[MoO] MOO2: What is an optimal Guardian fleet

[Murky]

Telepathic works great against the AI because they have relatively weak race picks. Most are feudal or dictatorship so that's going to slow them down a lot. They do a poor job of designing ships and aren't good at tactical combat.

Telepathic in multiplayer is typically suicide. Your opponent will just out colonize, out grow, out tech and ultimately beat you. About the only way it works is with a blitzing race pick where you don't need much tech or growth. Rebellions can work in your favor because the planet is easy to retake. Each time you retake the colony you have another chance at gaining another tech.

 

[aaglo]

I know how not to kill guardian with two destroyers and two cruisers:

Select the setting where ship initiatives are effective, then the guardian will destroy atleast two of your cruisers right away.

 

[knigh+]

I thought something was fishy about that. I always play with ship initiative, I guess that's why I need larger fleets than those suggested in this thread.

 

[civvver]

well this is like a 10 year old necro, but I was googling guardian strats and this came up first.

First class 5 shields block 5 dmg, hence the name, but yes it blocks 8 overall cus of hard shields. That effectively means you cannot use mass drivers or fusion beams, as heavys only do 9 dmg. You need to do 1725 dmg to the guardian in one salvo to kill it, to keep things simple we'll say one salvo. Otherwise you have to factor in shield regen and the repair guy, math gets complex. You don't need a super strong computer if you also use battle scanners, so like pysotronic +75 plus scanners +50 would get you there. Heavy neutron blasters will do up to 18 dmg, minus the shields, you will need approx 172 of them to kill guardian in one shot.

1450 rps to get computer and battle scanners. 1300 to get neutron blasters. You will surely need battle pods to get this many weapons on a ship, 480 rps to get those. That's only 3230 rps.

Then build stuff. I don't remember the base space on a battleship or how many weapons they can hold and I can't find spreadsheets! You probably need something like 12-15 battleships here. So the question is for a production race like uni/tolerant/+1 prod is this more easily achievable than the emg missile strat which requires four times as many rps? I think it very well might be.

 

[Rocco.40]

well this is like a 10 year old necro, but I was googling guardian strats and this came up first.
[...]
You probably need something like 12-15 battleships here. So the question is for a production race like uni/tolerant/+1 prod is this more easily achievable than the emg missile strat which requires four times as many rps? I think it very well might be.

I'd say you'll need more like 16-18 BB's of this type (maybe less with some lucky shots, dunno) and if you play 150i mode, maybe add 1-2 BB's.
BB's with your proposed tech can fit 16 Hv Neutron Blasters, and because you need so many ships and they are really slow (only nuclear drive with that 3230 RP), you'll be firing into 3 of the Guardian's shield facings and some ships from quite far away on first round (dissipation).

As to your question which race is faster, it can be tested. Tech race DemoLithArti that goes EMG Mercs only needs a decent home system so is better of in a small galaxy (Guardian is closer, less Outposts needed), while the UniTolP+1 is probably better of in a medium galaxy (or larger?) so it has better chances to find some decent rocks to expand to, to get that production advantage.
Ofc when its about minimum fleet, emg mercs win hands down since you only need 8 destroyers or 2 cruisers with a few frigates, depending on ship layout, see other thread on this forum also:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/the-guardian.494236/

 

[Rocco.40]

.. ok played a few combats against Guardian with your paper tiger.
I did research fusion drive for some improved mobility (so 3230 + 250 = 3480 RP)
And Space Academy for Regular Crews (3480 + 150 = 3630 RP)
Tritanium armor does not matter since Guardian can still one-shot such ships (did not use r.hull, it could matter then, however Deuterium Cells might be needed in some cases if closest star to Orion is >4pc [also add another 250 RP then]).

No luck with 15 ships so far, 16 can be done but its unreliable and need to get lucky with some good shots on drive and depends on which ships Guardian targets its Plasma Torps in 3rd round. 17 ships seems more safe (with Green crews even 18 ships don't cut it,, also it seems with Green crews the Guardian spreads his Torps to two ships on opening round, while with Regular crews 2 Torps are fired at 1 BB, which is significant difference).

 

[civvver]

so we're in the ballpark. The question really is for a production empire can they tech the necessary stuff for emg mercs or is less tech and way more battleships quicker? Battleships build in like 10 turns on rich planets for uni/tol/+1p. Surely depends on galaxy size.

