Games too balanced

[LaughingThesaurus]

The thing is, forts can't really kill polycrystal ships, and it takes polycrystal ships weeks to destroy a fort. So, yeah, that's the counter, but it results in a rather long battle of the two sides slapping each other with feather dusters until one gives up. What if bombers were a bit deadlier to forts, or the player could build more that damaged forts but didn't do particularly well in other situations?

[Hearteater]

This is all irrelevant. You are comparing what exactly? Logistics, leaders, what?

How do you expect me to answer this?  You're just ignoring everything.  You clearly don't like the suggestion, so all you want is more stuff to argue against.  Actually, you aren't even arguing against what I've said.  You aren't listening, not to me, and not to the question I was answering.

[Cyborg]

This is all irrelevant. You are comparing what exactly? Logistics, leaders, what?

How do you expect me to answer this?  You're just ignoring everything.  You clearly don't like the suggestion, so all you want is more stuff to argue against.  Actually, you aren't even arguing against what I've said.  You aren't listening, not to me, and not to the question I was answering.

Start with what you're trying to compare. Fortress owns unit x...and? It's a defensive powerhouse.

[KDR_11k]

Fighting enemy forts is the boring part.

[TechSY730]

Renamed my issue to something a little more clear what I am talking about:

4777: Fortress damage adjusting to a less "grindy" setup

[eRe4s3r]

Can I throw something in (especially at TechSY's post in the mantis) when your MK1 bombers can take down a super-fortress. Then please remember that the AI types that USUALLY have super-fortresses, also tend to have MRLS posts and EYES as well as a normal fortress MK2.

And in that situation, your cap of MK1 bombers doesn't even "make it into existence" before exploding. The above described sector (Just even worse, Black Hole gen and more annoying GP's on the way to the super-fortress) is actually what got me to stop playing AI War for a while. There are combinations with fortresses (especially when the AI has a super bomber counter) that are so abysmally grindy that It's beyond comprehension. Reducing the HP of fortresses is one way, but imo only removing self-repair of AI fortresses (And super fortresses) could possibly fix this.

[keith.lamothe]

The AI forts ones self-repair?  Ok, just took that off.

No guarantees on what the AI engineers might do, but I imagine you can arrange for them to have an accident.

[TechSY730]

Can I throw something in (especially at TechSY's post in the mantis) when your MK1 bombers can take down a super-fortress. Then please remember that the AI types that USUALLY have super-fortresses, also tend to have MRLS posts and EYES as well as a normal fortress MK2.

And in that situation, your cap of MK1 bombers doesn't even "make it into existence" before exploding. The above described sector (Just even worse, Black Hole gen and more annoying GP's on the way to the super-fortress) is actually what got me to stop playing AI War for a while. There are combinations with fortresses (especially when the AI has a super bomber counter) that are so abysmally grindy that It's beyond comprehension. Reducing the HP of fortresses is one way, but imo only removing self-repair of AI fortresses (And super fortresses) could possibly fix this.

Quick correction copied from the mantis post:

Just to let you guys know, after the Superfortress buffs, a cap of Mk. I bombers can no longer take out the superfortress (human or AI). For the (possibly AI only) superfortress, neither can a cap of Mk. IIs. Only starting at a cap of Mk. IIIs can they take on an AI superfortress without backup.

[eRe4s3r]

I don't think that even remotely connects to what I was saying.. I was saying that I went with a full maxed out (MK1, MK2, Mk3 bomber assortment) and FULL FLEET for 1500 ships and cap ships against a super fortress + fortress mk2 + EYE + MLRS GP + Tachyon GP (dunno what they are called now ,p) in the sector I described and didn't even scratch it's paint even though I know how to handle an entreched AI type, this sector was impossible until I literally used cheese to get near a fortress then destroy it, then lose my ENTIRE FLEET (thanks to black hole) and rebuild, it took over 2 hours to destroy the black hole gen all things considered. (That, and over 12000 lost ships to wipe the planet altogether). I guess if a SupFort doesn't regenerate anymore that is a bit less of an issue, but I think giving fortresses MORE damage against bombers isn't exactly the smartest thing in the world.

Forts need hard counters imo.

Granted, what I described happens only with certain AI combos but it happens, and boost supForts and forts makes it worse a grind, not less of one. ^^

[Kahuna]

About Forts. By far the best way to destroy Forts at the moment is to use turrets to destroy the fort. HBCs Mark =< 2 will destroy the Fort while Missile and Sniper Turrets cover the HBCs and keep the planet clear. This only works on planet with supply though.

