Race guides: strategy tips by race
A collection of things to do and not do, from the school of hard knocks. Covering:
- Races' special powers and how to use them
- Startup strategies
- How to use a race's special devices
- How to outfit your ships with optimum weaponry
- Tactics usable against each race, if you find yourself fighting them!
I began writing race guides because at first, there were no others available. Since then, loads of people have contributed ones of their own - it's easier than maintaining their own website - I am delighted to receive this great free content for the website! Occasionally we update the guides, because the writers discover new strategies, or advice needs to be changed due to Host changes. Recently changed documents are noted in red text below.
If anyone wants to send me other "How To Play" guides they've written I'm happy to post them here, or link to them.
See also: Saarland
Outpost has a new database for races and, particularly, race guides here.
What race should I play?
Keep in mind, that an excellent player using the weakest race in your game setup can beat the very poor player using the strongest race in that setup. With that in mind, play the race you will have the most fun with.| Race |
Advised
minimum player ability level |
Preferred
map type |
Preferred
Native setting |
Preferred
Mineral setting |
Strength
* |
TBD |
Comments |
| Federation |
Beginner |
Small - average |
Any |
Any |
Medium |
Good economy. Tough ships. |
|
| Lizards |
Beginner |
Any |
Any |
Not "low mineral" |
Strong |
Good for aggressive players |
|
| Birds |
Intermediate |
Any |
Any |
Any |
Medium - strong |
Cloakers |
|
| Stormers |
Beginner |
Good on compact maps, but OK in
any |
Medium or rich |
Any |
Medium |
Aggressive. Strong in early game. Rarely win. |
|
| Privateers |
Expert |
Large |
Medium or rich |
Low (don't need many) |
Medium |
Parasitical cloakers. Not strong
in combat. |
|
| Borg |
Intermediate |
Medium to large, need to develop
in peace at first |
Rich |
Any |
Medium - strong |
Fast growth if they can
assimilate natives. Very weak on small maps. Rarely win, probably as they are most popular with beginners. |
|
| Crystals |
Intermediate |
Any |
Any |
Any |
Strong |
Slow starters. Suit boring players. Fast breeders, thus wealthy, and often win VP based games. |
|
| Evil Empire |
Intermediate |
Large |
Any |
Rich |
Weak |
Hyperjumpers. Need to attack
others early for slaves, or they die. Popular, but rarely win. |
|
| Robots |
Beginner |
Any (v. good in Small), but
prefer dense |
Medium or rich |
Rich |
Medium |
Slow but implacable expansion. Lots of cash. Dense galaxies permit overlapping Gun Zero and Bug Hive effects. Often win. |
|
| Rebels |
Beginner |
Large |
Rich |
Any |
Very strong |
Long range fighter wings! |
|
| Lost Colonies ("CoM") |
Beginner |
Medium to large |
Any |
Any |
Medium |
Start with one ship of each type
(including a Virgo on fire) in lieu of a base. |
|
| Confederates |
Not
yet released |
||||||
| Earthers |
Not
yet released |
||||||
| Peoples' Army |
Expert |
Rich |
Any |
Weak |
Complex ship list; many of the
ships competely useless. Highly vulnerable to boarding. |
||
| University Alliance |
Beginner |
Any |
Weak |
Elegantly simple |
|||
| Draconians |
Beginner (but see Comments) |
Poor |
Very weak |
Theoretically stronger in very poor
universes (due to extra income from gov centres). Whilst simple to play, no one's ever won with them. |
|||
| Enforcers ("UEA") |
Beginner |
Large |
Medium to rich |
Any |
Medium - strong |
Fast raiders. Good vs. hyp-races
and cloakers. Good beginners' race, becoming popular. |
|
| Scavengers |
Intermediate |
Medium or rich |
Low |
Strong |
Lots of weak ships which form strong
swarms. Fast breeders --> good economy, often win VP based games. |
||
| Coalition ("RCS") |
Expert |
Any |
Medium |
Complex. |
|||
| Aczanny |
Intermediate |
Low |
Rich |
Weak - medium |
Very fast light ships. |
||
| Solarians |
Expert |
Any size, but prefer dense for better refuelling |
Low |
Low, especially fuel |
Strong |
Strong race, high population, often win, especially VP based games. Different fuel rules, generate their own from stars; need to monitor it like a hawk |
|
| Arborians |
Not
yet released |
||||||
| IMT |
Beginner |
Any |
Low or
medium |
Any |
Medium |
Strongest in mid game; require hull trades to survive |
|
| Braphat |
Beginner |
Not
yet released |
|||||
| Mivorari |
Not
yet released |
||||||
| Shadow |
Not
yet released |
||||||
| Centaurs |
Expert |
Large |
Lots of amorphs |
Medium + |
Very variable |
High Lerchin price
--> rich Centaurs |
* Strength is a subjective judgement based on a newsgroup poll, and Scytale's analysis of which races win most often
Related information: Michael Richardson has created an easy-lookup table of devices belonging to each race. I find this useful as a quick reference to figure out what abilities my enemies have.
