Succession Game Readiness Guide - Sirian

When are you ready to take part in a succession game?
Basically when you know enough to avoid hurting yourself and your teammates. Others in the game might prefer more advanced strategy than hittting the "Next Turn" button twenty times, so being able to dig around a little bit and "help out" the AI is a very good thing.

If this is your first time here, I suggest you go through the SG Readiness Quiz first and see if you know the answers on your own. Then check back with the answers below.

INTERFACE BASICS
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1. How to move fleets from star to star.
Go to the galaxy map, and click on a task force (TF). If it has no current orders, it will sit idle to the right of a star. Also, it will list an ETA of 0. You may now click on a star to pick a new destination (ETA will be shown along with a dotted line of the quickest path to the star.) If you want to send a single ship instead of the whole TF, you may (after clicking on the TF and getting a list of ships) click on a single ship, then click on a star to send it there.

2. How to change the existing orders for a fleet.
Same as above. A TF with existing orders will show up on the left side of a star. Click on it to see its destination and turns left to get there (ETA). Then click on a different star to change its orders.

3. How to create a new Starship TF (TF = Task force)
VERY important piece of information! The AI leaves this to your control, so it's very important to know how to do this. Double click on a star (i.e. go to the System view) and click the 'Forces' tab in the lower-left corner. There should be two buttons, "Create Ground Transport" (see next question) and "Go To Task Force Creation." If you're allowed to create a task force these buttons will be white, otherwise they're greyed out. Click the TF creation button, which brings up a screen with many options. Choose the size you want with the drop-down menu in the upper left corner. Then choose a Mission, and if you like, hit "Auto-Build" for the AI to put together a TF for you. Next step is usually "Clear All ships" because it did a lousy job :P On the right of the screen is a full list of all available ships, called the "Reserves". Click any unit you want to add to the TF, and drag it to 'core', 'escort' or 'picket'. The size and mission of the TF will dictate several rules. If one is broken it's shown in red. Read those and follow the rules. Name the new TF if you like, then hit "Create" in the lower right corner. So now where is your TF? In Limbo. It will show up NEXT Turn, fear not.

4. How to create a new Gropo TF. (Ground Pounders, "dirtside troops")
Similar to the creation of a Starship Taskforce. Go to the System view of a star, and click "Create Ground Transport". Choose Size and Mission, then pick your marines, infantry, experience level, etc. You first create the Gropo's TF, then you're automatically thrown into a ship TF creation screen to create the transport fleet needed to carry them all at once. (Note each troop ship carries four units unless you redesign it) (See below for making a Gropo army for planetary self defense, via Planet -> Military Info -> Goto Ground Force Creation)

5. How to enable any owned system to create TF's.
A Mobilization Center (MOB) is needed on one of the planets in the system for that system to be able to create a TF and deploy forces.

6. How to disband a TF.
From the galaxy screen you can click on the TF and disband it. Or go to the system screen where the TF is located, and hit the "Forces" tab. Select a TF then you can hit "Disband TF". If it's a 'system' TF you can only scrap it. Finally, from the planet screen, you can click the Military tab, view Space forces, and disband anything in orbit that you wish to return to reserves (starships) or dispose of (system ships).

COLONIZATION
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1. How to order an existing colony ship to colonize.
Click on the colony task force (usually just a colony ship) and send it to the desired star. The *turn before* it arrives, zoom to the destination system, click on the desired planet, click the Forces tab, and click Send Colony. Between turns, the ship will arrive, and it will pick up on the colonize order. It will take *another* turn to colonize, but you can verify the orders by clicking on the colony task force. If the "AI Orders" bar is lit up, it picked up the order. If not, then it didn't and you'd have to try again.

IMPORTANT: deployed colony ships will only pick up colonization orders if they are already in the target system. That's why you want to issue the order the turn before they arrive. They'll get the order on arrival and take one extra turn to colonize. If you wait until they have arrived, it will take a turn to get the orders, then another turn to colonize, meaning two turns spent.

Once you have verified that the colony ship has the correct orders, you want to go back to the planet (in the system view), click Forces tab again, and click "Cancel Colony". This will NOT cancel the orders already issued to your ship. What it will do is halt the order for any more ships newly produced to be sent to this planet.

Confused yet? Yes, the process of colonization is poorly implemented. Unless and until they improve the process, though, you need to know how to operate it.

