GC Game Guide

Marauder:
1. Plundering Marauder: Plunder is good. High housing is needed. You can rack up billions in just a few C.2`s. It requires a lot of battling skills to survive though.
2. Agriculture Marauder: There is also agriculture Marauder. They make good money actually; a bit more than plundering Marauder I have to say. All you have to do is research Agriculture, and try to get a U.Fertile. You will find one eventually. But for the time being, just cluster a few planets and use it until you go out of DP, and then plunder it all. Base pr is high with Agriculture Marauder as well.



Viral:
1. Commercial Viral: As Viral, the best way is to go is Commercial. You can do Tax, but its not worth it.
2. Tax Viral: Same as any other tax race, plus there is a major bonus to tax gathered. Only problem is food consumption is insanely high.

EXPLORING
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To explore you should build scouts and explore with them. There`s not much to it really. The thing to keep in mind if you are below newbie protection, going above 5k pr will make you vulnerable to attack. It is best to explore while under damage protection so you do not get attacked and lose planets.

The more scouts you have, the better your scanning power will be. Finding planets becomes increasingly difficult as your planet count grows, and by the time you have 50 or so planets, exploring becomes too dificult. Near 80 planets exploring is nearly impossible. One has to fight for planets when they have high planet count.

CLUSTERING/USING U. CLASS
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As you progress through the game, you will begin to need higher income to support bigger pr fleets. As useful as infrastructure research is, it will not sustain you by itself if you do not have enough planets. Planets are good for money and good for federation ranking.

To cluster, you`ll need to finish your cluster project research first. Once completed, you can use your cluster ability by going to "Projects" near the left side of the screen and then selecting "Colony Upgrade" from the menu. If you have 5 planets, then you can select to make a cluster level 1, or c.1 for short. To make a cluster level 2 (c.2) you need to have 5 c.1`s. Then you go to projects to use colony upgrade like you did with the c.1`s. Cluster level 2`s will have 25 planets and level 3 has 125 planets.

To cluster as viral and collective is different. They have to infect colonies to use them. A single infected viral planet is called a Tainted C.1. For Collective it is a Similare C.1.

To make a cluster, virals and collectives both need 4 planets instead of 5. A Tainted or Similare C.2 is 4 planets, a c.3 is 16 planets, and a c.4 is 64 planets.

Virals and collectives may also infect clusters that they take from other races. These are called Infected Clusters/Assimilated Clusters. These consist of 5 planets, 25, or even 125 planets depending on how big the cluster is when taken. Infected and Assimilated clusters can be clustered with more of their respective types when the player has 5 of such clusters and wishes to make a bigger one. Be advised that it is best to unassign agriculture and industry before infecting clusters as you will be unable to unassign existing agriculture and industry buildings following infection.

U. class are very useful planets. Terran can use u. large to build lots of commercial on and guardians can use u. large for housing. U. fertile is really good for collective as it is awesome for agriculture. The problem with u. class is that virals can`t use them. They can only use u. spazial to dig on because digging doesn`t require infecting. With u. class you can`t cluster, but it`s usually worth it to keep them.


U. Larges- Anywhere from 5k-10k+ land. If you are paid account you have better chance of finding big planets. Terrans and guardians benefit most from this. Marauder can make a lot of money plundering them as well though.

U. Fertile- Yields very high food rates. Build agriculture on it and sell food on market or just feed your population with it. Marauders can grow food on a U. Fertile and sell the food to the market if they are agriculture marauder and not a plunder marauder. Other races can keep one to feed population, but it isn`t as important to have one as it is for agriculture marauders.

U. Spazial- Best planet for digging. Look for one with 2 land, the less land, the better results will be.

U. Eden- Bonus to population growth. Used by guards or other players that make money from tax. Marauders can plunder these for tons of cash.

U. Rich- Loaded with ore, downside is really low land count. Not worth the time unless you are an aspha miner.

STACKING BASICS
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In order to understand battling, you`ll need to know how what stacks are and how they work.
Stacks are groups of ships that occupy a spot in your fleet. They are the different types of ships you use to fight.

