Fragile Allegiance - Playing Guide For a good fight, start right You won’t get very far without solid foundations. Remember the Chinese proverb about doubling the amount of rice on every square on the chess-board until you have veritable paddy-fields by square 30? That’s probably relevant here, somehow. In less oriental verbiage, use your working capital wisely. Your initial money should instantly be put to work generating more funds. At the start, this means getting your mines up and running. Later on, excess funds can be put to work developing those mighty fleets and securing new territories. Remember, Fragile Allegiance is a financial game - your credits aren’t worth the plastic their encoded into if they’re not begetting more credits. So while you might hate the Mauna (and who wouldn’t? Particularly their mothers...) and have your heart set on pulverising them each new level, it’s important to get the show running smoothly first. Build a successful mining operation that pulls in the most credits possible. Other races, individual asteroids and even your own workers are expendable, provided you get the maximum return. Back to basics No matter what ore it contains or where it is on the map, it’s best to develop your first asteroid as your main centre of operations. After all, it’s likely to be in the middle of your eventual sphere of influence. Also, with careful conquest, it will be buffered from alien attacks by your surrounding empire. Defend it to the hilt, all the same. Obviously, your first asteroid will need life support, power storage generators, mines and so on. It should also have a missile silo, satellite silo, weapons factory, ship yard and control centre. Put them all to work as soon as you get them (for instance, start building scout ships and looking for new asteroids straight away). Use this one asteroid to keep all your ore. This saves confusion when the any-old- ore Traders, or indeed the federal transporter, come sauntering into range, asking for an asteroid to visit. You’ll soon have multiple space rocks, so it’s best to set yourself up as a Tesco’s rather than one hundred Mr Singhs. Initially, you’ll need to move your ore with your transporter. Later on, though, you’ll be thrilled to purchase the ore teleporter blue-prints from Sci-Tek, so it’s all done for you. Wealthy is wise. A gravity nullifier is money well spent on your first asteroid, since it stops rogue asteroids wiping out your work in one catastrophic collision (just ask the dinosaurs). Support Life Keeping your colonists alive is vital, what with the unreliability of robots. If we could do without them, believe me I’d know! When you first arrive on an asteroid the transporter automatically builds a CPU. Before you race to build mines, pop down an air processor, a food production plant and hydration facilities. This will keep your people fed from the off. The alternative is to build an Environmental Control Centre. These produce a small amount of food, water air and power - enough for emergencies. Build an ECC if you’re strapped for cash (because you’re running a tight operation where most of your money is always invested - good work) or if you only need to stay on the asteroid long enough to rip out the small supplies of precious Traxium and Nexos you’ve found. Social Securities People being, all too sadly, people, you might need to add security centres, medical centres and radiation filters. Stick them all on your first asteroid, just in case. Later on you can play the situation by ear. Don’t bother building Resi- blocks - they just attract hundreds of migrant workers, overpopulation and the general skull-duggery that encourages. Mr Buy Right You’ll get most of your advanced goods from Sci-Tek, by purchasing the blue- prints. This is all to the good, Sci-Tek is virtually TetraCorp’s brother company, but remember that no-one uses and abuses like a sibling. Spend wisely, always considering the return you’ll get. There are a few goodies you’ll want as soon as possible. Topping the list is the Seismic Penetrator, which enables you to mine the most valuable ores. (You need these ores to build certain equipment, and for general credit balance enhancement.) The MK2 Mine and MK2 Deep Bore Mine will double the speed of your mining facilities. Do we need to talk cash flow here, or have you been paying attention? Anti-missile pods. These stop you getting bombarded early on, and are thus vital. If you find you’re off to a flying start, Sci-Tek have lots of other ways of liberating your funds. The following are useful luxuries: Repair facility - You can set these to look after your best colonies while you go off to desecrate pastures new. Asteroid engines - Glorified ram-raiding for the extra-terrestrial masses. Shield x50 multiplier - Extra protection for your fleets. Construction droids - Help you build your mighty fleets even more quickly. Ore teleporter - Did you buy Fragile Allegiance to play a coalman? Enough said. Anti-virus missile - don’t buy these from Sci-Tek, buy a couple from a trader. You’ll save credits since the blue-print is very expensive, considering you’re unlikely to need very many at once. One final word to the wise. Don’t spend all your money at Sci-Tek. There are often better ways of spending your money, particularly at the start of the game. Having said that, if you can get a piece of kit like the MK2 mines relatively early on, you will (if left alone) score a devastating advantage long term. Hitting Hard If you’re going to play an overtly aggressive game, you need to do so from the start. As soon as you’ve built your construction facilities, start creating small strong fleets of scouts and assault craft. As these are assembling, gather as much information on the aliens as you can using scout ships and spy satellites. A few tips: 1. Don’t bother with Combat Eagles at the start of the game. They’re too expensive and they consume a lot of ore. Concentrate on your scouts and assault craft. 