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https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3211154274
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3211155679
Also maybe changing to missiles and increasing the engagement range to Neutral against weaker and Cautious against superior.
BTW, my ships are faster.
Edit: Maybe the better question is, "How did you beat the Boskara while playing as Ackdarian?"
- Heavy Escorts (at least Gizurean ones) are undervalued, so they can take out a much larger force than their power might suggest. Thanks to this, the enemy attacks my planets with inadequate fleets and takes heavy losses, granting me their superior techs (captures, debris).
- Design your defensive ships with minimum fuel (one slot) and maximum firepower (blasters?), then survivability. Consider assault pods for free money, tech and resources. Use main branch reactors, engines and hyperdrives as they are much cheaper to buy and maintain. You need money for massive fleet above your normal economy. (Also reserve all the money you can. No growth or research funding during this war)
- Have at least 2 or 3 defensive fleets set to maximum aggression and to defend "same system only" per planet so if one bugs out to chase some stragglers your planets are still defended. Set corresponding spaceports for home bases so those fleets will return and refuel.
- Enemy ships will die at your gates, leaving some valuable generals and admirals that your forces will capture. You can sell them at once to your enemy depriving them of money and increasing your budget.
- After you do enough damage, the enemy will ask for peace. You will refuse. This is your time for attack. Take a planet or two and then peace out on your terms.
- Alternatively, you can torment them endlessly, increasing their war weariness.
However, their destroyers are the opposite! They use bombardment, making their larger hulls less of a threat.
Trying to out-brawl the Boskara as Ackdarians is the worst approach. You're using your speed to their advantage!
Your ships are natural carriers and the Boskara are weak against fighters. Emphasise torpedoes or missiles, and set a stance of Evade/Evade.
If your computer can handle it. Go all out fighters. Destroyer carriers, everywhere. Ackdarian fighters are second to none overall with their outstanding speed.
Fighters excel at defense as well. Compliment them at colonies with beam-and-blaster (or torpedo/missile-and-blaster) frigate hunter-killers for focus fire on invasion fleets, but don't wide spread deploy them. Use them only as needed when you need surgical force.
That's all i have time for now...
Gyrfalcons would like to have a word with you...
Although Ackarians used in this way are skirmishers (evade stance will ensure they use their speed to avoid close combat as much as they can), tell them to never retreat. Their fighters will be too far to meaningfully retreat, just resulting in fighters wasting potential killing time while the carrier gets pounded either way.
And they'll have a good chance of out running their threat if given time to run.
For the defensive war, send nothing to attack, unless you have a very robust primary invasion fleet. Fighters aren't very good for a major colony seige, beware of that.
Planetary ion cannons. Yes. Actually, any planetary weapons. Yes. They're good now, especially with a gravity well generator.
Like with any skirmish force, use lots of small fleets. You can also use excessive individual ships out of fleets if they're using fighters and the evade stance.
Do not use small fighter bays. They're Inefficient.
Place pairs or a trio of defense bastions around your spaceports of strategic importance. Manually place them- their job is to protect the spaceport, nothing else. Since your main forces are Skirmishers, your fortifications need to be robust. A cluster of 4 stations all overlapping their firing range will also absorb immense firepower with shield regeneration comparable to or exceeding a hive carrier. Make sure to maximize their fighter compliments too, and as many sheilds as possible with 3-4 armor.
I Emphasise that this won't be effective if you spread them out around a colony. Cluster them closely with the spaceport in the middle.
You do have have garrisons, right? What about counter-invasion infantry fleets? They may hit a colony hard, but a moderate surprise infantry army will crush all but the most concentrated of AI assaults. You can even park them near a major colony and wait for a hostile invasion fleet to show up.
So, manual things to track:
-counter invasion forces including a fast shock fleet and counter infantry army
-placement of bastions around spaceports
-redesignate attack fleets to defense
-a single giga-invasion fleet
-long range radar ship placement
- checking map for surprise invasion fleets
That should do it. Good luck!
The AI tends to order attacks that commit their fleets to very long hyper-travel times and refuse to actually cancel those attacks until the ships actually arrive at their destination.
I'd recommend getting some specialized scout craft (like explorers with long-range sensors instead of survey equipment) and going to hang around the edges of enemy systems and trying to get an idea of enemy movements. Mining ships, amusingly enough, love to fly into enemy space to go mine their resources during a war, so if you put sensors on them, they're actually a pretty good early warning network, too. Spy missions to steal operation maps also directly tell you where the enemy fleets are attacking, which is why they're such high-risk missions. If you get the warning that an invasion fleet is coming, you can just set up your whole navy where they're going to pop out wit their troop transports and blast them.
