Most hated enemy tech. MOO2

[Sleestak]

What tech do you hate the most when your enemies get it?

I really dislike fighter garrisons showing up early in the game and getting traded around. Makes invading planets much harder.

The better planetary shields make missile bases and fighters much more problematic. I sometimes resort to building a couple of bomber cruisers to help out.

I hate when opponents get heavy armor as I usually rely on AP mods on mass drivers and Gauss cannons to sweep the galaxy clean. I hate having to wait for good disrupters.

 

[scratchthepitch]

I don't think I can think of a specific tech that bugs me the most, there are many of them that makes it tough when the AI gets them ahead of the player. Perhaps the AI cheating is the most annoying. It can be especially frustrating when I'm behind, capture Orion, hoping for a tech advance to offset my backwardness, and within a few turns of capturing those techs, the game program distributes the techs to the AI, with or without going through the formality of "spying" for them.

 

[Aroddo]

When not playing a tech race, I always dread the appearance of Shield III fleets.

 

[scratchthepitch]

I had forgotten about how much I dread the AI getting ground batteries.

 

[Sleestak]

Shield III is not that bad. The worst is when you face shielded planets with ground batteries. Better take Orion and get the Avenger to take that down.

I have other plans for the tech tree and never take Shield III. And I don't find it that much a problem. Enemies with shield three aren't usually that populated or productive, unless they're the AI Klackons who happened upon it by chance.

 

[neilkaz]

Shield III is not that bad. The worst is when you face shielded planets with ground batteries. Better take Orion and get the Avenger to take that down.

I have other plans for the tech tree and never take Shield III. And I don't find it that much a problem. Enemies with shield three aren't usually that populated or productive, unless they're the AI Klackons who happened upon it by chance.

Three Darlok (so I couldn't see them coming) BB's with Shield III and primarily AP Mass Drivers were a quite a nuisance last night in one of my "Bulrathi Suffering" games.

I normally don't take Class III shields and go with Radiation shields instead unless fighting with Mass Driver ships and having to have the shield right now, not expecting to be able to wait to get Class V shields.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[neilkaz]

Early fighter garrisons indeed are a nuisance when it comes to attacking planets since so many fighters are launched and they attack for 5 turns.

My style is almost always to try to conquer enemies with troops (unless tele) and to steal their techs this way and enlarge my empire so I don't want the enemies to get anything that makes it harder to take their planets.

I really hate it when they get EMG since it is no fun to watch the Avenger blow up quickly and surprisingly.

I certainly don't want the enemies getting Death rays and making it up next to my starbases and taking them over with ease, although Neutron Blasters can serve the same purpose.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Fighter garrisons can be a problem early game because you need a lot of beams to get rid of all those interceptors. And any ship they reach is toast. Using interceptors is more effective than early game beams, but they take time to deploy and I want immediate fighter destroyed satisfaction.

Another item I forgot that I hate having the AI get is the warp interdictor. Having my ships take at least 4 turns to get to their systems puts a hurt on my "clever" strategies.

 

[Tristan_C]

I agree with Shield III. The AI ship can rage through payloads of missiles, taking away most of the tactical advantage afforded to the human player using a stack of 2-shot launchers to fight AI fleets.

As I understand, MIRV is particularly hurt by this equipment because the damage from the "four separate warheads" is mitigated by the shield four separate times. MIRV nukes are an early game bid that I think do 32 damage when hit, but with Shield III the missile only does 20 damage and has to get through the shield as well (15*size extra hitpoints & regenerates for the second volley)


But Whatever I just don't want these idiots getting Battle Pods.

WTH is up with this race anyway.

 

[scratchthepitch]

WTH is up with this race anyway.

What do you mean?

 

[neilkaz]

What do you mean?

As we know, on Impossible, AI races get some bonus picks. They also sometimes get some added negatives to make room for more positive picks. In this case it looks like respulsive and uncreative have been added to make room for HG and tolerant.

These Lizards will make great slaves to spread around your empire since they are tolerant. However, it may take a whole bunch of transports and good GC to take their planets.

Note that Saks are always Feudal and always -10 espionage (from my experience).

They can be very vulnerable to spies and being repulsive cannot trade for spy techs with anyone (I presume) and being uncreative, perhaps they don't have many spy techs available. Being uncreative they may have researched some techs that other races don't have and some of these may be useful to steal. I'd put lots of spy pressure on them and being repulsive they can't talk to you to gripe about your tech stealing.

Hopefully, they're not right next to you and are down a wormhole and you can steal techs from them for a long time. Hopefully, with them being repilsive, two or three AI's will jump on them.

Left unchecked and if they have some good techs available, they look like the master race .... anyhow you know who your enemy will be at some point.

 

[neilkaz]

If enemies have class 3 shields or worse yet someone beelined to class 5 and traded it around, I'd strongly recommend getting two more chem techs so you can make MIRV Mercs which still do 11 damage per missile when confronted with class 3 shields.

If you didn't get Trit Armor (needing Deut Cells instead) the jump in survivability for ships and bases with Zort Armor is huge. I find that Ships with Z-armor and MIRV Mercs are overpowering in the early 200's (pre-warp turns (Impossible) and still good into the mid 200's and sometimes still deadly in the late 200's. I should call these ships game winners since they usually enable me to capture enough of the galaxy to be very strong.

 

[Tabarnak]

Yeah with some tweaks you can get Zortrium Armor(and super merculite missiles) below 120 turns(or 110 on good maps and leaders) and sweep the entire galaxy. You can tech so fast that the ''impossible'' AI is already late after 80 turns. Stellar Convector in 200 turns anyone?

I always play with 8 AIs on any type of maps.

 

[scratchthepitch]

As we know, on Impossible, AI races get some bonus picks. They also sometimes get some added negatives to make room for more positive picks. In this case it looks like respulsive and uncreative have been added to make room for HG and tolerant.

It was the extra traits then. I wasn't sure. Maybe Tristan_C may not have realized they got those extra traits at higher levels of play? His repulsive Sakkra don't look very unusual for an AI Sakkra. AI races can sometimes get as many as 3 extras at the impossible setting, with or without the repulsive trait.

With the uncreative trait, those Sakkra would be an easy conquest, especially if you are using telepathic. They will have lousy ships made of tin foil. And with their subterranean, tolerant, +1 food and high birth rate, they should make an excellent major expansion for the player's empire. Those Sakkra planets will be high production planets and the player's "Ruhr" region. If you can avoid getting wiped out by an early game blitz from them, such big and dumb repulsive AI races are great for getting that first boost in empire size and power that allows you to then take on the rest.

 

[El_Machinae]

Ground missiles, honestly. They make taking planets a bump tougher to do, and it means that they don't have cool buildings on the ground for when they're conquered. Heavy armor is a pain, too, because it's such a good 'free' bump in capabilities for when they're on the defensive.

I like giving them terraforming, due to the fact that it just improves the quality of whatever I end up taking.

 

[Fins]

Not to mention that they spend extra production on terraforming, - which could possibly be spent to build extra ships or planetary defenses, eh.