Frequently Asked Questions

= What drives should I get first?

TI has many drive options. Some are generally good, some are generally useless, and some are situational. But for your first game when you don't know what's going on, here's a few default early choices:

• You can shoot down a surveillance destroyer with the Nova chemical rocket.
• For defending a planet, you want 6-10 kps and as much cruise acceleration as you can manage. Target early options are Orion, Pegasus, or Burner. Helicon will serve, but is a bit slow.
• For getting a ship to Mercury or the asteroid belt, you want 30+ kps and cruise acceleration of at least 1-2 milli-g. Decent early options are Helicon, Advanced VASIMR, or Grid.

Managing Nations

How do I take a control point in China from a rival?

• You're going to need councilors with maxed 25 INV and 25 ESP, and a war chest of Ops.
• Get a spy in their faction and investigate a few additional councilors.
• Campaign your popularity up as high as it will go -- ideally, over 70%.
• Ideally, wait until shortly before their Defend protection expires.
• Ideally, target the Security Apparatus control point first. Its bonuses will be helpful for future purges.
• When it's go time, go to the Councilors tab and tell your spy to resign. Turn a new spy and simultaneously Assassinate or Detain as many additional councilors as you can. The idea is to push them as far over their control cap as possible, while also reducing their total council Adminstration score as much as possible. These both either help you or hurt them when you attempt Crack Down.
• Be prepared to have to try more than once before the dice roll in your favor. Good luck.

How do I fix China's Government?

• If Taiwan hasn't been reunified yet: Research Liberating Mainland China. Unify the People's Republic into Taiwan, creating the Republic of China. The meganation keeps Taiwan's government score, instantly democratizing a billion people.
• If Taiwan has been reunified: This is much harder. It's too late to re-release Taiwan, since it's a weird nation that thinks its capital is in Shanghai but doesn't have a claim on Shanghai at game start. (And even if you do, Taiwan's democratic government has been destroyed and doesn't just come back if you liberate Taipei.) But grinding the government score for giant China all the way up through Anocracy is a giant waste of resources.
  • If you have already researched Liberating Mainland China, release Shanghai as a one-region nation, Republic of China.
  • Be warned, Shanghai even by itself is a large nation (4 control points, costing around 60 CAP). Don't expect fixing China to be easy or cheap.
  • If you have not got LMC yet, instead it's much cheaper to get Fall of Nations / End of China, and release Shanghai as Huanan.
  • In either case, use Shanghai's 16 IP to grind up through Anocracy, while the rest of China remains productive.
  • When Shanghai is democratic, research LMC and reunify the rest of China into Republic of China.