Battlestations

[Spaced Cowboy]

Hmmm interesting. I'll give it a try.

[moomin]

Note that the target selection is done when they "warp in" so building a new outpost once they've alrady targeted that system is useless.

For added fun, try this: have a single colony in a system. Wait till the Anties target it. Give it away to an enemy your at war with. Bomb away the colony and get out of there before the Anties arrive. Enjoy the results.

[Spaced Cowboy]

It doesn't crash me to the desktop, does it?

[David Floyd]

Hmmm, one thing I don't understand is why y'all seem to build such small fleets based on small ships...

In my last game, I was a custom race, and the only remaining race was the Bulrathi. We got into a massive arms buildup - I had probably 25 Doom Stars, 60 Titans, 60 BBs, 70 Cruisers and a handful of Destroyers, while he had over 30 Doom Stars, 30-40 Titans, 30-40 BBs, and a dozen or so smaller ships. Even with that fleet my income was over 8000 a turn.

Furthermore, planetary defenses aren't quite as weak as some might think, once you get the Stellar Converter and Star Fortresses. That combo can usually take out 2-4 Titans, or a Doom Star and a Titan or two, one phase one, and as long as the SC is alive it can kill a ship of any size every single turn. So, even if a massive 50 ship fleet comes to fry a colony world, that fleet will lose maybe half a dozen of their largest ships, just to kill an insignificant planet. Artemis Nets help even more. Assuming one builds colony bases everywhere possible, we're looking at 3-6 worlds per star system. That big fleet will be toast in no time, at which point you can move in YOUR fleet, and retake your worlds unopposed. A good trade if you ask me, because at that point you can usually demand 10% tribute and a few nice systems from your enemy, and get them.

As for early fleets, I tend to design two classes of ships, a destroyer and a cruiser, with a possible early battleship. I use primarily beam weapons, and these ships are used to kill space monsters, secure valuable systems guarded by monsters (not Orion until later of course), and fight off early invasions. This is where star bases and battlestations really come in handy, too - use your small ships as fodder while the base and planetary defenses beat on the enemy fleet. You each lose much of your fleet, but this early it doesn't really matter.

One final note: for mid-game fleets, I usually design a point defense class of ship, based on the Cruiser hull. I jam as many PdPhasers on it as possible, usually 25-30, with a few appropriate special systems. Congratulations, enemy missile attacks are no longer a threat, just build one of these for every battleship you have, and you can shoot down anything - saves space on the BBs and Titans for more useful stuff, instead of ECM.

[Spaced Cowboy]

David,

We are implying an early game rush with small missle boats.

R:PM

[vmxa1]

Well let me start with the SC first. I just finished a saved gam I found at sff. I was a made up race that really reflects the sillies. Non creative in other words. I got Loknar and attacked many planets that had SC and everything else. Since I knew my fleet of 10-12 could beat this planet, I let it do auto combat. What this means is Loknar jumped on the planet and was the only ship targeted and the SC could not take him down. I think it had three rounds, maybe only two.When I go after an AI and it has late game stuff, it will not help and they will rarely beat any of my ships. By that time I will have x armour and use either BB or Titans.
Many people feel that demanding from the AI is unfair.
Anyway in this game I could not even offer a trade or a gift, nothing, only war or surrender.
In the scenario you mention, later or even mid game, I do not use PD even for my otherwise uselss space as it is of no value to me at that point. They are not going to get off many shots and I am not concerned if they hit me with some missiles. If the SC is not going to do it, neither will missiles.
Anyway I would recommend not letting them get a fleet of that size in the first place. I wil routinely send fleets of 10 or so battleships in to destroy their fleets of any size (ususally 20-40 BB, titans and some lessers). Since at this stage it is he who goes first wins. He who goes second is laughed at.

[David Floyd]

Where's the fun in not letting the computer build though?

[vmxa1]

I don't disagree with you. My fav game was to play hard small or med map and build all the way out.
Lately I have been playing lots races and maps from the web and most of them are set in large or huge at impossible. I find it is no fun to try to handle all of those planets and at IMP you can not afford to build. I did not say that it was great fun, but it can be interesting. Once I finish the suggested games/races I have heard of, I may go back to my old ways. Mind you I am not going for the 100 turn win, but you need to have the upper hand by 200 in those games. The Prewarp ones are the least fun to me.

