RBGC SG3: (almost) ALWAYS WAR!

[aviator99_uk]

I can see where Zed is coming from, but.........

The objective is to invade the enemy. Engaging his fleet is secondary. Consequently a favourite tactic is highly mobile invasion fleets (and deception by lure), most majors die with the vast majority of their fleet intact, but no planets.

To that end all ships are multi-purpose and ships are not necesarily in a region for a given purpose, a transport can be used as a scout, a lure, or an invader if its fast enough (but not a raider, we use starfighters for that). Zed's tactics are possibly workable, but quite limiting, and quite unnecessary. (opinion)
Abuse can come by using starfighters to deliberately lure the enemy's newly built avatars away while invading his axes & defenders using AMM & CTs which works time and again against the AI, you never have to kill a ship not in orbit (unless its invading you) which is acceptable if done within the 'rules' and many would say that its a waste of resource unecesarily taking out an enemy fleet.
Hence my offering of RoE.

There is only one primary mission, to enable a sucessful invasion, without that there is no purpose, the secondary mission is to keep our own productive planets from being invaded, secondary planets can be sacrificed or abandoned or allowed to 'flip' back in time, all else is just for fun.

Thinking Civ isn't necessarily right (and I have played lots of Civ from 1 to C3C).

Aviator

 

[Isit]

I am fine with a simple set of rules. The only thing I don’t want to see is whole fleets of ships chasing one of ours around the map for the purpose of neutralizing that major’s fleet.

I have a major problem with one corvette luring away a major’s fleet. Its a fine line but I think what Zed was getting at was that if ships start following our ships while our ships are out doing their thing then that’s fine.

What is not fine is if we go out with a ship for the purpose of luring the enemy’s fleet away. Luring them into a trap is a different matter of course.

I am sure our raiding ships are going to gather quite a following. I don’t have a problem with this so long as they don’t start running circles around the edge of the map.

 

[Zed-F]

Ok, now we're talking offense, not defense or raiding. What I was talking about in the previous post is mostly about defense, gassing the enemy -- what we do before we are ready to take to the offense, or when our offense is working in another sector against another opponent. While we are working on taking out the Arceans, we will probably still have to contend with attacks on our home sectors from other opponents; hence, we will still need defense.

Speaking from experience, you don't necessarily need to deliberately lure units out of the way (chase-my-starfighter style) in order to only hit units in orbit and nothing else on your way in. It's called good positioning of your attack fleet -- especially if you have a speed advantage. Now, obviously this would be much easier to do in a sneak attack, which we will not have the luxury of. Still, speed advantage is still quite powerful when it comes to picking where the battle will take place, and against what, even if you have not lured enemy ships away. You still have the option to perform feints (trying to draw opposing ships out of position or into an irrelevant combat) and harassing attacks designed to coerce the opponent into weakening his defensive position.

So, how do we ensure we take on offensive operations sans fromage in the form of unnecessary luring? Without luring, it seems clear that, "wasteful" or not, we will have to take out at least some portion of the enemy fleet to ensure our transports don't get attacked. So, the solution is simple -- we proceed with a straightforward invasion, making sure to bring more than enough force to accomplish our objective.

How much force that is depends on our objective. Obviously, for our first goal of capturing the two nearby Arcean worlds, we will need a lot less force than we will for our next objective, to capture the rest of the Arcean home sectors. Regardless, we play it in a straightforward fashion. We don't necessarily need to wipe out every enemy ship, but we do need to wipe out any enemy ship that threatens our mission -- that is, the invasion and capture of whatever planets we intend to invade. This will mean any enemy transports that could take those worlds back, any enemy ships that looks likely to be able to successfully attack our transports or is blocking the area we want to move our transports to, etc. It doesn't include enemy ships that put themselves out of the fight through silly maneuvering, through attacks against other opponents (AI-AI skirmishes), or through taking the bait on a feint.

