Win Every Battle But Losing The War

[bpysell]

OK, I have complaned a bit about this game and thought it was too hard. Now that I have more time in it I realise that I was right about some of the stuff. I have destroyed 1000 plus enemy ships... and they just make more. I went in thinking that both sides had to rely on Tylium/Resources. I guess I was wrong. If you are killing everything you see, and never lose a ship, you should be able to win a war of attrition. That is a valid strategy in war, and this is a strategy game. The Cylons can make 100 ships per turn if they need to. How is that balanced?

[Gubernacht]

I believe through out the miniseries, series and a few other movies it was stated that they Cylons were winning the war they just suddenly and unexpected sued for an armistice and that created the armistice line.

Someone can correct me if I am wrong as although I know BSG Lore, i am not nearly as familliar with it as with Star Trek;

[IrateQuaker]

I think the point he is trying to make is that the AI has unlimited resources, meaning that if you play perfectly you will meet status quo. If you make a mistake the game will spiral and you will lose. The one critical mistake a Developer can make is to give the AI unlimited resources because 'otherwise it would be boring'. If a player cannot win a game he won't play it.

The purpose of the game is to have us fight that war, not ride along while it repeats itself. If the cylons have a huge amount of resources but it's not infinite, that is one thing. If they can go on forever, that is entirely another.

[Wayfare]

I don't think you're supposed to win that way. The Cylon invasion is more of a 'doomsday clock' to push you into getting on with the story missions. If you try to brute force a win, you will eventually be overwhelmed.

[Spider Pig]

Wayfare is correct.

The win condition of the campaign is to progress through (and eventually complete) the campaign.

The problem you're having is that you are playing this as if it was Conquest mode in a "4X" strategy game. You can never achieve that win condition, because you can't ever attack the Cylon economy or production (only the output of that production).

[Veritas]

The spawn rate is just too high. It should slow down if you are decimating their forces, then resurge after a few turns of relative quiet. This could provide enough time to build new ships and reorganize fleets. Right now you have to cross your fingers the ships you sent to merge with another fleet don't get decimated along the way

[steveo110]

@Snazzy Dragon, I've found the best way to build up larger fleets is once an officer can sustain more than he has - merge ships from another officer led fleet nearby into it - then unassign the 2nd officer so he is safe ready to re-assign ot a brand new fleet build at the dockyard.

[IrateQuaker]

I really hate strategy games that put a doomsday timer into it's mechanics, if you don't rush through you will lose. Which means you just game the system to give you the most favorable conditions to rush and you're done. Such a waste.

[Gargantua]

They can be beaten and subdued. In higher difficulties too. Just take your time, and focus on what you can do each turn.

Granted, the game doesnt like it, and you will have to shuffle fleets away from campaign missions until ready, but it is possible. Using auto-resolve with large fleets, the cylons will decimate themselves against you turn after turn.

[Renown]

People play BSG style game, complain its too much like BSG. Makes sense.

During the original conflict the colonies had no way to strike at cylon manufacturing on masse, so when the Cylons retreated it was a big surprise. Makes sense that in the game the conflicts will continue to scale to where its impossible to maintain any equity/balance without doing story missions.

So...

Do story missions. Problem solved.

[phily]

I haven't had this problem, you can essentially blockade them as well by setting up strong fleets in the between systems. This is more of a tactical game, the 4X part isn't really the focus and it shows. It is just following canon as well, where the Cylons get their resources to build a lot of their ships, we don't really know. We know about the colony, we know they have various outposts mining tylium and they likely build their basestars and other ships at the colony.

Unfortunately for the Colonials, even if they have far more resources than the Cylons, they don't know where the Cylons are coming from or any of that. So they're basically fighting a holding war for the most part, it is pretty hard for them to "strike back" when they don't know where the Cylons homeworld is. So a Battlestar could take on two or three basestars, but what then? They just build more.

I wouldn't be sure how to do the 4X part of the game with what you want and without breaking the canon aspect of the game.

[Dread Pirate]

A war of attrition is only viable when there is a large disparity in resources or capability between the opposing forces and the side with the advantage can tolerate extremely high losses or inflict excessive losses on the other side's forces.

According to the source material, the Colonials don't have the necessary advantages over the Cylons or the tolerance for tremendous losses to win a war of attrition. In fact, according to the lore, the Cylons were waging a successful war of attrition against the humans and were winning.

The Cylons would undoubtedly win a war of attrition against humans. Fighting a war of attrition against a mechanical foe that doesn't have to eat, sleep, or train new troops to replace experienced soldiers lost in battle, that doesn't have to worry about fatigue or morale, and that doesn't have to care for wounded troops is a losing proposition.

Waging a war of attrition should not be a viable strategy for the Colonials in the game.

[IrateQuaker]

dread, good point

[Benzin]

The way i see it is, this is a tactical combat game, with some strategy elements (like being able to manage officers, side missions, etc.) added for flavor and completeness, also to make the game feel non-linear. And this it acheives perfectly.

I understand Its not a 4X or Grand strategy game. Its not Stellaris, Master of Orion, etc. And i never expected it to be, so personally i have no complains in this regard.

Imagine if the cylons suddenly "ran out of fleets", what would we do then??