Astro Wars

[capricorne]

So, you have created an account and are ready for the first log to the game...

Then you get that screen:

[capricorne]

So What should I get for my first race?

At first: Attack
As a rookie, you will be alone at first and so the main target of alliance (groups of players already formed). You will have to fight and fight hard for your life.

The +4 Attack is a necessity for this. It will calm down your opponents lust for your planet, forcing them to wait a bit before striking you and so will give you more time to comprehend the different aspects of the game.


Second most needed stat: production.
Production is the nerve of the war and of the building. With production you can do everything: building more ships, raising more your planet buildings. Thats why the bonus is really low in percent for each point of race (only 4%). But even like this bonus in production will start to impact your development at your 4th-5h planet comparing to a "no race". My 2cents: take +4 prod also as a basis for your first race.

So we have seen 2 critical stats for a rookie where you must take heavy bonus.

Where can you take malus?

Mostly in Growth and Culture.
* Growth is a stat that mostly impact on ranking and for your 1st round you can't imagine make a real performance in this. So take -4 growth.

* Culture is a powerful stat but it requires space to develop and carefulness. As a rookie and lone player (at least at first), you can't be a pain in the ass of powerful alliance by eating too much of their initial development space. This will drag them too early to you. Beside that culture specially impact on trade revenue that occurs only in the second part of the game round (at this time you will already be either dead whatever your efforts or recruited by an alliance). So another -4 in culture will be my counsel.


And about the rest?

This leaves 3 stats: science, speed and defense.
Of these 3 stats speed is the most critical choice that you will have to make. Quick or not quick?
In fact quickness will be unrelevant for a lone rookie, but you will have only one fleet and will probably own planets on 2 differents system, so basically you might want to be quick enough to intercept your opponents in differents systems (in bio 4 range) when they are attacking you.
In order to intercept a -4 speed opponent striking from a planet to another of the same system you need 3 points more than him in energy science and +2 speed (or 2 points more in energy and +3 speed, or 4 points more in energy science and +0 in speed).

As you see, you can't afford yourself to have low science. A bonus of +2 will grant you some fresh air developping your energy but also your math and your physic to improve your fighting skills.

You should totally forget the 2 options: start labs or trader.
Start labs will only put you as a target with a juicy planet to take and trader needs support from friends before becoming interesting in mid game.

This leaves us some different races possible for a rookie:
growth/science/culture/production/speed/attack/defense

-4/+1/-4/+2/+2/+4/-1 (will be the hardest to play as you will loose too much ships in battles).
-4/+2/-4/+2/0/+4/0
-4/+3/-4/+3/0/+4/-2 (the bonus of +3 science tries to compensate the malus in defense by catching the +6 math over your opponent).
-4/+2/-4/+4/-4/+4/+2 (you renounce to the idea to have a fleet able to intercept on 2 systems and you focus on controlling at first the 12 planets of your home system).
-4/+1/-4/+4/-4/+4/+3 (same as above but less modulable more fighting oriented).
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Passant, ne pleure pas ma mort
Si je vivais tu serais mort.

[thiak]

If you ask 20 people about a good race...you will get 20 answers.
But may be I can add some additional ideas:

All changes in race work non-linear, that means, the malus hurts more then you gain from a bonus....att-4 means your troops have only 52% the power (so a factor of nearly 2) ...att+ means, they have 148% the power (so a factor of about 1.5).
So be carefull with strong malusses, they hurt a lot and strong bonusses sometimes dont pay off enough.

If you are here for the very first time, there is no guarantee, that you can join an alliance early in the game, so I would recommend to chose a race, that gives you better chances to survive as solo.
recommendations:

a bonus in attack is a must..at least +3...better +4

a malus in defense is a no-go...you have noone to defend you then yourself, so you cant afford high losses...so minimum is 0, better +1 or +2

for speed the actual rules more or less allow only two settings: +4 or -4....even with +3 you will not be able to catch a full-blown speedy, so these race points are spent invain
While later in the game speedys dominate the war, at the beginning its power that counts...and since you plan to survive the first part, better take the -4 and invest these points into attack.

I strongly recommend production as high as possible, its 4% per step, so the payoff is most linear in this modification

science and culture are modifications where you can efford small malusses, may be -1 in science and -2 in culture

growth is the modification, where most players take a big malus...and I always recommend them not to do so...-2 is still ok, but -4 slows your development to much, your population influences science and production

so if you would ask me for a beginner race, I would say
-2 -1 -2 +4 -4 +4 +1
may be one more point from the first three to defense, but in general along that line.

But the best race doesnt help, if you are offline for long periods and do not contact those around you, this game needs communication...so COMMUNICATE!!!

[Paxet]

It's posible to change the race after avoiding it in the first steep?

The "(Not recommended for new users.)" may not be there...

[GeneralJ]

The only way to change your race once you have logged in (with either no race or selected race) is to resign and start again.
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G9-11 PUNX , G12 TGT , G13 PUNX , G14 SAB , G15 SPiS , G16 TRZ , G17 CREW , G18 SPiS , G19-21 UFO, G22 PUNX, G23 SPiS, G24 RIF, G25 NOOB

[Grek1]