Space Empires IV Gold Game

[Nephtys]

Now that it's over, we were really afraid of this from you Tux,

Bah. 250 kT + 15 reload time = teh lose.

When I put 50 of your Constellation Mark 4's against 80 of my newest design Grand Nagus T battlecruiser, it's even losses 50 50. You're using hulls 1300 kT, should really kill at least two battlecruisers for every ship I kill especially considering my battlecruisers have paper-thin 7 shields. Son of Surak can probably kill 2 or 3 Grand Nagus T for every ship, though this new design of quantums + armor skipping beams is a pretty killer combo (Neph thought of it, as usual ).

Brian

Actually, the shields don't matter at all. You'd be better off against my ships with no shields and no armor. If you notice, the constellations completely ignore both. However, the problem is that I could never get the braindead AI to even semi-competently use my (fairly straightforward) designs. Very maddening. In theory, my constellations should have been worth 2 of anyone else's Juggernoughts (except maybe the KFs). In practice, they were barely worth more than one.

Anyway, 50 vs 80 isn't just 8/5 to 1 odds, because you're forgetting about the n-squared law. Not that it matters, since you had more than double the number I had, and Neph had at least half again what I did.

Fire a salvo of Q-Torps to reduce shields (they're very efficient at that) and fire one blast of your macross cannon analog. It'll one-shot a ship, an ability we don't have.

Shields DO matter. Since even a few shields around are good for protecting against conventional weapon attack, and shields till count as subsystems that your skippertorps can hit.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Take a closer look at the constellation design. They don't use skippertorps.

Here's what I was going for:

There are three main weapons on the constellation, tractor beams, shield disruptors, and neutrino beams. First, you hit them with the tractor beam, since the shield disruptors are at maximum effectiveness at point blank range, able to take out multiple shield generators with each shot. This instantly reduces shields to zero. Next, you hit with the neutrino beams, crippling the ship. In later designs, I substituted some of the neutrino beams for pulse phasers to help in finishing off ships, give better anti-fighter capability, and give at least some sustained firepower on even turns (shield disruptors and neutrino beams have a fire rate of 2).

Optimum strategy would have been to close into maximum range, pull ship close-in and pound it to hell, and then dance away, repeating as necessary. I never expected the AI to do that, but I at least expected it to come in and fire the weapons in the order that I had loaded them onto the ship at the same target. However, the AI was doing shit like firing the weapons out of order (which is 100% ineffective, since neutrino beams fired into shields don't do shit), dropping the shields of one ship and then firing the neutrinos into another (fully shielded) ship, staying at maximum range and using only pulse phasers, etc. I spent probably hours changing strategies and target priorities, but to no avail. My designs were still slightly more effective that way than other designs, but it pissed me off to no end that the AI wasn't using them in the straightforward, brute force way that it uses every other ship, but instead outsmarted itself for some reason.

[brianeyci]

Anyway, 50 vs 80 isn't just 8/5 to 1 odds, because you're forgetting about the n-squared law. Not that it matters, since you had more than double the number I had, and Neph had at least half again what I did.

If I take the number of resources for my ship, at around 11k minerals (the most so let's assume 11k/11k/11k) it'll probably still come out to a lot less resources than your ships. Actually I'm willing to bet that it costs half as much as your juggernaught. So it should be a given that you'll be outnumbered two to one. It's all well and good to say that the math works out and you can kill twice as many ships porportionally, but if you have time to build 50 with the same resources they could make 100. So you should be able to kill 100 ships because it's the resources that matter. If you build 100 ships and they cost twice as much as theirs, they should be able to kill 200.

The real reason why shield burners aren't good is because of economics. 1500/0/1000 cost, it'll add an extra turn to your building order. So let's say a shield burner can take down 225 shields. A quantum does 141 damage to shields so it only takes two quantums to do the same job and it doesn't cost 20 times as much. Sure, rather than 6 spots to kill three shield generators, you have one spot with a shield burner. But you can build 20 quantums for every shield burner. Unless you're stuck to small hulls, shield burners don't make sense.

Larger ships are good because you can put more shields on them. They waste less space % wise on bridge, LS, CQ... or do they? Larger ships need a different propulsion mount, and more LS and CQ. So the reason to use larger ships is to put more shield generators, because there's a threshold of 13 x 5 shield recharge = 65 to make you immune to every other pulse hit (why Trog's KF's were so damage resistant). Neph's supercubes are monsters, because she can put 29 shield generators on them and be immune to every other quantum torpedo hit.

