MOO2 Silicoid Strategies

[Giftless]

I did not even know 60 Battleships would even fit on the screen. I grabbed a screenie from one of my older games up here. I think I used 14 of these to capture Antares.

Spoiler :

T262 We went with a Death Ray Battleship to finish. Hindsight says that Death Rays do not seem to kill Antaran crew and therefore the Transporters are wasted. I am sure this would have done much better against the opponents.

Anyway, congratulations on your win!

Sweet design! I see you have the extra death rays there with the heavy mount, no bombs, and no shields (with buffed hull armor to compensate).

Indeed, when I first started playing I wasn't aware that more than nine ships could be grouped at a time, but then I discovered that sneaky scroll bar. You can even build multiple gates on all your fleet strong-points too, for that "not sure if I have enough to win, so I'll send everything at once" massive overcompensation feeling

 

[Darza]

I did not even know 60 Battleships would even fit on the screen. I grabbed a screenie from one of my older games up here. I think I used 14 of these to capture Antares.

Err, its very bad design. Really bad. But you said it was some long time ago, ok. (0 free space?!). You cannot use more than 100 ships in a given battle, and usually even less, depend on their size.

I've heard about the tactical types using the small missile swarm ships; on strategic I'd definitely agree about the economic techs before the military techs, since fleets just aren't effective without at least mid-level ship techs on that setting. I've had A.I. sneak in troop transporters before, rush buy a missile base, and then knock out all four battleships of my reconquest fleet. It seems like I need Phasors and Class V shields just to get rolling against space monsters

Fleets are effective from the earliest start. You dont need more than 10 frigates with mirved nukes for any monster, and some of them could be killed with just 2 frigates.

 

[Harv]

Err, its very bad design. Really bad. But you said it was some long time ago, ok.

In terms of MOO2 experience, it is only two games ago - but I appreciate it when somebody tells me it is a bad design. Then I can learn how to do it better the next time around. Otherwise I might continue to something silly.

When the game is at a point where anything is going to win, there is not so much feedback on what late-game designs work and what does not - because everything works given enough ships.

 

[Giftless]

You still not confirmed - did you watched the educational video? As its quite important, one story if there is need to explain something, despite you had seen it, and other story is to explain it by words instead, as you dont plan to watch it. Im not sure im interested in latter, its long and not a good path, better to see than read in this case.

1) Keeping a powerhouse building planet low on pop - is a waste of resources. You need to move pop there from other planets instead. You could still keep them 1-2 below the max to keep some natural growth going on though (as on other planets aswell), but actually its possible to even keep them full, as high-production planets is a most important ones (as production not simply gather together in your pool unlike research do; 100 1-pop research planets give the same amount on RP per turn as one 100-pop planet (some possible rounding and buildings aside), but it work the different way with production planets: one planet, that build a 100 prod-cost ship every turn, and 100 planets, each building 100 prod-cost ship every 100 turns build equal amount of ships after 100 turns, but difference here is quite obvious). Of course if you can store pop on same system as UR planet - you could house there for some time, and move colonists back when you will have to actually build a ships, but, you need to move all-exept-one colonist in this case, simply due to buggy housing formula, otherwise its uneffective use of population.

2) Yes, my bad here, dont realize it was not about actual holos, but about joy of spying.

" For instance I'll often pick the mid-level battlestations and advanced city planning, opting to pick up the robominers from the A.I." - that a good example of the problem of breaking the curve. Not only battlestations are weak and useless, taking them instead of robos, in hope to get robos some other way - is not any good. Instead of learn how to get and use robos in proper time - you take useless tech, and rely on some random event to aquire a correct tech. It have some fun, but it make understandment of the game harder.

