Example
Setup:
* Custom Game
* Sphere Star Map
* 40 Stars
* 4 players
* 1 of each race
* All other settings default
Hiver Notes:
Playing a Hiver is about thinking long term. Hivers use regular reaction based drives to move to a new system. Intially your speed is 0.5 which means 2 turns for every 1 of distance. In this case my closest neighbor to the homeworld of Etos’che is 5.6 which is 12 turns away.
You want to avoid making the same trip twice so scouting with the Hiver consists of sending out Gate ships. Once the gate is set up in a system it only takes 1 turn to move ships between gates so your second wave can launch from those explored worlds. Each gate adds its power to the gate network allowing more ships to be transferred each turn so Hiver players want to set up as many gates as possible to increase their teleport capacity and have multiple places to launch your next waves from.
During the early game Hiver players can risk sending out Gate ships unescorted, but if you meet opposition your fleet goes through two combat rounds (on the turn your arrive at the system and the turn that the gate is set up) before the gate is active. Setting up a gate on an enemy occupied world is always a great battle as the defenders try to stop the gate construction while the Hiver player knows the gate must be built or there are not reinforcements and it will be many turn before you can try again.
Turn 1:
Hiver players start with three Gate ships already built. Unfortunately the closest worlds are more than my range of 5 so the Gate ships will need refuelling on the way. I build two pre-designed Tanker ships to be ready next turn. Tankers are expensive ships costing 20,050 each so two of them will use up the majority of my intial 50,000 in savings.
A good initial technology to research is Waldo Units. This provides an increase in industrial output for all of your colonies, and a reduction in ship construction cost. It is also the initial technology for the Industiral branch and leads to many construction improvements. There are 5 worlds within a distance of 10 to my homeworld, so building another two Gate and Tanker fleets would help get a good jump on exploration. A Gate plus a tanker will cost over 56,000 so I need to save up some money to buy them. I set my budget to maximum research while still leaving me at least 56,000 in the bank. At this rate the Waldo Units will be at 100% of budget in 13 turns, but I’ll increase my research budget once the exploration fleets are away.
Turn 2:
I pair up the two newly built tankers with two gate ships and send them out to the two nearest worlds. I queue up another tanker and a gate ship to build next turn and increase my research rate to about 1/2 of budget.
Turn 3:
I send the third Gate and Tanker pair to the closest star towards the center of the sphere. This will probably the starting point of the second wave of my exploration. I queue up the last Gate and another Tanker to build.
Turn 4:
The fourth exploration pair heads for the next nearest star whicle I queue up the last tanker of the first wave. Now I need to think about defending the homeworld from alien menaces while my fleets slowly make thier way to the stars. My choices are Armor ships that are more expensive, but can move around, and defense satellies, which are a lot cheaper to build but are limited to a fixed orbiting path. I queue up a single Armor destroyer this turn and design a basic defense satellite with missles and gauss cannons. I name it the Chitin class defense sat.
Turn 5:
The fifth and final exploration fleet is on its way. I increase my research rate up to 3/4ths and queue up another two Armors to defend the homeworld.
Turn 6:
I build a fourth Armor destroyer and set my research rate to maximum.
Turn 8:
My research has gone over budget. In Sword of the Stars there is a random chance that your research will complete before or after the 100% budgeted amount. So even if you’re scheduled to reach 100% completion on a technology on turn 8, you may get luck and have it complete on turn 7 or 6, or unlucky and have it run over into turn 9 or 10. This time I’m unlucky so I’ll need to wait at least another turn for Waldo Units.
Turn 10:
Waldo units finally completes and I turn my focus to the Power branch of technologies. Pulsed Fission Drives not only increase your strategic range, but they increase your speed in tactical combat and are a great starting Power tech. Since I have nothing else to build until my exploration ships reah their destinations, I leave the research rate at maximum.
Turn 10 Combat:
The creation of a homeworld defense fleet pays off as I’m attacked by an Alien Menace. There’s more than Hivers, Humans, Tarkas, and Liir in the universe of SotS and sometimes they drop by your worlds for a visit. I don’t want to spoil the surprises of these encounters but even with 4 Armors defending the homeworld I still lost 25% of my infrastructure and 164 million colonists. But on the bright side my colony increased its total resources from 5,000 to 5,585.
Turn 11:
I focus my industrial output to rebuilding my infrastructure by maxing out the Infrastructure slider that is now in my colony summary panel. This cuts down my research by 34k for the next turn which adds 4 turns to the 100% completion but is necessary to get my colony working back at peak performance.