That's actually what I thought you were trying to do by attacking with your KF's into Dominion space. Get me to send most of my fleet to the west, then attack from the East. We noticed the warp point in Antede to some unnamed system early on, so knew there was either a warp point attack coming. We didn't know why you didn't open into one of Neph's systems. She was free for the pickings after she lost her 100 cubes to Trogdor's KF's for around 6 turns.

The beginning of the game, I colonized as many 1 sized worlds as I could. I colonized so many, I even gave around 30 to Nephtys when she lost her 30 cubes and still had 50 leftover. So in 3 turns I can replace any losses I have, and because of the warp network in 5 turns I can have them together. I'm willing to bet that your juggernaughts would take 5 turns to build? Next game though I'm not colonizing 1 sized worlds. It costs 5k to start one up, another 11k to build the thing and 8 turns of wait. I had no military until turn 60 because of that.

250 kT and 15 reload is shit, but not if ship and fleet strategy is set to point blank and formation is phalanx inside/outside and you're defending a warp point. About the only way you could have defeated us is if you sat 50 juggernaughts at a warp point and waited for me to warp through (I assume that's what you were trying to do sitting in Dappo for two or three turns? We predicted it and didn't order "attack ship" ).

Warp point defense -- even with optimal conditions your design would only kill one ship a turn, maybe less. You burn out the shields, you hit with neutrino beams. Pulse does minimal damage.

Anyway the results speak for themselves, here's the saved game file. I tested your Constellations against my Grand Nagus and the results were better for Son of Suraks every time. If Constellations fought Sons of Suraks (Sons are Red), if the Sons get first shot,



If the Sons get second shot,



And this is a fair fight. The fight wouldn't be fair because your ships cost 25k and the sons cost 16k. You seemed to consider only the technology and not the economics. In the end looks like you were overrun by the 24th Century equivalent of the MP-40.

Brian

[Uraniun235]

So... are there any legitimate uses for such high-priced technology?

And if not, was it a deliberate design decision? (a la the Vulcan and Buzzsaw from Total Annihilation, whom Chris Taylor once explicitly said were designed to get newbies to waste their resources)

[brianeyci]

I can think of one. Since shield disruptors kill 3 shields for 20 kT and the equivalent would be 2 quantum torpedoes, you could save research time and not research larger hulls. It is a lot faster to get shield disruptors than quantum torpedoes too... you need 15 levels of photon torpedoes and 5 more levels after that for the quantums, while six for shield disruptors I think.

Larger ships are good, because you can put more shields. The largest Federation ship can put in the phaser lance, and it looks like the phaser lance is killer if it gets first shot or if the combat lasts to turn 15 (look at the above one of them lasted to turn 17 so the phaser lance got to shoot twice). Combine > 13 shields and 10 ablative armors on a juggernaut and they're monsters, see up where they lasted 17 turns.

Special technology might be good for someone who say, doesn't bring in repair ships. Then you could block a wormhole with 10 ships with a lot of tactical phasers or ionic disruptors and kill their engines. My Grand Nagus deliberately doesn't have damage control for more firepower and I was afraid someone would take advantage of that.

Neph was right, shields are the balance in this mod. If the other guy has more shields, you have more torpedoes. If he has less shields you have less torpedoes and maybe pulse. If he has > 13 shields forget about pulse and put in torpedoes with maybe half pulse to deal with fighters.

I have no problem with torpedoes and phasers being the main thing in the mod, anybody who watches Star Trek knows that things like subspace weapons are a gimmick .

I'm strongly considering going Borg next time.




Quantums lower the shields, and if primary is capture ship and secondary is point blank, the depleters lower the shields (shields recharge after every hit) and the Borg transporters burn out the self-destruct and security stations letting them board. Basically the Borg can slap on 120-160 kT of boarding equipment and get a lot of ships captured after every fight, especially in a warp point defense. A cheaper version is this,




<edit>I looked at your "Federation" class ship. It's pretty good. But you need 3 warp nacelles on a juggernaught to get the maximum move points. And the larger ship sizes really are for more shields (about 13-16), more ablative armors (10 the maximum). Plus you're missing the phaser lance . I would rip out the tri-cobalts and put in pure quantums. If I was afraid of fighters I'd take out defense phasers and put in pulse weapons. Fighters have 1 range anyway and the only advantage defense phasers have are lower cost and the +40% to hit, and since you have maximum sensors your main ship phasers can hit fighters and if you're building juggernaughts you shouldn't worry about an extra 150 minerals. Also I'd rip out the bussard collectors and one damage control, and make separate "supply" class ships and only have one ramscoop and a replicator, more than enough especially if the system has two stars.

