The aliens never seem to attack your planets until very late in the game, after they have colonized a lot of the uncolonized planets in the universe. I can not guarantee that the aliens will attack late in the game but it is very likely that they will leave you alone until at least turn 150. As soon as possible build an exploration ship and send it with a couple of other combat ships (for protection) to the surrounding planets, this serves two purposes - to look for planets to colonize and to look for alien life-forms.
When you find alien life-forms and the empire offer you fleet forces or resources. (a transporter partially filled with food, material and energy) I would recommend that you always take the fleet forces because spaceships are usually much more useful than a transporter partially filled with food, material and electricity, also the empire can send the spaceships to any planet instantly which cuts down the time spent exploring the universe for good colonizable planets.
The details of fleet forces and resources obtained at different IQ levels can be seen below:
Life Form IQ - Fleet ------ Food - Material - Energy
- 1 -------- Fighter -------- 15 --- 0 ------ 15
- 2 -------- Dreadnought ---- 30 -- 60 ------ 30
- 3 -------- Cobra Ship ----- 45 - 180 ------ 45
- 4 -------- Pulsar Destroyer 60 - 240 ------ 60
- 5 -------- Battlestar ----- 75 - 360 ------ 75
When the aliens attack your planets in overwhelming numbers and you do not have a realistic hope of recapturing it, it is most important to destroy the energy storage units so that when you come to destroy the planet with your planet destroyer and the aliens have built a planet shield you can destroy the planet since you need twice as much energy as is contained in the planets energy storage units (if you have demolished the energy storage units that should be 20 energy units).
When you no longer have a use for the colony station on your colonized planets it is a good idea to demolish them - this gives you 11 units of material and 1 more place to build things and the you still have the space for 4000 people that you had before you demolished it. The aliens tend to build more objects on their planets, the higher the difficulty level. On the easy level they tend to build 4 objects - typically an alien central unit, a nuclear power plant, a ground defence unit and a space port.
On the suicide level the maximum I have seen the aliens build, given time is 10 objects - an alien central unit, 2 nuclear power plants, 2 planet defence units, a space port, 2 energy storage units, a planet shield and an anti spy satellite antenna. This gives the aliens a maximum of 620 units of energy and the alien central unit produces 24 units of material per turn regardless of which difficulty level you are playing on.
Do not leave your spaceships in orbit around planets colonized by the aliens as they will build tripods(alien troops) endlessly until you leave which can cause problems later on if you decide to invade the planet with troops.
It is difficult to say how many planets should be colonized to their full capacity as it largely depends on how quickly you defeat the aliens and the difficulty level you are playing at.
Level --- No. Of Planets To Colonize
Easy ---- 1-2
Medium -- 3
Hard ---- 4
Suicide - 5-6
The best planets to colonize are planets with the highest food and mineral wealth (petrol and metals) though mineral wealth is more important since greenhouses can be built to provide food but mining sites cannot be built.
There are two main ways to defeat the aliens - one is to invade their planets with spaceships and troops (Very difficult and time consuming), two is to keep building spaceships, and research until you reach Tech. level 9 and then build a planet destroyer and destroy all the planets that the aliens have colonized and then wipe out the aliens with your large fleet (Much,much less difficult and much,much less time consuming). It is best to choose which of these methods you are going to use near to the start of the game (needless to say I would recommend the second method). If you choose the first method you will need to build barracks - one or two per planet should be enough and troop transporters.
If you intend invading the alien planets with troops, you will need approximately three or four times as many troops as there are tripods defending.
If you choose the second method you will need to build lots of fusion power plants (6 or 7), 7 or more energy storage units and a planet destroyer on the same planet - it is best to build these units on the planet furthest away from where you think or know the aliens are so that it takes more energy when you use the planet destroyer and that way if the aliens have a planet shield you are more likely to destroy their planet. The most important part of this game is that you can only ever build 35 objects on a planet. But remember you can bulldoze them for the return of half of the material it cost to build them. The bulldozer facility along with the increased number of different constructions gives the game a lot more flexibility, this means that the number and type of objects built on your planets will be different from game to game. Always remember to demolish constructions on your planets after they have ceased to be useful,especially irrigation units, snow melting units and universities.
When tech level 5 is reached you should build fusion power plants and demolish any energy collectors, coal power plants and nuclear power plants. If you use method two, after you have destroyed all the alien's planets, the planet destroyer, extra fusion power plants and extra energy storage units can be demolished.
