"I was playing as the Greater Maldrood so I can't tell if their AI acts the same way."

Maldrood will wreck Your capitals with swarms of 'Arquitens-class cruisers'.
I know nothing of balancing or 'AI', but capitals should simply dominate every other ship class below them - except fighters (turning bombers into a lethal threat, if unchecked).

That corvettes, frigates and cruisers defy a fleet of capitals breaks immersion for me - why should one bother saving up for 'dreadnoughts', capitals - or even heavy shipyards ?

I understand that You talk about 'patrol crafts' that are to be countered by dedicated anti-fighter corvettes, but considering Your annoyance with a 'dragged-out' battle, the point stands for frigates as well, in my view.

It may not be possible to make the 'AI' building balanced fleets due to it's dependence on numerical values in 'auto-resolve' - but players should be given proper counters to enjoy tactical gameplay - instead of, well, auto-resolving...

What's next, the 'Dark Empire', defeated by a mob of citizens in their family spacecrafts ?...

(in American English)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx1_UYcLWVI

Originally posted by chrisma:

"I was playing as the Greater Maldrood so I can't tell if their AI acts the same way."

Maldrood will wreck Your capitals with swarms of 'Arquitens-class cruisers'.
I know nothing of balancing or 'AI', but capitals should simply dominate every other ship class below them - except fighters (turning bombers into a lethal threat, if unchecked).

That corvettes, frigates and cruisers defy a fleet of capitals breaks immersion for me - why should one bother saving up for 'dreadnoughts', capitals - or even heavy shipyards ?

I understand that You talk about 'patrol crafts' that are to be countered by dedicated anti-fighter corvettes, but considering Your annoyance with a 'dragged-out' battle, the point stands for frigates as well, in my view.

It may not be possible to make the 'AI' building balanced fleets due to it's dependence on numerical values in 'auto-resolve' - but players should be given proper counters to enjoy tactical gameplay - instead of, well, auto-resolving...

What's next, the 'Dark Empire', defeated by a mob of citizens in their family spacecrafts ?...

(in American English)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx1_UYcLWVI

Capital ships being better than everything else is an even worse balancing mistake in my opinion. So many other mods just devolve into spamming star destroyers. I love how Thrawn's Revenge gives every ship a distinct role to play in combat. Capital ships are not meant to be used as your main damage-dealers for the best results. Instead they help anchor positions with their high durability while providing consistent firepower.

Mid-sized ships are a huge deal in this mod. Having a few ISDs on the front line while a swarm of VSDs or other similar ships sit just behind them for fire support will let you take down enemy ships far more efficiently than capital ship spam. Battlecruisers are even better at this thanks to their even higher durability. Dreadnaughts can anchor entire fleets which would otherwise be too weak to go on the offensive, but even the Executor can be overwhelmed by conventional firepower if you rely on it too much.

If the only way to counter large ships in this mod was bombers, there would be little reason to build anything other than capital ships and carriers, which is already a fairly effective strategy. TR is balanced with medium ships in mind, leading to a much more flexible range of viable play styles. I'm glad the AI is using the new ships added in recent updates, it's just clear that they're overvaluing the Adz. There was a similar problem in 2.2 where the Imperial Remnant would spam Modular Taskforce Carriers despite them being extremely weak, and it was no fun. But otherwise 2.3 has put me up against a ton of different diverse fleet compositions, which I enjoy.

"I love how Thrawn's Revenge gives every ship a distinct role to play in combat."

I understand that You want ship classes to have a distinct role - but Your approach is equivalent to weld rifle barrels shut, because You want people in a FPS game to use melee more often.
That breaks immersion.

In real life 'capital ships' can't be spammed, because it takes years to construct them and their cost and maintainance burdens the national budget severely.
But a battleship or a supercarrier beats every other ship class - usually with just a few hits - that's how units appear realistic in a fictional setting, in my view (take the effectiveness of 'Lancer' frigates versus fighters as a model).