Standard 'Tim' Races
- Federation, a straightforward race suitable for beginners. Primarly weapons-based race with no cloakers, versatile fleets, tend to destroy enemy bases from the safety of orbit because their ground troops are complete pants. Feds have the Loki hull, which makes them almost immune to Cloaking predators. See also: Tim Wisseman's guide to playing the Feds.
- Lizard, big green scaly aggressive carnivores with combat advantages. Love to land their rock-hard troops on enemy planets from cloakers. The Lizard ship design plan is weak shields and heavy armour. The Lizards are most likely the best race to use to counter the Stormers. See also Lordfire's Lizard guide (currently the most up to date, October 2003; click on 'special' and then 'My VGAP Lizards Guide') and: Tim Wisseman's guide to playing the Lizards. Lizard ships' armour is particularly resilient to damage and Exotic Techs aren't much use against it, so they're tough in combat. Not a subtle race, fun to play, suitable for players who don't have time to micromanage large fleets of ships requiring individual attention to use special racial powers.
- Morgath's Bird guide, (a Word document). Birds are a powerful, sneaky, cloaking race. See also these older documents: Mark Heinrich's Bird guide; (an HTML document), written in Sept 2002, and Tim Wisseman's guide to playing the Birds.
- Stormer, aggressive cloaking weapons-based types allegedly based on the Klingons. Good at ground combat, and capturing ships by sneakily transporting crew from cloakers onto unsuspecting vessels. Their apparently medium-looking ships have huge attack bonuses which make them much harder than they look, compensated by low levels of sheld and armour so they blow up as sonn as hit. Good for aggressive players who don't mind losing ships. Not good against Lizards. Updated January 2001. See also: Tim Wisseman's guide to playing the Stormers.
- Privateers, parasites. A How-To-Play them guide by Michael Mc Farland [a Word document]. See also: some comments by Drew Sullivan . Alternatively, if like me you despise the Scum, read my HTML "how to kill them " guide, not a "how to play them". You can find another "how to play them" guide on Tim's site.
- Borg, one of the most feared and hated races. Every game should have a Borg 8) This page contains detailed notes on the tricky subject of How To Chunnel. Check out, also, Jon Nunn's Borg guide .This is much more concise than mine - and always bang up to date. Jon's Borg guide is mirrored at http://www.koogh.com/planets/borg/guide/ . See also: Tim Wisseman's guide to playing the Borg.
- Crystal, appeal more to defensive / patient / builder types. They are not a beginner's race and take a long time to play every turn. Masters of minelaying, their ships drop the feared Web mines, grav mines etc which can stop all attacks dead in their tracks. Naturally good at defense, when played offensively they are fearsome. Most of their are very weak in one-on-one combat, which is why they need to advance carefully behind minefields. They breed rapidly and have a prodigous economy. They CAN be beaten by bottling them up (they burn out) or by contraband attacks. See also: Tim Wisseman's own guide to the Crystals.