For me, the only difference between my battlecruiser and battleship designs is I have a lot less shields. The Ferengi have a 900 kT battlecruiser and only a 1050 kT battleship, so it didn't make sense for me to make a lot of battleships. So I was forced into human wave tactics with ships with only 6-7 shields. What I liked about my ships was they were really battlecruisers... low shields, but the guns of a battleship.

Oh if you don't like phaser lance's 15 reload you could use 5 more quantums or pulses. But when the phaser lances get first shot, like in a warp point defense, or when SE:IV glitches or they close faster than you and you get second shot point blank with a phaser lance, the results are dramatic... (reds are Sons of Surak and blues are my standard battlecruiser design)



On a warp point defense phaser cannon would guarantee a one-shot kill...
</edit>

Brian

[Uraniun235]

<edit>I looked at your "Federation" class ship. It's pretty good. But you need 3 warp nacelles on a juggernaught to get the maximum move points. And the larger ship sizes really are for more shields (about 13-16), more ablative armors (10 the maximum). Plus you're missing the phaser lance Razz. I would rip out the tri-cobalts and put in pure quantums. If I was afraid of fighters I'd take out defense phasers and put in pulse weapons. Fighters have 1 range anyway and the only advantage defense phasers have are lower cost and the +40% to hit, and since you have maximum sensors your main ship phasers can hit fighters and if you're building juggernaughts you shouldn't worry about an extra 150 minerals. Also I'd rip out the bussard collectors and one damage control, and make separate "supply" class ships and only have one ramscoop and a replicator, more than enough especially if the system has two stars.

I forgot about the three nacelles. Plus I didn't have the phaser cannon researched yet.

[brianeyci]

I forgot about the three nacelles. Plus I didn't have the phaser cannon researched yet.

If there's one thing I'm doing next game it's making sure I research torpedoes parallel to beams. I nearly lost the game because I had to wait 20 turns to get quantum torpedoes after I saw the Tholian's invinciship, but luckily they didn't attack.

Tri-cobalts might be good for starbases, but starbases end up being static and useless in maneuver warfare anyway, and the 5 reload is too much. Five tri-cobalts together might be as good as a phaser cannon if you set the fleet and ship strategy to point blank. I still kind of doubt it though, it's only 5 x 40 = 200 damage, and the phaser cannon is 1k enough to shoot through armor shields and all damage resistance in a single hit.

<edit>I say useful on starbases only if you put them over a warp point and you're the only person owning that warp point so you start out point blank... usually my experience is the tri-cobalts fire from long range and miss if you don't use point-blank. The same with quantums or any other torpedoes, but they reload a lot faster and quantums do double damage to shields.</edit>

One thing I noticed about optimal and point blank is they default to target "strongest" first. So when Trogdor fought my fleet, it targeted Neph's fusion cubes instead of my paper-thin battlecruisers. Instead of losing 60 battlecruisers, I lost 2 fusion cubes because of the 2D combat and the battlecruisers forming a wall in front of the fusion cube. I think the best strategy is to target "nearest" all the time for good to-hit ratio.

Brian

[Tiger Ace]

Brian, I've been reading this thread since the start. Remind me never ever to go against you in any game that includes numbers and time to think about them.

Seriously, thats some very intresting analysis and I'll try to use such thinking in other TBS games of my own.

[Nephtys]

Brian, I've been reading this thread since the start. Remind me never ever to go against you in any game that includes numbers and time to think about them.

Seriously, thats some very intresting analysis and I'll try to use such thinking in other TBS games of my own.

Me and Brian spent way too much time strategizing and being downright evil when it comes to finding ways to exploit weaknesses in the other three's designs. That's as much fun as the game itself. It's all about efficiency. Borgness aside.

[brianeyci]

Brian, I've been reading this thread since the start. Remind me never ever to go against you in any game that includes numbers and time to think about them.