 

[Rocco.40]

so we're in the ballpark. The question really is for a production empire can they tech the necessary stuff for emg mercs or is less tech and way more battleships quicker? Battleships build in like 10 turns on rich planets for uni/tol/+1p. Surely depends on galaxy size.

Just finished a game on medium size classic map with 1 opponent (avg diff, avg tech start) and took me 180 turns to do it with 18 BB, some inefficiencies in this run (due to own play but also small quarrel with Sakkra opponent) but with the competing strategy it can be done about 70 turns faster.
I guess UniTol can be faster than the T180 that i did using Soils and Robo's techs, in which case you need another 1130 RP, but I doubt it will be enough to close the gap.

(18 BB * 1400 = 25.200 PP vs 9 DD * 200 = 1800 PP, or 14x as much production needed to build those ships.)

EDIT: Did another run on new medium classic map, with soils/robo's (which allows for the helpful spaceport) this time and overall much more tight play, and took the Guardian down By T130. (201 pop at this point on 18 colonies)

 

[Alex2018]

Today I beat the Guardian on impossible (moo2 V1.50 version) using one titan in one turn:
Fill it up with heavy autofire gauss canons, moleculatronic computer, battle scanner, battle pods, hyper-x, high energy focus , inertial nullifer, class 7 shields, interphased drive, and neutronium armor.

 

[Rocco.40]

Today I beat the Guardian on impossible (moo2 V1.50 version) using one titan in one turn:
Fill it up with heavy autofire gauss canons, moleculatronic computer, battle scanner, battle pods, hyper-x, high energy focus , inertial nullifer, class 7 shields, interphased drive, and neutronium armor.

You could try figure out what is the smallest ship class with which you can take out Guardian with one single ship.

 

[civvver]

Today I beat the Guardian on impossible (moo2 V1.50 version) using one titan in one turn:
Fill it up with heavy autofire gauss canons, moleculatronic computer, battle scanner, battle pods, hyper-x, high energy focus , inertial nullifer, class 7 shields, interphased drive, and neutronium armor.

I usually do something similar to that too, cus the guardian is on the other side of the galaxy and I have to get like thorium fuel cells to reach it. I end up sending like 10 titans and usually one or at most two kill it.

For a single ship well in theory any size should be possible with unlimited tech because of miniaturization. I don't know if it ever stops, like can you make a size 1 plasma cannon? No idea, but let's say just going up to max tech, no advanced research. A battleship can do it. You'll probably need two rounds to kill the guardian. Gauss cannons do 27 - 8 = 19 per shot x 3 for the auto fire = 57. Achilles will bypass xentronium armor so 800/57 = 14. I know for a fact in my latest creative race game I have battleships sporting hyper x capacitors, high energy focus, achilles targeting and 5 heavy auto fire gauss cannons. So they'd take 2 rounds cus first round they fire twice. I'm going to just assume all the shots hit- your computer will be so good and guardian doesn't have a very high beam defense. An adamantium battleship has what, 600 structure? Armor obviously doesn't help cus the battleship has achillies but if you go heavy structure you will definitely survive. The plasmas only fire every other, assuming they do full dmg and you have level X shields you will take 440 per plasma torp, plus 280 for the death rays. So it'll kill you in four rounds I believe. If you go full defensive it'll take more, like a teleporter so the torps always have to travel far cus they lose so much dmg at range, plus the guardian doesn't have super high attack value so you may be able to get the death rays to miss. Not sure.

What would be really funny is to see if you could design a destroyer that the guardian just couldn't hit and kill it with that. That would be sweet. I don't think it's possible though, you can't dodge eccm torps forever.

 

[Alex2018]

You could try figure out what is the smallest ship class with which you can take out Guardian with one single ship.

It depends how far one could miniaturize equipment. Probably one could do it on a single battleship... But again, there is a huge risk that unless you have insane ship initiative to go first, it is possible for guardian to take out the ship in a single turn. I remember in another game I had two titans really overloaded on MIRV merculites, well - I lost one titan and won with the remaining one (took 1-2 turns).

 

[Alex2018]

I usually do something similar to that too, cus the guardian is on the other side of the galaxy and I have to get like thorium fuel cells to reach it. I end up sending like 10 titans and usually one or at most two kill it.