2. How to use the planet screen to direct the AI where to colonize.
There are three ways to colonize. One is to put the AI in charge. Another is to do the job yourself. The third way is to try to do both. The third way is a disaster. If you want to direct your colony ships yourself, leave the colonization AI turned off. If you want to use the colonization AI, then let it operate and you stay out of colonization.

Even when you are directing the colonization, you still have to go through the AI. You manually set planets as targets (in advance, preferably), then when colony ships are built, they automatically head for the nearest target planet. If you have no targets set, the colony ship will go into your reserves.

To flag a planet for colinzation manually, go to the system screen, hit the 'Forces' tab, click "Send Colony", which will target the chosen planet for colonization. When a colony ship is built anywhere in your empire, it will be assigned a target planet and launched from the nearest mobilization center.

If you have only one planet flagged (one total, in the whole galaxy) then you are guaranteed to have the planet of your choice selected as target for the newest colony ship. If you flag multiple planets, the automation will send ALL colony ships produced on the next turn (or the next turn that any will be produced) to one of the flagged planets. All the ships will go to the same planet. This is not a problem early in the game, when you are only producing one colony ship at a time, but it stops being useful later
in the game.

Immediately after a colony ship is produced and sent out to your desired planet, you need to go back to that planet and unflag it, then flag the next one you want to settle.

Yes, this is ungodly awkward. At least now you have instructions on how to make it do what you want. If you end up with multiple ships targetting one planet, they will all join together and settle when they arrive. If you build a 5-pack of colony ships, for example, and they are all sent to one planet, you'll get a world with five population on it (all five ships colonizing on the same turn) unless you intervene. Once you have to intervene, you have an "existing colony ship" and have to use the procedure listed above to send it to a destination and wait until it arrives, or one turn before it arrives, to issue orders. (Yep, whoever came up with this scheme ought to be hung by his thumbs). Once you actually understand what to do, though, it's not as painful to
execute as it sounds.

If you turn the automated colonization on, you'll avoid all these problems, IF you stay out of the process. If you flag any worlds, this does not "help" the automated colonization, it overrides it. This can create a real mess. The automated colonization actually works well (compared to the manual method, which is needlessly obtuse).

So here's what we recommend. Early in the game, manual control of colonizing is important. If you want to choose your colonization targets, leave the automation off and flag target planets one at a time, in advance. Ships sent out either by the full automation, or by you flagging a world and the next ship built is sent out to it
automatically, both of these methods see the ship dispatched the SAME turn it is finished being built, as well as see the ship colonize the target world the SAME turn it arrives. If you have to manually create a colony TF from a ship sent to the reserves, you lose a turn. If you have a colony TF that you manually control, you have to spend a turn at the target system to "pick up" the orders. And then it takes
an extra turn to settle. So... you will lose one, two, or as many as three turns, by using full manual control of colony ships, and you STILL have to use the planet flags. So it's by far the best to flag in advance in and let the next ship built pick up its orders automatically.

At some point in the game, you'll have settled all the strategicially vital planets near your home world. When you are ready to relinquish control, stop flagging planets and go to Empire and turn on AI colonization. From there on, the AI will select the targets and dispatch ships for you, and you should let it do so.

3. Which situations will prevent you from colonizing.
Colonization cannot take place if an ally (non-aggression pact or better) has any ships in the target system, including system ships. If any non-ally has a planet in the system and also has any ships, colonization cannot take place. If a non-ally has ships in the system but no planet, you can settle if you destroy his ships or if he chooses to "hold position" instead of attacking you.

If you want to settle in a system where another empire has planets, you must do so before they build system ships there, and can only do it while they don't have any starships there. Likewise, you can prevent any AI from settling in your systems by building system ships or leaving a task force there.

PLANET MANAGEMENT
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1. How to construct a DEA manually.
Go to the planet screen and choose the "Planetary Infrastructure" tab. On the left side of the screen is information about the several 'regions' on the planet. Each can support 2 DEA (Dominant Economic Activity). (You can click on an existing DEA then hit 'Remove this DEA' button. Next turn it will be gone, or you can cancel this order before the turn is over.) There may be a DEA marked '-> Planned' which you can change with the 'Change Type' button at the bottom, after choosing the one you want. If there is nothing planned, just hit the region, choose a DEA type, and hit "Add to Region."