The mothership is a very powerful spaceship and the only ship capable of repairing itself. Destroying it will stop the aliens colonizing other planets but they can still wipe you out with combat ships and troops. When you have built a planet scanner and think you have enough combat ships to protect your planets try and find the mothership by sending some fighters to all of the planets or you can just wait until it finds you and then track it with the planet scanner and send enough ships to destroy it. (12-15 pulsar destroyers (at Tech. level 8 or above) or equivalent should be sufficient) You will have to chase the mothership from planet to planet as it usually moves, once it has encountered resistance.
Do not attack the mothership with small numbers of ships as it will destroy them and by the time you have attacked it again it will have repaired itself.
The only time when building a spy satellite is justified is if you use an energy cannon to attack the alien planets. It is quite useful to be able to see the result of your attack.
Tech. Level - Discoveries - Research
1 -------- 10 --- Scan Beam Disturber And Anti Spy Satellite Antenna
2 -------- 20 --- Irrigation Unit,Exploration Ship And Spy Satellite
3 -------- 40 --- Snow Melting Unit And Cobra Ship
4 -------- 80 --- Pulsar Destroyer
5 ------- 160 --- Battlestar And Fusion Power Plant
6 ------- 320 --- Planet Scanner And Stargate Ship
7 ------- 640 --- Energy Cannon
8 ------ 1280 --- Planet Shield
9 ------ 2560 --- Planet Destroyer
10+ ---- 5120 --- Nothing Special
Note: Stargate ships are discovered at Tech. level 6 NOT Tech. level 5 as may be written in the colonial conquest manual.
Playing against a human opponent is more difficult than against the aliens. Humans can use energy cannon or planet destroyer against you. The number and type of buildings built on your planets is roughly the same as against the aliens but all of your planets should have universities, because being the first to develop an energy cannon or planet destroyer can accelerate victory. A planet shield is also advisable so there is less chance of the above happening.
The planet scanner becomes a more useful piece of equipment. It can be used to discover which planets your opponent has colonized because from time to time spacecraft will move between the planets and it is likely that the busiest planets will be colonized, it will at least tell you which area of the universe is being colonized or explored.
Building spy satellites is still a waste of time and resources as your opponent may have an anti spy satellite antenna and knowing what is happening on their planets is not a major advantage, and you can only be 50% sure of the number of spaceships in orbit around the planet.
When you start a new game the planet the computer allocates you can never be explored for life forms.
When you build a food robot on grassland it gives you 3 units of food NOT 2 units as the help feature may display.
After the planet destroyer is used, it should self destruct afterwards, but if you have enough energy you can take 2 or 3 shots with one planet destroyer in the same turn by selecting the option more than once from the special commands menu.
Colonial Conquest can be multitasked by pressing the left Amiga and A keys. If you use the planet editor it is worth knowing that when you design your own planet and come to save it and you use the 'GB' keymap you will need to press the 'Z' key instead of the 'Y' key, to save it.
If you are using a mouse blanker on your system, then it may cause some problems when you run Colonial Conquest.
FOOD ROBOT: Only build food robots on the 2 most plentiful land types, and only enough of them to feed the population taking in to account natural food sites.
GREENHOUSE: On planets with few mining sites, greenhouses are best built on desert or ice terrain but on planets with a lot of mining sites (more than can be mined by your intended population size) build them on mining sites since 1 shield of material is also gained.
GRANARY: 2 granaries per planet are best since this gives you a good supply of food to sell to the empire in exchange for damaged combat ships.
MINING ROBOT: These are best built on sites were metals or petrol are present. When enough food has been produced for the population and you have built all of the structures you require, use the remaining mining sites to build as many mining robots as possible.
ENERGY STORAGE UNITS: 2 energy storage units per planet is a good idea especially if you intend to to install a stargate ship when Tech. Level 6 is reached because stargates now require energy to function. If you intend to build a planet scanner or energy cannon on the planet, 2 energy storage units is fine, but if a planet destroyer is built a minimum of 3 is needed to be able to fire from reasonably long distance.
ENERGY COLLECTOR: Provides 2 units of energy. Not worth building at all.
CITY COMPLEX: 4 city complexes are best to give a population of 36,000 but on planets with plentiful mining sites, 5 can be built.