Really, even on offense, it comes down to focussing on the mission, and doing what it would logically take in a realistic combat scenario to ensure its success. Remembering that one simple rule is enough to quash any accusations of "cheating." Even if you save a ship or two because the enemy never gets to complete an attack on a feinting ship, the fact that you have brought more than enough force to accomplish the objective means the loss of the ship ultimately would not have made a difference. There is a big difference between a credible fleet using good tactics on one hand, and a full-blown chase-my-starfighter bait-and-switch lure on the other. Good players can spot the difference easily.

 

[Zed-F]

What remains to be seen in this type of game for GalCiv is what the equivalent to artillery (probably starbases) and cavalry (not sure) is. That makes this game (and the solo one I am playing at present) very interesting, indeed.

Well I'll stick with starbases = artillery until someone proposes a better model. As for cavalry... well, cavalry is just a fast attack unit. Pretty much any reasonably tough ship with a speed advantage qualifies. Whether that speed advantage is through tech, trade goods, or starbase acceleration is up to you. You could consider Rangers with an inherent base speed of 3 as your cavalry unit, if you like -- it's faster than any other capital ship short of Excaliburs.

And, had I mentioned how glad I am that you persuaded me to take sensor picks, Zed?

You're welcome! Good intelligence is always useful.

 

[Bam-Bam]

I meant less the literal, what is the speedy attacker like cav in Civ3. More to the point, what I meant was --what is the gamebreaker in AW for GalCiv, like cav is in Civ3 AW...

 

[Zed-F]

Ah. Well, since we have no experience in GalCiv AW (yet), it's hard to say...

If I had to guess, it would be AMMs. They are cheap, can be built easily at smaller planets and will blast a hole through enemy defenders quite readily, allowing your transports a window of opportunity to invade unimpeded.

 

[aviator99_uk]

Zed-- You know me, a good defence is an even better offence

AMMs become a game breaker only if they are fast, the perfect standoff weapon, or you have to be able to use 'floods' of slower ones as they can be knocked down by a well aimed spitball. given the AI gets its act together and has something like a fast Phoenix available, it can take out half a dozen in a turn without getting a scratch. so slow ones need to be used quite diferently to fast ones. Its really speed that is the game breaker, and anything which is fast can be used quite potently, a +2 speed pic with Grav acc allows a tough ship to attack many more times per month and becomes a massive force multiplier. The economics of it stack up as well, for any given maintenance cost you can potentially destroy much more of the AIs capital base.

AMMs main attraction is as Zed said, cheap & powerful both for defence and offence. I dare say the weapon we will be most dependant on later, especially for active defence, one does tend to be relieved at having something that can counter those 200 hitpoint 25 defence CTs that the AI always seems to manage to produce somehow.

What I haven't seen anyone mention so far is the need we have very, very soon to get some agressive ships (even SFs will do) marauding the constructors the AI will be sending out to the resources, this deprives the AI of bonuses before they become the harder to hit SBs, and gets some ships up the experience curve and a level 5 'vette or SF can do good damage later, a level 5 Frigate can take out a level 0 BS if the AI ever makes any.

Aviator

 

[Aaberg41]

I left the office (right know my only online possibility) without having loaded the game yesterday. Which i'm sorry for.

That of course meant that i am back on work now and won't be able to play the next 12 hours (and wont be able to post before in 24 hours).

If anybody feels liked it, i wont mind skipping this turn - so that we can get them game rolling.

 

[Zed-F]

@Aviator -- that's part of our raiders' job, good to point it out though, constructors are definitely on our soft target list. We don't have enough corvettes right now by any measure... but we do need to get Grav Accelerators done. Fortunately we have a large number of almost-complete corvettes so it wouldn't be too hard to pop out a bunch at once. I'll leave timing on corvette construction vs. Grav Accelerator construction up to the next player.

@Aaberg: Well it's just morning here now, I don't think anyone on this side of the pond could play in the next 12 hours either, unless they had today off. Someone here could play and post tonight, but if we do that you won't be able to pick up the game in this 12-hour period of being at work either.