[TechSY730]

I don't think that even remotely connects to what I was saying.. I was saying that I went with a full maxed out (MK1, MK2, Mk3 bomber assortment) and FULL FLEET for 1500 ships and cap ships against a super fortress + fortress mk2 + EYE + MLRS GP + Tachyon GP (dunno what they are called now ,p) in the sector I described and didn't even scratch it's paint even though I know how to handle an entreched AI type, this sector was impossible until I literally used cheese to get near a fortress then destroy it, then lose my ENTIRE FLEET (thanks to black hole) and rebuild, it took over 2 hours to destroy the black hole gen all things considered. (That, and over 12000 lost ships to wipe the planet altogether). I guess if a SupFort doesn't regenerate anymore that is a bit less of an issue, but I think giving fortresses MORE damage against bombers isn't exactly the smartest thing in the world.

Forts need hard counters imo.

Granted, what I described happens only with certain AI combos but it happens, and boost supForts and forts makes it worse a grind, not less of one. ^^

Sorry, I didn't mean to support or argue against your position. Just trying to give a notice that something that was previously true is no longer true.

[Poko]

My current game is against a fortress baron AI type on 9/9, so I'm fighting against a whole lot of forts and superforts.  I don't really see what people's problem is when they say they're too hard?  Several very effective measures against them:

Spirecraft Rams (from asteroids) + Cloaker starship
Artillery / Armor Golem
Jumpship'ing in 30-40 tough guys to clear the rest of the system if the fort is blocking the wormhole, then bring in the bombers
Bombers first, then Champion + blob zerg using the projected shadow shield (non-group move to get there faster)
Some systems I can just set a fleet of bombers at them and go do something else while they nuke it

I like the beam turret idea someone posted above, I'm going to try that soon.

I really like the current AI fort mechanics, they require more thinking and interaction with the system.  I can't just shift-g-rightclick from guard post to guard post when there are forts around. 

[Kjara]

Regarding the newish guardpost changes.  I wonder if the uptune here has a much larger effect on those who tend to play more around diff 7 than those of us that play 9+?  I forget exactly how guardposts change with diff (if anything I would guess that less of them spawn on lower diffs, or that perhaps this should happen or to a larger extend than it does now?).  Now that each post has a much higher base difficultly before adding in reinforcements, it also tends to slow down the initial expansion.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but still is a thing that people will need time to adjust to. 

I've also noticed that you can get some nasty combinations with Laser or MRLS supported fortresses, but I'm also not conviced that this is a bad thing.  We usually have the resources to get past them if we need to(although it can become a bit grindy), or in many cases we can accept the fact that we can't go through or take that planet, which is reasonable on most map types (though I could see this being a pain on say snake).  It has led to some interesting pathing choices for expansion on my most recent game on Clusters - Microcosm and has at least minorly forced me to adapt my strategy in a couple of cases, rather than just being able to roll with what I expect to work from the start.

[keith.lamothe]

Regarding the newish guardpost changes.  I wonder if the uptune here has a much larger effect on those who tend to play more around diff 7 than those of us that play 9+?  I forget exactly how guardposts change with diff (if anything I would guess that less of them spawn on lower diffs, or that perhaps this should happen or to a larger extend than it does now?).

The release that came out earlier today substantially reduces overall galactic guard post population on diff 7 (and to a lesser extent on the higher ones).  You'll still find some planets with 7 guard posts, for example, but instead of basically never finding fewer than 7 on a planet (on diff 7) there are now several with only 3, several with only 4, etc.

In fact it's possible I reduced them too much, but we'll see

[Kjara]

Regarding the newish guardpost changes.  I wonder if the uptune here has a much larger effect on those who tend to play more around diff 7 than those of us that play 9+?  I forget exactly how guardposts change with diff (if anything I would guess that less of them spawn on lower diffs, or that perhaps this should happen or to a larger extend than it does now?).

The release that came out earlier today substantially reduces overall galactic guard post population on diff 7 (and to a lesser extent on the higher ones).  You'll still find some planets with 7 guard posts, for example, but instead of basically never finding fewer than 7 on a planet (on diff 7) there are now several with only 3, several with only 4, etc.

In fact it's possible I reduced them too much, but we'll see

Ah, sounds good.  Thats what I get for not getting around to reading the latest patch notes yet .

How much of an effect will this have on the later game in terms of reinforcement speed/max reinforcement levels (since that scales somewhat with the number of reinforcement points?)?