There are many focused guides on how to play scientific or some other type, this is not that. This guide will focus on the tips and tricks of thinking about the game as a whole. Specific build orders will not be included (although maybe a few lvl1 things will be talked about). For purposes of this guide, I will describe the resources as lvl1 (one cylinder), lvl2 (2 cylinders) or lvl3 (3 cylinders). And speak of dual or triple as meaning two things next to each other, or three things in a diamond shape next to each other.

So let’s start at the beginning, the game has just started what do you do. First, you don’t want to ping a lot around the starting location, everyone starts there. Instead try to pick a direction heading towards flat land (easier to build on), and start pinging in that direction getting away from the starting location. Most likely if something near the starting location is good, someone else is going to see it and pick it up or you will be fighting over it with others, better to go get your own good plot of land. If you see a bunch of resources (but don’t know what they are yet) spending a ping to go see what they are is also good.

Ok, so you are pinging around, now you have to decide (1) is this plot of land good, and (2) if so what type of colony do I want to found here. To answer this question you got to know what to look for each of the different types of colonies. Don’t pick a colony type and say “this is what I am going to build” before you see what the resources are like (you will box yourself into a much worse position if you do this most of the time). Let’s start with the more unique and specific.

Scavenger: You are looking for a good large amount of carbon, ideally, a triple carbon with one as a level 3 carbon (at least one high lvl carbon is really needed). Scavengers don’t get many claims, and they build all their resources off carbon, so getting that high level carbon is really needed, and having multiple carbons to amplify that latter is even better. You also need some aluminum fairly need by, it isn’t as required (you can ship it from further away but prefably not cross map), but having a good high lvl aluminum nearby would be good too.

Scientific: You are looking for at least a triple patch of iron of any level (don’t start a scientific without a triple patch of iron), and a high lvl aluminum patch. Also good to have lots of triple patches of silicon and water. Large patches of resources closely bunched, but of any level are what you are looking for. Having a lvl3 patch or a lvl1 patch does not matter to the scientific, but for aluminum (which is always good to have a high lvl patch of for scientific).

Expansive: You are looking for high lvl patches of iron (preferably tripled), and high lvl patches of aluminum. Some high lvl patches of water or silicon somewhat near by (can have a bit of distance for these), would also be nice. While expansive gets a lot of claims, they would prefer to use as few of these on the base resources as possible and instead focus on production facilities. That said, double/triple up on resources is fine with expansive if needed. Preferably at least iron or al would be a high lvl patch so you can double/triple on the other. A somewhat powerful strategy for expansive on some maps is to try to identify one resource that is not available very much on the map. Place your production facilities (steel mill/glass furnace, etc) and colony hq on top of these nodes (and get a few to collect that resource), and basically make sure that no one else can mine the resource but you. If it’s a critical resource like silicon people might not notice until they try to make glass. So this is something to look for when deciding if you should go expansive in a given area.

Robotic: In some ways, robotic is a lot like expansive, you still need steel (and therefor high lvls of iron) and high lvl aluminum, at first. The key difference for robotic really occurs latter in the mid game when you don’t need glass to upgrade (unlike everyone else), and you don’t need to worry about water/food/fuel/and mostly not oxygen (except for glass production). As you don’t need glass to upgrade (you do need a little bit to buy some things, but you can buy a little bit off the market), you can (and probably should), skip right to electronics. Everyone else will be focusing on getting some good glass production, but you don’t need it. But as far as where to place your base, it is mostly like expansive, look for high lvl iron and high lvl aluminum. Robotic is much better if you notice the map as a whole lacks good water sources. Robotic also tends to do better the more people there are in the map that are not going robotic. Everyone else is likely to be buying water/food/oxygen/fuel throughout the early game without selling it sending these through the roof in the mid game, the more people the more these go up in the mid game, while robotic can just not care how high these go and focus on other things. So if there are many people, think more about robotic.

So, now you have founded your colony. The first thing you want to think about is what is the resource ratio you need to upgrade. Many times this is 1:1 steel to aluminum, but check that out depending on what type of colony you founded. Basically you want your starting claims to produce resource required to upgrade at the ratio required to upgrade. This may mean that you got a high lvl aluminum that produces at +2 resources, so you will want to double up on steel so you can match that. Also try to get at least some iron (if you are not scientific or scavenger), buying iron off the market can work, but if it is at least a little mitigated it will reduce your costs significantly (every time you buy iron off the market it makes the cost go up for the next time and that adds up quick). Buying up your next hq level is a tricky choice, try not to do it too much if you don’t have to, but if for instance you get sabotaged, buying it up so you have more claims and can start producing more of whatever was sabotaged is a good idea.

For the first two levels you rarely want to get any production of power/food/water/oxygen/fuel/glass/electronics. The reason for this is how debt works. Let’s say you are all out of power, well your colony still needs power so it buys it with debt. In the early game, debt is good, compare if power is bought with debt or if it is purchased. If it is bought with debt, you still have your cash you can spend on something else. If you purchase it with cash, you can’t use your debt to buy something else. So in effect, in the early game debt is free money and a good thing. Now this switches in the latter part of the game, because the primary effect of having a lot of debt is that it lowers your stock price. This makes you more vulnerable to takeover bids by other players. Still it takes a lot of cash to buy another player out (even if they have a lot of debt), and players just don’t have that kind of money in the early game. You don’t want to ignore your debt or think that it is meaningless, but taking on debt early game is actually a good thing, as long as you pay it off latter before the take over bids start. Usually this means around lvl 3 of your hq upgrades (of a max of lvl5), you want to start building power/water/food/oxygen/fuel (or electronics if you are robotic). You can wait till lvl4 hq before you build all of these, but usually at least getting some power (the one that tends to go up the most as everyone uses it a lot) at lvl3 is a good thing.

