Author Topic: Newb with some strategy issues...  (Read 8498 times)

Offline mmobley

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Newb with some strategy issues...
« on: November 19, 2012, 02:40:08 am »
I am playing my second (first one = epic fail) game and trying to learn how everything works. Personally I think I was doing a good job.

1. Captured several AI Factories and Advanced Research stations.
2. Took a few planets (probably more than I should) and set them up to be well defended (so I thought).
3. Scouted and located MOST of the AI Shield Generators and took them out.
4. Picked up a Rebel Colony :D.
5. Advanced some of my tech and have milked a lot of K.

Now I am close to the end game. I have located one AI homeworld, and think I have located the last Shield Generator.
However, I ran into a HUGE problem....

The planet I am trying to attack has massive Carriers loaded to the brim. If I try to attack I am leveled in no time, and if I wait more than five more minutes he attacks me, and I am again leveled. Either way my glory is about to come crashing down...

AIP is at 480 or so (yea kinda high I know but I'm close to the end).

I have defenses at the adjacent planet, but they don't seem to do much to carrier assaults. I am overwhelmed within seconds with both ships and defenses.

So.... does anyone have a strategy for fighting carriers? Either offensively or defensively?

Save is attached.... Thanks a lot!
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Offline zoutzakje

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Re: Newb with some strategy issues...
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2012, 02:58:51 am »
pop em open and use martyrs (or lightning warheads) to crack whatever is inside? I haven't had the time yet to look into your save so I will do that now. If you're nearly at the endgame already, you could probably afford it.

oh and welcome to the forums btw ^^

Offline Lancefighter

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Re: Newb with some strategy issues...
« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2012, 03:04:51 am »
Youve got about 16k knowledge sitting around unused  (and another 12k uncollected)- Spend that on turrets. Fill your planets to the brim with turrets. Basic turrets, mrls, laser, and missile turrets. Lots of them.

Additionally, military command stations are really strong when combined with turrets. Consider upgrading those if you are having problems on the defense.

Additionally, finish scouting the map. That should be a top priority for the early game, not something you are still doing at the 11 hour mark. Primarily, you need to determine where data centers and the like are. Secondarily, factories and ARS. And finally, youll need to get to the homeworlds.

Its mostly a matter of needing to apply the resources you have at your disposal to the situation - You should have the tools you need to do this.

(oh, and a final point - having 500 aip beore hitting the ai homeworlds is generally far too high. You want to have it somewhere under 300 usually, as taking a homeworld is a LOT of aip in itself) You took a ton of planets, and like I said above, didn't spend the resources you got from these planets. Did you really need to take them?)

edit; its like 3am right now and I dont have the time to run scenarios ingame, this is just what I saw on my initial look.
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Offline zoutzakje

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Re: Newb with some strategy issues...
« Reply #3 on: November 19, 2012, 03:11:56 am »
oh I took a look at your threat and I think this can be solved maybe. First of all, you've got over 16k knowledge to spend, which is good. This means you can try at least enough different tactics if the first one won't work. May I suggest unlocking both Gravitational turrets and Heavy Beam Cannons? Place the grav turrets in a straight line from the  wormhole to your command station, and place all the HBC's (preferably at least mk I and II) all as close to your command station as possible, yet still in range of the hostile wormhole.
If that doesn't work you can unlock mk III and even mk IV HBC's, or try a different tactic. But it works when I'm trying it.
Hope this helps =)

EDIT: Btw, your fleet alone looks powerful enough to deal with at least some of it. I do notice the carriers that keep spawning here and there. Special forces and long build-up time I assume. On dif 4-5 the AI usually isn't that punishing unless you let it do what it wants to do for too long; Build up forces on planets bordering yours.
Even so, grav turrets are still a solid unlock. Will take enemies ages before they get anywhere in your systems. And well placed HBC's will vaporize anything that that might come and assault you.

Putting Tunepan on permanent alert is not a good move though. It might cost you your game. Tunepan is a coreworld (you can tell because it has 2 warp gates and a lot of Mark V ships), meaning the second AI homeworld is right next to it. Either at Chrro or Pihlaucha. Never put coreworlds on alert unless you are ready to attack the homeworlds. Otherwise the enemy forces there start to build up massively and become to big to deal with very quick.