2. How to operate the Military Build Queue.
At Planet Screen, pop open the "Economics tab". In the middle right are two tabs, one for military queue, the other for the planetary queue. Click the Military one (MBQ) then you can see what is being built (and cancel it with "Scrap Item"), and add items by choosing them on the right then "Build Item". You'll see when choosing and item how many PP it will cost and min number of turns to build. If there is a small black arrow you can expand the item to ask to build 5 or 10 at once, taking longer to finish but at a discounted price. Note the queues can only hold 3 choices. (Note at the System screen you can see all 3 Mil queue items and 3 Planetary items.)

The planetary queue is operated the same way, from the "Planetary" tab off Economics.

3. How to assign gropo's to defend a planet.
Click Military Info tab, and "Goto Ground Force creation." There you'll make an army that immediately shows up assigned to the planet's self-defenses. You do not need a mob center to do this, like you do with starships. Insta-army, any time you want one dirtside.

If you disband an army on a planet (after invading and conquering, or setting up defenses) the units will be sent to a delay box, the same as disbanded starships. Once the delay is over, they will be sent back to the reserves. So don't leave large armies on garrison after a major invasion. Disband the extras, you can deploy them again (anywhere you have a mob center) in a few turns.

4. How to tell the local Viceroy to take a vacation, because you're assuming command for a while.
At the Planet screen, click "Planet Econ AI". With this off, the Viceroy will cease fiddling with the sliders and cease adding items to the build queues. Use this to disable AI control of the sliders when you want all local economic development (DEA add-ons, etc) to halt. This allows you to put all the planet's spending to the military queue, if you like, to force key items to build faster. This is a temporary measure. If you leave the viceroy disabled, he won't be able to fiddle the sliders when it comes time to add new tech items to your DEA's or to the planetary queue. You NEED the viceroy to figure out when new techs have arrived and to micromanage adding all the bits and pieces of new gadgets to your planet or to specific regions or to add on to DEA's.

Basically, if you've got a top priority "spend everything on building this faster" item, you can force priority to the military queue if you want. You have to disable the viceroy to make this happen, though, or he'll only override your slider settings to prioritize local improvements.

SHIP DESIGN
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1. How to design starships. At all.
Choose "Shipyards" tab from the bottom of the screen, and if needed hit the 'New Designs' tab. Choose a 'size' (e.g. Frigate) and for class, pick "Starship". Then choose a mission (e.g. Planet Destroyer). Auto-build is good for a starting point, now edit, delete, add options as you like. Weapons, Engines, Defense, and Specials tabs are available. On the right shows how much 'stuff' you can add to a ship of that class and size. The more goodies, or fancier the goodies, the higher the cost. Choose a name (up to 12 letters), preferably one that describes the ship's function and perhaps the warp speed as a number at the end. Then choose "Confirm" to create a new design specification. (Note this doesn't actually build the ship! You or the viceroy would need to add one to a mil queue.)

2. How to design picket ships.
Only 'recon' ships can go in the picket ring. Choose 'Recon' as "Mission"

3. How to design escort ships.
Only long-range attack, short-range attack and point defense ships can be escorts. LR and SR ships can also be put in the core ring, while PD ships are "escort only".

The mission of the ship does matter! PD ships will prioritize shooting down incoming missiles and fighters, while attack ships will prioritize enemy capital ships over incoming if both are present.

Effective point defense requires beam weapons on lighter mounts for faster recharge. Note that "autofire" options on beam weapons make them shoot several times per recharge period. Also note that Heavy Mounts are superior to Spinal Mounts in total damage, because of the recharge rate. Use PD or Light mounts for defensive fire. Choose Point Defense as the mission for any ship whose primary function is to escort and defend capital ships. Use Standard or Heavy mounts for effective gunships, choosing "Short Range Attack" as the mission type. Use Spinal Mounts for Long Range Attack, but note that this dramatically increases costs and reduces total firepower in exchange for more range. Spinal Mounts should be used for long range support fire, not as primary weaponry.

ECM and ECCM are very useful, as are advanced scanners. Rather than build these into each ship, it may pay to build one cruiser or battleship class vessel, loaded to the gills with specials, shields and armor, with few or no weapons, and assign one of these vessels to provide jamming and detection for the whole task force, once you reach a point of building mostly "pack" and "armada" size TF's.

4. How to render designs obsolete.
Galaxy -> Shipyards, then choose the 'Current Designs' tab. Pick a ship design and hit "Mark Obsolete". This is a reversible action, you can uncheck 'Hide Obsolete' and hit the "Mark Obsolete" button again to 'un-Obsolete' it.