And with exception for very few must-be warthechs (augments, battle scanner, battle pods) -economic tech is picked above war tech as default. Simply because if you will skip some war tech for a better development - you will gain additional power to reach a more powerful wartech later instead. Otherwise you skipping a non-interchargeable economic tech, hitting economy badly, just for a some obsoleting wartech instead. You prefer wartech in a case when its a powerful enough to win a game on its own, and you dont need to develop anymore, and just winning a game with it. Problem is that in moo2 such techs are either given as free on a start, or very cheap in research, that is leading to confusion of "but i dont want to just simply win, i want to build some planets first, and win later". Well, that is simply uneffective way, there is no point in strategy then. If you want to do something unneeded before a win - it could be more or less ineffective, but ineffective still. But there is could be some usage in adding a home rules to break it, say, "no attack prior turn X" or "attack only with weapon Y" etc.

Economical development on its own is a huge skill and fun, just it have nothing with AI war, its better to perform on empty corners. Just there is no point to use AI as benchmark, some economic values are used instead, say population on turn X; or the turn, when all the techfields are finished etc.

Warlord pick is weak and overcosted, its not needed for such price. You dont have to defend any system with ships, you need a mobile fleet capable of defending the system in charge. But as it need just a few basic tech to launch a steamroll attack on AI - usually human player is attacking, not defending anyway. You dont need anything above mirved nukes to win a game (and with powerful enough race there is no need even in mirved nukes), and all the late tech are of no real importance in a game at all. Surely you can win with Plasma torpedoes if you can win with mirv Nukes, but why you need that torpedoes then? And there is no crime with negative command points, its how the game is playing, you grow economy capable to support a fleet, thats it, not trying to have a zero balance, -50 CP is just -500 BC, for example, its not so much for mid-late-game.

I have no headphones at the moment so a video is less than useful to me.

1) Say you don't have 100 planets, say you have seven. Two of those planets are rich, but at the time you do not have the technology to make an effective fleet. Wouldn't the production be better used toward new colonies or housing-- in an effort to create more scientists-- rather than constructing a fleet that will die on the battlefield? Remember, you are playing on strategic, which means no MIRVed nuke "pro" designs. You have to win using "poor" designs; how are you going to do it?

So what are you doing for command points here, are you relying on your fast planetary conquests for more Starbases / Warlord bonus locations? As I mentioned on another post, for the setting I play on 3-4 battleships is not enough to run the map; that's a barely acceptable defensive force. Often I'll be fielding something like [two] groups of 1 Titan and 2 battleships each, with maybe an extra Titan tossed in each group to be comfortable. My line of thinking is that the extra production of robominers is not essential since the command points aren't there to support the ships built with the extra production-- now if I took robominers then I would require some strategy for running a fleet on negative CP and the resultant cash flow hit. You mention the figure -500 BC, isn't that like a loss of 250 production per turn (which can be assigned to any colony)?

"Late game tech is over no importance at all"? Damn, I guess this means picking Deep Core Mines is wrong too

 

[Giftless]

Fleets are effective from the earliest start. You dont need more than 10 frigates with mirved nukes for any monster, and some of them could be killed with just 2 frigates.

Not using statistical auto-combat resolution I bet

 

[Darza]

In terms of MOO2 experience, it is only two games ago - but I appreciate it when somebody tells me it is a bad design. Then I can learn how to do it better the next time around. Otherwise I might continue to something silly.

When the game is at a point where anything is going to win, there is not so much feedback on what late-game designs work and what does not - because everything works given enough ships.

Its not about late-game designs, its about basic shipbuilding. You need to leave at least 1 free space on a ship (unless its absolutely impossible, but its a truly exotic case), as you will rise a speed by 1 then, that is a best use for 1 given point of space. You missed the Augmented engines and Inertial stablizer (must-be overall exept some early ships), and battle scanner (must-be for a beam ship, without it no need to use non-PD beams). While its possible to use F PD beams VS AI, due to total incapability of AI in a battle, its a bad habit still. PD should be 360, as your ships wouldnt be able to self-defence in case of missile heading from slightly wrong direction, and you will have a huge problem on concentrating the fire on missile during missile destroying maneuvers perfomed by a whole fleet. Its also quite handy to have Heavy beams as Fx, but it not really needed all the time, if fleet is really late and big - F is fine too, as you just shoot forward with it anyway. Normal beams are of low value generally, exept some special cases, say Plasma cannon, as they are of less range, and dissipate more on a given distance, compared to Heavy ones. By the same time PD modification is much more effective for a defence function, compared to Normal. Generally, the later game stage is, and more developed technology is used - the more important the beams become, very late ships could easily use only Heavy load (as you just inflicting heavy blow with one strike), while early one need a huge PD load with 1-2 Heavy beams.