I also take time to manually refuel my exploration fleets. Hivers can refuel while in transit and the trips are short enough that only one refuel is necessary for each fleet.
Turn 13:
My homeworld is back up to 100% infrastructure and population is rising back to its maximum of 1 billion.
Turn 13 Combat:
Alien menaces not only wander to your worlds but sometimes claim a systme for their own. Unfortunately my first exploration fleet finds just such an entity at Chiskatet. The world of Chistaket is a dead world anyway, unfit for colonization and my fleet is able to avoid the notice of the menace to make its way to explore another world. Some day I will come back to this place and see what secrets the menace holds.
Turn 15:
Pulsed Fission Drives are complete. I start research on Gene Modification to increase population growth and begin research in the biotech branch.
One of the exploration fleets reached Rizketep. It is a size 4 world with poor resources of 2,475 and a horrible Climate Hazard rating of 467.28. Although I could put a colony onto that world it would take 56,048 a turn (which is about 1/2 my total budget) to maintain the colony. It’s not worth it for that size and few resources. I deploy the gate and wait to see how my other fleet fair.
Turn 16:
With a new jumping off point for exploration at Rizketep I upgrade the Gate and Taker designs to use the new Pulsed Fission engine sections. This increases their strategic range from 5 to 7. There are two worlds relatively close to Rizketep so I queue up two Tankers and Gates at the homeworld to begin the second wave. This pushes me over my current savings, so I reduce my research rate to 2/3rds to pay off the debt and save up for more ships.
Turn 17:
I pair up a Gate Mk2 and Tanker Mk2 into a fleet and move it the distance of 6.1 from Etos’Che to Rizketep in one turn through the gate.
Turn 18:
I launch the start of the second wave from Rizketep as the remainder of my first wave near their targets. A second Mk2 exploration fleet teleports from Etos’Che to Rizketep.
Turn 19:
The second Mk2 fleet begins its journey of 12 turns to a new world.
Turn 20:
Gene Modification completes and I start Suspended Animation technology to increase the carrying capcacity of a colonizer ship section.
A fleet reaches Zyrokin, which is another dead world and I deploy the gate. It’s a key world with 4 new systems within a distance of 10. I queue up three Gate Mk2s and a Tanker Mk2 to eventually launch from Zyrokin.
Turn 22:
Chytoporis is explored by a first wave fleet. It’s similar to Rizketep except it’s double the size and has more resources. It’s still not a good first colony so I deploy the gate for next turn.
With 3 gates deployed I have a gate capacity total of 9. This means I can move 9 destroyer sized ships through the gate network each turn so moving the 4 ships from Etos’Che to Zyrokin is easily within the capacity.
Turn 23:
A first wave fleet reaches Zozoris and it’s a pretty good world. It has decent size at 6 with good resources of 5,478. The Climate Hazard rating is a little high at 271.55, but it will only use up 1/4 of my current total budget. I decide this will be my first colony and order the gate to be deployed.
Even at maximum research rate the Suspended Animation isn’t due to reach 100% for another two turns so I decide to boost research by pushing some of my savings into the research. This can be a dangerous thing since the more you boost research the greater a chance of an accident occurring. I play it rather conservatively by keeping the boost low, a little more than 24,000. We’ll see the outcome next turn.
Finally for this turn I send another second wave fleet down the gate to launch from Chytoporis.
Turn 24:
My research boost plan almost works as it advanced the project past 100% but did not finish it as it goes over budget. I boost it with another influx of savings and hope for the best next turn.
I launch from Chytoporis and the second wave is well underway with 6 fleets in transit.
Turn 25:
Research completes on Suspended Animation. I start research on Atmospheric Adaptation to help my colonists Zozoris live on the new world.
I redesign the Colonizer ships to include Suspended animation and queue two up for construction. Since the colonizers will only travel to worlds with a gate I don’t have to worry about weaponry or engine upgrades so I can keep the cost fo the ships relatively cheap compared to other races.
Turn 27:
I send two of the Armor destroyers with the Colonizer ships through the gate to Zozosis. I need to protect my new colony ad they are very fragile. I reduce the research rate as well so I can start construction on some more defensive ships.
Turn 28:
The Colonizers land on Zozoris starting the first new colony for the Hive and beginning our complete domination of this sector of the galaxy!