Tomorrow is Saturday, which often means a fair amount of progress can get made. If you can complete and post your game by tomorrow morning, that should be sufficient to make good use of the day. I'd say go ahead and take your turn if you think that's acheiveable.

@The Team: Another note -- Peace Phoenix pointed out that the AI may have got some colonies with funny builds on them as a result of the 85-86 patch issue. Just because we didn't build anything in the first 2 years of the game, doesn't mean they did not. So, I'm not sure what to do about that. We can destroy any wonky improvement on any planet we capture, but what will it do to the AI's progress? Does it matter if they built terraforming or info nets? Will they go back and re-build important early improvements like Soil that they already built once?

Should we restart or just keep going and deal with the situation on captured planets as we capture them?

 

[aviator99_uk]

Originally posted by Zed-F

Should we restart or just keep going and deal with the situation on captured planets as we capture them?

If it happens; abandon the planet and alow the AI to send nice soft colony ships to blast.

Seriously though this could be a problem, is the AI sitting there right now scratching its little silicon head wondering why it has a bunch of Info Nets? And what to research to get soil etc ? Trouble is we can't ask it.

Aviator

 

[Zed-F]

If it happens; abandon the planet

No need for something that drastic, we can just scrap the offending improvement.

The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking, what else have we not thought about yet which may have an impact on the game? While I don't think that anything has happened that would materially invalidate any learnings we could get from this game, if we continue as is we are taking a chance that something will crop up later that would invalidate our learnings.

We're still fairly early in the game. If we want to restart to be sure our learnings from the game are accurate, now's the time. I'd leave it up to Bam-Bam whether to restart on the same or on a new map.

 

[Isit]

Restart the game?? Alright, I understand the concern here but there is an easy way to tell if it’s going to be a problem. I went in and rushed a transport in our game and took over a couple of planets. Their build orders are fine. No buildings they shouldn’t have and basic improvements are in place.

Note: In order to get no spoilers I simply hit the end turn, moving only a transport and a corvette. I know we are trying to avoid spoilers but since my turn wont come up for several more years, I don’t think I learned anything of use in the 8 months it took me to take over two planets.

 

[Aaberg41]

Well i will leave work early and the game should be up in around 4 hours.

 

[Bam-Bam]

Originally posted by Isit
I don’t think I learned anything of use in the 8 months it took me to take over two planets.

You mean other than the fact that we can rush a transports and take over two planets?

Seriously, that is a reasonable test. Let's keep with this one. If we have any positive evidence that there was a problem with the patching , only then do we declare TKO. Besides, we just might have to do this again

Aaberg, you are within the notional 48 hours to post your turns, so no worries. I am exhausted from a business trip today, so delaying my turns until tomorrow is a good thing.

 

[Zed-F]

Ok, forge ahead it is then.

 

[Aaberg41]

Starting considerations:

Options:

1) Get Gravity Accelators
Okay i sorted our planets by social production and find that Andersona IV is the one with the highest production capacity. Currently 21+3 building a Fusion power planet in 2 (3) turns
which should bring it to 21+7 and 18 turns for Grav.Acc. a total of 21 turns

Xasica II (currently producing Manufacturing Capital) is at 20+3 and 4(5) turns short of finishing Man.Capital, which should bring it to 20+23 and 12 turns to Grav.Acc. a total of 17 turns.
Xasica it is then.

This would mean producing nothing else and thereby setting us back in relation to Military tech and defense.
We could trade for Advanced trade and have remaining planets produce Economic Exchanges.
But in terms of defence this would leaves up with Corvettes for the next 17 months

The option is to go for Deflectors and shields to be able to produce BattleAxes for defence first and then switch to Social prod.
This would bring us even further back in the race for Frigattes

2) Produce a few more corvettes and then go for Frigattes to be able to hit the Arceans fast.
Battle Armor(100), Deflectors(200), Space Militarization(200),
Shields(500), Energy channeling(220) and Interstellar tactics (800bc). Total 2020 bc.

I believe it would take just around the same time to get ready to hit the Arceans as it will to get Grav. Acc., both will give us strategic advantages.