For example, you cannot have two groups of the same type of ship in one fleet. You will never see a stack of 100 C. Taurus Destroyers on top of another stack of 100 C. Taurus Destroyers. It will simply be grouped as 200 C. Taurus Destroyers.

FLEET BASICS
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Stacks are arranged in a fleet according to the total pr of each individual stack. The highest pr stacks will always go on top, so the list of stacks will be arranged highest total pr stacks to lowest total pr stack, from top to bottom.


The maximum amoung of stacks that go into battle is 10. You can have more than 10 stacks of ships in a fleet, but only the top 10 highest pr stacks go into battle.

BATTLE BASICS
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The first thing to know about battles is that each stack is paired up with the corresponding stack from the enemy`s fleet.

For example: Your first stack fight your opponent`s first stack, your second stack fights your opponent`s second stack, and so on.

If you only have 1 stack and the enemy has 10 stacks, his first stack will engage your first stack and then the rest of his stacks will all attack your first stack at the same time. This usually results in the person with more stacks winning. In case you didn`t figure that out.

During the second round of battle, the remaining stacks of ships will be rearranged according to their order of the remaining stacks surviving from the initial round, opposed to order based on pr like in the first round.

Range is an important factor in battles as well. The stack with the most range will attack first. If the stacks that are paired up have the same range, the defending stack will fire first.

Hull is another important aspect. Hull is the total damage capacity an individual unit is able to sustain before being destroyed.

Round 1
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Stack 1 of the defender fights with the stack 1 of the attacker and so all the way down to the last.
The range determines what stacks shoots first, if the range is equal the defender shoots first.
If say the defender has 6 stacks of ships and the attacker 10, the last 4 stacks will shoot at a random remaining stack of the defender`s.


Round 2
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Now the remaining stacks will oppose each other again and now the order of the stacks is NOT determined by the total pr, but by the lowest stack number remaining: (1=low 10=high)

Example:
From the defender stack 2, 5 and 6 are left, they will become stack 1(2-->1), 2(5-->2) and 3(6-->3)

From the defender stack 1,2,5,7,8,10 are left, they will become stack 1(1 stays 1), 2(2 stays 2), 3(5-->3), 4(7-->4), 5(8-->5) and 6(10-->6)

Here again when a stack will face no direct opposing stack they will shoot at one of the random remaining stacks

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It is also important to note, however, that some ships have unique abilities. Such abilities are the Capture Ship ability, Attack Without Receiving Damage ability, and Cannot Defend Against Attacks ability.


Capture Ship Ability- Associated with the collective and viral race, some of their ships have the ability to capture ships from the enemy and use them against them in battle. Both races can keep the ships after battle sometimes, but only if they are not neutral or guardian ships. It is also important to note that capturing ships during battle is how virals reverse engineer.

Attack Without Taking Damage- Many ships such as certain marauder vessels have this trait. When attacking they receive no damage from the enemy under certain circumstances.

Cannot Defend Against Attacks- Under certain circumstances, a ship with this might be screwed. But I honestly don`t believe this or the previous trait effect battle much, so don`t worry.

BATTLE OUTCOME
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The outcome of a battle is decided by the amount of pr lost during battle. The one who loses the most pr will lose the battle and the one who loses the least wins. The only exception is if the defender loses all the ships in his fleet. If the defender has no surviving ships of the 10 stacks that went into battle, then the attacker wins regardless of pr lost.

NEWBIE PROTECTION/DAMAGE PROTECTION
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Newbie protection applies as long as an empire has below 5,000 pr. If total pr goes above 5000, newbie protection is lifted and the player is open to attack.

Damage protection (aka dp) is given to empires who sustain 40% or higher fleet casualties. 1 or more planets may be take before dp is given, but it cannot exceed 4 colonies at any time, although 3 is usually the maximum amount of colonies one can lose before receiving dp. Note that one can receive dp after winning a battle, as long as 40% of their fleet is destroyed while defending and only while defending.

Damage protection is lifted if the empire`s dp time limit runs out or if he builds offensive ships while in dp. Scouts and starbases will not take you out of dp. Attacking from dp will also take you out of dp.

FLEET ATTITUDES
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When attacking there are various different manners in which one can set their fleet to attack with. For most races there are only 3 methods of attack. For terran and aspha miner there are 4.

