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Allright, I admit that that probably isn't doable if you're new.
I take it you're getting beaten in early-game? Which difficulty are you playing on? Possibly a ship-design of yours for review?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1507628054
Use quarters, instead of bunks. Gives more crew for the same cost and size. Can probably use just one 3-squares quarters instead of four 1-square bunks then, and cut maintenance.
The way from the ammo storage to the top rifle is quite long (reducing rate of fire a bit, allthough not that much for a rifle). Add a corridor with ladder one to the right of the ammo to fix that.
That cockpit extending on the top is inefficient. The thing has less HP that way, and reduces speed (long vehicles have higher speed, tall vehicles have lower speed). Could place it on top of the supply-hatch.
You have a pretty significant number of corridors. Adds weight, cost, and size, and the shortended time to reach modules usually isn't worth that.
Lastly, rifles may, or may not be a good choice. Grenades or bombs will deal much more damage (but require to be above the enemy - or at least allmost at the enemy's level for grenades). Cannons also deal more damage (especially against armour), but use more ammo.
So in short what can i do with that to shore it up?
The bomber: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1507654309
Two suspendium chambers, so it can fly higher than its target (hopefully), and perhaps avoid getting grounded if one blows up (hence why I placed the coal in between - to avoid chain-reactions).
The figurehead slightly increases hitpoints of all modules, but isn't vital. Note that it also increases hitpoints for the front bomb, so it shouldn't just be removed, but replaced by something else (e.g. a deck, which is light and still gives the bonues for having other modules around).
The round corner is armoured with a wooden wall (instead of wooden armour), because all it does is provide a small health bonus to the propeller.
This design should be good against structures, and slow-moving airships. Faster airships might be able to outmanoeuvre it (due to the long command-cooldown).
Heavy rifle: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1507645160
The pipes are just to make it look a little less bad. Could remove them for slightly reduced weight.
Uses two propellers - if all your propellers/sails are shot, you'll lose the ship after the battle. So having two may allow you to survive a battle. Same for the suspendium chambers - can still fly on one, but much lower.
Note that using larger modules instead of several smaller ones (propellers and suspendium chambers, in this case) makes them much more effective (higher speed, and service ceiling). But also increases cost and size.
Light rifle: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1507645197
Round corner just for looks again, and armoured just with a wooden wall. The back light, however, increases speed (due to the way "drag" works in-game).
Note how I generally avoided corridors. Once you get fire extinguishers, you'll want to replace some corridors with them too (increases time to pass through though).
The rifles could be replaced with cannons or grenades just fine, wouldn't make much of a difference (except cannons waste ammo, and grenades will suffer a bit due to long command cooldown).
Meaning if I've got a ship with loads of guns and thick armor but no guards, the AI will just happen to send a boarding specialist against it every time. If I've got a ship with most of it's weapons facing forward and downward, the AI will just miraculously summon up ships with an max altitude of "moon landing." If I start an expensive building project the AI will always send it's doomstack to that particular location and time it so that they arrive at 99% completion. If I've got a ship without enough fire extinguishers then lo & behold, every enemy ship now has flamethrowers.
Look, I know spies can see into cities but how the heck are they seeing the internal components of my ships? That's just going too far.
And it's much worse than it seems, since I'm seeing it in a tech-0 game with research set to none.
Enemy empire #1 is fielding:
as well as small and medium Suspendium chambers. (illegal again!)
and proper Steel Armor. (yet more illegal!)
Defensive structures with Rockets and Flamethrowers (illegal, violates tech-0 quite flagrantly)
and Massive Stone Armor. (illegal, should require Fortification)
Enemy empire #2 is fielding:
and Suspendium Chambers. (more illegal bullsquirt)
Defensive structures with Heavy Cannon and Machineguns.
I fielded:
Defensive structures with an obscene amount of Muskets, the occasional Machinegun, and dedicated Deck-gun wedges.
With normal stone armor, or Wooden armor, depending on whih enemy was being faced by that city.
I didn't have an option or ability to build anything that broke the tech rules, unlike the cheating bastard that is the AI.