For a single ship well in theory any size should be possible with unlimited tech because of miniaturization. I don't know if it ever stops, like can you make a size 1 plasma cannon?

Once I tried to see how far weapons would minituarize. No effects after couple of hyper technologies. It remains the same. If I remember correctly, mass driver would still take 3 spaces.

[
What would be really funny is to see if you could design a destroyer that the guardian just couldn't hit and kill it with that. That would be sweet. I don't think it's possible though, you can't dodge eccm torps forever.

Since guardian has moleculatronic computer, one better have a HUGE defense bonus with lots of equipment. That would require a bigger ship. Minutirization, unfortunately, doesn't seem to go forever.

 

[civvver]

The guardian doesn't change depending on difficulty right? So I can do tutor small galaxy for a quick game to test this?

I don't think a battleship with the right tech is particularly risky. You should survive 2-4 rounds and that's plenty of time to kill the guardian.

 

[Rocco.40]

The guardian doesn't change depending on difficulty right? So I can do tutor small galaxy for a quick game to test this?[...]

yes, Guardian design is the same regardless of diff level.

 

[Alex2018]

The guardian doesn't change depending on difficulty right? So I can do tutor small galaxy for a quick game to test this?

I don't think a battleship with the right tech is particularly risky. You should survive 2-4 rounds and that's plenty of time to kill the guardian.

In one game, the guardian took out my titan in 1-2 turns and I had neutronium armor. If your technology level is VERY high and you have lots of defensive systems & shields, then maybe a battleship will certainly do. I try to get guardian fairly quickly because sometimes on impossible level the AI does defeat guardian and get its tech after which the AI might be impossible to defeat.

 

[Tristan_C]

You could try figure out what is the smallest ship class with which you can take out Guardian with one single ship.

This kills the crab. The catch is that it requires hyper physics 5 and fields 5; can't just roll them out right after rejecting kimbuzi.

 

[civvver]

Well yes that would work cus you can recloak after each round right? I tried it with every field finished but no advanced techs. I was able to get one disruptor on a frigate but no time warp. I used hyper x capacitors, first disruptor shot takes out his shield and second one about half his structure but the issue is with advanced damage control he repairs almost all of it every fight so you really need to kill him in one shot. I messed around with a couple setups and a destroyer with a nullifier can live a long time, like 6-7 rounds, just run away from the plasmas and they don't hurt, and his death ray at that range vs nullifier doesn't do much, but you can't hit back with that little weapons.

I tried a defensive cruiser and it too lacked the firepower so instead I simply beefed up shields to survive the death rays cus the plasmas don't hit first round. With Achillies, hyper x, high energy focus, battle scanner, structural analyzer, hard shields and +70 shield strength (I think that's capacitor) I was able to fit 8 heavy auto fire gauss cannons and those shredded his ship in one round with the capacitor with 7 guns remaining on the second shot. So very doable.

Disruptors are great damage but take a ton of space so I like the gauss cannons better. Phasors and plasma cannons suck due to the hard shields.

 

[Alex2018]

Well yes that would work cus you can recloak after each round right? I tried it with every field finished but no advanced techs. I was able to get one disruptor on a frigate but no time warp. I used hyper x capacitors, first disruptor shot takes out his shield and second one about half his structure but the issue is with advanced damage control he repairs almost all of it every fight so you really need to kill him in one shot

Exactly. This is why ship size needs to be bigger, to have more space for weapons which could take him out in one shot.

Again, there is a big difference between "optimum" and smallest possible single ship to take guardian out. One has to consider the time (and by extension, technology and minituriazation) factor because AI can take out the guardian, as I've learned, and that can be a game changer.

 

[Rocco.40]

This kills the crab. The catch is that it requires hyper physics 5 and fields 5; can't just roll them out right after rejecting kimbuzi.

Yes! Now we are talking frigates!
Played around a bit as well, and constructed this frigate with hyper-x instead of the phasing cloak / twf combo.
Also added in a Gauss Cannon for reliability coz i wasn't always able to do it in 1 round with just the 1 Disrupter.
Needed to have HA tech level 3 for Power, Computers and Physics (315k HA research cost) to be able to fit it all together.
This ship costs a buck more tho - lol.