobility.  You  first
have to get the destroyer's mobilty to be negative.  Then you just keep trying
to board it from one ship after another until you win.  That's where  my  ship
network  method  comes in handy. I usually have swarms of ships I can surround
the enemy ships with.

                             Information : Hints

If you really want to beat him, map him out  carefully,  get  your  forces  in
position, then hit him very hard and try to overrun him in one good attack.

If  I  have planes, my normal method is to take a sector I can see, put enough
mil to hold it, des it "e" if it has lots of food, or maybe something else  if
there is a reason. Then get info about the adjacent sectors, and take the most
promising one.  Without planes its more of a struggle.  Anway, I kind of  zig-
zag into the country taking the most interesting sectors, ignoring the others.
This really seems to freak people out,  when  an  enemy  takes  a  path  right
through the heartland.

You  know  there's a limit on how many ships in a given fleet can be navigated
simultaneously? (32 ships I think).

I would use planes (so having numerous airports each with  a  fair  supply  of
fighters, spread around your country, would be the best countermeasure), ships
(having forts loaded with guns and shells covering all coastlines helps a lot:
also  having destroyers and subs spread around your coastal waters in order to
spot and counterattack enemy ships, also have bombers to bomb enemy ships, and
radar stations to spot them is useful).

                             Information : Hints

I  would  invade by land, firing from forts, (mainly you need to counterattack
actively when the enemy takes  any  sectors  in  your  area,  also  forts  wit
guns/shells  help  a  lot.)   I would capture islands and build bridges to get
into your country (so watch all offshore islands with bridge span range).

Have a lot of shells in warehouses, ready to be moved to the  front  (you  can
move 4 for no mobility cost).

I  stop  trying to develop areas involved in a conflict, and use them only for
fighting.

I turn the sectors in the front lines into forts, enlistment  centers,  banks,
bridgeheads  mainly.  Then  maybe  some warehouses airports and harbors within
range of the frontlines.  And maybe some radar stations.

Bombing enemy ships spotted by radar seems to work pretty well  for  the  most
part. If he has an aircraft carrier you can torpedo it.

                             Information : Hints

Mainly  there  are  just lots of little tricks that you learn by experience. I
usually figure its better to try some kind of attack and fail, than to be pas-
sive.

You never know exactly what may happen, sometimes you get lucky when you think
its hopeless. So even if a plan has only a small chance of working,  sometimes
its  worth a try, especially if the enemy has to actively do something to stop
it. Sometimes he will just let you get away with it.

Nocturnia has sunk two of my cargo ships unprovoked.  I  do not feel  I  could
do  much  but  get  him  pissed off right now, but would be willing if experts
thought it for the best.  I would need more guns and shells than  I  have  for
sure.  What do you think I sould do?  Sirus of Ranimes.

See Also: overview, innards, HowToPlayEmpire