Since we can't count on also getting Tir-Qai Tranning it would probably be costy - population wise - to hit the Arceans.

I fear the later consequences of the Arceans growing strong er, but we might still be able to get Frigattes before them, so option 1) it is.

Jan 2183.

Changed production Man.Centers to Entertainment Networks.
Shift production to 50% military and 50% Social to get 2 more Corvettes.

Move ships around

Feb 2183

Shift production back to 100% Social.
Encounter Drengin corvette, can't get out of range - 1 corvette lost

Mar 2183

Shift production to research 80 and Social 20, to get Zero gravity research to trade the Scottlingas for advanced trade

April 2183

Nano, Phasers and Zero gravity proved not to be enough. Slider shifted to res 40 and soc 60

May 2183

Trade Scottlingas for advanced trade (Phaser, zero grav. research, Nano Electronics and Stellar).
Shift Andersona IV to Tri-strontium steel 19 turns (20)

Shift prod. to 100% social.

Encounter Arcean Transport (defense 4, HP 33). I Attack and win (cost 8 HP of 18)

Jun 2183

Move ships

Jul 2183

Move ships
Encounter another Arcean transport. Attack and die.

Aug 2183

Shift Xasica to Grav. Acc. 10 turns (11)
Discored moral ressource in sector 2-3

Sep 2183
Another Arcean transport, dies
and a Altarain Corvette

Oct 2183

Ship movement

Nov 2183

Attack Altarian fighter, Drengin Corvette appear

Dec 2183
Attack and destroyes Drengin Corvette.

Jan 2183 is ready.

Well i can see know that my above calculations didn't take into account that our population and thereby our production capacity where going to grow.
Even with the small side tracks Grav.Acc. is down to 4 turns left now.
All ai has developed shields, so far we have not falle terribly behind on the techs.

Tri-strotntium steel is still 11 turns away, its a nice (+25%) HP bonus, but i can feel the pressure from the AI's growing, so i think we shoudl start focusing on getting Frigattes.

www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBGC_SG4_2184.zip

 

[Bam-Bam]

Right. Cash is not there, but we can get the accelerators in 4 (+1) at breakeven spending.

Q1

All's quiet.

Pop a space shark.

Q2

Still quiet. Locate a morale and econ resource and mark it with a rally point. Frag a couple of arcean transports--taking our raiding corvette to level two and 9/18 hp.

Then we get this message.

[dance] We be fast, and they be slow!

Q3

Research and debt elimination time.
Deflectors,
Antimatter, which gives this trade

Q4

Basic repair, which opens up this trade

Frag a couple of arcean star fighters.

Nano-frequency electronics, which opens up this trade

Add multimedia center to the queue, ahead of economic exchange, and switch planets off exchanges for this.

Interstellar Tactics due in 2 (+1) with a 39bct surplus.

End of Year

Look who's come to dinner.

I gift Scotty war, so the number is now four

Frigates are 1 (+1) away at 57% spending.

We should crank a few 'vettes and a frigate or two ( for invasion) along with transports. Since we now have repair, make sure we are getting our veteran ships healed. We are in good shape. Smegged should kick a couple of Arcean planets, and perhaps get the next morale improvement built.

Roster:
Bam-Bam (just played)
Smegged (UP)
Zed-F
Aviator
Isit
Aaberg

Good luck to Smegged!

And the save...

ALWAYS WAR!

 

[Isit]

Bam-Bam, on your final map I see a yellow dot close to our southern most system. Going into the save its a transport thats only a few moves from that system. We had better get a ship built there to defend it.

 

[Bam-Bam]

Good catch. I did not pore over the tactical map at the end of my turns. He just showed up out of the fog. Frigates can wait so that we can pump out a 'vette there.

 

[JaxomCA]

If your planet has much more than 1 billion in population, it may be cheaper for you to let the transport attempt to land. However it is much less of a risk to get an offensive ship there and destroy the transport before it lands or even worse, starts flying between your numerous undefended planets.