Seriously, thats some very intresting analysis and I'll try to use such thinking in other TBS games of my own.

I stole a lot of ideas from Nephtys. Before we allied my ships were badly designed. And it's not really an advantage to be obsessive over a game when you're a student trying to do well in exams or tests .

Optimum strategy would have been to close into maximum range, pull ship close-in and pound it to hell, and then dance away, repeating as necessary. I never expected the AI to do that, but I at least expected it to come in and fire the weapons in the order that I had loaded them onto the ship at the same target. However, the AI was doing shit like firing the weapons out of order (which is 100% ineffective, since neutrino beams fired into shields don't do shit), dropping the shields of one ship and then firing the neutrinos into another (fully shielded) ship, staying at maximum range and using only pulse phasers, etc. I spent probably hours changing strategies and target priorities, but to no avail. My designs were still slightly more effective that way than other designs, but it pissed me off to no end that the AI wasn't using them in the straightforward, brute force way that it uses every other ship, but instead outsmarted itself for some reason.

I see what you mean, I'm running some sims now and they seem to fire randomly. Not so much out of order, but changing targets on the fly. Did you change the weapon to target "nearest"?

We spent hours trying to figure out how to kill KF's, so oh well .

In the end what works are quantum torpedoes, strategy set to point blank, and phasers to shoot down fighters. Or, quantum torpedoes, and neutrino beams to shoot through the damage reduction ability (Nephtys' Plasma Cube or my Grand Nagus T ships).

<edit>Tux, I thought up a easy solution to your problem. Rip out the multiplex tracking. You're probably going to kill yourself for not thinking of that now .</edit>

Brian

[brianeyci]

Ripping out the multiplex tracking worked. Constellation versus my Grand Nagus, same battle as before, except the multiplex tracking ripped out. Both fleets set to point blank, phalanx inside formation. Ship strategies for Constellation set to point blank, for Grand Nagus set to point blank. The same 80 versus 50...






In case the images are broken, you win with 16 ships left. Point blank strategy set to break formation for all types, set to nearest, smallest, most damaged, strongest.

...the 50 can probably beat up to 90. If we take equivalent hull sizes, let's say 150 x 900 kT = 135k kT you would have around 112 Constellations and you win every time.

The only killer is the resources though. Let's say I have 100 ships at 11k minerals, you can only have 44 for the same mineral cost. So unless somehow you could make it cheaper, it's still not a good idea. Unless you manage to ambush the fleet in a warp point defense, or I split up my fleets (I did have a lot of territory) you'll be outnumbered by default.

Brian

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I did think of it taking out ECM, but it caused other wonky behavior that was even worse.

Anyway, I don't know what ships you were using in the sims you just posted, but they weren't Constellation Mk IVs, which are Juggernoughts. You've got Battleships vs. Dreadnoughts.

In any case, it only took me 6 turns to produce a Constellation Mk IV, so they're not as expensive as you think, only 1 extra turn, in fact.

The AI may not have been using them well, but the constellations were still capable of crippling an enemy ship in one turn, while every other design I fought against (except the fusion cubes) took at least one turn to batter down shields and get through armor.

Basically, it all came down to two things:

1. You guys had at least twice the resource base that we did. Even at full strength with 30% trade with all allies, I couldn't maintain more than about 80 ships while continuously building. Assuming that my ships cost 50% more, that's still only 120 vs. your 250+.

2. We had the worst possible timing in everything we did, and you guys had the best. We had no fleet to counter-attack the Borg when they lost their fleet. Your invasion of the Romulan home systems came literally 2 turns before ours was about to launch. You invaded the Antede system exactly 1 turn before its system grav shield facility went up. When I got my fleet together to attack from Tholian space, I found that you had closed those warp points. When I came back and tried to open a warp point in Monarck, I found that you had just opened the tenth point, meaning I couldn't open one. When I pulled back and tried to go through Antede, it was too late.

You can talk up your strategy all you like, and I take my hat off to you for it, but you have to admit that it was sheer dumb luck that carried the day, and it could have gone the other way just as easily. If we had invaded first, for instance, we could have destroyed your resource base. With the Borg dependant on you for their large fleets, neither you or they would have been able to continue constructing ships or even maintain the fleets you had, and you wouldn't have had enough time to resettle those colonies. Our fleets would have eventually been annihilated, but we would have been able to build new ones that were even bigger, and win by attrition. But because you happened to invade first, that scenario happened to us, instead.