5. When is it useful to create a new design?
When exciting new technology has been discovered. Or when you want to make tradeoffs for an emphasis different than the current design. For example, you may want to transport a whole Corps of troops rather than a small division. So design one large ship at a lower cost than four smaller ones with the same transport capability. Or you might like a new design that's faster than a current design.

MIGRATION and OUTPOSTS
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1. How to set migration to new colonies.
2. How to set migration to new outposts.
For both, go to the "Planets" screen (tab at bottom), select the planet or outpost, go to the "Orders" tab (as opposed to "Information") and hit "Set Migration". Folks on other planets thinking of moving will help populate this world.

3. How to identify a magnate civilization.
In System view clicking on a planet will show in the lower-left info screen "Magnate Civ". Also, you can pull up the planets list, select "uncontrolled", then sort by population. All the magnate worlds you know about will appear at the top of the list.

4. How to take over a magnate civilization.
The same as colonizing any world. The magnate population will accept your rule once you assemble 1000 of your own population on their world and establish a colony.

5. How to tell a rival outpost from a rival colony.
World name starts with a lowercase letter for any outpost.

MEETING THE ENEMY
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1. How to end an enemy blockade.
Bring a bigger badder TF than the blockading one and defeat in space combat. Note that you must "intercept fleet" or "assault planet". If you "defend planet" or "hold position" the enemy may choose not to engage, and the blockade will go on.

2. How to impose a blockade.
Any Task Force will automatically blockade everyone who is not your ally (non-aggression pact or better). You don't even get the option of NOT blockading. If you want to avoid blockades and hostilities, you have to persuade your neighbors to sign treaties.

3. How to survive entering a system with a guardian.
Click on "Blockade Planet" instead of "Assault Planet", to take the more defensive posture,
then as soon as the combat starts, hit general retreat. You can make it out every time.

4. How to zoom in and out during space combat.
Use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out. Also works at the galaxy screen. Use +/- keys if you
don't have a mouse wheel.

5. How to identify targets during space combat.
One of the biggest problems in space combat is FINDING the enemy. First zoom out to the maximum extent. Next, realize that your task force will be "facing" the enemy. If you have ten TF's, they'll show up in two lines of five, all facing the enemy. Learn to read this factor, so you know which direction to go looking. If you misread, come back to your ships and try again. If you first highlight one of your TF's before you scroll, you can hit the Tab key to have the camera pull you back to it. Sometimes planets are very far away, so you get used to tracking them down. It's possible to get completely lost and not find your way back to your ships, which is no fun. This is another area of the game that needs a little patching.

Note, scanners help you locate the enemy sooner, and prevent them from vanishing off your line of sight during combat.

6. How to attack targets during space combat.
You must first select a TF. Click on a TF to select them. Then click on the target, then click the "Attack" order in the bottom panel. Please note that fleets with attack orders MAY NOT stop to defend themselves vs incoming. Click the Halt command to get them to stop and shoot at incoming missiles and enemy fighters.

You can click and drag a box to highlight a group of TF's, and you can use shift-click to add or remove TF's from your "active" group.

7. How to "unjam" task forces that have become entangled.
The pentagon around each TF represents its "personal space". If these overlap, TF's can become jammed and unresponsive, sitting there like bumps on a log. This can be especially bad when controlling larger fleets and issuing group orders, watching the whole lot of them jam up instead of intelligently coordinating their moves.

To unjam TF's, click on one at a time and issue a Move order to empty space. Preferably have the jammed TF's move in different directions until they have cleared one another's "personal space". Also helps if you spread them out a little before issuing orders, especially if you do not start in close proximity to your targets.

8. How to retreat from a losing battle.
Hit the general retreat button to have all your ships retreat. Select an individual TF and issue a retreat order to have only that TF retreat. Sometimes you may need to retreat transport units, or redlined ships. You can, for example, fight scout to scout in the very early game, and it's pure luck. If your scout is clearly going to lose, having fallen behind, you can still save him by retreating quickly enough. With really large TF's, some ships tend to be killed off while others are unhurt, but if you see that many of ships are walking wounded, you can get them out of there and leave healthier TF's to finish the fight. You might preserve more of your ships.

Quiz questions by Sirian
(Edited by Sirian and Charis)