Oh, and the final topper on the ♥♥♥♥-cake? the AI all appeared to have the extra gold from cities, and the faster build times, since they were out-producing me with their vastly more expensive ships. (often they'd simply appear at the city the AI wanted to take in batches of 5)
FINAL EDIT:
I'm thinking the problem is with the AI's build list not obeying the tech restrictions, and/or their displayed flag not even rmotely matching what they actually have.
That, or the AI simply gets all the tech needed to build it's lowest level unit.
One thing i also should have mentioned is what to do in a sense for defensive buildings? I've currently got a Blockhaus design with rifles on both sides, also got an upgraded version with deck guns for front and back support.
If you think you can afford to pay enough attention to it, having fast-ish defensive fleets that can cover several cities will be better. If not (or as failsafe for more important cities), use maintenance-free buildings.
If you add just a single bunk (and no additional crew of any kind - no guards, nor planes, nor hussars), you can get 3 rifles (or e.g. a cannon or flak) fireing at the enemy for no upkeep cost. Can also add a fire-extinguisher to it, and some stuff on top to protect against falling airships. Add a bunch to a city and you can get pretty reasonable defences (enough to beat the AI anyway).
was it hard? then the ai gets 3 bonus tech at the start to pick and chose on top of what thier flag gets them
was it very hard then they get 5 and on hardest it's 6, 5~6 techs could get one some strong stuff you know.
and then there are techs/bonuses that can be gotten from other methods other than researching them.
here is a list of the techs required as you discribed them.
rifels
RIFLING
flamethrowers
EXPLOSIVES
EXPLOSIVES -> ADVANCED_EXPLOSIVES
EXPLOSIVES -> ADVANCED_EXPLOSIVES -> COMBUSTIBLES
proper steel armor
GUNNERY
GUNNERY -> METALLURGY
heavy stone wall
GUNNERY -> HEAVY_WOODEN_ARMOUR
HEAVY_WOODEN_ARMOUR + METALLURGY -> FORTIFICATIONS
massive stone armour can be gotten from the stone gardians nests. there is a 1/3 chance of obtaining it by smaching gardians.
suspedium chambers
ENERGISED_SUSPENDIUM
all in all i count only 7~9 techs, i don't know at what point in the game you were looking at the AI but if starting from hardest it's not that rediculess
gatling guns
MACHINERY
MACHINERY -> LANDSHIPS
MACHINERY -> LANDSHIPS -> MACHINING
suspedium chambers
ENERGISED_SUSPENDIUM
heavy cannon
RIFLING
RIFLING -> OPTICS
RIFLING -> OPTICS -> HEAVY_CANNON
torpedoes
RIFLING -> OPTICS -> GYROSCOPES
EXPLOSIVES
EXPLOSIVES -> ADVANCED_EXPLOSIVES
EXPLOSIVES -> ADVANCED_EXPLOSIVES -> COMBUSTIBLES
GYROSCOPES + COMBUSTIBLES -> CYBERNETICS
torpedoes can be gained from killing enough clockwork wasps, that is part luck/unluck
though if it had reasearched all the way to torpedoes i would find that a tad bit much but they can be easely gained from just hunting nests, there is a 1/4 chance of getting those.
but i count 11 techs, 7 if we account for torpedoes being gained through hunting, so again i don't see much edge over the player
as difficulty increases the starting level of the player's shipyard(build speed) goes down(and vice versa), as a result you will get out produced and they will similairly have the same thing with money. and as human you should be able to beat the computer at it's own game.
as for "AI's are allways high tech", they will ASAP upgrade any desighns they have when they gain new tech's so in that regard they out-micro any human on the planet.
other than that, heavy steel armor and computers can be gained from the mad scientsts so there is that too.
maybe it's a idea to be more calm and rational about the situation. there is also the posiblity that they stole ships and buildings from other ai after they took over the place or boarded thier ships.
For sieges, low altitude cheap bombers are very effective, you can build a basic bomber for under 200 and when it's destroyed it falls on the enemy building. Bombers are very OP, I can usually steamroll the AI on Imperial difficulty with bombers alone.
