Can't handle unfair AI

[Paddelboot]

I'm playing as TEC loyalist, small map, unfair AI. My initial strategy was to take the important planets as quickly as possible, which resultet in me possessing almost the entire map, with the AI only having their home planet and an asteroid. A pretty good start, I thought, and began to fortify my planets. That's when the AI attacked me with a big fleet and their titan. I had nothing to counter that unfortunately.

Second attempt was to not overexpand, instead focus on a few good planets and fortify them. Result was the same, I could merey upgrade some starbases before the titan and some anti structure frigates took it all apart.

I can either build defenses or a fleet in early game, but not both. I guess turtling in early game is a mistake against unfair AI. Any viable strategies?

[wbino]

I never play against unfair AI cause if I just wanted to get aggravated I would talk to the wife. :)
But having played Sins awhile letting a good AI build up is not a smart move.
Attack fast and quickly.

[chaosbringer42]

Anything above hard, the best way to win is to take a medium number of planets (8-10 is good on a 30+ planet map) then fortify chokepoints and build a nice fleet. Then its simply take down one planet at a time (The AI rebuilds faster than you can, so going for too large a grab is asking to lose).

[Paddelboot]

I think the difficulty for me is to survive the early game; maybe that's why people suggest to play on large maps against unfair+ AI. It gives them some time to upgrade their SB and/or build a fleet - time that is lacking on a small map.

[Keviin Sorbo]

you dont need to starbase all ur planets and what not, if you scout, even researxh probes so even if your scout dies, the planet is still visible for 5 minutes. scout and see which way the ai is coming too, also try to up the planet health, so if you have a terran instead of 1500 planet health you can have it at 5500 so it takes the ai more time to bomb, that extra time allows you to fortify the planet behind that, also try investing on militia, its 5 military labs and in the same tech tree that you research starbase in, put it some repair bays. another thing of note if you see ogrovs or the advent stars , kill those first because those get a damage bonus versus starbase and structures so your starbase will melt fast. after you kill those try to kill carriers. you can have maybe 20 cobalts to do this task. allthou obvious to me but on the starbase make sure to max health first, then weapons, then the remaining can be strikecrat or red button which level 2 red buttons destroys everything except capitalshps and titans

[Keviin Sorbo]

after you do those suggestions and your still having problems, i am willing to play with you. me and you vs 2 unfairs so you can get an idea of what i do. even if that ai is winning, youl be ok. i play vs viscious ai and use 0 starbase and i do high competetive play vs other people around my level. this suggestion is to only to help you further and improve vs unfair.

[Paddelboot]

I try to build SB on the frontline only, but still, waiting for that cash/metal/crystal to drop in for upgrades while simoultainously researching the most basic stuff like hull upgrades, it's in that time window where the unfair AI has a huge advantage.

I'm at the point where I will invest in a fleet rather than SB and their upgrades, because once you take out the planet bombarding vehicles of a fleet, there isn't really that much the AI can do.

And yeah, if I totally don't survive against the unfair AI, you can show me how you do it.

[Keviin Sorbo]

add me and we can play.

[Sugam]

Originally posted by Paddelboot:

I'm at the point where I will invest in a fleet rather than SB and their upgrades, because once you take out the planet bombarding vehicles of a fleet, there isn't really that much the AI can do.

The AI will just skip your planet then and go to the next one even if they can't claim it or completly destroy it, at lest they do for me, some times they even bee line for the captial planet skipping all the others on its way. The higher the difficulty the more worthless your fleet is early in the game. Rush for starbases, defences and titans as far as production goes in the start. If you do it right then its easy to win unfair from that point.

[inthedark]

As well as the SB advice, my thing is to keep an eye on them, they'll often give you a clue as to what planet they are going to go for and you can build up its defenses. Try to hold them back until you can get a decent fleet of your own. I mostly just use a Titan and lot of Dunovs (playing Tec of course) and a few other capitals (an Akken with peace abilites is very handy for retreat and a Marza to take down their planet fast...as I usally don't get to super weapons in a small game).

Repair frigiates can be helpful too (while defending I use repair stations). Some carriers are nice too for boming stations, though if you have a large capital ship fleet and you (almost) always choose bomber for the upgrades you'll probably have enough, just keep your fleet away from the station until the bombers have ground it down a bit Once you've got a bunch of Dunovs you can do a lot of damage...but watch them closely-- if the enemy is concentrating on one ship, jump it out to repair don't lose it...and they can go damn fast on Unfair and higher.