The AI avoids choosing to attack a place that's obviously well-defended, but it isn't very good at understanding less-obviously well-defended positions. That is, if you have two fleets one system over (or even just in-between systems because you told them to stop after moving out of a system) while they're making a commitment to attack from 10 systems away, if you know an attack is coming ahead of time, you have plenty of time to move a response force into place to smash the attack with superior firepower.
Because of this, it is in general not as good an idea to concentrate your firepower until you know you are facing a superior fleet and actually need the firepower. Otherwise, it pays more to split up and keep moving, because the AI can't react to your movements. Concentrate your forces if you need to crack a particularly dense fleet that never separates out, but in general, the enemy is bad about concentrating forces, and you can discourage it by just raiding them with multiple small attack fleets. Send your fleets out with a bare minimum amount of firepower (a fleet of like 3 frigates is fine) to blow up minor stations all over the place and just wreak havoc on their economy. Their response fleets will now spend the remainder of the war trying to catch up to an attack you made on their mining stations six months ago when they're spread out over an empire that large when you have such a broad open front. It's entirely possible to cripple an enemy empire's economy and start taking half their worlds without ever having a stand-up fight with their navy - just only attack where the navy isn't, and avoid where they are. On a broad enough front, their navy will generally be half a dozen giant fleets trying to protect 60 systems they cannot barricade you out if in a game without natural choke points while you attack them in two dozen places at once. Just make sure you have a defense force near where they're likely to attack (but not exactly where they're going to attack - that'll scare them off).
As for how to win battles where you're outnumbered when you do fight, I've used a tactic I call the "grinding wheel" ever since the original Homeworld, and especially in games like Nexus: The Jupiter Incident, it's the only game in town. Basically, just manually control the battle, try to keep your ships bundled up. (Move to a location, don't order a jump to attack a place - that spreads your force out in a circle around the enemy which leaves you vulnerable. Order a move to a location about double attack range away from the target, then let your ships group up before attacking.) Look at which ships are taking hits, and when they are, manually order them to move away from the battle, preferably behind other allies. (Not far enough that they jump, just move away.) As they get further away, shots do less damage, are less accurate, you have more chances for other allied ships to shoot down attacks with PD, and eventually, you're just out of range, all of which means that ship takes less damage and eventually isn't shot at, giving a ship with low shields a chance to regenerate its shields. The enemies now focus on a fresh ship of yours while you finish off one of theirs, and your once-targeted ship can come back in to fight even before its shields are recharged. Your now-no-longer-fresh ship retreats while the once-targeted ship re-engages, preserving your total firepower in spite of nominally taking lots of damage, while the enemy is now down a ship. Rinse and repeat until it's not a contest anymore. It's entirely possible to defeat enemy navies with several times your strength without casualties doing this - the enemy is really bad about countering it, unless they have so much firepower you can't retreat fast enough (try to manually force your ships to stay at longer ranges to make it easier), or lack the number of ships it takes to cycle without the chewed-on ships having time to recharge their shields before the time comes when they're targeted again.
Combine all of these, and you can beat an enemy empire that outnumbers you 5:1 at least.
The tactical maneuver described, Bounding Overwatch, is a modern maneuver that destroys simple AI not built for strategic or tactical responses, and is no less effective here. A+, gets 'em every time.
I'd like to note that both these are favored in asymmetric warfare, especially against unfavorably stronger forces. Stealth and faster jump drives excel in harassment, while resilience (more shields and faster recharge) and long-range firepower excel with bounding overwatch tactics.
TheMac likes to minimize manual control though. Just wanted to throw out appreciation for some real strategy being shown! ;)
You are a true barbarian! The empire I'm fighting is slightly (20%) more wealthy than mine and they have bonuses to warfare, but you're in a David vs Goliath situation. Looks like you also count every dollar or credit, fitting your ships to maximize their purpose while managing costs. Little more than I have time or mental capacity for currently, though I celebrate the challenges you face.
I like how you fought defensively, bled the enemy forces, then went on the attack once they were significantly weakened. This is something I'm trying to do as well while I'm buying time to build up my forces.
I'm not sure I follow when it comes to the heavy escorts. Yes, they can hit above their weight. 100% agree. What I observe is the enemy AI will send fleets after fixed assets such as those that would go on a target list. What I see is a warning, "XXX enemy fleet is on a direct path for xxx station" and then the AI will send a fleet that is stronger than the station they are targeting. In the last war, I never saw any recognition that I had three fleets guarding the target station and thus I was able to end the war with:
My empire lost 12 combat ships
Enemy empire lost 55 combat ships
I had 60k of fleet strength in the system they liked to target, and they were sending 8-20k fleets against the spaceport and mining stations.