- Empire. Unfeasibly vast ships emerge in surprise attacks from hyperspace and disgorge teeming hordes of cheap fighters. Enemies are crushed under their boots and herded into money making prison camps by myriads of (free!) Battlebots. Very good at ground combat, Spying. Their ships are really expensive but they are generally good and every ship can hyperjump. In fact their ships are so over the top that Diplomat had to be rerwritten to permit such huge numbers of crew, ordnance etc! Not a beginner's race; they have many weaknesses too i.e. they cannot move ships faster than 50LY/turn with normal space drive. But great fun to play. See also: Tim Wisseman's own guide to the Empire.
- Robots, guide written by by Skies. Newer Robot guide, by Andreas Benne. Big carriers, at least one cheap fighter type, lots of minefields including the unique and deadly Nova mines. If they are allowed to build up unmolested for too long, they will probably win any game. Tim has written a guide for them too, on his site.
- Rebels guide by Kevin Jennings, updated August 2006, an RTF document (Rich Text Format - viewable in Word). Assassinator Steele has written another guide on Tim's site. The Rebels are a fighter race with plenty of cash. A good straightforward race for beginners. You might also be interested in this note about an anti-Rebel idea from Thriyon.
- Lost Colonies, written by Skies. This concise, excellently written document does not bother repeating the stuff in Tim's guide on his site, but instead covers advanced tactics and Stuff. The CoM specialise in big carriers, excellent fighters of which at least one type is cheap, many marginal advantages, but weak bases. They hardly need bases, being mainly space-based. If allowed to survive beyond turn 30 they have a huge economy.
Third Party Races
(ie, not created by Tm Wisseman)- Peoples' Army, a collection of natives who have decided to throw off the imperialist yoke of the normal player races! Contrary to the rumour that they are based on the "Peoples Republic of Haven", from David Weber's Honor Harrington Series, they are actually an original concept by Martin Pedersen. Many interesting abilities but to compensate, not particularly strong at anything. Complex to play (40 different ship hulls!). This race was the first third party race, and got a few things wrong but blazed the trail for others. Based on an excellent idea, it was overpowered initially due to all its Devices. (There were only 3 other Tim races around at the time, so it was difficult for Martin Pedersen to extrapolate the effect of his proposed hull and race stats.) Host changes overcompensated and it's too weak now. New, January 2005:Chris Richardson's Peeps Guide. (This is a Word document)
- University Alliance, intellectuals with attitude, few ship types but well balanced. After Scott O's website disappeared, I offered to host the race pages here.
- Draconians - balanced but in my opinion, a bit dull. Recently given better starting ships, and a race update is being co-ordinated by Mattrixx. Their ships are very good at Ramming, but no one ever seems to think of using that! Tow power is good allowing them to pair ships, reducing the visibility of the towed ship. Dracs require quite a lot of micromanagement.
- Enforcers (United Enforcement Authority) - a write-up sent in by David Ouimet. Updated by Norman Violet, April 2005.
- Scavengers - another write-up from David Ouimet, updated March 2002. This is a well thought out 3rd party race with an excellent 'personality' for role playing, which is very well balanced and their creator is very keen on making them even better balanced. See also: see their creator's (Christian Jadot's) site, http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Circuit/2844/scavtitle.html - the "Race Stats" page summarises advantages, disadvantages etc. Also: Drew Sullivan's Guide to the Scavengers. A completely different kind of Guide. Very inspiring reading - not a mechanical How-To Guide like my own - it may make you think about different ways of playing other races.
- The Coalition , or RCS, a 3rd party race. These are preliminary notes by Christian Jadot written in January 2001. They are still in text form and will probably evolve now the race pack is released. See also, The Coalition, [also available in German], written by Thriyon after the race pack was released. A complex and subtle race(s) with an interesting mix of unique Devices and abilities, they look very interesting to play.
- Centaurs - see this site for a How to Play guide and further information.
