|
There is nothing more frustrating when you enter a game and everyone leaves. You have so many potential nukes yet you know your science ship probably will be destroyed when it lands on a home world, denying you a quick nuke.
You can tell if someone has left a game by watching the Info Menu on an update. If a person has left for three updates, they go onto automatic update. That means the game will automatically set set that empire to being ready for an update, as if they had hit the end turn button.
So at the Info Menu you will see something like 1 of 3 players is ready for an update. This means on the udpate, that one person has been gone three updates or more. If you see 2 of 3 players ready for an update, you know that two are gone and only YOU are the only empire still playing.
What I do, when I spot this early, is keep my colony ships following my science ships instead of colonizing. Sure, my science ship may be destroyed on their home world, but my colony will be in the adjacent system.
I then colonize right next to the home world. As I do so, I can either build a stargate or opt to pop trick. Either way, I can eventually have ships at the system in a couple updates.
Because most people leave early, they will only have BR1 ships on their home world. By the time you find them, you should be able to build BR2 ships. From the build chart, you can see that one BR2 ships will take out four BR1 shiups.
You have about 12 updates to find and nuke an empire before it ruins after going onto auto update. So you have to plan ahead and move fast in getting the nukes. Of course, if you don't like an empire, you can always just hit end turn button a few times to let them ruin. A ruin counts minus one on their record. A nuke is a negative half point.
Then again, a nuke looks good on your record. You get no credit for having handed someone a ruin.
So stay awake to the potential that someone has left, and how you can collect a nuke before they ruin.
| 