I'd say your AIP is a bit high, but on dif 4-5 it doesn't matter much. Putting that coreworld on permanent alert is probably worse than your high AIP and definitely worse than those few carriers here and there.

Just try it a bit and if you still get stuck let us know. We'll find a way.
« Last Edit: November 19, 2012, 03:50:48 am by zoutzakje »

Offline mmobley

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Re: Newb with some strategy issues...
« Reply #4 on: November 19, 2012, 04:54:17 am »
Nice feedback so far. Here's my thoughts...

I knew I should have put more into the turrets :/ but it is handy to know about Grav and HBC's. I will try that. I did attempt a spam of turrets as Lancefighter suggested, which did stave off the initial onslaught, but also left me broke and unable to fortify or rebuild... maybe I extended myself too much this game :/.

In hindsight I probably did take too many planets, however this map was kinda funky as the Fabs, ARSs, and AFs were in weird places. Also with 10 shield generators I have to knock out AND having to take the planet before the invincible shield goes down; well you get the idea ;).

I DID however look for and target Data Centers. I am having difficulty getting scouts everywhere because they keep dying :(.

As for Tunepan, I am not sure that was avoidable entirely. The planet just to the south (Yarmeluz) had a Rebelling Human Colony, and I was told that letting that get destroyed was very very bad (+100 AIP bad). So I got there with maybe 15 minutes to spare, and discovered Tunepan was bad news :/.

In any case I think I got a little too carried away with pushing ahead on too many fronts at once. I had not anticipated the AI would react the way it did (definitely a plus compared to other RTS games). The problem in this game now is the fact that I have a LOT of defense building to do on 3+ fronts - and not the funds to do it before the AI counter attacks. Could I buy myself some time if I retreat a couple of worlds from the south part of the map? I have observed in beating off a couuple of counter attacks that if the AI deep strikes and loses they don't seem to really mount another challenge after through worlds that are no longer owned by me... is this true?

If that is the case then maybe I can pull back to a more defensible position, abandon those control stations and some valuable structures to reduce my loss in resources, and withdraw everything I can, while letting the AI chew up and get slowed down....

Thoughts?
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Offline zoutzakje

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Re: Newb with some strategy issues...
« Reply #5 on: November 19, 2012, 05:44:52 am »
what you basically have to do right now is use your mobile fleet to attack and clear every single AI world bordering yours, destroying all guard posts (not the wormhole ones), warp gates and enemy ships if there are many (this is called neutering). Leave the command stations alive and make sure at least one enemy bordering warp gate is still alive somewhere. This is where all the regular waves will come from. I'd suggest heavily fortifying the world that is threatened the most (aka receives the strongest Carrier orientated attack for example) with grav turrets, HBC's, tractors, mines and forts, using other turrets to defend the rest of your planets.
Meanwhile your fleet will go and neuter planets, starting with the second toughest and working your way down till you had them all. If one of the bordering AI worlds doesn't have much ships/guard posts on it, ignore it and move on to something tougher. Ignore the alerted coreworld in this for now as well, though make sure your planet there is defended at least better than your regular worlds (unless this is where most attacks come from, in which case you're already doomed ;) ).
I don't know if it's possible to pull this off at this stage, but if you can, you will find yourself in a decent position. At least a better one than you're at now.
Retreating at this point is not very useful I think. You've already suffered the extra AIP of taking those planets, might as well try to keep them. Leaving those planets neutral will mean you don't have the benefits of a command station or the benefits of harvesters. You'll run out of resources even faster. Plus, if you retreat now, the alerted coreworld will build up even longer, eventually letting it's mk V ships pour into your systems.
I think your game has progressed far enough to either try and beat the AI very soon, or get beaten by the AI very soon.
Don't forget to scout the rest of the galaxy either. Unlocking mk III scouts is never a bad idea.

