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Space Empires 3 cheats
space empire 3 cheats
While holding Ctrl type
in these cheats without the quotes at the proper screen
, listed in ( )'s
(Empire Status Screen) - "money" sets all points
to 100,000
(Ship Report Screen) - "resupply" ship is resupplied
(Ship Report Screen) - "movement" ship movement
set to full
(Ship Report Screen) - "repair" ship is fully
repaired
Space Empires 3: Beginner Hints
In my first game with Space Empires 3, I gave myself 3 good
planets, set the computer opponents on easy and gave them
each only one bad starting planet (I don't like to lose).
Well, I lost anyway, which probably qualifies me better
than most to write about the perhaps not-so-obvious ways
to stay alive in this game. So here are a few hints that
I had to learn by having my face rubbed in the doodoo. Use
them well and you might even win your first game (I highly
recommend using a setup similar to mine to learn the ropes,
but don't play as I did). Start on a medium or large universe
with opponents spread out: having a hostile neighbor on
move one does not lead to an easy game. And it is easier
if you choose to have few warp lines between planets, which
will ensure that you don't meet other races early on.
The most important rule is that when you start, the most
important thing to do is COLONIZE. Why? Becaue resources
come from population, and planets have population limits.
If one of your opponents catches up to you in population,
kiss your ass goodbye. Of course to do that, you will need
to explore. And since you can only colonize one type of
planet which, as luck would have it, is relatively rare
in your corner of the galaxy, you will need to research
colonization of other types of planets. Research the type
of planets that are near your starting planet, then research
some others later. Look for good or excellent planets. If
you do this right, you should be able to maintain a a factor
of five to ten in population and research over each opponent,
which should allow you to make as many stupid mistakes as
you want without losing (but if you see one opponent inching
up to within a factor of two of your population, expect
trouble in the near future).
Given the above paragraph, the first ships that you should
build are scouts, colony ships and transport ships. Don't
bother arming or shielding scouts early in the game: their
most important property is how fast they can explore, and
they won't meet any enemies early on anyway. And even if
they do, scouts are cheap, and you can build a couple more
at any time.
Here is the second most important tip: when you colonize
a new planet, set the production rate as low as it will
go (60%). This will jack up the population growth by a factor
of two or three. And rapidly increase the population by
using transport ships to bring in population from other
planets.Build some transport ships with the biggest population
capabiilty that you can. Again, don't bother arming such
ships. You should be able to build a transport with 48 million
capacity right off the bat. If you add armor, shields and
speed, you will be limited to 2 or 5 million. Go for the
48 million.
You will soon need bigger ships, so you should research
ships early on and during most of the game. A good start
is to research two kinds of colonization, ships, propulsion
and beam weapons, at 20% each. Adjust later as needed.
As you put a higher percentage of research money in a given
field, the effectiveness decreases rapidly after about 20%.
So never set your percentage above 20% unless you have a
good reason, since you are not using your resources at their
most effective level.
Don't forget to set your construction on each planet as
soon as you get it. The most important subject at the beginning
is construction, then research, then espionnage. The latter
is useless until you have met other races, and the points
are lost if they are not used during the turn. However,
you should put as many points as you can afford into condition
improvement and value improvement. And when you can afford
population control facilities, put them in and jack up production
to 140% (without such facilities, this will lead to revolts).
When you meet enemies, don't assume that they are enemies
and attack them immediately: this will ensure that you will
soon have all the races at war with you. try to establish
trade relations.
If you are about to crush an opponent and he offers a treaty,
think twice before you accept, and maybe cripple him before
making a treaty. In my first game, when I finally made it
to the main system of one opponent and was about to crush
him, he offered a treaty which I accepted. I then moved
most of my forces towards the other end of the galaxy where
I was at war with another opponent. The first opponent then
stabbed me in the back and moved in to my almost unprotected
backfield, and destroyed some of my best planets before
I could get some forces there. Before long, the first opponent
had surpassed me in production, was fielding invulnerable
ships and I was up the crick without a paddle...
The genius of this game is that everything is slow. It takes
many turns to build a ship or to move long distances. And
ships run out of fuel. This means that the "tank rush"
is not a feasible strategy in this game for the simple reason
that your forces are unable to reach the heart of enemy
territory before they run out of fuel and have to come back.
So you will find that most of your forces are shuffling
between refuling and reaching enemy territory and are not
available for combat in enemy terrotory. It will be very
late into the game before you have ships that have eternal
fuel, so be resigned to having ships with short legs in
big galaxies.
OK, you say, how about if I build an outpost in or near
enemy territory and then use it to refuel? Well, that's
fine if you can get it, but take it from me, to achieve
that you're going to have the enemy not reacting to your
taking over a planet in his territory - don't count on it.You
should, however build an outpost as close to enemy territory
as you can. Fortunately right at the start you can build
a space station that will make your planet invulnerable
for a while, but that will take about ten or more moves...Also
you should note that although you can build yard ships fairly
early on that you can use for repair way out there,, you
can not use them to refuel ships, which requires planets.To
make things more difficult, many systems don't have any
planets at all, which makes building outposts even more
complicated or even impossible. Gettoing an outpost two
or three planets away from your system in the direction
of enemy planets should be a high priority.But be forwarned
that the closer it is to the enemy, the harder it will be
to build it and to hold it. But if you can build such an
outpost at a critical node, you may have given yourself
a decisive advantage.
Shields are more important than firepower. A couple of level
V shields and a shield regenerator can make a ship invulnerable
against most weapons of that level or more.
Good luck!
henri
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