[Trogdor]

It also didn't help that we were overly cautious and that I placed far too much emphasis on research and intelligence and too little on resource gathering. I forgot how little it takes to block intelligence attacks, and made the error of sharing my massive amount of research points with you. Also, i had the system gravitational shields available to me with more than enough time to have them built before you opened that damned warp point. I just didn't out of force of habit and a foolish belief that we'd be ready to strike before you guys were. But that was our, and my failings, not your strategy.

[brianeyci]

The ship name is different, but it is for sure your Constellation. When I created the max tech game, I put all races so I just picked a hull that was 1200 kT. Dreadnaughts, Juggernauts, Attack Cubes, all the same thing as long as the size is the same.

Not taking out the ECM, taking out the multiplex tracking... it seems to work. At least in my sims with your Constellations.

As for my resource management... if you open up my turn file, you can see what I did. I replaced all the research facilities with replicator facilities. I made more mistakes than you think. First not getting a fleet up until turn sixty. Me opening a warp point into Antede was a direct result of me seeing you close the warp point into Indiri and guessing you didn't have a facility up.

Nephtys brought in 30 cubes, and if this was a normal SE:IV game she would have carried the day. Only because of the uber fighters were they stopped. And Trogdor had a chance to attack, even after he lost his homeworlds, by going through one of the 5 or 6 warp points in Norpin leading directly into my homesystems. A lot of his ships were damaged, but he chose to chase Borg cubes in Norpin rather than go after my resource base.

If I had played any other way, built battleships to try and counter Trogdor's King Falcons, I wouldn't have been able to take advantage of n-squared as you pointed out. We did have luck, but we had planned our attack for many turns and wanted to try Trogdor's home systems first. If that didn't work we would have opened to his far colonies, and we guessed he couldn't possibly have had a shield facility up by then in his far colonies. Shield facilities cost 100k minerals and we were guessing he didn't have many up with 120 dreadnaughts up.

It might cost 1 extra turn over some other designs, but your Constellation costs 25k minerals and my battlecruiser throwaways cost 11k minerals. Sons of Surak cost 16k minerals, so they would take only 4 turns to build over a six turn Constellation.

<edit>As for your intelligence... you had a massive opportunity Trogdor, between turns 40 and 60 to hurt Nephtys. She had only counter-intelligence 1 researched, and only < 10k intelligence points. If you had focused your intelligence only on her, you would have broke her </edit>

<edit 3>As for resource base, for most of the game until the Romulan Slaughter, we had less resources than you. My 250 ships only came recently in the past ten turns when my Genesis worlds started coming online. You had UFP, Klingons, Yourself, Romulans all in partnerships. And most of the game Trogdor was in 1st place and had more resources than me. After the Romulan homeworlds were glassed, there was about 10 turns in between where both Neph and I were defenseless after Trogdor seized Norpin. You're right, it could have easily turned either way.

If you want luck, look no further than 2 reload Romulan Plasma Torpedoes and Small Armor. The odds were stacked against us .
</edit>

<edit 4>Cool, I didn't know that you were trying to attack through the Tholian warp points, but that wasn't luck more than me wanting not to have to fight on two fronts. I was going to close the warp point to the Tholians, and to the Klingons, to concentrate all my ships on one front (I ended up not doing the Klingons). Your "bad timing" was my trying to close as fast as possible. I rushed for closers. Put it another way... could you have attacked through Tholian space any quicker? If you had attacked, the warp network lets us bring our main fleets anywhere in our territory in at most two turns. Anyway GG.</edit>

Brian

[Nephtys]

Our battleplan here. The North feds were untouchable, and the south-feds were a secondary target, as they were weak. We didn't have a clue where to strike the Klingons. We got lucky as hell trade was cut, and that we arrived at such a good time... but the plans were in the works.

Since you could probably come through the north to Dominion space, I planned on closing that and leaving the dominion fleet there as a decoy.

[brianeyci]

To be honest was really carried it was my Trade and Research Alliance with Tux, Trog and the Klingons. Had there been war earlier, I would have to have focused my research. I would have still rushed for warp point openers and closers but I would have to cut back on other stuff. The first thing to go would have been torpedo technology because I had no idea I needed quantum torpedoes to break through Trogdor's KF's. Then, it would have been a massacre.

