I always lose... but I'll keep trying

from Sins Forums
Hi all,

I am a 30year old player and I've played RTS for a long time now. I think I am intelligent enough to tackle anything challenge that comes my way whether it be a game or else.

I've had this game for a few days now and I tried about maybe 12 games. I lost all of them. I've only played on the Quickstrike and Close encounters maps so far.

I admit I am a turtle kind of guy. I enjoy watching my base gather momemtum, technologies, ships etc..

I quickly found out that I have to change my style of play if I want to win at this one.

This is the general base strategy, in the first hour of play:

1: I always get 1 or 2 capital ship, one to expand and one to protect.
2: I pump up my planet to get more taxes and immediately research the mining tree
3: Put a few bases defenses so that my AI opponent knows I'm not kidding :)

From there on in I've tried a few things

1: Quickly expand to neighboring planets
2: stay in and research, research and research
3: Attack pirate fleet to gain experience for my capital ships

Whichever I choose I failed miserably. The enemy will ALWAYS come after me with one #$%?& huge fleet and totally obliterate my small armadas. If it is spread too thin I won't have time to reinforce and he will bombard my planet to kingdom come before I can reach it.

I even manage to repel a 12 ships attack (1 capital included) with merely 1 capital ship and 3-4 light frigate. Five tiny minutes later he was at it again with a bigger fleet and a brand new capital ship. Strange because I set the AI to turtle in.

On one game I decided to let the pirates attack me thinking I could quickly gain experience which I did. My bases were strong as well as my ships. Big mistake again, the enemy invade one of my planet with one HUGE armada of at least 7 to 1. Two minutes later an equally huge fleet of pirates started a raid on another planet, screwed again.

Anyway I think you know where I am going with this.

What am I doing wrong here?

Thanks for the input

Phil
strategy
9,661 views 19 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Turtle AI still attacks, stands to reason they want to put you in your place while they pump eco.

What faction are you? Makes a world - or in this game, possibly 100 worlds - of difference.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
What difficulty AI are you playing? Turtling against the AI is possible, but if you don't control about half the map, I think you'll be hard pressed to hold off the AI. Also, I've found the repair bays to be quite useful in keeping defensive structures/ships alive much longer... consider using them if you haven't been.
Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
I would suggest playing a game with more than just 1v1 or 2v2. My first successful game was with locked teams 3v3. It gave me a good strategy and gameplan for future games. But stick with it, at some point it just clicks and you start playing well. And also, you'll find out your favorite faction: mine's TEC which is very good at turtling and building up economy
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Don't put up base defenses as a first step. Use your expansion colonies as defensive lines you can put ships at. Pirate fleets should be diverted until you have an impregnable defense, because they'll make your enemy more miserable than they'll net you experience.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Build your economy and grab resources at first, it helps. Lots of credits is an excellent way to keep the others off your back by pumping bounty, and it gives you the opportunity to start working on upgrading your planets- it's not just defenses, it's the planets themselves, especially population and emergency facilities.

re pirates: I love it when the enemy sends a big f**-off capship fleet, I repel them and put 5K bounty on them and don't hear from them again for half an hour. :D
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
I like to turtle against the AI myself.

1- Pump out 4 scouts and set to auto explore to find the choke points i'll need to grab fast.
2- Build a assault capital and send to nearest most defended (by militia) planet
3- Build 3/4 assault frigates to clear out asteroid fields
4- Build 2 research stations to research fire/ice planets
5- Build 1 or 2 colonizing ships (depending on how fast i'll need em)
6- See if anything needs to be researched right away
7- Have a maximum of 2 underdeveloped (infrastructure upgrades) at any time, or you will bleed yourself dry.

-If my grab for choke point planets will leave a chain of vulnerable planets, i build 1 or 2 turrets on each, and right after i send off my fleet (whatever it takes to take a chain of worlds) i begin building a new one of 8/10 assault/LRM frigates that i hold back in the middle of the vulnerable planets for fastest response time if the AI comes along in force. Above all else have a proper size defense fleet, shiny armor lvl 2 doesn't do much if your outnumbered early on.

-Stop and max out the planetary defenses of your front line planets, 2 repair bays MINIUM even if it's a roid belt. I go for a minimum of 4 hangers (max of 7) and however many turret will fix in. Explore your front line planets as you sometimes get upgrades such as 5 extra tactical/civilian slots.