- The Aczanny. This is a link to the site of the Aczanny creator. The Aczanny are an avian race with extremely good fighters. Their ships have high evasive bonuses, but no armour or shields to speak of. Their assault pods explode 1 tick after docking with an enemy ship (which is rare). They cannot build mineral mines and have a precarious existence until they can build ships with laser mining drills.
- Solorians , by Peter Wolf [Word document], also Solorians , by Tomi-Jukka Nurminen [also available as a Word document]. A race of energy beings with some good fighters.
- IMT (Interstellar Master Traders). Player's guide here. Powerful in mid game, but weak at the start, and end. Not quite fully released, but playable despite lacking the ability to tow planets yet. IMT are a ruthless mining mega-corporation which - unlike other races - is not interested in fighting and galactic domination per se. They just want to disintegrate your planets for minerals, which are then sold for cash. IMT tends to be wasteful and grinds up natives and prisoners for food. Short of troops, it employs Chup mercenaries, but they sometimes run amok. I have been on the development team so I'm rather fond of it. IMT is designed primarily to be "different" to the usual power races and to push the envelope for race pack quality, simplicity of play, uniqueness and role playing material. They can't yet tow planets, which rules out the use of mobile bases as 'megaships', or use Chup mercenaries as originally envisaged, but Tim is gradually coding further IMT abilities into Host as convenient. In some cases we wrote code ourselves, tested it as best we could and sent it to him for incorporation (like the Protein Converter bit).
Races awaiting release
Tim has stopped releasing new races whilst he finishes debugging the core code, because suddenly everyone was asking him to complete their pet project. But frankly many of these were me-too races with no distinctiveness. Here are some of the more interesting races which people began developing. This isn't a complete list. The most complete one I know of was compiled by Torsten 'Ilja' Rathgen here.Overview of potential new races: In 2004, Olly Harlow organised a survey where folk could vote for unreleased 3rd party races. It became a forum providing feedback to designers of new races, both about the popularity of their concept; and about the practical points of the race ideas (playability - coding difficulties - interactions with other races and rule loopholes the creators may have overlooked). The results are here, and they make a good overview of those races if you are interested in learning about them, because there are summaries and critiques by folk who studied them closely, in order to vote. It saves you a lot of reading. The detailed commentaries are here, and here.
- Confederates - don't know anything about this race. It is one that Tim intends doing himself at some point in the future.
- Earthers. Another not-yet-released Tim race. Chris Olin tells me: 'The Earthers are supposed to be a mix of Forbidden Planet, and Space:Above and Beyound (short lived Fox series '96?). They are to be a fighter race. One of the other races is their natural enemy (the Controllers or The Nameless Ones) that are kinda evil space mosters that kidnap natives.'
- Arborians. A psionic community of plant lifeforms - militant vegetarians, Greenpeace with ray-guns.
- Braphat , a 3rd party race not yet released. It is designed to be an easy one for begnners to play, or for people who do not have the time to micromanage an empire. Giant space dwelling arachnids with no need for bases. Lots of people like the concept. The graphics are awesome.
- Shadow, an unusual race inspired by the Shadows of Babylon 5, which got many votes in a survey for "which 3rd party race would you like to see released next?" They are the traditional enemies of the Mivorari (Vorlon). See also: their VGAP Wiki entry.
- Mivorari, based on the Babylon 5 Vorlons. Hyperspace specialists, designed by Chris Doolaege. This one almost got released - one of the possible ship devices was developed for this race, and isn't currently used on any ship in the game. Host contains code halving the chances of PD working for them. See also the Planets4 Wiki entry on this race. Or the Wikipedia entry on Vorlons!
- Moties, from Magico, Roger Norris, Olly Harlow et alia. As you may know from the books, Motie culture is based on cycle of insane growth and tech advancement, followed by disastrous collapse. In game terms this would translate into a repeated cycles of being very powerful and crushing neighbours, followed by disaster. If they can ever agree how this race will work, it would be a real rollercoaster ride.