More specifically: for a late beam ship, beside a real 100\125 computer one also want some overpowered techs - High Energy Focus, Structural Analyzer and Hyper-X capacitors (surely its possible to wreak havoc on AI without all the stuff).

Heavy armor - you can prefer HA over Rhull only versus AP weapons, that are pretty rare. Rhull, while offering same HP increase, also triple the Engine's HP, making the ship much more reliable and sustainable to damage. Also Rhull is important VS structure-damaging weapons, while HA simply have no effect at all in that case. Surely there is nothing bad at all to use them together, beside the space.

Autorepair - unlike moo1, where it is a good technology, moo2 autorepair is simply crap. Surely it can work versus AI, that is unable to concentrate fire on a ship and just randomly aim on some closest target, but using it is a distraction and a bad taste still. Goal is to prevent a damage to a ships at all, as much as possible, not autorepair them for a pretty large chunk of space (and that space is totally wasted, until the ship is actually damaged, so it just weaken the weaponload that time).

Weapon themselves is the least important here, but Death Rays are really weak weapon (compared to middle-late beams), and Lasers are simply better than Fusions for PD (you need to use all the mods, obviously).

In a summary - the certain ship have horrible low Beam Attack value for a beam ship (in classic moo2 - problem of actual beam ship is lack of good targeting computer, not actual beams, and good computers came really late), making it able to hit Starbases only on a regular basis (and probably some AI tin cans of worst designs too), have a weak damage payload, and basically non-existent missile defence capabilities. Surely would work versus Antares still.

 

[Darza]

I have no headphones at the moment so a video is less than useful to me.

1) Say you don't have 100 planets, say you have seven. Two of those planets are rich, but at the time you do not have the technology to make an effective fleet. Wouldn't the production be better used toward new colonies or housing-- in an effort to create more scientists-- rather than constructing a fleet that will die on the battlefield? Remember, you are playing on strategic, which means no MIRVed nuke "pro" designs. You have to win using "poor" designs; how are you going to do it?

So what are you doing for command points here, are you relying on your fast planetary conquests for more Starbases / Warlord bonus locations? As I mentioned on another post, for the setting I play on 3-4 battleships is not enough to run the map; that's a barely acceptable defensive force. Often I'll be fielding something like [two] groups of 1 Titan and 2 battleships each, with maybe an extra Titan tossed in each group to be comfortable. My line of thinking is that the extra production of robominers is not essential since the command points aren't there to support the ships built with the extra production-- now if I took robominers then I would require some strategy for running a fleet on negative CP and the resultant cash flow hit. You mention the figure -500 BC, isn't that like a loss of 250 production per turn (which can be assigned to any colony)?

"Late game tech is over no importance at all"? Damn, I guess this means picking Deep Core Mines is wrong too

First of all i must say sorry, because im not properly realized you're playing without Tactical Combat, as you're the first human being i met in some years who do so. And also i think you're playing it right way, because its more fair to AI. So all the battletech talks by me are of not real use (most likely "must-be techs" are different there), and sadly there is no real strategy testing about Strategical combat at all being deeply performed yet (or im totally missed it). So all we can do is concentrate on economy, what is essentially the same; and its you, who can do advices about technologies needed for warships in this case (my understandment is a really shameful there "the higher tech should work better", without any certain data, sadly). With more of free time im surely will try to fix my ignorance. Years about, when i tried it - i cannot recall stumbling on any problems to overbuild AI and winning a battles, but surely i builded some imperfect Strategic ships, and weak races are dead there, without access to combat tricks to win a game without economy.