Brian

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

The ship name is different, but it is for sure your Constellation. When I created the max tech game, I put all races so I just picked a hull that was 1200 kT. Dreadnaughts, Juggernauts, Attack Cubes, all the same thing as long as the size is the same.

Not taking out the ECM, taking out the multiplex tracking... it seems to work. At least in my sims with your Constellations.

I meant multiplex, but according to your sims the performance improves, so maybe my result was just a fluke.

As for my resource management... if you open up my turn file, you can see what I did. I replaced all the research facilities with replicator facilities. I made more mistakes than you think. First not getting a fleet up until turn sixty. Me opening a warp point into Antede was a direct result of me seeing you close the warp point into Indiri and guessing you didn't have a facility up.

Nephtys brought in 30 cubes, and if this was a normal SE:IV game she would have carried the day. Only because of the uber fighters were they stopped. And Trogdor had a chance to attack, even after he lost his homeworlds, by going through one of the 5 or 6 warp points in Norpin leading directly into my homesystems. A lot of his ships were damaged, but he chose to chase Borg cubes in Norpin rather than go after my resource base.

If I had played any other way, built battleships to try and counter Trogdor's King Falcons, I wouldn't have been able to take advantage of n-squared as you pointed out. We did have luck, but we had planned our attack for many turns and wanted to try Trogdor's home systems first. If that didn't work we would have opened to his far colonies, and we guessed he couldn't possibly have had a shield facility up by then in his far colonies. Shield facilities cost 100k minerals and we were guessing he didn't have many up with 120 dreadnaughts up.

It might cost 1 extra turn over some other designs, but your Constellation costs 25k minerals and my battlecruiser throwaways cost 11k minerals. Sons of Surak cost 16k minerals, so they would take only 4 turns to build over a six turn Constellation.

True. I might have been better served with quantums to weaken shields. I just never noticed the cost of the shield disruptors or considered anything else, since I had been using them so long. Still, shield disruptors have advantages over q-torps, such as ignoring recharge rate and regeneration, and the sheer ability to drop shields is superior.

<edit>As for your intelligence... you had a massive opportunity Trogdor, between turns 40 and 60 to hurt Nephtys. She had only counter-intelligence 1 researched, and only < 10k intelligence points. If you had focused your intelligence only on her, you would have broke her </edit>

<edit 3>As for resource base, for most of the game until the Romulan Slaughter, we had less resources than you. My 250 ships only came recently in the past ten turns when my Genesis worlds started coming online. You had UFP, Klingons, Yourself, Romulans all in partnerships.

Yes, but we weren't trading with neutrals hardly at all, while I understand from the RP that you were trading with many neutrals, so there was a big discrepancy between actual available resources and what the score was showing.

And most of the game Trogdor was in 1st place and had more resources than me. After the Romulan homeworlds were glassed, there was about 10 turns in between where both Neph and I were defenseless after Trogdor seized Norpin. You're right, it could have easily turned either way.

I figured the Norpin avenue would be defended by scads of starbases, satellites, fighters, triple minefields, etc.

If you want luck, look no further than 2 reload Romulan Plasma Torpedoes and Small Armor. The odds were stacked against us .
</edit>

Quality of ships isn't nearly as important as location of ships. The game was over when you opened the warp point into the Romulan home system, even with the power of the KFs.

<edit 4>Cool, I didn't know that you were trying to attack through the Tholian warp points, but that wasn't luck more than me wanting not to have to fight on two fronts. I was going to close the warp point to the Tholians, and to the Klingons, to concentrate all my ships on one front (I ended up not doing the Klingons). Your "bad timing" was my trying to close as fast as possible. I rushed for closers. Put it another way... could you have attacked through Tholian space any quicker? If you had attacked, the warp network lets us bring our main fleets anywhere in our territory in at most two turns. Anyway GG.</edit>

My main problem was militarizing much later than everyone else. If I had settled for battleships instead of refusing to build war ships until I had maxed out Juggernoughts, I could have attacked 20 turns earlier. If I remember correctly, Trogdor had some fairly decent forces then, too. If we had come in before turn 50, we probably could have won. But I was convinced that you guys had big scary fleets, so I felt that I needed a bigger, scarier fleet first.

Too much McClellan in me, I suppose.

EDIT: Anyway, you won fair and square, so hats off to you and GG.