You also probably don’t want to get any glass production until lvl 3 hq, at lvl1 you start with enough glass, at lvl2 you can buy the small additional amount you need off the market. Better to wait until you really need it before you start dropping extra claims on producing it. (Robotic should probably skip glass entirely and go right to electronics production).

Always try to build your production facilities on top of whatever it is they use to produce. For scientific this is obvious (becuase they get enormous bonuses for doing so), for everyone else it is less obvious but still true. This is true for two reaosns. First, lets say you invest heavily into glass prdoduction, but later on in the game silicon prices go through the roof, now you cant really run your glass production anymore (its actually loses you money to do so), so if you built your glass production on top of silicon then great, you can just scrap and get silicon until the silicon prices come back down. Same is true for steel (build on iron), and food/electrolysis(build on water), etc. The second reason is that you are preventing any of the other players from building on that resource making it more valuable (and something you can always switch too if they dont get enough). Sometimes you will need to do something like build a water node, so you can make the claim and then immedialy scrap it and build a food (because that is what you really wanted), but you cant build food just anywhere.

At lvl4 hq is when the real fun stuff starts happening. Prior to lvl4 it is hard to get enough cash to buy out players, so it is usually at lvl4 when buyouts start occurring. You don’t have to buy out other players (you can focus on just getting your lvl5), but if the opportunity presents itself (especially if they loaded up on debt and their stock price is low), then it is a good idea, it gives you a LOT of extra claims for the cost, and quite a bit of extra production facilities (and the ability to do 4+ off world markets later). Try to find someone that is either very weak (low stock price, and probably a low hq level), or if you have a bit more cash on hand, find someone that is a “good value” (low stock price relative to their hq level, meaning they probably got a lot of debt).

Usually you want about 15,000 times their stock price before you try to buy someone out (assuming no one else has bought stock in them yet), to calculate it, just add 0,000 to their stock price (so 5.5 stock price becomes 55,000), divide by two and add that to what you had previously had (so 55k/2=27.5k +55k=82.5k), you can also round it a bit to make it easier (so 55k/2 is about 28k which is about 83k). It is bad to try to buy someone out and not succeed, as that means you have a lot of money in stocks where it is doing nothing for you, instead of spending that money expanding your hq or getting really good things to produce more. So if you move to take someone out, try to do it quickly, or if you can’t do it reasonably soon back off and sell back all thier stock and try to buy someone else. It is also really good to buy stock in someone that you think another player is going to buy out soon (because if they buy you out you get double what you put in at least).

As we are now talking about buyouts we should talk about proper buyout defense. If they have a few (like 1-3), of your stock, you might want to start thinking about paying down your debt. Sell resources and use the cash to pay down your debt. This increases your stock price and makes it harder for someone to buy you out. If they are going very aggressive (they are buying your stock as quickly as they can, or they have more than 3 of your stock), you want to spend your cash buying your own stock (and selling resources to get cash to buy your own stock). When they buy all the stock that is owned, they need to buy all the other players out at double, this includes yourself. So buying your own stock effectively doubles the cost of buying out that stock for the enemy. This can really slow down (or even end their buyout bid). You don’t want to buy too much of your own stock, usually 2-3 is enough to make it difficult. Once you get that (or if all your stock is purchased by someone), focus on paying down your debt, so that it is harder to buy you out. If your debt is down, and all your own stock is purchased (by you or the enemy), then start buying stock of other people which raises your own stock price.

At the late, late game (hq level 5+, and maybe each of you have bought out another player), the focus turns to how many off world markets can you get. Each off world market lets you get enormous amounts of cash, which is really critical to buying out other players in the late game. Remember you can have 2 per lvl5 hq, so if you bought out one other player that is 4 total that you can have. This is the primary reason why glass and electronics is very good to have even in the late game (because they are required to buy the offworld markets).

On to the black market. The black market is most powerful in the late game, mutiny an offworld market is very powerful. As such having a goon squad protecting them are also very good. Emp’s can totally disrupt the enemies ability to make money to buy you out. Be more careful with the use of the black market before the late game. Mutiny is fairly good throughout the game (not as much because it hurts your enemy but because it helps you), mutiny before the late game is usually best done on geothermal plants (which is why it is also good to get a good squad if you are going geo thermal), if no geo thermals are around then focus on the wind turbines, if power is very cheap then see whatever is most expensive commodity. I tend to be a bit sanguine about getting extra claims from the black market early on, usually you can just expand your hq and get more claims for less cost. That said, at lvl5 you cant get more claims, so getting them through the black market may be the best option if there are no good buy out opportunities for other players. Using emp early on can be good to knock the leader down a peg or two if they seem to be running away with the game (better hurt them now when you have the chance then latter when you may not and they are trying to buy you out). Other than that, mostly avoid the black market in a large free for all. Yes you hurt them, but it costs you money to do so, and that means you are in much worse shape compared to all the people you didn’t target. In the late game (especially if it is down to a 1 on 1), use the black market every chance you can get, usually with an emp if you can, or you can use dynamite on a key structure like an off world market especially if you think it might be guarded (dynamite is cheaper so it costs you less, and if it is guarded they steal less).

I think that is about it for my advice, go and have fun :).