Good luck and let me know how it went ^^

EDIT: about the Human Rebelling Colony... I would rather suffer the +100 AIP than putting a coreworld on permanent alert when I'm not ready for it yet. Especially on a low difficulty. Also, tip for next time. If you HAVE to take a planet next to a coreworld, unlock Warp Jammer command stations and place one there. Not only do Warp Jammers prevent waves from being launched at that planet, they also trick the AI into thinking that a planet with a warp jammer is still one of theirs, thus preventing the alert.
This is something you can still do by the way. Delete command station near the coreworld, unlock warp jammers, wait for command cooldown timer to pass and place a warp jammer. This won't undo the damage already done, but it will prevent it from escalating even further. It costs you a good 5k knowledge though.
« Last Edit: November 19, 2012, 06:10:11 am by zoutzakje »

Offline Kahuna

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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Newb with some strategy issues...
« Reply #7 on: November 19, 2012, 09:33:49 am »
Welcome to the forums, and to the game :)

Also, tip for next time. If you HAVE to take a planet next to a coreworld, unlock Warp Jammer command stations and place one there.
Yea, the warp jammer would have saved you a lot of pain with that core world.  5k knowledge isn't cheap but it's cheaper than a core world with multiple hours of reinforcements.

I'll also echo the "scout the rest of the map" point.  Gotta know where everything is.  Particularly at this stage make absolutely sure you've killed all the datacenters and (if you have the first expansion enabled, I haven't looked at the save) coprocessors.  Doing that will reduce your AIP.  If there's a super-terminal in the galaxy strongly consider hacking that for AIP reduction. 

If there's no super-terminal, strongly consider hacking planets you know you won't take for knowledge.  The AI's response to hacking can get pretty crazy, but if you haven't done any yet you should be able to steal a planet or two's worth of knowledge (or AIP reduction, if using the superterminal) without too much trouble.

Strategically speaking you want to avoid situations where you're facing a massive concentration of AI firepower.  Tactically, since you're already facing that, try to fight it on your own turf.  As the others have said: turrets!  Generally speaking a cap of turrets has three times the offensive punch of a mobile ship cap of the same mark.  Also, the tactical usefulness of grav turrets is difficult to overstate.  Spider turrets are also pretty brutal against stuff vulnerable to engine damage.

Speaking of that, give Riot Control Starships a try.  The mkI versions are already available without spending knowledge and can wreak a lot of havoc on enemy engines.  They can also mount tractor modules to drag a chunk of enemies to a planet or place more suitable for their destruction.  The mkII riot starships can mount tazers, which are very brief aoe-paralyze that can substantially cut into enemy dps because paralysis suspends the reloading process.  The mkIII riot starships can get some heavy-duty tractor modules for more theft, and some gravity-based tomfoolery.

You could also look into MkI Fortresses for defensive purposes.  Extremely expensive in metal, crystal, and energy but if you've taken all that territory you should be able to support them.  MkI forts pack an enormous punch.  So do the mkII and mkIII, but there's a degree of diminishing returns knowledge-wise there.

On the carriers specifically, just popping them and dealing with the combined units may be best, since much of the above doesn't really apply to them.

I could go on about tactical options but I also need to get to work ;)  In general I think you have a good scenario here for experimenting with various ways of beating large AI forces.  Even if you don't win this game (I think you can, though it might require some cheese) that experience will be very valuable next time.
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Offline zoutzakje

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Re: Newb with some strategy issues...
« Reply #8 on: November 19, 2012, 10:21:30 am »
yup yup, be prepared to lose a few games before you have a good grasp of the game mechanics. AI War is quite complex after all. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I lost a few difficulty 1/1 games when I first started 2 years ago. Simply because I didn't understand the game mechanics yet. Putting a coreworld on alert for too long can even kill you on 1/1 lol, as I experienced myself. Right now you're probably just trying to learn how everything works, but once you got the hang of it you'll develop your own playstyle in no time.
There are many ways to win the game, unfortunately there also many more ways to lose it :P
This community helped me a lot to learn it fast though. That and just trying and trying, getting better with each mistake I made.
So keep on asking for advice here if you need it. There are plenty of people here that love to help. Even developers like Keith here like to share their ideas and thoughts ^^

Offline mmobley

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Re: Newb with some strategy issues...
« Reply #9 on: November 19, 2012, 01:36:48 pm »
Okay, thank you all for the info :D. I guess offense is likely my only hope here...

Will try some things and let you know.