[brianeyci]

Juggernaughts took you 20 turns to research? At most 2 or 3 turns, I had nearly a million research points and Trogdor I bet had two million at his most powerful.

I militarized by turn 60 and got Neph to defend my borders. That 30 fleet that attacked Trogdor's space and glassed a couple systems was my neutral killer fleet. My real fleet didn't exist until four or five turns before I attacked Trogdor's 35 with my 100 ships.

If that's one thing I'm taking from this game, it's be more aggressive. If Neph fixes the armors on fighters and puts "one per vehicle" on small armor, fighting wars with 600 kT ships should be possible. As soon as I can get 20 ships together with reasonable technology, I'm going after neutrals. It's also a lot more fun, Neph had herself militarized the whole game.

Shield disruptors could work, they also have that +50% bonus to hit. But even with all those bonuses, the cost is really high.

Trading with neutrals was usually 100k radioactives for 99k minerals. I did it mostly to get my first 100 ships out, and after I used resource conversion because I had to plan ahead 3 turns to trade with neutrals.

<edit>Oh yeah, GG. We didn't get to have our big fleet battle, a shame really, but it was like that the whole game... like Neph said our plan was to kill the KF's without fighting them, and just ignore you because you had so many fighters we figured you had thousands stacked on top of warp points. When I saw the warp point close in Talarian though, I saw a chance and took a gamble .</edit>

Brian

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

No, actually I researched each consecutive level of ship construction once per turn by the time I got around to it, but the point was that I put it off way too long. Still, a million research points is more than I ever had at any point, and I'm pretty sure it's more than Trogdor ever had, either. I was always wondering how you managed to get warp openers and closers before me when I was massively leading you in research, it's because you were actually leading me.

When I said trading, I was talking about trade and research alliances. I can see from your response that I was right. According to the score, I had way more research than you, but you had so many T&R's that you actually ended up with more. With resources, it was probably even more so.

I think the way to fix fighters is just to remove Shuttle III, IV, and V's. They don't serve any game balance purpose, and they don't really belong in Star Trek. Also, med tech cost is the way to go, I think. With so many tech levels in a lot of the research areas, the low tech cost made the higher level stuff cost small fractions of its normal cost. I wouldn't be surprised if we were saving over a million research points every tech level on the higher ones. With medium tech cost, there's more strategy in terms of what to research.

EDIT: One thing I noticed at the very end was the drones. You can build more than one of them per turn, and you can put ship components on them, some at half-size. They're not quite as good as ships, dollar for dollar, but with no maintenance, it's a strategy to consider. Basically, you'd have scads of 160 kT ships that don't cost maintenance, don't need life support, crew quarters, or engines, and that can mount full strength shields and armor that only weigh half normal.

[Trogdor]

The game was over when you opened the warp point into the Romulan home system, even with the power of the KFs.

Personally, I wasn't quite ready to throw in the towel until I'd lost my 7th fleet.

Too much McClellan in me, I suppose.

You're not alone.

As soon as I can get 20 ships together with reasonable technology, I'm going after neutrals. It's also a lot more fun, Neph had herself militarized the whole game.

Hell, you don't even need that many if you can catch them with their pants down. IIRC, my 1st fleet that conquered the Talosian homeworld had less than 20 ships. It was all thanks to my trusty cloaks that I got the drop on them.

Anyway, GG. Despite not getting to RP winning and ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity for the Romulan people, I greatly enjoyed myself. I learned stuff about this game and mod that no amount of playing against the AI would've taught me.

Though you do realize that now that everybody knows how damned good you are at this game, we're all probably going to be gunning to take you out before you destroy us all from now on.

[brianeyci]

Yeah I have full 30% with the Lurians, the Mintakans, the Bynars and the Benzites. Even right now after I broke trade with you and Trogdor I have 700k. I'm pretty sure Trogdor had more than a million, because when I mentioned I had 750K around turn 40 or 50 Trogdor said he had a lot more.

Though you do realize that now that everybody knows how damned good you are at this game, we're all probably going to be gunning to take you out before you destroy us all from now on. :Twisted: :Evil: :Wink:

It was luck that won it, luck I say. Lol.

I noticed drones too, but if you put on a computer core, combat sensors, sensor array, ECM and stealth armor, you only have room for three torpedoes. And drones don't stack, and once they're launched you can't recover from them. They're a good shock weapon, to deal with somebody that puts too many torpedoes and not enough pulse.

