by FinalAttack
Eridani are an interesting breed of alien. They have the following traits:• 3 starting tech, Plasma cannons and -1 shield are useful straight away, the drives are not because by that time power is usually needed
• Lots of starting money (24? Correct me if I’m wrong here)
• 2 Less INF discs
So what is their strategy? Seriously I don’t know. I would really like to understand what the intention of this race is, but I just can’t.
Theory 1 - you have monies! Spend spend spend!:
The theory feels like it should be right it, close up though it just doesn’t make sense. 3:1 trade is really bad. You effectively only have 7 materials of anything other than money. Spending it on anything other than money is really inefficient.
Theory 2 – dreadnaught has +1 energy!!! Holy crap it’s the key to winning!!!!1
The +1 isn’t really a big deal, it allows you to add a plasma cannon without forcing you to buy a 6 energy power source. Rushing a dreadnaught has also been an idea bounced around. However the notion of “rushing” means you’ll probably have it one round earlier than other people.
Theory 3 – rush the dread to win
Ok. Lets rush a dreadnaught. You can have it out first round by burning all the money you have. Now you have a dreadnaught out one turn earlier and no planets :/
Ok. Lets rush a dreadnaught without being ridiculous and have it second round. More reasonable and something I will often do. However this is NOT a major advantage. You’ll at best probably be matching other people on the table with resources after your “rush”.
Here is the contradiction. Getting a use from your dreads takes actions: 1. Build 2. Upgrade 3. Move 4. Colonise (pending victory). 4 actions. Its only 2 to explore colonise a planet and everyone has more actions than you.
So having lots of money sucks!?!?
What really hurts about being Eridani is the inability to starve and draw back INF discs. As OTHER races with less money you can over spend money/turns (effectively spending future turns NOW) and draw back planets you don’t need. This ROCKS. It allows you to grab discovery tiles and draw back at effectively no turn cost. However, since Eridani have lots of money this isn’t allowed until you’ve used up your surplus :/ Bummer. Should I take a discovery disc only tile? It hurts a lot more as the Eridani if you do.
It’s all about the percentages
Really the big issue here is the Eridani are limited on actions, comparatively. Say, for example, I have 6 turns as a human player, but as Eridani I only have 4 turns. If I draw a REALLY bad tile, or make a bad decision that is a higher proportion of turns I’ve wasted. 1 turn wasted out of 4 is FAR worse than 1 turn wasted out of 6. There really is less wiggle room for bad luck as Eridani
Lets talk about tech
Advanced Robotics and Quantum Grid are great to offset your disadvantage. However I think 2 other tech can really make a difference: Imp. Hull and Adv. Econ.
Imp. Hull – ok great for everyone, but if you are rushing dreads, its paramount in keeping the odds in your favour so getting this early can be the difference between a dead dread and a successful mission.
Adv. Econ – You need more turns. This can be the way to balance the game in your favour. Your home world has it. If you are collecting other tiles around you that have it GREAT!
The issues are that if Adv. Econ or Imp Hull don’t come OUT EVER! It hurts.
Conclusions
Eridani with reduced actions, inspite of compensation, are just too easy to mess up. If you get bad luck on tile draws, tech draws and god forbid lose your first dread(like I have to a SINGLE alien), its really an uphill battle.
The rush strategy is contradicted by the 2 less INF discs, so is discarding explore tiles to get only high value sectors.
The only real strategy I see is sits back play well and don’t draw attention to yourself. Let war rage between your enemies around you, in the mean time hopefully you can kill an alien or two to get a few 3s or 4s from the bag. Then everyone else is worn out from killing each other hopefully you’ll have kept quite enough to sneak out of nowhere and steal the victory.