GROUND DEFENCE UNIT: Ground defence units can be omitted since the aliens rarely if ever attack your planet with troops until many turns after they have captured it. If you do build ground defence units they are very quickly destroyed if the aliens attack.
BARRACKS: If you use method one, 1 or 2 barracks per planet is fine providing you have or intend to, colonize additional planets, this does not strain the resources of any one planets to much. If you use method two barracks are obsolete.
COAL POWER PLANT: Provides 4 units of energy. Only worth considering when you first colonize a planet and need more energy to build a city complex or you want to build a high energy consuming construction (such as a planet destroyer) and you do not have quite enough energy and you are sure that you won't need any more energy.
NUCLEAR POWER PLANT: Provides 8 units of energy. Only worth building if you have a small number of shields or you have not reached Tech. level 5, where-after you can then build fusion power plants.
FUSION POWER PLANT: Provides 16 units of energy. As soon as these become available and you need more energy to build one. Remember you can always demolish energy collectors, coal power plants and nuclear power plants. This not only gives you more space on your planets but more energy production as well.
SNOW MELTING UNIT: These are only really useful when you have a planet with a lot of ice terrain. It would be best to colonize another planet, but if you do build one remember to demolish it after it has changed the ice into grassland.
IRRIGATION UNIT: These are only really useful when you have a planet with a lot of desert terrain. It would be best to colonize another planet. If you do build one remember to demolish it once it has changed the desert into grassland.
UNIVERSITY: Only 1 per planet is needed. It can be omitted if you are pushed for room or if you have universities on other planets.
MEDICAL CENTRE: 1 per planet is essential to stop viruses breaking out.
ENERGY CANNON: Not really worth building as the alien planets have a maximum of 10 constructions so your chances of hitting anything are quite slim.
PLANET DESTROYER: It takes 4 energy units, a long time to build and at least 700 energy units to fire, but it is very useful to destroy the alien planets especially on the hard and suicide levels since it is difficult to destroy all of their vast numbers of spaceships, and destroying the alien planets stops them producing spaceships and then you can build up a large fleet of combat spaceships and destroy them.
pLANET SHIELD: The planet shield is no use at all when playing against the aliens as they do not build energy cannons or planet destroyers.
PLANET SCANNER: This device uses 20 energy units for a short range scan and 50 energy units for a long range scan. 1 per game is needed, which is best built on the most central planet in the universe, since with a long range scan the movements of the alien spaceships can be seen throughout most of the universe.
SCAN BEAM DISTURBER: Not worth building since the aliens don't produce spy satellites.
ANTI SPY SATELLITE ANTENNA: Not worth building as the the aliens don't build spy satellites.
SPACE PORT: 1 per planet is absolutely essential.
COLONY SHIP: It is best to build colony ships with 3 or 4 colonists aboard and establish colonies, as early in the game as possible.
STARGATE SHIP: Stargate ships should be built at your earliest opportunity when Tech. level 6 is reached. Stargates should be established at all of your colonized planets. The distance between stargates does not effect the amount of energy needed to make the jump. The amount of energy needed to make a stargate jump with each of the different spaceships can be seen below:-
Type Of Spaceship - Energy needed for Stargate Jump
Fighter ------------ 2
Transporter -------- 3
Exploration Ship --- 4
Troop Transporter -- 4
Colony Ship -------- 5
Dreadnought -------- 7
Cobra Ship -------- 12
Pulsar Destroyer -- 17
Stargate Ship ----- 18
Battlestar -------- 22
TRANSPORTER: The best use for the transporter is to move between all of your planets, loading and unloading food, material and energy as needed. It is especially useful for collecting energy for a planet destroyer attack.
EXPLORATION SHIP: Build an exploration ship as soon as possible after Tech. level 2 is reached and send it out with a couple of combat ships as backup to explore planets for alien lifeforms and colonizable planets.
TROOP TRANSPORTER: Only worth building late on in the game if you have troops to transport.
COMBAT SHIPS: Fighters are only really worth building to protect exploration ships and to explore the universe early on in the game for good colonizable planets. It is difficult to say which combat ships are the best to build. Dreadnoughts take less time and material to build and aren't that powerful. Cobra Ships are take more time and material to build but are more powerful. I find that Pulsar Destroyers and battlestars are best to build as they are very powerful and give you more time to get reinforcements to a battle.