If you're having difficulty against aicraft carriers, use rifles because they can easily take out aircraft.
There are lots of ways to exploit the AI.
One time I built a couple of low flying boarding ships with 3 marine barracks each and no weapons. They were cheap since they had no weapons and a service ceiling of about 30m, but very effective at capturing buildings. I just sent them around the map pillaging any town that had no fleet defending it. Even though I left all these towns undefended it didn't matter because for each town the enemy took back I had already captured 2 more.
On the same map there was a fleet with 18 ships that was continuously invading my towns, rather than try to fight it which would have been impossible, I just took each town back when it left to invade the next town. Eventually I took all that factions towns except one, the one which had the huge fleet. At this point it couldn't build anymore ships because it had no shipyards, and for some reason it stopped trying to invade me.
But... if I start a game at Tech Max, the situation reverses and I can actually defeat the AI pretty darn easy.
I think it is because, as Lord_Greyscale pointed out, the AI basically cheats it's way into starting off at higher tech levels (no matter what you actually set the game to start as) but it is still shacked by a pre-made build list that doesn't always exploit it to it's best potential.
Also, when you start high tech levels then spamming defensive buildings is a great strategy, because you can actually make buildings that can properly defend themselves (read: all firing arcs covered, good armor, and plenty of damage control).
Nice to see someone outright admitting the AI is a cheating bastard.
(the extra techs they get in absurd quantity neatly explain why the game is far more difficult than it should be)
Not nice to see you trying to claim it's a good thing.
Sure, I suppose if I had gone for Bombs (not a single flag symbol gives that, remember, no research), or Marines (a few) then I could *possibly* beat the AI at it's rigged game.
(please note, in games where I do pick the cheaty ones that give marines in Tech 0 games, I tend to win, because the AI can't handle getting it's everything stolen. Neither can a player, and it's why the AI doesn't use the damn things)
Assuming, of course, that the AI doesn't do what the AI allways does, and simly build more ships than I can, and take away all my cities except my shipyard within the first 10 minutes of the game.
(not only has that happened more than once, it has happened in over half of all campaigns)
but it sure as hell isn't "beating the AI at it's own game", because I don't have the same techs or lack of restrictions the AI does, therefore it ain't the same game.
But that's literally not possible when you are attacked by 2 of the 4 surrounding Empires within the first 3 minutes now is it? (the other two were attacking each other and/or turtles/pirates)
Since, y'know, one of them was Bomberman, so even assuming the piddly ass useless defences the game gives you at the start (*) manage to kill it, it's falling corpse will kill them in turn and they'll have a ship on the way to finish the job before you can get the defences rebuilt/a ship built to cover it.
(assuming the combat decider doesn't cheat in the AI's favor)
(* The initial defensive buildings never use deck-guns unless you allso posses Rifles, since none were designed by default with only deck-guns tech.)
The other one being Torpedobeat simply loiters at the far end of the map slinging explosives at you untill he wins.
(youll see the same blatant bullsquirt with rocket-armed enemies
Please, do tell me how to defeat either one of them, within 20 minutes, using the tools chosen.
Remember, those tools were GEAR, so you get Tracked landships, Deck-guns and Machinguns.
(not that the initial defensive buildings used any of those, instead they were alll Musket-armed, and usually mostly on the left-side.)
Seriously, go look at the default buildings, they all suck even by the standards of "be disposeable".
Oh, and I forgot to mention at all the other way the AI is a cheating bastard.
They don't actually have to fight any of their fights with other AI.
They either auto-win, simply by bringing a bigger ship, or auto-lose.
You? you have to bring a fleet with at least 4x the amount of guns (of similar tech-level) as the defender to auto-win.
This means it only starts happening for you the moment after you no longer need it to.
(EX: you are able to field a fleet with 4x the number of guns as the defender, with or without having your own defensive fleets/structures, you no-longer need auto-wins. happy they occur? sure, but you don't need it like you did when you couldn't out-produce the enemy.)