Tactical Combat, Better Than I Expected...but

[gforce]

After reading some SEIV reviews criticizing the combat at the tactical level, I was pleasantly surprised in my first game to find it challenging and fun. I am playing the Earth Alliance from Mod 1.60 and am having to shift my fleets to get the first shot in a battle. I am in turn 150 and only researched Physics about 20 turns ago and the oppostion fleets have shields and better tech. Luckily, I found the Massive Shield Depleter weapon on some ruins and have made that weapon the centerpiece of my fleets to bring down the AI's shields before heavy engaging.

The only drawback so far is how the AI fights around its planets. Whenever I have attacked so far, the AI ships left the safety of the planet and its satellites and engaged my fleet at a distinct disadvantage.

All in all though, I will be playing this one for a while.

[Codo]

Yeah, well I'm none too happy about tactical combat with the 1.60 Mod

I had this glorious fleet and managed to make my neighboring empire actually surrender (Just how the hell are you supposed to manage doubling the size of your empire in one turn? I STILL have riots even 25 turns later!)

Anyways, I then ran into the Narn and Darloks (Thank goodness I already have researched the daylights out of intelligence!) I've not much contact with the Darloks, and forged a partnership with the Narn.... (Oh, I'm playing Earth Alliance) and then I ran into the Sergetti... ACK! ACK! ACK! My glorious fleet was reduced to rubble. Had something to do with his Polaran Beams vs. Class V REGULAR shields. OK... No problem even though I didn't get any of his ships... And my poor fighters. I've not seen so much point defense! I've a massive research and industrial base. About a year and a half later, I've reasoable phase shields. So I rebuild my fleet. This time, no fighters, lots of phase sheilds, ecm, stealth armor, and some nifty weapons.... Round 2 goes to... Sergetti. HAH! At least this time I killed a few ships! Except all the loved ones back at the Earth Alliance homeworld are weeping... Damn another fleet gone? Well, now I've gone defensive. Thank goodness there appears to only be one single wormhole between our empires. I'm tempted to close it, but I just don't want to yet... Though I've got a wormhole collapser on standby. Lots of mines though! 100 large mines with Type III warheads oughta slow him down... He's already now lost TWO fleets of 30+ ships against this minefield... Meanwhile, I'm buildign the SEIV equivalent of an A-Bomb... The Star Killer. I'm'a gonna find his home system and blow the crap outta his star... And I've also just rebuilt a new fleet... Copying his designs for DN's... Now we'll see who kicks some butt... Except stupid stupid stupid, I forgot to bring along mine sweepers and just lost 8 of my shiny new dreadnoughts, as well as my two supply ships... At least the repair ships came through OK (BOy have they some work to do). Well, I think I'll bring up a couple of Baseships and some mine sweepers and then we'll see whose laughing.... Hehe, here comes his fleet... HOLY COW! I don't think I've EVER seen a computer player use that many fighters! I think he's got like FIVE??? heavy carriers? Thank god I copied his desgins and have a LOT of PD... Well, we'll just see how this goes... Over and out...

Codo

[gforce]

Ouch You're a heck of a lot farther along than I am. I started out in the bottom corner of the map with a black hole sector above me and only one worm hole out of my system. I expanded into four other systems and met three races including the Xiati. I have partnerships with two races so they are showing me their designs/maps. The Xiati have dreadnoughts and I have battle cruisers. Needless to say, I started building mine layers in the hopes of preventing the Xiati from finding me. It is good to know that mines work.

[Codo]

They work great. But you'll hate the first time you see something like:

Minefield Triggerd! The Sergetti have lost one ship to the mines. They have swept 50 mines.


OW!!!!!!

Do you know what it takes to get 50 large mines in place? Especially when most of ones economy is building a THIRD fleet to make up for the Last two that got blown up? *Sigh*

[Taqwus]

One reason to avoid tactical combat is to reduce the temptation to avoid relying on certain cheesy tactics that don't work in strategic (and hence, in multiplayer... if you ever want to do MP, you need to design ships/fleets with strategic combat in mind).

You can, for instance, early on take advantage of missile-heavy fleets by causing only the targeted ship to run away while the rest charge the missiles won't acquire new targets, even if the original is out of range and other ships are *right in front* of the missiles). You could also, at least in previous Versions, count on the AI chasing you and running into your missiles, taking unnecessary damage.

OTOH, with strategic you lose some decent options (for instance, I'd rather withhold fighters and launch when the fleets are already engaged, or even until the enemy ships are weaponless -- well-equipped large fighters can outrun any fleeing ship, and there's no sense in losing lots of fighters deep in enemy space).

I'm of two minds as to the AI leaving the vicinity of a planet. In some cases, the AI should play goaltender -- for instance, if I'm only attacking with one ship, a Biowarfare Battlecruiser fitted for speed, it would be obvious (to a human opponent, not an AI) that it should prevent me from reaching the planet and starting a plague... and if I'm faster, it'd be silly to chase me and let me do an end run.

On the other hand, if it's a veritable armada that I've sent (that is, complete with everything from plasma missiles to bombers to beamers to stellar manipulation ships, etc), the only hope for the planet to survive *might* be to sacrifice the fleet and try to engage before my missile ships get in range. But that's still likely not a good option, since the defending fleet is probably more valuable than the planet...

Incidentally, Codo -- since you have espionage, I hope you've been trying Crew Insurrection (target particular ships if you can) and Intel Sabotage (much cheaper than counterintel, but must be directed towards a specific enemy). Espionage is VERY powerful in this game; it would be difficult to overestimate its power for wreaking havoc and acquiring stuff (tech, resources, ships, worlds, information...), and it's hard to beat the range or cost (infinite range, very quick, no marginal resource cost...).

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[raynor]

What do y'all think about the use of large mines? A large mine costs twice as much as a small mine and does twice as much damage. So, you can have a mine field with 50 large mines that does 50 x 1200 damage. Or, you can have a small mine field with 100 x 600 damage. Both cost the same but the small mine field is twice as difficult to clear. The only caveat is the unit limit.

Otherwise, don't you think you are better off just building small mines that are more difficult to clear?

[Lupusman]

That's what I'm thinking also. I'd rather have lots of small mines with Warhead 3's on them.

[Codo]

Well on mines, for my case in point, due to my not being able to spend more than I'm bringing in (Yes, I do plan on building to some ship yards to correct that problem.) and the time I had, it was easy to seed the wormhole with 100 large mines. Very nasty. Of course, to fill in the games quickly, I've been building some small mines just to bring the minefield back up to speed...

As to espionage, I've been mercilessly pounding the Sergetti with Cargo Bombs, Ship Bombs, economic disruption, puppet politics, anti-intel, anti-research, and resource theft (I don't need the resources, I just don't want him to have it!) I gave up on Crew Insurrection, because I have yet to get one of his ships back to my space intact. The worlds I get under puppet politics don't Last long, but at least that's one more colony he has to start from scratch.

What worried me now is that I got a scout deep into his territory... ALL of the planets in that system were Oxygen...Uh-oh...BAD sign for me I think....

Codo

[Sinapus]

Yes, the Sergetti and other AI in the modpack use Planet Utilization. I'm guessing that if those worlds were colonized before they got atmosphere converters then the AI -does- scrap a facility to make room for the atmosphere converters. Or at least I hope it does.



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--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

[raynor]

One of these days, I'm gonna have to try out this intelligence stuff. I usually don't build those facilities. I find it much more fun to let the AI pound me with Intel and steal my SM ships that took me 30 turns to build.

You wake up one morning and find that two or three of your systems are blockaded by your own former ships.


[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 04 March 2001).]