In my first game with Space Empires 3, I gave myself 3 good planets, set the computer opponents on easy and gave them each only one bad starting planet (I don’t like to lose). Well, I lost anyway, which probably qualifies me better than most to write about the perhaps not-so-obvious ways to stay alive in this game. So here are a few hints that I had to learn by having my face rubbed in the doodoo. Use them well and you might even win your first game (I highly recommend using a setup similar to mine to learn the ropes, but don’t play as I did). Start on a medium or large universe with opponents spread out: having a hostile neighbor on move one does not lead to an easy game. And it is easier if you choose to have few warp lines between planets, which will ensure that you don’t meet other races early on.

The most important rule is that when you start, the most important thing to do is COLONIZE. Why? Becaue resources come from population, and planets have population limits. If one of your opponents catches up to you in population, kiss your ass goodbye. Of course to do that, you will need to explore. And since you can only colonize one type of planet which, as luck would have it, is relatively rare in your corner of the galaxy, you will need to research colonization of other types of planets. Research the type of planets that are near your starting planet, then research some others later. Look for good or excellent planets. If you do this right, you should be able to maintain a factor of five to ten in population and research over each opponent, which should allow you to make as many stupid mistakes as you want without losing (but if you see one opponent inching up to within a factor of two of your population, expect trouble in the near future).

Given the above paragraph, the first ships that you should build are scouts, colony ships and transport ships. Don’t bother arming or shielding scouts early in the game: their most important property is how fast they can explore, and they won’t meet any enemies early on anyway. And even if they do, scouts are cheap, and you can build a couple more at any time.

Here is the second most important tip: when you colonize a new planet, set the production rate as low as it will go (60%). This will jack up the population growth by a factor of two or three. And rapidly increase the population by using transport ships to bring in population from other planets.Build some transport ships with the biggest population capabiilty that you can. Again, don’t bother arming such ships. You should be able to build a transport with 48 million capacity right off the bat. If you add armor, shields and speed, you will be limited to 2 or 5 million. Go for the 48 million.

You will soon need bigger ships, so you should research ships early on and during most of the game. A good start is to research two kinds of colonization, ships, propulsion and beam weapons, at 20% each. Adjust later as needed.

As you put a higher percentage of research money in a given field, the effectiveness decreases rapidly after about 20%. So never set your percentage above 20% unless you have a good reason, since you are not using your resources at their most effective level.

Don’t forget to set your construction on each planet as soon as you get it. The most important subject at the beginning is construction, then research, then espionnage. The latter is useless until you have met other races, and the points are lost if they are not used during the turn. However, you should put as many points as you can afford into condition improvement and value improvement. And when you can afford population control facilities, put them in and jack up production to 140% (without such facilities, this will lead to revolts).

When you meet enemies, don’t assume that they are enemies and attack them immediately: this will ensure that you will soon have all the races at war with you. try to establish trade relations.

If you are about to crush an opponent and he offers a treaty, think twice before you accept, and maybe cripple him before making a treaty. In my first game, when I finally made it to the main system of one opponent and was about to crush him, he offered a treaty which I accepted. I then moved most of my forces towards the other end of the galaxy where I was at war with another opponent. The first opponent then stabbed me in the back and moved in to my almost unprotected backfield, and destroyed some of my best planets before I could get some forces there. Before long, the first opponent had surpassed me in production, was fielding invulnerable ships and I was up the crick without a paddle…

The genius of this game is that everything is slow. It takes many turns to build a ship or to move long distances. And ships run out of fuel. This means that the “tank rush” is not a feasible strategy in this game for the simple reason that your forces are unable to reach the heart of enemy territory before they run out of fuel and have to come back. So you will find that most of your forces are shuffling between refuling and reaching enemy territory and are not available for combat in enemy terrotory. It will be very late into the game before you have ships that have eternal fuel, so be resigned to having ships with short legs in big galaxies.

OK, you say, how about if I build an outpost in or near enemy territory and then use it to refuel? Well, that’s fine if you can get it, but take it from me, to achieve that you’re going to have the enemy not reacting to your taking over a planet in his territory – don’t count on it.You should, however build an outpost as close to enemy territory as you can. Fortunately right at the start you can build a space station that will make your planet invulnerable for a while, but that will take about ten or more moves…Also you should note that although you can build yard ships fairly early on that you can use for repair way out there,, you can not use them to refuel ships, which requires planets.To make things more difficult, many systems don’t have any planets at all, which makes building outposts even more complicated or even impossible. Gettoing an outpost two or three planets away from your system in the direction of enemy planets should be a high priority.But be forwarned that the closer it is to the enemy, the harder it will be to build it and to hold it. But if you can build such an outpost at a critical node, you may have given yourself a decisive advantage.

Shields are more important than firepower. A couple of level V shields and a shield regenerator can make a ship invulnerable against most weapons of that level or more.

Good luck!