Bingeling
Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
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It is a great feature that you can automate everything, and that the game can be played by focusing on just a few things. However, what are people's opinions of the different areas of automation? I will probably forget a few areas.
Ship Design
It works just fine on auto, but it gives more enjoyment when new designs are a more infrequent thing, and you actually remember and notice new, fancy components. With this on manual you can also make sure that all ships have enough reactor to go at full warp speed, and that fleets travel at the same speed...
Some nice trade offs are present. For instance, your cruiser for local protection (pirate buster) wants a fast launching hyper drive, while your cruiser in the main combat fleet may want the one with the fastest warp speed.
Also, never more the disappointment of noticing your new destroyers do less damage than your old ones, or that the latest version annoy you by having too short/long range.
The risk with going manual is that your less fancy items may go unchanged. Explorers, civilian ships, constructors...
Research
Easy and fun to do manual. I probably end up focusing too much on fancy guns, hyper drives, and huge construction yards, though. For me the weight I want to put on each tech tree seems a bit unbalanced, but I guess I can adjust the amount of research labs on my home world.
Diplomacy
The AI is a crazed war monger, but acting a bit according to the opinions from the diplomacy screen may not be a bad idea. Here the question is "suggestion or nothing" for me. It is tiresome to say "no" all the time, so the best answer is probably "nothing".
Spies
I don't mind leaving this on suggest, as it reminds me to consider sending them. In my current/latest huge galaxy game I have never fired a shot at another empire, nor sent or captured a spy. But I have hired 10 of those to sit idle in their office.
Construction
I have never tried to turn this off, but I think I will do next game. I am out of touch with my resource situation apart from the 3 very rares and fuel. And whenever a mining station is built in the middle of nowhere compared to my colonies, I want to have put it there myself, so I know it is important enough to give military presence. If doing things manual and on a case by case basis, it would even make sense to make the mining/defense hybrid that can take care of itself. The defense base you want to circle your most valuable colonies and loros fruit extractor may be a bit excessive for the exposed mining base giving resources you need, but that are are not really that rare.
I have of course interfered on the very rare resources, missing fuel and resort bases/research stations.
Exploration
Also left on automation this far, apart frome very early game and focusing on the focused location (from pirate bases and such). I have noticed explorers sitting idle while I at the same time notice locations that are unexplored. That is annoying.
Do anyone have experience if "explore this sector" and "explore this system" kind of missions are 100%? Doing this on manual may also reduce the tendency to hire a lot of explorers which may be a culprit in expanding too fast compared to the AI.
Combat ships
I find the AI sadly inadequate here. It is slow to respond to pirates, and suggested war objectives are in the grey area between decent suggestions and plain silly. It enjoys long trips for fleets, and troop transports seems fine to raid mining stations in some gas cloud.
I tend to think that I will do all by myself, with fewer and more powerful ships for anti pirate defense. I sense multiple kinds of cruisers coming up, as I don't want to meet some crazy huge frigates and destroyers as pirate ships...
Colonies
Having suggest turned on here may not be a bad idea, as it makes me aware when the great prize becomes available. Auto colonizing is for the game you want to run on full auto to see what happens.
Taxes
It seems like a good idea to do this manually, as long as 0 tax is a key for rapid growth, and only pretty rich colonies gives much at all when it comes to taxes.
Troop Recruitment
This one is tempting to keep on auto. Put the troop transports on auto, and let the automation fill up where missing. On the other hand, recruiting planets is probably a better idea, and it is not magic to figure out that your planned 10 ten man troop transports will require 100 troops. I have tended to hire some troop transports early to provoke the AI into hiring more troops, which is a bit of a wrong way doing it. Troops are cheaper on the capital than in troop transports.
So. Do people run with all of these (and those I forget) off?
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