My credits are always lost

[spider13]

I always use auto building and it's always grains my credits.
Help somebody!:cry:
And zhe AI always fight me.:(

[Gregorius]

Well, I don't think this is what you are after for, but never use auto-build in the beginning. That's there for you only when you have over 20 planets and you can't manage them because there's too much going on in the starmap. But then, you'll have the money. :)

[Tweaked700]

I remember when I used to manage o’ about 40 planets all manually, it became a pain real fast but had one main advantage to auto build, space management. It took me a while to understand how to best use the Auto build and I think I have a good plan for you. It seems the only good auto build setting is the civilian selection. This selection will build anything from residential buildings (homes, hospitals, police, food factory, power) to recreational buildings (Park, bar, Rec facility, stadium) and that’s all you need to keep any planet running well. One thing you will notice, and I think IG could have done better, with this one, is that a building will not be build by auto build unless it is absolutely needed. So say you have 7950 people on a plant, a hospital is needed every 8000, auto build will not build until the population is over 8000 and this can hurt your moral somewhat but not that much. There is a priority setting but I do not know if that is a planetary priority where the planet gets dibs on construction first, or tells auto build to build before the numbers fall into the red. I haven’t spent the time to scrutinize this feature so I’m unsure as to how to guide you on that. Also a neat feature is the spending limit in the overall section or F9 button….I think it’s F9….Where you can see everything about all the races and your planets all at once…There is a spending limit bar. Keep it to just above 20,000 (for the most expensive building, the stadium) when you know you can afford it.

Finally, take Gregorius advice and don’t bother with auto build until you have about 15-20 planets. If you need to build planetary guns or military buildings do so manually. The computer may scatter your defenses all over the place making them useless. Bunch them up in a group so an attacking ground force will have to face them all at once. By the by did you get the patch for IG 2? The patch makes your trade center take in 10000 instead of 2000 making them very worth the expense to build manually.

[Arclan Cirel]

A little late in replying, but.

I'm fairly sure putting priority high on civilian build will build required buildings sooner than when they are needed.

My settings are always
Tax: Low
Auto Build: Civilian
Priority: High.

But maybe it is placebo effect. Would be happy if someone can confirm or deny this.

[spider13]

How many spy? And else.

[Ploteus]

Originally posted by spider13
How many spy? And else.

I do not use espionage as a weapon, only sometimes to discover some enemy planets, or some information about a race. I think some of the missions never work, but I actually think this is a good thing, for example, in Master of Orion 3, every turn one technology is stolen, sometimes even more, your spyes are assassinated, buildings destroyed, I even got the system seat of government destroyed in the capital planet. Well, this doesn´t mean anything for you if you don´t know MOO3, but it gives you a picture. Now, answering your question, I have 4 or 5 spyes working in counter-intelligence. Whenever they grow up a rank, make sure you use the points in counter-intelligence and loyalty. To hire a spy, you have to have a Spy Center, I never build these buildings(you start with one), because the A.I always has at least one per planet, you get the buildings by conquering their planets. I even find myself selling some of them. But I see no problem, if you have the space, in hiring more spyes to aid in your defense. (from time to time, I get a cruiser or worse, destroyed by a spy)
To the other question, I allways set the auto-build to Trade, It builds the civilian buildings as well as the trade buildings, that constitute a great deal of your revenue. And I put it (auto-build) early on in the game. (but you will have to find out what you think is best for you, early, or late on) Because the auto-build will only build a building when it has the necessary workers, for example, it will only build a trade center, when it has 5000 workers available, never before, if you want to build a factory, or other, you will have to do one of this things. Or you turn off the auto-build in the selected planet. Or you build the factory before it auto-builds Or you shut down one of the buildings to get the workers necessary to build your factory. (for example, a research building that you do not need for the moment) Never shut down a trade building, or you won't collect the money when a trader arrives at your planet.:o
I hope this was of any use and people don´t fall asleep reading it:D
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[FreeFlyer]

I think the overall information screen (F9?) has that triangular block in which you can set the percent of money you want to allocate to autobuild/research/something as well as the total amount of money you allow the computer to spend for you.

[Ploteus]

Originally posted by FreeFlyer
I think the overall information screen (F9?) has that triangular block in which you can set the percent of money you want to allocate to autobuild/research/something as well as the total amount of money you allow the computer to spend for you.

Exactly, that is another way to control what the auto-build will construct in your planets. You can allocate more money to research or ship construction, in order for the A.I to build only small buildings, like housings and such. Good point FreeFlyer.....
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