Best of luck in your beast of a game!
Always such excellent strategy! Gosh, did I ever feel like I was fighting a losing battle when going 1:1 in fleet power against their brawlers. They're just nasty, tough, and fast. Super hard to hit, too. Glad I wasn't going crazy and there was a basis for my frustration.
I hear your logic and I'll give it a try for sure. My goal will be to refit my DD's as carriers, with long range weapons + evade / evade. Have to admit this is a strategy I would have never tried since I still don't have that much faith in the small craft AI, and it's always appeared to me that the game is still developing in terms of keeping a distance. Haven't tried the latter in a while, so I'll give it a go for sure. Might scum save if I die though. I'm also going to go back and refit all my stations to fill up on fighters first after full defensive shields / armor, and then throw on a couple LR weapons.
I'm excited to try something so radical.
Great info, and I agree. The problem I've seen in the past with all weapons but missiles is the AI will cause my ships to run towards and close distance with the enemy as damage increases as range decreases. Looks to me like if I want to have some point defense that I'll need to use the missile PD to discourage the closing behavior. Hmm. I'll have to check and see where I am in terms of missile PD research. Thanks!
Wow. So much of this I've never seen or employed. Let me see if I get this.
1. Yes, fighters have a range and I can see where setting never retreat would leave the fighters to do more of their work. Never seen that in action, but will certainly try it.
2. Fighters aren't very good for a major colony siege. Yes, what I see is the fighter AI sends nearly all of them towards one ship, kills it, then moves on while the rest of the enemy fleet pounds the carrier ships. Little scary from my experience.
3. Planetary weapons - This is the first time since launch that I've used them and have seen them shooting. I broke all the pirate agreements and had a few planets the pirates loved to raid, so I built whatever planetary defenses I had researched and watched as they killed one pirate at a time. Pretty effective.
--Never made it far enough into a game to get the planetary gravity well generator, but I think there's a chance I might in this beta. No major bugs to report so far.
4. My gosh. Small fighter bays are inefficient! I never looked closely enough to notice the small ones give 2 fighters and the medium provide 6. Holy cow! Don't know how I missed that. Thanks!
5. Placement of defensive bases as 2 - SB - 2 makes perfect sense if the AI is going after the starbase only. What about the pesky invasion fleets, though. They are a real mess if they arrive from a location on the opposite side of the base. Seems they land in a heartbeat and sometimes before a fleet sitting at the SB can react and either fly around the planet to engage or jump behind them. I'll give this strategy a try, though and add lots of fighters.
6. Counter invasion fleets and garrisons. The Ackdarians as a Technocracy are a seriously poor race. I'm just now at the point the State Economy is positive, which means I've had the AI troop garrison set to "Low" in the hopes the AI wouldn't disband so many of my troops. Now that my State Economy is positive, I can change to "normal" or higher and let the AI build decent sized garrisons for me.
--How does a counter invasion force work? If I have transports in system full of troops, and I spot an invasion force coming in that I can't stop, what is the next step? Attempt to land as quickly as possible after the invasion starts? Land before the invasion? If I do that will the AI break off the invasion before it begins? Land after the invasion and mop up the enemy troops that survived? Seems expensive to go that route since most buildings will be destroyed.
How is a counter invasion force employed? BTW, sorry to say I'm not sure what a fast shock fleet is. Are you talking about a particular kind of troop? Armored? Keep in mind my games die before I usually reach Tier 2 of any troop due to the incompatibility between the game code and my machine. I've never employed anything greater than the Tier I Special Forces since game launch, and I think 2845 is getting pretty near to one of my longest games.
I have to watch the manual movements since this is a game, and real life demands my "wrist time." What I can do is adjust the Attack Troop level in the AI settings, and make sure I'm up to date on the troop research. Then my colonies will recruit more armor and I can hold one invasion fleet on manual to use during a nearby invasion.
I've read the rest carefully and I understand where you're coming from. There are playstyles that involve more manual movement that I can invest, which leaves me to a bit more automation. I do have monitoring stations at each of my colonies and all of my resort stations which does give me some decent coverage. They are just not as strategic as I would like. Maybe something to try after retirement. J
Thanks! I'll work on the changes.
That is some impressive strategy! You must play on a pretty slow speed in order to keep up with which ships need rotating.
One thing I'm not understanding is how the AI is determining where to send their fleets in relation to your fleet strength at that location. Thanks, BTW, for letting me know the AI won't cancel an attack command once the enemy fleet is in warp. Very good to know.
