Tim's Galaxy Tips and Tricks

Written by Tim Hughes

Game Phases

Initial Expansion

The young Galaxy when all worlds except homeworlds are empty is usually characterised by very rapid expansion and claiming of territory. There are three common strategies

1. Rapid colonisation and exploitation of all local worlds.
2. Colonisation of a small number of worlds which are very rapidly developed.
3. Construction of a fleet and assaulting a neighbouring race.

Local Conflicts

As the number of empty worlds diminishes the pressures between empires rise and local conflicts break out. A number of races will not survive.

Middle Game

The larger empires begin to form as do important alliances and power structures. Technology will usually start to rise as will the size of fleets.

The End Game

Eventually either one player or an alliance of players will gain sufficient momentum to overcome all others.

Basic Skills

Order Processing and Turn Evaluation

The order of phases within a Galaxy turn is as follows:-

• Orders are read and processed
  • Ships are unloaded, loaded, upgraded, scrapped and move into hyperspace
  • renaming occurs
• Ships not in hyperspace fight battles
• Bombing by surviving units
• Ships move through hyperspace
• Battles between new arrivals and ships in situ
• Bombing by surviving units
• Production of ships, CAP and MAT
• Production of technology.

Points of particular note are:-

• Orders are processed in the sequence in which they are received.
• There are potentially two battles at each planet each turn. One between units which are not ordered to move and the second between units which move and surviving stationary units.
• Upgrading occurs before the first battle
• Production of new ships occurs after the second battle, i.e. ships don't fight in the turn on which they are produced.
• Ships are produced before increases in technology occur.

Controlling ship groups

Issuing Multiple Orders to a Group of Transports

For beginners the most tricky problem encountered in Galaxy ship control is how to split groups and control the fragments. Consider the player with a group of 10 transports (number 123) who wishes to load 3 with COL and send them to A, load 4 with CAP and send them to B and upgrade the rest. The important guiding principles to remember are:-

• Ship groups are homogenous i.e. identical in all respects including tech levels, type of cargo, quantity of cargo carried and location.
• Any order which changes part of group (including its location) will make a new group from the changed part. The unchanged part retains its old group number.
• New groups formed in this manner can be referenced by the use of MAX up until the point where another order forms a new group.

So in the example the player would issue the following orders:-

• // Load 3 transports with COL
• L 123 COL 3
• // Send new group of 3 to A
• S MAX A
• // Load 4 transports with CAP
• L 123 CAP 4
• // Send new group of 4 to B
• S MAX B
• // Upgrade remaining ships
• G 123

Moving and Fighting

Units which are ordered to move do not fight in any battles at their world of origin. They are deemed to enter hyperspace before the initial combat phase

Routes and Autounload

Routes are very useful for keeping ones empire running smoothly, especially when it gets large. However, routes are also useful in the initial phase when rapid colonisation of worlds and efficient use of transports is required. There are several points worth noting about routes:-

• Routes set to unoccupied worlds will force your ships to unload when they arrive. This will gain one turn's growth.
• If one route for a commodity is set to a planet then all of your ships carrying that commodity will unload upon arrival regardless of their origin.
• Ships can be upgraded and then embark upon a route.

Dormant positions

It is an unfortunate fact of Galaxy life that some players will give up part way through a game. Some players never get started, others give up after a few turns and some give up when the going gets tough. These positions can be a goldmine particularly when they are poorly defended.

Ship Design

Scouts

The classic unarmed scout design is:-

Drone 1 0 0 0 0

Which is both cheap and the fastest design you can build.

Transports

The different type of transport which are commonly used are

• Small and cheap. Basic design is 1 0 0 0 1 or X 0 0 0 1 (where X is adjusted for speed)
• Medium transports e.g. 14 0 0 0 10
• Large bulk transports.e.g. 70 0 0 0 29.
• Armed transports e.g. 6 1 2 2 10
• Battleships with 1 cargo capacity.

Warships

Battle Mechanics

A good way to understand the mix of designs present in a balanced fleet is to consider the possible phases of a Galaxy battle:-

• Flak clearance. Lightly screened units are culled and a few key exchanges between main battle units occur.
• Core battle. With flak removed the key exchanges progress rapidly
• Final exchanges. The last persistent heavily screened units of the loser are destroyed

Of course, some battles result in stalemate after the Flak Clearance phase, especially if lightly gunned and heavily screened raiders are involved. In other cases the key exchanges occur early resulting in a one phase Flak Clearance battle. Border skirmishes in the early game often consists only of a Core Battle where two or three units on each side just slug it out.

Battles are not symmetrical in their phases. The aim in Galaxy fleet design and deployment is to progress to the Core Battle and Final Exchanges as rapidly as possible whilst restricting the enemy to the Flak Clearance phase.