One question tho, I am hearing a lot of conflicting information about planet "neutering". I presume this is done to planets that you don't need/want to take, but don't want building up reinforcements. Can someone explain this to me, and what precisely it entails, what the result is, and what do those stupid Wormhole Guard Posts play in it?

Thanks :D
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Offline Wanderer

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Re: Newb with some strategy issues...
« Reply #10 on: November 19, 2012, 01:53:23 pm »
One question tho, I am hearing a lot of conflicting information about planet "neutering". I presume this is done to planets that you don't need/want to take, but don't want building up reinforcements. Can someone explain this to me, and what precisely it entails, what the result is, and what do those stupid Wormhole Guard Posts play in it?

Simple enough.  Each non WHGP (Wormhole Guardpost) allows for more units to be assigned to a planet, it increases the cap, up till around 10 of them.  Neutering a planet then is taking out most (if not all) of the non WHGP's to reduce the cap on a planet to below where Cross-Border Aggression can occur.  CBA occurs when there's more units on the planet then an invisible amount which is determined by difficulty and AIP.

Neutering a planet basically forces most of the reinforcements to the command center till they max off at around 500 or so on a planet.  WHGPs can still get some of those reinforcements, so you'll run into guardians and the like when you 'highway' through the system, but it's nowhere near as bad anymore.
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Offline Kahuna

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Re: Newb with some strategy issues...
« Reply #11 on: November 19, 2012, 02:02:13 pm »
One question tho, I am hearing a lot of conflicting information about planet "neutering". I presume this is done to planets that you don't need/want to take, but don't want building up reinforcements. Can someone explain this to me, and what precisely it entails, what the result is, and what do those stupid Wormhole Guard Posts play in it?
Yes it's done to planets you don't want to capture, will capture later or is adjacent to one of your planets you want to keep (No need to keep an ARS planet 7 hops away). The point of neutering is making the AI planet less threatening. Neutering a planet means destroying all Guard Posts (which don't increase AIP and are not Wormhole Guard Posts (Special Forces Guard Post, Alarm Guard Posts)). The more Guard Posts an AI planet has the more reinforcements it will get.

If you know you wont have to enter that planet ever again (after neutering) you don't need to destroy Eyes (and thus not Special Forces, Alarm or Counter Attack Guard Posts) or Fortresses. You could just destroy the Guard Posts with Raid Starships. This is soft neutering.

If that planet will become a part of you "intergalactic highway to AI Homeworld/whatever" you're gonna wanna destroy Eyes and Fortresses. Only leave the AI Command Station, Warp Gate and Wormhole Guard Posts. Leave Special Forces, Alarm and Counter Attack Guard Posts if the planet doesn't have an Eye. This is full neutering.

Neutering doesn't include destroying the Warp Gate. That's Gate Raiding.

If Hybrids become a problem you can destroy all Hybrid Facilities ~3-5 hops away in every direction from that planet with Raid Starships.
« Last Edit: November 19, 2012, 02:07:33 pm by Kahuna »
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Offline Hearteater

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Re: Newb with some strategy issues...
« Reply #12 on: November 19, 2012, 03:27:05 pm »
If I recall my math correctly (and it hasn't changed since last time I checked), neutering a system actually increases the number of reinforcements received, but 1) locates them mostly at the Command Station, 2) reduces the total number the system can contain before letting some of them go as Border Aggression.

The advantage of #1 is you can often pass through the system (especially with Transports) without waking up the defenders if the AI Command Station is far enough from the wormholes you are traveling between.

The advantage of #2 is even though the system gets more actual ships, it doesn't build up to as large a number so you get much less daunting stacks of defenders whenever you do go in to clear it out.

So despite a slight increase in reinforcements, the system is much safer to deal with for the rest of the game.

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Newb with some strategy issues...
« Reply #13 on: November 19, 2012, 03:32:09 pm »
If you want to see the math itself, there's the reinforcement logging toggle :)

It did change a couple months ago.
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Offline Hearteater

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Re: Newb with some strategy issues...
« Reply #14 on: November 19, 2012, 04:55:49 pm »
Yeah, and I really need to clear all my logs too, because they are getting pretty messy.

 

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