[Spaced Cowboy]

I agree, I've been playing prewarp lately, but I'm soon to switch back to "the middle one". The advanced one seems way too wierd. Does anyone play one that?

[vmxa1]

I used to love Adv Tech when I am Creative. I thought it was a good way to speed up the game for a quick one. Then I started playing all these games at impossible and thought it was an advantage for Creative races as they had all the early techs. I now question its value for Creative. This is because you have so much to build you are bogged down and the AI steals you blind, as you often have to take-spying or Repulsive. I now think that PreWarp is better for Creative, especially if you have xxxTol trait as well. This gives you a chance to get some spies in place and build your discoveries before meeting some other races. The problem for me is this game (Huge, PreWarp, 8 players) is bigger than I want to handle. You never get a vote so you either have to capture or kill most of the races to win or go to anataria (Orion is a given). I often do not use the Anties as I find them just annoying by mid game, no real threat and I have to interrupt what I am doing to deal with them. Late in the game they hardly ever come anyway as you are too strong for them and they seem to know it.

[Garth Vader]

I used to play Pre-Warp a lot, I think I'll try that again.

I think Advanced tech with Creative is too easy. As long as you start building a few spies, get trade deals with everybody the first few turns and demand that they stop spying you can limit your theft losses to one or two techs.

The AI's advantage is that it can usually out expand and out build you in the early game. Plus it can make star bases appear on size one toxic poor planets in one turn.

With advanced tech creative you start with solid defence and a good number of systems, I have never even come close to losing on impossible with this start.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Oh, well I never choose creative anymore thanks to you guys telling me that it was lame. And I agree that it does add a different strategy to the game. So does anyone think that playing non-creative on advanced tech is weird?

[Garth Vader]

Weird doesn't begin to describe it. The computer picks the dumbest techs for you. I think I always got scout lab and troop pods

That's why I think uncreative should be like -10 points.

[Spaced Cowboy]

ah, but does that add anything significant to the challenge level, that is, have the comp f' you over on the inital picks.

[vmxa1]

I have lost using a race that so many claimed was unbeatable. It was a UniTelCreative. At Adv tech, I was jamming in so many techs, but could produce little. The bad news is if you jump down a worm hole and some races now makes contact. This is bad as they start stealing, but I can not reach them to conquer. The race has a low production if you try to research as normal. I read some post later by the author claming he never loses with this race, now saying it was too weak to get a BB up by turn 120 (no kinding) and he was dropping it. Anyway, AFAIK the AI will ignore you and claim to stop spying, but does not, if you are weak and you will be. I rarely get any chance to trade at Huge, Pre, Impossible. On hard levels, creative is too easy, but I am not so sure about that on impossible levels.
IMO you need to go with PreWarp at Imposible levels, if you are not Creative. Even if you are creative, I think you need to use Prewarp, because you will start out with much to build and gain new things very fast, faster than you can keep up with, unless you take many po off research and put them on production. That does not do all that much early as you create to much pollution and net is not high enough. Maybe if you took +Prod, you could handle it. If you can get off the ground then you will take over as a Creative, but it is easy to get swampped.
DemoCreate is one race that may work as it has prod and research bonuses. Of course it suffers from spying, but I have found litttle stops that until you get a ton of spies build and research the boost and this race would be good for that.
Cyb anything seems to suck against the computer and I would say Uni takes too much production and is very slow to start aganst the AI. I can see where it can shine in an MP game as everyone else is likely to have one as well and Humans can understand that there will be a reaction to stealing and try to be smart about it. The AI does not understand that and goes right to it, because it thinks you are weak as you do not have as many ships as they do in the early game.
If you want to say any race trait is too easy (and I don't) I would say it would be Telepathic. Being able to capture a planet with just a crusier and have instant assimilation is very strong. If you want to run a capture ship up to grab the star base, you do not even have to struggle. Any unguarded colonies are gimmes and the AI often leaves new planets unguarded.
Anyway I have no problem with people playing at any level with any race, just so long as it is played straight up and you want to tell me about, I will listen. If you use cheats and editors, then I am not interested in what they have to say. Not because I care if they cheat, but it won't be applicable to my game and therefore I won't learn anything from it. I saw one post where someone said, that they can be the Anties in some very early turn. then they start talking about having 65 Doom stars?????? They used an editor, that was a waste of my time.
Funny thing is at Moo and Moo2, I some times go back to an averag game to see if I can get into one of those massive battles. when I do, I find Ihave to play differently.