Ship Calculations

The single most important calculation for warships is the effective strength of their shields. This is not stated explicitly in the Galaxy Rules. Rather it stems from rearrangement of the p[Kill] equation.

Effective Shield Strength =

(ShieldMass * ShieldTech * BattleMagic) / CubeRoot(ShipMass)

where BattleMagic = CubeRoot(30) = 3.107232505954

As a guideline here are some typical ship masses and the effective shields strengths by the percentage of ships mass devoted to shields.

The important things to note here are the 100% shield levels for the mass 99 and 198 ships (you could also calculate 297 and 396) these give an idea of the size of weapons needed to guard against being outgunned by a very heavily shielded enemy ship.

Flak

The mechanics of Galaxy combat are simple. The random allocation of targets means that fleets can benefit from the presence of expendable screening units. Consider two fleets with a small warship each. If one side adds, say 10, flak units its chances of victory are vastly enhanced. The cheapest flak is the "1 0 0 0 0", however this is easily destroyed and in the long term is not much good. More useful is 1 0 0 1 0 or any variation X 0 0 Y 0 (where X and Y are adjusted to give an appropriate mix of speed and shield strength). As the game progresses you will need a ready supply of hundreds of units of flak supporting your main battle fleets.

Battle Ships

A classification of the units typically used in Galaxy as follows:-

• Primary guns - weapon mass >= 25. The role of primary guns is to prevent the fleet from being outgunned by heavily shielded enemy units. They are important in the Core Battle and especially in the Final Exchanges when they may be the only units capable of finishing the enemy.
• Secondary guns - 5 <= weapon mass < 25. The core of the fleet, whose role is to quickly clear away all but the most heavily shielded units. Multi-Secondary gun units can be very effective against a lightly screened enemy force. Secondary guns operate in the Core Battle and, if mutli-gunned, the flak clearance phase.
• Tertiary guns - weapon mass < 5. The workhorses of the fleet, usually multi-tertiary gunned warships (40+ attacks) are used as anti-flak vessels. Deploying sufficient tertiary guns to deal with enemy flak is the key to lowering casualty rates.

Primary Guns

Primary guns are typically mounted on large warships of mass 99 or greater. Some typical designs are:-

Staff        33.0000 1 33.0000 33.0000 0.0000
Defender30S  25.0000 1 30.0700 44.9300 0.0000
Squid        33.0000 2 30.0000 21.0000 0.0000
C236         40.0000 1 36.0000 32.0000 0.0000
White_Knight 30.0000 1 30.0000 39.0000 0.0000
Base72        0.0000 1 35.0000 32.7000 0.0000
HomeDef       0.0000 1 50.0000 49.0000 0.0000

Secondary Guns

Secondary guns can be singly mounted on small ships or heavily shielded or fast large ships. Multiple secondary armaments are common on larger ships. Some typical designs are:-

Basilisk  42.0000 3 16.0000 25.0000 0.0000
BC1       30.0000 3 15.0000 30.0000 0.0000
Rhino     30.0000 3 15.0000 30.0000 0.0000
Swift     55.0000 2 15.0000 21.5000 0.0000
Sabre     34.0000 1 15.0000 50.0000 0.0000
Octopus   33.0000 9 10.0000 16.0000 0.0000
Dix       33.0000 7 10.0000 26.0000 0.0000
6Shooter  33.0000 6 10.0000 31.0000 0.0000
Charger   44.0000 2 10.0000 40.0000 0.0000
Guardian   0.0000 3  9.0000 81.0000 0.0000
Epee      20.0000 4  8.0000 21.0000 0.0000
Raider    14.0000 1  8.0000 11.0000 0.0000
Gboat      2.0000 1  7.0000  4.4600 0.0000
HCM5      16.5000 2  5.6000  8.0000 0.0000
Wolf       5.0000 2  5.0000  5.0000 0.0000
Gun2       5.0000 1  5.0000  6.5000 0.0000

Tertiary Guns

Tertiary guns can be mounted on very small ship or flak. There most common occurrence is on larger ships in very large multiple installations. Some typical designs are:-

H1B1            0.0000 137 1.0000 30.0000 0.0000
Pepper2        33.0000  89 1.0000 21.0000 0.0000
Wiper          33.0000  79 1.0000 26.0000 0.0000
Swatter        33.0000  65 1.0000 33.0000 0.0000
Router         44.0000  33 1.0000 38.0000 0.0000
Gunship25x1-6S  6.3600  25 1.0000  5.6800 0.0000
Incisor         3.0000   1 1.0000  1.0000 0.0000
Speck           0.0000   1 1.0000  0.0000 0.0000
Flek            1.0000   1 1.0000  0.0000 0.0000
Cleaner        33.0000  53 1.5000 25.5000 0.0000
H1B2            0.0000  68 2.0000 30.0000 0.0000
H2M3b          60.0000  59 3.0000 50.0000 0.0000
Battle2        33.0000  21 3.0000 33.0000 0.0000
Attack1        21.0000   1 3.0000  9.0000 0.0000
Scout           5.0000   1 3.0000  6.0000 0.0000
Nipper          2.0000   1 1.3000  1.6000 0.0000