The attack I will cover first is enslaving. To enslave an empire, your attack most destroy 60% or more of their fleet. Beware that if the empire is already a slave, the master may send reinforcements.Note that you can only enslave terrans and aspha miners.


Normal Attack- Normal attack is just a normal attack... Go figure...

*** Use of Attack Stances ***

By using the 3 different attack stances in the most effective way, you can largely increase your chance of winning a battle; and it is the best advantage of hitting another empire

Careful
-50% Attacker efficiency
-50% Defender efficiency

Normal
-5% Attacker efficiency
Normal Defender efficiency

Aggressive
+75% Attacker efficiency
+99% Defender efficiency

These are the percentage differences between each of the 3 attack types. As you will see, the more offensive your attack is, the greater the advantage the defender will have. So attacking aggressively is a greater risk, but can also give you a greater reward when used correctly.

*** Aggressive Attack stance ***

The aggressive attack stance should only be used with high range ships such as thor, queens, etc.

The reason for this is that you need to use the +75% bonus to the best effect and kill as many opposing ships on the first wave of attack, before your opponent's ships can attack.

The biggest risk about doing this, is that although high range ships are extremely effective against some ships they, are also terrible against others.

E.g. queen on aggressive is great against most capital ships such as herc, tyr, nirv, angel, pyth, and k. hun xe, but if it comes up against pike, borrelly, Chiron, etc, it will die without doing any damage at all. This makes the placement of each individual ship important and means that the use of aggressive should be confined to stacking only, unless you know the opponents stack or spam already.

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*** Stacks 1 - 2

In the top 2 stacks I would recommend that your ships have a range of no less than 8. Anymore than that is great and will generally ensure you get first hit. You are also more likely to kill more pr in your enemy's top two stacks than you will lose in your top two stacks.

*** Stacks 3-4

Again 8 range is preferable; especially this high up. Also, the no retal trait is essential. You should try to get quite a few different types of ships to cover weaknesses in the top four stacks, as by not doing so could cost badly, maybe even lose the battle for you.

*** Stacks 5-7

A range of 7 can be acceptable, although it is still very risky this far down.

*** Careful Stance ***



Careful Stance gives you an even percentage to start with although both you and your opponent are 50% weaker.

Careful stance is best used with high hull ships; these generally have a low range of 6 or possibly below but can be extremely hard to kill on careful. Careful is the stance most likely to be used by someone that is spamming, as spammers are most likely to use the big capital ships that build fast.

It is still possible to use careful with a stack, although you will want to use as many high hull ships as possible and possibly include some neutral ships. Make sure to never use high range and attack ships. Anything that has more attack than hull cannot be effectively used on careful and is likely to cost you the battle.

As all of the ships you should be using are high hull, there is no real need to give you information on different stacks. You should still attempt to use as many no retal ships as possible in this stack.

Often times you will not win more than 1 colony and almost never win more than 2 unless you are counter attacking.

Ships to never use on careful:

p. class
strafez, except fodder
emerald

COUNTER ATTACKS
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If someone attacks you, you can attack them back from any pr difference. This is sort of like a revenge system, if you will. An eye for an eye, so to speak. If your enemy attacks you and the is later sitting at 5001 pr. You can attack from 50,000,000 pr if you wanted, because counter attack (aka retaliation) has no restrictions. You can also choose to counter on careful, normal, or aggressive. You may not use counters to enslave though.

Be mindful of the fact that counters do expire about a week after you receive them. So make sure to use them within a week of being attacked.

WEAPONS/SHIELDS
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I highly suggest looking at the ship list to get an idea of ship weaknesses and strengths. It will familiarize you with the various ships used in the game and you may start to see certain patterns in ship weaknesses and strengths for race and neutral ships.

Example #1: You will notice that many of the commonly used guardian ships such as ruby corvette and tourmaline fighter are weak toward missle attacks.

Example #2: You may also notice that strafez is weak against kinetic and energy damage, but incredibly strong against missle damage.


ECM is resistance against missle weapons.

Absorption Shield is resistance against kinetic damage.

Ionized Hull is resistance against chemical damage.

Energy Shield is resistance to energy weapons.