<edit>Oh and you can't order drones to do anything at all IIRC. A real turn-off. You have to keep them in a bay and launch them in combat, because if you launch them earlier they fly around randomly going through warp points too. They also run out of supplies. So they're really useless unless in large numbers as a shock weapon. I also took a look at missiles, the plasma envelope missile. Not good either because it's useless on warp point defense. And missiles are 50 kT. If they were 20 kT I'd consider using them. The shield missile does 30 x 4 = 120 damage to shields, and is twice the size of a quantum torpedo that does 141? And the missile can be shot down? No thanks.</edit>

For the fighters... if we make the small armors one per vehicle or two per vehicle or three, the larger fighter sizes actually begin to make sense because you can put a lot more weapons on them, I think at least. I was swiping aside your fighter formations but only with 100+ ships. Unless we want this game to go until maximum technology and wars to be fought only with 100 or more ships I think the small armors should be limited. Fighters should not take four point defense guns to kill. Actually to be honest I'd prefer if a point defense gun could kill two fighters every hit. Then they'd actually make sense. What's the point of even using point defense guns right now, when you can put on a pulse weapon instead. The +40% to hit means nothing, because fighters have 2 range anyway and you'll be shooting back at point blank.

Brian

[Trogdor]

Oh hell, I have no idea how many research points I had before you attacked. About a million sounds right, I guess. Two million was way more than I ever had, though.

It was luck that won it, luck I say. Lol.

The funny thing is, our luck was so wretchedly bad that we might believe that if you'd just kept your mouth shut all this time. But with all the stuff you've been saying (e.g. "I just tried every possible weapon and x works best" "I just did an obsene amount of math to determine the most effiecient size of ship to build") there's no way anyone buying it. You're fucking dangerous and must be destroyed.

[brianeyci]

The math is an aside. It mostly went like this.

"Trogdor has 1250 kT battleships? Hey mine are only 1050, what gives? I can't win if I try and match him."

"Nephtys says anything that doesn't take or give damage is a waste of space. Hmm. So there goes bussard collectors, damage controls, self-destruct devices, ramscoops, long range sensors, sensor jammers and security stations. And let's get rid of most of the shields too, and put just enough shields to survive one volley from Trogdor's KF pulse guns because the rest are shield skipping torpedoes."

"Tux has fighters that take a lot of point defense guns to kill? Forget point defense guns, I'll put on pulse guns."

"Pulse guns not working on Trog's KF's? Try torpedoes."

I only thought of the math later. Lol.

Brian

[Nephtys]

Oh hell, I have no idea how many research points I had before you attacked. About a million sounds right, I guess. Two million was way more than I ever had, though.

It was luck that won it, luck I say. Lol.

The funny thing is, our luck was so wretchedly bad that we might believe that if you'd just kept your mouth shut all this time. But with all the stuff you've been saying (e.g. "I just tried every possible weapon and x works best" "I just did an obsene amount of math to determine the most effiecient size of ship to build") there's no way anyone buying it. You're fucking dangerous and must be destroyed.

Actually, we went through several generations of useless ships. My first generation of 'real' ships were all beam, and Brian's were shield skipper phasers. Those totally didn't work, so second gen was all pulse gun. Third gen evolved to Q-Torp and Pulse gun combo, and finally Fourth Gen, is Q-Torp and armor-skipper.

Brian's stuff was rubbish for half the game. I mean, 80KT long range sensors? On a warship? What were you THINKING?

[brianeyci]

Yeah, actually designing the ships was the most fun.

Should have seen the flurry of PM's me and Neph sent off to each other the day we discovered your KF design Trog. I simmed for half the day trying to find a way to beat it, and kept losing. The only thing that ended up working was point blank quantum torpedoes, but then I hadn't researched them yet so I was simming with exotic weapons like reload disruptors, shield burners, null-space weapons, engine destroyers, ship capture technology. Then I made a max tech game and figured out the torpedoes.

I was still pumping out q-torps and pulse guns by the end, didn't want to transition to fourth generation ships and give up my fighter killing ability, though I did make around 50-80 of the fourth generation ships, the "Grand Nagus T" class. Grand Nagus R.1 was my third generation ship (some variants) and my second generation's been entirely phased out through retrofitting.

Without Neph I wouldn't have thought of half the things I did.

Brian