There is no sound at all in that video, you wouldnt miss anything, its only about basic moves.

1. Fleet - is also a colony ships, and stored production. And again - if you surely dont need to build a ships or colonybases there, and have a free space to store population - you do housing there with a joy, of course. Just you do it with 1 colonist, not half-filled, as due to housing formula, its a waste of population efforts in this case. Often you will get less growth than with 1-pop in such case.

2. For command points - surely you build a Starbases eventually, when they are become cheap (forget about Warlord, its just some possible use for a Mutation points), and pick some Communication tech later too, but generally you need to have alotta population, as they are source of income. When you're running into negative balance - you rise a taxes. And of course - the bigger your economy is - the larger fleet it is possible to suport. As some special CP-economy trick - you can store a huge amount of production on a powerhouse planet (say, refitting a scout there every turn, and storing the exceed amount), so, instead of building a ship, say every 3 turns, planning to launch an attack in 10 turns later (resulting in negative CP-increase after 3, than 6 turn), you can store the same production (with small loss), and build them on 8, 9, 10 turn instead of 3, 6, 9, and avoid CP problems for a few turns.

"Extra production of robominers" - very wrong part. Battlestation is giving you only a +10 BC economy per turn in economical terms. And even not giving them, but saving them under some conditions. Robominers by itself give you a 10 PP plus some insane amount if you will count workers affected by it. Thus enabling you to build stuff, and to build stuff is what the game is about. Using taxes you convert PP to BC on 1:1 ratio, so setting taxes to amount of 10 PP per planet - you will get the same economical effect as BS (actually more, as its actual profit, not economy in this case), and have a huge PP boost despite it still. BS by itself is really weak in combat terms (if Strategic is not changing it much, what is possible), and with a price of 600 PP for it - it will make a net profit after 60 turns of usage (dropping the maintenance) for saving the CP. And -500 BC is a net loss of 500 PP in the best case, not 250 (as we're about conversion PP to BC, not in reverce order, and the conversation ratio is 1:1 at best), but still its very manageable for a good race (and its not really needed at all to went into that -50 CP anyway, it was example).

No, Deep Core is totally pwn, just usually game is over many turns before.

"It seems like I need Phasors and Class V shields just to get rolling against space monsters"- im just tested alittle, and it took a cardboard-Titanium Battleship + 2 initial scouts to kill a Crystal (upd: work with any monster attacking you, i.e. not Eel), without any research, it just killed 2 scouts (i just built that BB on first turn with cheatcode to test, no research at all). Btw its impossible to do so on a Tactical on such low tech. Looks like all the weapons there is some simple modifiers indeed, to a some basic value of ship, and have no special effects (not only Crystal could destroy that BB outright with a shot on Tactical, it would mindcontrol it, but here i got a non-damaged BB and 2 lost scouts. Also, the BB payload would be simply not enough to destroy that monster on a Tactical). Looks like its pretty simple - just pump as much BB's as you can - and you're good. Though im sure there is some effective designs, but it would take alotta research. Moreover, as i see, it often take a Cruiser (of a same cardboard type) with 2 scouts to mutually destruct with a monster (not reliably, but likely as outcome). Clearly seen what ship type is more important than the actual technology used. Things looks different with Eel, so there is also either something special with it, or defender have a huge bonus. It took 2 BB + 2 Cru + 2 Scouts to kill it. Strategic combat clearly favour pumping the no-tech ships even more than Tactical does, and make colonisation even less important as it seems, as it offer a formidable fighting force without any tech at all for a price even less as 2 Colony Ships. And looks like the Starbases are actually much more powerful there, it seems they are not Cruiser-class as in Tactical, but counts as more powerful than BB. That make the Battlestation point more worthy, but surely it still uncomparable to Robos. So the game is both harder and easier, while its impossible to do really fast attacks, with Cruiser+scouts destroying a basic Starbase, or with Battleship destroying slightly teched one using a special race (no Extended tanks for a non-special ships also hurt much here) - its favor the mighty prod races, that could just pump a cheap ships not actually bothering with research, prior some game-changing later tech would arrive. Not bad type of game anyway, id say.