2. Don’t waste expensive weapons on your first plucky yet weedy fighters. Photon cannons and napalm orbs will do just fine. Costly guns won’t significantly reduce the chances of their weedy owners exploding. 3. Build fleets of 20-30 cheap craft. These should be able to tackle most early alien colonies. You’ll know when your enemies have begun to build better defences, as these fleets will be annihilated in seconds. 4. Remember you will soon have to start funding expensive craft like Combat Eagles and Destructors - as soon as your weaker fleets begin to fall. Plan accordingly. It’s a good idea to buy the x50 shield from Sci-Tek to protect your investment. Attack! Attack! No stop! There is a logical order which you should follow if you’re to overcome your enemies. It is not: 1. Stumble across an alien outpost. 2. Launch everything you’ve got at it. It is: 1. Stumble across an alien outpost. 2. Employ agents to gather vital information about the colony. 3. Get the same agents to tamper with defences and retaliation facilities. 4. Now bombard the defences with a rain of missile death. 5. Finally, send in your fleets to destroy any remaining buildings and to mop up alien craft survivors. Rock Rockets Missiles are a vital part of war in Fragile Allegiance, but remember that they are inherently awful. Missiles are clumsy and just as explosive on empty moon rock as on the buildings you actually wanted them to hit. Save your missiles for heavily colonised asteroids. These are likely to be protected with anti-missile turrets. Check first with a spy satellite. The aliens will laugh into their tentacles at the site of half a million credits worth of fireworks lighting the sky. To wipe the sorry excuse for a smile from their faces: 1. Always launch from several different silos at once. 2. Launch lots of cheap missiles as well as a few expensive ones. It’s the shoaling strategy - your cheap missiles act as decoys and soak up some of the defences. 3. Consider freezing the asteroid with the Stasis missile. This will enable you to launch loads of missiles, almost at your leisure. Missiles arriving at a frozen asteroid hang in the air until stasis runs out. Then they all come crashing down. How d’ya like that, Mr Qu’rdo Manuau-Squeeg? Fleeter Fleets It’s obvious, but many people forget all about repairing their fleets. If you want to get the best out of them, it’s much cheaper to keep your craft in good repair. Get the blue-prints for the Repair Facility from Sci-Tek. To repair Scout Ships, Assault Craft and Combat Eagles, land them in the hangars. Medium and large ships need a Space Dock in orbit. As the craft fly around the asteroid, the Space Dock and Repair Facility mend the craft. It may take months to return all your craft to full working order, but that’s still quicker then building them all from scratch. Build a second Repair Facility if you’re rushed for time. Know thy neighbour There is no such thing as community. What a wonderful TetraCorp employee Mrs T. would have made. Below is a summary of Fragile Allegiance’s rational self- seekers, and some tips on dealing with them rationally for your gain. Supervisors Don’t prevaricate; these guys are worth the cost. Employing supervisors will enable you to concentrate your efforts on conquest, rather than day-to-day colony management. There is a strict correlation between the price paid for a supervisor and his or her quality. Get the best you can. I can personally recommend Makepeace Fox, Thomas Lorca and Andreas Perrers as about the best in the business. Keep your supervisors well paid, or they’ll turn nasty, which will cost you a lot more in the long run. Traders Important for obtaining specialist items and medicines like Vir-Attack and Bio- Fort, traders are also vitally important if you’re to make money. It’s tempting to sell your ore to the Federal Transporter, but laziness costs. Compare the prices they’re offering with the transporter, and keep notes every time it visits to follow trends in price. Traxium and Nexos are the most important money-spinners, and also the most volatile. I wouldn’t let Traxium go for less than 60,000 credits and I’d ask near 200,000 for Nexos. The luxury goods, tools, machinery and other goods the traders bring can be bought and sold for profit, but to make money takes some effort on your part. You may prefer to just stick to ores. If you are tempted to play the markets, do it in style. You’ll only get worthwhile rewards from big risks, so send back those ten fur coats and order ten thousand. Apart from the Anti-Virus missile, buy weapons blue-prints from Sci-Tek and make your own. It’s far cheaper in the long term. Agents Don’t skimp on agents - always employ them before going to war to collect as much tactical information on your enemies as possible. Agents should usually be your first line of attack in battle, since their covert sabotage missions can save you big bucks on missiles. They’re even handy in peacetime, just to let you know what your rivals are up to. The best agents can all but destroy a colony single handed. They’re expensive though, and best employed tactically to take out a critical asteroid when fighting on several fronts. Personally, I recommend Vyvyan Beauregard and Scot Mandelson. Aliens Make as many non-aggression pacts with your rival cultures as possible. You can always break them (and so can they) but you’ll still be fairly certain that you’ll not be attacked by two or three cultures at once. Years of experience in the Fragmented Sectors has made me very cynical when it comes to aliens. They break down simply as follows: The Mauna - Kill them. They’re aggressive, nasty and they’ll try to get you first. The Artemians and the Mikotaj - Not as lethal as the Mauna, they’ll still cause headaches with random, senseless and profit-impairing war-mongering. Best destroyed after you’ve got rid of the Mauna. The Braccatians - Fine unless provoked, when they’ll fight back with a vengeance. So don’t provoke them. Until you can destroy them. The Acheans and the Regelians - Easy going neighbours, they should be putty in your hands.