[Fleet Composition] How Do Cylon Fleets Work?

[CarloNord]

Been trying cylon fleets recently, since before they weren't really interesting to me. I'd build fleets just to fight them with various colonial strategies. I've not really figured out how to work them however. I've started fighting my own fleets using the cylons, and I've found the matches get quite close even if I'm still coming out on top.

The Basestar seems worthless, the Argos is functional but I couldn't really ever find a use for it until recently when the concept of applying pressure to force flak fields up. I cannot find a function for the nemesis, dies too fast. Arachne is awkward to use, I keep thinking of it like an Adamant but ultimately it's becoming one of my more used ships. The Revenant is my pride and joy, but is not at all hard to destroy. Talon is... odd. Feels like it should be doing more damage then it is. Cerastes is a hit or miss ship, and the Cerberus is just fighter spam. I use the Phobos exclusively for tac jumping nukes and the Gorgon is not suitable for most fleet types I find.

I find that Raiders are really hard to use as effectively as vipers. I can trust a Viper MkII to thoroughly thrash up to 2 Raider MkI if deployed from a Berzerk or Atlas for example, but I'm at a lost as to how to use Raiders rather than fight them. They're not as accurate as Vipers, have a harder time intercepting munitions, and do less damage. The Heavy Raiders are very slow and only carry 50 centurions, which confuses me as everyone talks about how cylon boarding is op, which is not my experience. Wardrivers are almost essential, and I find are the best way to even the playing field against Vipers and some guided munitions. Which btw I found out today that vipers will not intercept nukes that were redirected back at your ship via Wardriver, RIP Adamant. Scorpions are ok at shooting capitals but I don't understand what else. They don't seem to hit munitions ever, my error?

With the upcoming expansion I fully expect there to be some significant changes as to how cylon fleets function, namely the Vespids and that oh so gorgeous Cratus. Specifically because I felt like the Cylons severely needed a way to deal big damage with their fighters, considering they seem to rely on them so heavily. And the Cratus seems to be a great way to lock down vipers on point defence duty and make them yummy targets. But even so, I'm at a loss, how do the Cylons work?

I find that relying on munitions is dangerous, and only works because the AI has a really bad habit of charging you with their battlestars and thus allowing you to destroy the nose-mounted armory, thus rendering them defenceless. If I were facing a player, I can't see them letting me get so many free missiles in. So I guess what I'm getting at is, how do you command God's children, what tips and tricks have you got, and what mistakes do you think I'm making?

[AeQuArTz]

Cylons aren't known for their abundance of guns and armor, but they do have a lot of munitions and raiders as well as the ability to hack subsystems, which makes them geared more towards long-range advantage and overwhelming numbers. Staying out of gun range is probably the simplest move for the Cylons. It is my opinion that Cylons require more patience to operate effectively.

Basestars are decent supporting ships and can survive for a good amount of time due to being able to spin fast. Just keep them away from the main fight and rain down missiles. Having a Hydra for munitions reload is also good.

Talons are good cheap broadside ships that carry an extra squadron, but I wouldn't rely too heavily on them because their guns are weak. I suppose you could put it in front of your Revenants to tank the damage. Bunching up several Talons can be pretty scary as well.

One tactic I've seen with the Argos is to have one fly up and another fly down to effectively bypass the flak field. If they chase one of the Argos, they will get further away from the other, which helps when you can keep spamming missiles and harassing them with raiders.

For missile defense, wardrivers can be pretty nasty with their ability to send guided munitions back to the sender. Scorpions are also decent at shooting missiles, but I like using them as extra guns and missile platforms to pound the enemy. Heavy raiders can help if you want to nerf an enemy ship, but if you want to get the CIC, I suggest lots of heavy raiders.

Personally, I enjoy playing all Cerberus where you can chew up the enemy with a ton of raiders, blast them with tons of scorpions, or spam heavy raiders and wait it out. I also have fun with all Phobos (with AP + torpedoes) jumping beneath the enemy where your top armor and guns are active and you can hack them until none of the subsystems are working. I usually start by hacking fire control because Phobos can be squishy.

IDK, I usually like to play with Colonials because they have the bigger guns.

[USS Midway veteran]

With my experience with using Cylon ships, Ive learned that Raiders really need to operate in "swarms" to be effective. Don't split them up; send everything you have flying to target Colonial capital ships.

[Sir Wagglepuss III]

I've had a *lot* of experience playing Cylons on what would be the closest we have to a competitive level.

The simplest advice I can give to somebody trying to play Cylons is to not play them like Colonials.

Fundamentally, Colonials usually play like a sledgehammer, wanting to keep their fleet together and regularly maximise gun output and fleet protection provided by flak/sweepers. Cylons are not like this, they instead play like a scalpel. Most Cylon equipment has a pretty specific job or two which it excels at, dealing with extremes, where most Colonial equipment is pretty multi-functional.

