Can anyone offer some guidance to a rookie?

[LostAlone]

Hey guys

I've been waiting for a worthy successor to SMAC to show up for forever so I figured I'd give Pandora a go and I really do want to like it, but I just can't get into the game at all. It's a product of a bunch of different pressures being put on me at the same time (food, pollution, morale, expansion, research, scouting, terraforming, defense) and it feels like if I take a wrong step on any of these at any point in the first few years then I'll just get completely crushed. It doesn't seem to matter what I do, what approach I take to research or the economy or whatever, within less than half an hour I'll get attacked by a vastly superior AI opponent that I have no chance of defeating.

Initially I liked the idea of having all of these parallel weapon techs that were only good against one specific thing, but I've quickly found that it means I'm never really sure if the units I'm building are actually going to be useful or not. I've never been able to put up more than token resistance at all, even when I pushed for useful military techs and ensuring I have the best units available to me. Very quickly the AI gets one or more military techs ahead and beats the snot out of me because I took my foot off the gas for eight turns to build a space-granary. The AI, even when set to very easy and very non-aggressive, manages to be ahead of me in every possible area. They've somehow managed to build more cities than me, with more population, while getting higher tech, and producing more military stuff.

It just feels like I'm missing something hugely important, that I can't play like SMAC at all - Especially with the default world size where starting locations are jammed in really tight next to each other so the time you have to quietly expand by yourself is nearly zero.

Can anyone advise me on how to at least get to a point where I feel like I'm playing the game instead of banging my head against the wall? How does the AI get so quickly ahead of me?

[MooseUpNorth]

Short answer: You _have_ to have an army scary enough on paper to make them leave you alone by the time they discover you. It doesn't matter if it's tank chassis, ships, airplanes or mechs. You have to have two or three of any of those to make them think "maybe I'll just move on, find someone squishier to pick on." They don't have to have armor, they don't have to have weapons yet, but you need a few chassis on the ground to give them pause.

If they start offering you tribute without you asking for it, you're there.

The good news is that this level of intimidation generally isn't very hard to accomplish. The bad news is that this won't be enough to entirely deal with the wildlife swarms, and won't be enough to deal with... later events. Don't get complacent. You have to keep your army formidable while getting your economy in order. But defense is absolutely top priority.

[dmantione]

If you want to be left alone, you can select a larger map to increase the distance to your opponents. If the aliens are too annoying, try playing with Terra Salvum. Neiter of these are structural solutions though that allow you to win.

Pandora has very different mechanics than SMAC. Where with SMAC you need to build as many cities as possible after colonisation, with Pandora it is a bit different:

• The growth of you population is independent of the number of cities. It is limited by habitat. As long as you have plenty of habitat left, building additional cities won't help much.
• Growth is affected by specialized buildings and morale

Therefore you only want to construct a few cities at the start of the game. As you only need to build a few initially, take a close look where you build them... the goal is not to claim all the terrain, but to make these cities prosper. Therefore closely look at terrain bonusses and make all your initial cities benefit from a terrain bonus. Also you must specialize them: Make you colonists farmers in cities with food bonusses, scientists in cities with Messari observatories, and miners in cities with mineral bonusses.

It is a quite a change of thinking compared to SMAC. But if you do this, you will get an economy that allows you to take on your competitors in the early game. Having the economy in place you should be able to work on your army early on in the game, which is rather important in Pandora. It doesn't have to be big, a few soldiers and ATV's will prevent your opponents from declaring war.

[Zak0r]

Start with boosting your economy. The aliens are not attacking you right away. Research the refinery, colony ship dismantling and fertilizer early and build this. If you have an AI near build some infantry for defense and display of power (as mentioned above). On a big map with low alien aggression build infantry early to search for ruins and gather as much bonuses as you can. Then either aim for infantry with flamethrowers and titan armor or even better tanks with steel or titan armor and start killing the surrounding hives. Use terrain and flanking bonuses (infantry is best on forest or mountains, worst on plains / tanks and other mechanical land units the other way around). The captured credits will further boost your economy. Expand when your biggest city gets near the habitat cap and you cant build anything to increase it.

[Apheirox]

Actually, OP, you should consider yourself lucky that you aren't skilled enough that the AI doesn't pose a challenge to you at all. Enjoy while it lasts!

It's impossible to tell you how to improve based on your post - the great differences between the factions and map conditions make it totally impossible to offer any 'general' information (which is the beauty of 4X games!). If you upload a YouTube vid of some of your play we might have something to analyze - it sounds like if you're being beaten by the Easy AI there is something significant to improve but one can't tell what that might be without actually seeing your play! As it stands, all that can really be said is that winning Pandora is about intelligently analyzing what will grow your economy the fastest, which in large part comes down to experience.

The one piece of 'hugely important' general advice I can offer is this: Always make sure to maximize your mineral production. Minerals are almost always the single biggest brake on how fast you can grow. Settling near mountains and bonus mineral resources early in the game will make things tremendously easier than if you have mostly flat lands. You could try re-rolling a few maps until you get a mountain-heavy start.

[MattyLatty]

I understand your frustration. This game can be absolutely overwhelming. You stated that you feel that there's way too many tasks to be focused on at one time.

If you're getting overwhelmed with enemy factions, during the learning phase of the game, use a bigger map with HIGHER than average alien aggression. The enemy factions will have their hands full while you can focus on growth of your base. Plus bigger maps allow you more time to build. If going this route, you can focus on two technologies first: flamethrower to defend against aliens, and xenology to decrease alien aggression.

Grow your citie's population! 2 big cities are usually better than 10 small cities. Specialize those cities depending on what special tiles are available.

There's lots to write. I'll have a video tutorial soon.

[lifehole]

I understand your frustration. This game can be absolutely overwhelming. You stated that you feel that there's way too many tasks to be focused on at one time.

If you're getting overwhelmed with enemy factions, during the learning phase of the game, use a bigger map with HIGHER than average alien aggression. The enemy factions will have their hands full while you can focus on growth of your base. Plus bigger maps allow you more time to build. If going this route, you can focus on two technologies first: flamethrower to defend against aliens, and xenology to decrease alien aggression.

Grow your citie's population! 2 big cities are usually better than 10 small cities. Specialize those cities depending on what special tiles are available.

There's lots to write. I'll have a video tutorial soon.

Do it!

[MattyLatty]

I am First video should be done about 2 days from now, addressing the most fundamental questions people have. You have also asked some very important questions that I know has to be addressed.