 

[Giftless]

First of all i must say sorry, because im not properly realized you're playing without Tactical Combat, as you're the first human being i met in some years who do so. And also i think you're playing it right way, because its more fair to AI. So all the battletech talks by me are of not real use (most likely "must-be techs" are different there), and sadly there is no real strategy testing about Strategical combat at all being deeply performed yet (or im totally missed it). So all we can do is concentrate on economy, what is essentially the same; and its you, who can do advices about technologies needed for warships in this case (my understandment is a really shameful there "the higher tech should work better", without any certain data, sadly). With more of free time im surely will try to fix my ignorance. Years about, when i tried it - i cannot recall stumbling on any problems to overbuild AI and winning a battles, but surely i builded some imperfect Strategic ships, and weak races are dead there, without access to combat tricks to win a game without economy.

There is no sound at all in that video, you wouldnt miss anything, its only about basic moves.

1. Fleet - is also a colony ships, and stored production. And again - if you surely dont need to build a ships or colonybases there, and have a free space to store population - you do housing there with a joy, of course. Just you do it with 1 colonist, not half-filled, as due to housing formula, its a waste of population efforts in this case. Often you will get less growth than with 1-pop in such case.

2. For command points - surely you build a Starbases eventually, when they are become cheap (forget about Warlord, its just some possible use for a Mutation points), and pick some Communication tech later too, but generally you need to have alotta population, as they are source of income. When you're running into negative balance - you rise a taxes. And of course - the bigger your economy is - the larger fleet it is possible to suport. As some special CP-economy trick - you can store a huge amount of production on a powerhouse planet (say, refitting a scout there every turn, and storing the exceed amount), so, instead of building a ship, say every 3 turns, planning to launch an attack in 10 turns later (resulting in negative CP-increase after 3, than 6 turn), you can store the same production (with small loss), and build them on 8, 9, 10 turn instead of 3, 6, 9, and avoid CP problems for a few turns.

"Extra production of robominers" - very wrong part. Battlestation is giving you only a +10 BC economy per turn in economical terms. And even not giving them, but saving them under some conditions. Robominers by itself give you a 10 PP plus some insane amount if you will count workers affected by it. Thus enabling you to build stuff, and to build stuff is what the game is about. Using taxes you convert PP to BC on 1:1 ratio, so setting taxes to amount of 10 PP per planet - you will get the same economical effect as BS (actually more, as its actual profit, not economy in this case), and have a huge PP boost despite it still. BS by itself is really weak in combat terms (if Strategic is not changing it much, what is possible), and with a price of 600 PP for it - it will make a net profit after 60 turns of usage (dropping the maintenance) for saving the CP. And -500 BC is a net loss of 500 PP in the best case, not 250 (as we're about conversion PP to BC, not in reverce order, and the conversation ratio is 1:1 at best), but still its very manageable for a good race (and its not really needed at all to went into that -50 CP anyway, it was example).

No, Deep Core is totally pwn, just usually game is over many turns before.