Raiders and Specials

From time to time peculiar situations arise which can be exploited using special ship designs. Differences in technology frequently play an important part in the design of specials. Here are some special situations and the designs used to exploit them:-

• Undergunned Home Defences. The enemy has built orbital stations with massive shields but small main weapons. A close forward base is available. The aim is to wreck the enemy's home industry whilst launching attacks on other fronts.

Guardian 0 3 9 81 0

Swift 20.5 1 1 28 0

• Long Range Colonisation. A dormant position some distance from you core worlds is being cleared in the middle game and you need to establish colonies quickly to deter any interference from neighbouring empires.

Pack 4.1 0 0 0 1

• Long Range Strike. The enemy is in a corner location and has concentrated his fleets on the outer perimeter of his empire. The rear areas containing 40% of the enemy's population and industry are very lightly defended. A forward base within 90 light years of these worlds is available as is high DRIVE technology. The aim is to bomb the enemy worlds and destroy the defending units.

Sting 15.5 1 1 3 0

Strategy

Total War

Galaxy is a game of total war. In order to defeat all of its opponents an empire will need to carefully marshall all of its resources. Broadly there are three skills on which an empire must concentrate:-

• Diplomacy - an empire must carefully choose when to fight and with whom
• Logistics - an empire must have adequate resources in place to support its fleets and to replace combat losses
• Combat - an empire must understand how to build and deploy ships to defeat its enemies

Diplomacy

The most basic point is that you should talk to your neighbours, near and far. It is exceptionally difficult to fight successfully more than one opponent at once. An empire's diplomacy must be aimed at:-

• Gauging the experience of its enemies. You need to identify those with the weakest strategy and defences.
• Gauging the objectives of its enemies. Think how they can be channelled to help your strategy.
• Forging alliances against dangerous enemies.
• Moving any combat zones away from your empire's territory. You need to move the fight onto an enemies patch if at all possible.
• Gathering intelligence. Even disinformation received will inform you about the trustworthiness of potential allies.
• Avoiding senseless aggression. Other empires should only be attacked or provoked when it serves your overall strategy.

Logistics

An empire must develop an adequate industrial base where fleets can be constructed and technology researched. In general an empire with greater industry will eventually overcome its enemy, assuming that its military deployment is not rash. The balance between fleet construction and technology research is delicate  The benefits of technology can be summarised as follows:-

• Drive - fleets move faster and hence the options available for attack and defence increase. In particular, once drive tech reaches 2 or more, fleets can be built which can span the distances between homeworlds in a single turn. Also increased drive tech helps the distribution of cargo throughout an empire. (Drive technology is my own personal top priority for research).
• Weapon - more efficient weapons increase a fleet's firepower. A greater weapon tech than the enemy's shield tech means that an empire's secondary guns will be able to destroy enemy warships. In extreme situations larger tertiary guns may become powerful enough to have a small chance of destroying large enemy units.
• Shield - more efficient shields offers an empire the choice of making warships which are difficult to destroy using all but the largest primary guns or warships with a lower percentage of their mass devoted to shields and hence more to drives or weapon. Only in extreme circumstances is shield tech the route to immune warships.
• Cargo - more efficient transport of goods throughout ones empire. A large industrial base is the key to long term success and larger capacity transports aid the development process. A small number of more experienced players assign cargo technology research top priority. (I am not among them)

In developing an empire's industrial base it is necessary:-

• to build transports to move COL to new worlds
• to build CAP and transport it to key industrial worlds.

Combat

An empire will need balanced fleets able to deal with both the immediate threats and new situations which may develop. It can be helpful to identify key worlds in a region. Key worlds are those usually with high economic value which also afford good staging positions from which fleets can reach a variety of nearby worlds.

In general a smaller empire must consider attacking a larger belligerent neighbour on his own territory. Lightly defended worlds, if they exist, must be destroyed or at least harassed. Larger empires are faced with a greater area to defend and it is sometimes possible that they have overextended their resources. It is necessary to try to reduce their industrial base as they will surely destroy you if allowed to develop their empire to its full potential undisturbed.

Raiding can be an effective strategy. Raiding can either use specialist ships or perhaps a small fleet of five or six battleships plus flak. Raiding forces should move quickly from world to world destroying what they can before they are trapped into a pitched battle. A heavy raiding force can be used to divert enemy resources ahead of or in combination with a major offensive.