.TH Information Hints
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 mobility (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]
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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 :-)
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The minimum threshold for distribution is 1. A threshold
of 0 means no distribution of that commodity will take
place.
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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.
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Depends on how you want to use reserves, I guess. I 
figure with 200 jet transports 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.
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So you don't need to push for more reserves now, but
might as well put all demobilized mil on reserve.
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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.
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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.
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It makes it much easier on the player if he doesn't
have to regularly do anything 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 invasion.
I guess if invaded I just accept the damage, and don't
try to fix it until the war ends.
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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).
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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,+,#,*,))
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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 warzones.
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Fake capitols are sometimes useful.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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"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.
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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.
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"World tech" and "world research" means: some of the research
and tech made by other countries will automatically leak to
the less developed countries.
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If you let education get higher than happiness, then
find work going to 0% in your sectors, don't say you
weren't warned :-)
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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.
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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 sectors 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.
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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.
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No, my formula is civ = 2.8 mil + 8, to
enlist the maximum of 0.4*(mil+10)
per 8-etu update.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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You know there's a limit on how many ships in a given
fleet can be navigated simultaneously? (32 ships I think).
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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).
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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).
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Have a lot of shells in warehouses, ready to be moved to
the front (you can move 4 for no mobility cost).
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I stop trying to develop areas involved in a conflict, and
use them only for fighting.
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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.
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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.
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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 passive.
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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.
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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.
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See Also: overview, innards, HowToPlayEmpire