"It seems like I need Phasors and Class V shields just to get rolling against space monsters"- im just tested alittle, and it took a cardboard-Titanium Battleship + 2 initial scouts to kill a Crystal (upd: work with any monster attacking you, i.e. not Eel), without any research, it just killed 2 scouts (i just built that BB on first turn with cheatcode to test, no research at all). Btw its impossible to do so on a Tactical on such low tech. Looks like all the weapons there is some simple modifiers indeed, to a some basic value of ship, and have no special effects (not only Crystal could destroy that BB outright with a shot on Tactical, it would mindcontrol it, but here i got a non-damaged BB and 2 lost scouts. Also, the BB payload would be simply not enough to destroy that monster on a Tactical). Looks like its pretty simple - just pump as much BB's as you can - and you're good. Though im sure there is some effective designs, but it would take alotta research. Moreover, as i see, it often take a Cruiser (of a same cardboard type) with 2 scouts to mutually destruct with a monster (not reliably, but likely as outcome). Clearly seen what ship type is more important than the actual technology used. Things looks different with Eel, so there is also either something special with it, or defender have a huge bonus. It took 2 BB + 2 Cru + 2 Scouts to kill it. Strategic combat clearly favour pumping the no-tech ships even more than Tactical does, and make colonisation even less important as it seems, as it offer a formidable fighting force without any tech at all for a price even less as 2 Colony Ships. And looks like the Starbases are actually much more powerful there, it seems they are not Cruiser-class as in Tactical, but counts as more powerful than BB. That make the Battlestation point more worthy, but surely it still uncomparable to Robos. So the game is both harder and easier, while its impossible to do really fast attacks, with Cruiser+scouts destroying a basic Starbase, or with Battleship destroying slightly teched one using a special race (no Extended tanks for a non-special ships also hurt much here) - its favor the mighty prod races, that could just pump a cheap ships not actually bothering with research, prior some game-changing later tech would arrive. Not bad type of game anyway, id say.

1) I checked out one of the play-guides linked to in the "unbalanced race" thread and I got to say the stored production in the building queue is a very useful thing. Enough so that I've dropped the Fantastic Traders for my custom race in favor of the Production +1 and Large Home World picks. Now it makes sense to skip microlite construction and pick Zortium Armor.

I'm thinking too that maybe my previous success with FT had more to do with how the game would generate my starting location based on racial picks (it would often give me two large Terran worlds nearby to colonize with the Natives as a Food Bonus). Usually I would get a mega-wealth / famous governor early on too.

It's funny, but I tried out three or four games with the Warlord pick in the beginning and every single time I was rushed by the A.I. (Gnolams on Rich production worlds of all things) by turn 50 or so. Just some of the worst starting placements and governor selection I've ever seen.

Ah, on the housing I've seen a second colonist add to the growth total; though I'm not sure if this is caused by the extra hammers or the fact that the planet has to hit a minimum capacity of some sort. It seems like in the early game sometimes the growth will bump up 30k just because another colonist is there, even if they're farming or whatnot. I see your point though, having extra colonists on a steady housing planet can take away from those colonists being able to do other things, on other worlds.

2) I agree the Robominers does give a production boost earlier; I've tried it out and it seems to work well as long as I have Zortium Armored Battleships out in the field. I'm guessing bad armor was the real issue with my previous tech strategy.

Yeah, the difficult part about strategic is that it's sometimes like tossing one's ships into a black box and not knowing why the combat ends the way it does. I've had the battleship backed up with the swarm fleet technique work on some combats (against vanilla star bases and low level monsters), though against the A.I. Races it's generally not safe until I have more big ships than they do. Furthermore the Antarans can be ridiculous on strategic, as in one tiny frigate can wipe out a group of ten battleships. I'm wondering actually if Planetary Shields (Radiation Shields even?) are more important versus the Antarans on strategic, since sometimes planets can better soak the damage if the raiding fleet is small enough.

 

[Darza]

1) I checked out one of the play-guides linked to in the "unbalanced race" thread and I got to say the stored production in the building queue is a very useful thing. Enough so that I've dropped the Fantastic Traders for my custom race in favor of the Production +1 and Large Home World picks. Now it makes sense to skip microlite construction and pick Zortium Armor.