Lesser ship classes should shine in early game when building new 'capitals' is just not feasible (e.g. because it would take more than a 'week' to complete construction and it would use more upkeep than is available).

If a fleet of mostly 2 dozens 'Arquitens-class' cruisers or 'Nebulon-B' frigates beats a fleet of a 'Dreadnought' SSD and a dozen 'Tector' SDs than it would be more rational to build fleets of 20 'Strike' cruisers - which is exactly what You don't want: 'spamming' of a single unit type.

If any combination of ships beats a SSD that is supported by 'anti-fighter' corvettes, without managing to 'drop out of hyperspace' behind their arc of fire - then the balancing is clearly off - otherwise SSDs are merely a 'timesink', considering how many planets could be taken during their time of construction.

Unless one wants to make the argument in regard to lore that 'Imperial' assets are made to appear intimidating, but are rather ineffective. Right now, the best 'Remnant' ship appears to be the 'Allegiance-class' battlecruiser - which performs as if it had more efficient shields than a 'Praetor-class' battlecruiser or a a Superstar Destroyer (the only 'capital' that sports efficient firepower) - leading to fleets of half a dozen of them - as if they were 'ships of the line' (standard ships, fighting in a larger formation).

If this is about faithfullness to lore then unit descriptions should adress the exact role and unique strengths of each type (e.g. including comparison to similar types).

I think, games should grant the experience of a clear progression - the more advanced a faction becomes, the easier it should be to expand by force - instead of wondering which cruiser type and 'turbolaser' variant would be able to hit hardest from the cover of mere 'tank' ships (e.g. building fairly expensive 'Victory-class' I cruisers, despite their description as being 'dated').

("...cruisers can't repel firepower of that magnitude ...")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f38a6pYL_jE

Originally posted by chrisma:

I understand that You want ship classes to have a distinct role - but Your approach is equivalent to weld rifle barrels shut, because You want people in a FPS game to use melee more often.
That breaks immersion.

It does not, it just breaks your idea of what the balance should be. If you want an ISD-only fleet to stomp any other fleet combination, then this is not a mod for you.

ICW starts at a point where most ships used during the GCW are already built, so that argument of a build-up does not make sense here as it would in say, beginning of GCW.

And welll progression is one of the main features of ICW, its just that Empire experiences a gradual regression when it comes to tech available, with Warlords stagnating. If you want to see clear technological progression, then New Republic is a faction for you.

"ICW starts at a point where most ships used during the GCW are already built"

"If you want to see clear technological progression, then New Republic is a faction for you."

These are fair points, showing that balancing is lore related.

However, the fact that 'cruisers' and 'corvettes' beat 'capitals' is nevertheless not immersive - the only ship type that could do that in the 'vanilla' 'Empire at War' version were missile boats - but these had to stay out of range in order to survive for more than a few moments - requiring tactics like 'kiting'.

There is a reason why people ask for e.g. to include the 'Arquitens-class' cruisers in the 'Remnant' roster: 'Star Destroyers' lack firepower when combatting lesser ship classes.

"If you want an ISD-only fleet to stomp any other fleet combination (...)"

That is already the case as I mentioned 'Allegiance-class' battlecruisers - which can be deployed in a formation of six... (in my last 'Essence of War' campaign the 'Remnants' had 50 of them...).

'Make capitals great again' - and have players carry the subsequent, logical economic and strategic burdens to field them, will solve this issue.

Then the 'AI' can field whatever 'it wants' - it doesn't make a difference if their fleet composition simply lack 'capitals'.

Anything else is just an artificial excuse to deploy cruisers outside a 'raiding' role (as if they were 'archers behind a line of pikemen') - but of course, You can have Your opinion of what the 'mod' should represent.

Edit: older threads that reflect the issue - and it's lack of sound argumentation in favour for the current design choices.

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/1125571106/1629663905424472158/