                             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
center 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.   And  even  then  they  have to be in sectors with 60% efficiency or
greater.  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  tran-
sports 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.  There is a "tech  cap"  in
the new versions, which means you can't build more than 2 tech per update.

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" is 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 night.

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