That's correct, storing of production is one of economic backbones here. Taking of picks - in classic moo2 only few races are able to seriously compete without Unification - only demolith and one special speedrunning feudal race (but its not for regular games, just for records, as it not really "playing" in regular sence, just the most effective one it terms of possible speed win). Surely many other races are strong enough to "just beat AI".

I'm thinking too that maybe my previous success with FT had more to do with how the game would generate my starting location based on racial picks (it would often give me two large Terran worlds nearby to colonize with the Natives as a Food Bonus). Usually I would get a mega-wealth / famous governor early on too.
It's funny, but I tried out three or four games with the Warlord pick in the beginning and every single time I was rushed by the A.I. (Gnolams on Rich production worlds of all things) by turn 50 or so. Just some of the worst starting placements and governor selection I've ever seen.

That's correct again, map generation is affected by a racial picks, if game count your race as weak one - it is trying to help you with it, and vice versa (not necessary it actually mean what the race is indeed weak or strong, its about game's opinion about it).

Ah, on the housing I've seen a second colonist add to the growth total; though I'm not sure if this is caused by the extra hammers or the fact that the planet has to hit a minimum capacity of some sort. It seems like in the early game sometimes the growth will bump up 30k just because another colonist is there, even if they're farming or whatnot. I see your point though, having extra colonists on a steady housing planet can take away from those colonists being able to do other things, on other worlds.

Housing is affected by a production output of planet divided to a number of colonists there. As more workers mean more output, at some cases additional worker actually do a good result, but in general rule, with factories built, additional workers just divide the auto-production for a waste of resources and decreasing the growth. Also they are just using their efforts just for some growth instead of something else. But, on a new, non-developed colony, adding the second one to house - could be effective. Just most of time that colonist is more effective in building the next Colony Bases etc somewhere else instead. All i meant initially is what is definitely not good in any case to do housing on a half-filled planet, as it just waste of PP, while its good to try to keep the most planets half-filled, as it enable the most effective regular growth there.

2) I agree the Robominers does give a production boost earlier; I've tried it out and it seems to work well as long as I have Zortium Armored Battleships out in the field. I'm guessing bad armor was the real issue with my previous tech strategy.

Zortium is a standard armor in classic moo2. Probably the same in Strategic combat, as it reasonably cheap for a final tech, and give enough robustness versus contemporary weapons.

Yeah, the difficult part about strategic is that it's sometimes like tossing one's ships into a black box and not knowing why the combat ends the way it does. I've had the battleship backed up with the swarm fleet technique work on some combats (against vanilla star bases and low level monsters), though against the A.I. Races it's generally not safe until I have more big ships than they do. Furthermore the Antarans can be ridiculous on strategic, as in one tiny frigate can wipe out a group of ten battleships. I'm wondering actually if Planetary Shields (Radiation Shields even?) are more important versus the Antarans on strategic, since sometimes planets can better soak the damage if the raiding fleet is small enough.

From what i can say after very few tests - in Strategic a beam weapons is more effective than missiles, shields and jammers are of very good job also. Ship size matter the most, than came shields and jammers, as looks like they are effectively turns some weapons down. Say, in tests i'm attacked the Guardian with 35 cardboard BB's, using missiles, Merkulite, than Pulson, than add Zortium armor - no way to go, i guess good jammer is a deal there. While using the Graviton beams with Tritanum armor for a same fleet resulted in victory with losing half of the fleet (while lower grade beams was not enough due to high shields of Guardian, and basic Cardboard armor also mattered too). I had no problem with Antares scout in other game, 4 BB's with 3-rd shield and Neutron Blaster wiped it without any loss.
So: beams matter (because targeting computer not matter unlike Tactical), shields matter, missiles doesnt matter (in reversion to Tactical) (and jammers are good), armor is matter, but not overwhelmingly, ship size matter the most, no real point to build anything non-battleship there, and titans are of some use unlike Tactical (or possibly even very good). Planetary shields are affecting the effectiveness of planetary bombardments in Tactical, and as i got that mechanic is very similar in Strategic, so yes.