I find Cylons tend to work best when deployed with multiple angles of attack, or hammer and anvil tactics. My tournament fleet consists of 1x Nemesis, 3x Revenant, 2x Argos, 1x Cerberus, and it's based around using that Nemesis and it's massive DRADIS range to instantly ID the enemy fleet and quickly make a plan based upon their fleet loadout.

A common tactic would be to have the two Argos both fly high and split in opposite directions, whilst the Revenants dive low and start sniffing for an angle to snipe away at a ship. Squadrons go out, ready to either squash down or tie up the enemy's squadron complement depending on how strong theirs is. Between the fighter presence, Revenant threat, and ever-looming rain of guided munitions from the two Argos... Something will open up.

That's just a fairly general approach to combat with that fleet, and I can completely shake up how I want to approach it based upon what my Nemesis has ID'd the enemy fleet as. If the enemy fleet has something like 3x Minotaurs, the Revenants aren't going to want to get anywhere near that, but they can still manoeuvre to pose a threat and wiggle open a space for Argos missiles to slip in.

As a general rule though, whatever fleet you run as a Cylon, you will want to assess what the other person has brought along, and quickly make a plan to either remove or temporarily neutralise one of their cornerstones (Their AMD, squadrons, munition potential, gun threat, etc) and then slice in to the opening you make.

To directly answer a couple of your questions though...

Basestars are a (relatively) piss cheap platform for 2x munitions, 3x squadrons and a bucket of hitpoints.

Argos have munition resupply and provide a constant threat throughout the span of a game - Start them way back and high/low and you can have them stay well away from the enemy fleet whilst providing something the enemy MUST respond to, which can provide advantages in itself, even if missiles hit nothing but flak.

Arachne want to sit low as all their guns are 3x medium top, 2x medium forward. They are the closest thing the Cylons get to an all rounder, and can fill out fleet space in most fleets nicely.

Talons are pretty much a 4k ship.

Nemesis are a 450 point investment in 10km DRADIS range. The act of spotting the entire enemy fleet on turn 1 basically pays for themselves, with anything else they do a bonus. They can do probing harassment with their munition and hacking post-recon.

Raider anti-fighter ability improves exponentially as you get more squads involved, as Vipers are inherently faster than them, they can tie up a Raider squad in 1-1 combat without taking much damage back from the Raiders. Raiders then, are best deployed either in bulk, or with a supporting element that does damage or debuffs for them. Wardriver assistance works well if you've multiple to spare in a squadron heavy fleet, but you can also have Cylon gunships like the Revenant and Arachne provide gun support to a fighter brawl - A Revenant especially can tear apart half a Viper squad in a turn easily, making 2-3 Revenants a massive boost to your anti-squadron firepower if you force the fighter brawl to happen in gun range of your fleet. Cerastes can do the same thing for you in 4k fleets.

Last note - Scorpions only shoot down munitions when set to shoot at them. There's a button to toggle target focus to either capitals or munitions. Worth noting that each Scorpion is basically a laser-accurate heavy gun with medium gun reload speed, making 2-3 of them capable of murdering sub-Battlestar grade ships in short order.

[CarloNord]

@Sir Wagglepuss III

I've actually come across one of your competitive matches, this video to be exact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub7aZA6hOA4

Your fleet you used isn't possible anymore, but I see how it was used, the exact opposite way that the AI Cylons throw their ships at you. Personally, I find that staggering missile launches to be optimal, as it forces your opponent to constantly be dealing with incoming missiles. It may not do as much damage, but it is constant pressure. And since the Argos has three slots, it's perfect. Simply launch a slot every turn. In my fights against the AI it's been going great, even with it's tendency to rush you.

With this new information in mind, I've been working at ways to counter this sort of play as Colonials... I think the Taipan is going to help me with that immensely as it seems the best counter play is to blow Cylon missile boats to bits ASAP and gun the rest down.

[gmuir77]

The thing about constant pressure is that the battlestar is neutralized. It has to keep up the flak so it can't get outbound warheads without losing them to friendly fire. This also means the battlestar is going to be turned sideways to you which means it can't close which means no battlestar arty tearing your ships to pieces.

I can't confirm whether or not the arty fires through the flak. I don't think it does so that's another major factor -- any of your ships that are closing to guns range are not dealing with that.

[CarloNord]

Guns still work through flak, it's just that the pd guns of the battlestar are busy creating the field, and as such don't fire.

[gmuir77]

Can we confirm if the artillery fires through the flat? As in from the Battlestar with the flak? I know it doesn't block any type of gun round.

with the way the gun ark is completely empty on the side with flak, I always assumed nothing fired at all from the Battlestar laying down the flak field.

[Mistfox]

No they do fire so you can have your flak field and slide in under a Cylon ship to pound its underbelly at the same time. The flak field is only generated by the side PD guns.