What I've seen in the last war is the AI completely ignoring the 60k fleet power I had in the system while sending in fleet after fleet targeting the star base or one of the mining stations. I had three 20k fleets in the system and they were set to engage in system. They would warp to where the enemy fleet landed and try to take out as many ships as possible before the enemy warped off.
I never saw the enemy target any of my 7-8 fleets from another system "enemy fleet xxx is heading towards your fleet 01 xxx." That warning showed up many times once the enemy fleet had already landed in the system. What I saw was "enemy fleet xxx towards mining station xxx." Once I received that, I simply moved one or more of my nearby fleets to that station and I waited.
If I receive the warning while the enemy fleet is in system, then it appears there's a chance they enemy fleet will cancel the attack if my fleet lands before they jump. Maybe I'm wrong about that, though it seems I witnessed this behavior once or twice.
Maybe my experience with not having to hide my ships in the next system over is due to the current stage of the game and the fact the AI doesn't have any large ships fit with LR sensors. Maybe that's not even a thing and I'm just seeing the fitting AI suggest it on my fits? It does make sense that the AI would avoid a system holding 60k of fleet power if they knew my fleet were there.
Thanks for your help and excellent strategy. Sounds like you've found a game able to give you a considerable challenge.
1. Sounds like you got it!
2. Yep. Even worse, sometimes they'll fly through entire fleets, getting worn away by PD, disable a station, then leave it barely hurt for the colony to quickly repair it. The entire bomber wing then flies right past another dozen ships and their PD... It's horrendous. I tell my inner child not to look when it happens. I only take fighters to sieges at all because the interceptors are still useful.
3. I forgot to mention planetary fighters. They're still beasts, too, and can single-handedly cripple or even destroy a full invasion fleet. Except for the GIzurean racial fighter facility. It appears to be broken, but I haven't got a good save to show the devs.
4. Aye!
5. It goes against intuition, as emplacements are traditionally used to defend objectives like cities and supply bases- but they're also traditionally cheap. A bastion is an expensive emplacement, and a colony is too big an objective to defend. Sparse, spread bastions do have some defensive value, but they're insufficient to stop an invasion, easily penetrated and overwhelmed individually. A spaceport, on the other hand, is not too big and is a prime target of attack fleets. The fleets won't regard the surrounding bastions in assessing if the spaceport is a good target. Further, if the AI does manage to overwhelm the defense of one bastion, they'll turn their focus to the next- if they're positioned close enough, the divided firepower won't be enough to overcome the shield regeneration of the damaged base (with extra armor resilience if the colony starts repairing it right away). The firepower of five veritable fortresses working in conjunction with each other will test the mettle of all but the most concerted efforts by the AI.
6. It doesn't need to be much, just enough to force the AI to commit more than a single transport. Low garrisons are fine- *no* garrison is asking for trouble.
The best course of action regarding the counter-invasion infantry fleet depends on your judgment. Here's what happens in each of those cases.
A. Land right after the invasion starts:
This is the best course of action to destroy their troops IF the colony isn't too valuable and you can't stop the invasion fleet itself. Of course, you'll successfully defend the colony, too. 9/10 times, the added infantry force will crush the invaders if you're timely enough to take advantage of the militia forces. This is generally the most effective way to use counter-invasion forces.
B + b. Land ASAP when the invasion is detected:
This will usually make the invasion fleet stop in its tracks and go back home to re-consolidate for a larger attack. The next time they come, they'll have enough force to overwhelm whatever you landed on the colony, making it more difficult to win the ground battle in the long run (and they will have enough troops to do it). Sometimes they'll choose a different target(s) instead of consolidating. This is ideal if you think you have enough ships to defeat the enemy en-route but need more time.
C. Land after the invaders take the colony:
Reasonable if the attackers are using a very heavy ratio of armor- this happens only once in a while. In this case, your counter-invasion force should be a typical invasion force with a heavy ratio of armor to infantry. As armor are pushovers when defending, you can potentially cripple an AI's ground offensive capability for years by crushing their armored concentration. You'll have to be quick, as the AI won't take long to pick up their forces.
The AI will sometimes use invasion fleets as counter-invasion forces too. I've lost more than one major ground force because of it.
My bad. I'm referring to a highly aggressive force with good mobility and high firepower with the intent to route the target, in this case, an invasion fleet. Troop transports and their respective invasion fleets tend to retreat easily when subjected to fleet firepower. So the 'shock fleet' doesn't need to be durable, but it does need to be directed appropriately. Once the invasion fleet is routed, the 'shock fleet' can withdraw for regrouping and repairs to prepare to engage another invasion fleet.
As always, I strive to tailor the advice for you to include more reliance on automation. Soon though, we'll have to hear your tips for automation play!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3211800254
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3211801792