-If more then one front line world/choke point, put a single defense fleet between them . Your defenses will hold with light losses if your fleet is only 1 or 2 jumps away (reason for the 2 repair bays). You can put a defense fleet in each planet, but i prefer one that can kick ass when it gets there which will also allow for a bigger offensive fleet later.


TEC seems best for turtling on medium and smaller maps as they have a stronger economy compared to the rest.

The rest is up to you.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
I just finished my first successful game. I was playing 1v1 vs Normal AI with no pirates.

Here are my methods.. .your mileage may vary.

One thing that works (at least for me) is Japanese Naval Doctrine -- try to mass most of your fleet and attack the opponent with overwhelming odds.

Another thing I did was to direct the fleet during battle to attack capital ships. This usally sent the enemy into retreat mode. Thus the engagements were short and if I could kill one capital ship without losing one, it felt like I was winning. At one point, I sent my main fleet to chase them and we circled the solar system about twice. I was killing a capital ship about every two battles. That seemed to be when the tide turned.

The thing that made the most difference was researching and building trade stations as a priority. This gave me the cash influx to help gear up the economy.

I have had a hard time 'jump starting' the economy compared to other RTS games. I still don't know whether it is the pace of the game or if I am missing the mark. Things just seem slow to start up. I am not criticizing... I have only played a handfull of games. At least it doesn't turn into a click fest.

Note the types of ships. Each one has strengths and weaknesses. Don't be bashful about using them in their approprate roles.

I learned that you need to colonize each system as you run them out. Otherwise, when you get around to colonizing it, you will have to root them out again.

Be sure and upgrade the colony. New colonies cost money to own until you upgrade them once or twice.

One hint I read by another reader was to build a couple of exploration frigates and put them on automatic. Knowing what the 'lay of the land' is more useful than I thought it would be.

I hope this helps. Remember - I am a newbie to this game as well. Take anything I say with a grain of salt (or the whole shaker)!

Good Luck!

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Oh, and you might find the small/medium random maps give you more room over the pre-made ones. Having the AI 2/3 jumps away is bad for turtling.

-edit- Oh, and the above post is more for medium maps.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

WOW guys this is some amazing insight. I was neglecting repair stations and hangars, only building one of each.

Do trade ports increase ressources flow or only credit flow?

Gotta lot of things to try out. Thanks guys

One last thing, how do you active pause in the game, I looked everywhere but can't seem to find this button/key
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah, I would definitely recommend the random maps. In those you usually start with 100% popularity on your home planet with 10 monies/second starting off.

My first 2 games I lost too because I was playing premade maps that started me off at like 1 monies/second and 40% popularity...not very good for beginners  X-( 
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
The trade ports boost credit flow, although the Advent ones may be set to boost resources. Everybody else has a refinery to boost resources, the Advent have one structure that does both (although it can only do one at a time).
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
pause the game using the PAUSE button? did you try that? worked for me last night.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
I htink people are neglecting what is definetly the key to winning for turtlers. PIRATES! I love to turtle, expand, then boom. All my planets have 5 hangers 2 rapair stations and one gauss cannon before I leave them aftetr the first 35 minutes. The key is to use the Pirates as allies, not enemies. Essentially it becomes a 2vs1 match if you continuously pay the pirates. It's won me every 1vs1 game so far at about 4 hours play time.
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
Ah yes, bribe the pirates, always bribe the pirates. And watch out for the AI outbidding you 3 seconds before the pirates set sail.

If you got maxed out defenses on a planet and a medium'ish fleet you can level up your capitals with pirate raids, what very few losses you will suffer will be worth it.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
Bribing the pirates is actually counter productive if you don't attack yourself at the same time.

If you're turtling with defense, let them come to you and fight them only with your capital ships. Kill the planet bombers first and it will be an easy fight with no casualties. Your repair platform will come in real handy. If you have a fleet up, by all means, bribe em. Watch where they go and hit another planet at the same time though. With the ai busy, you'll cost it a planet easily.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top

Bribing the pirates is actually counter productive if you don't attack yourself at the same time.

If you're turtling with defense, let them come to you and fight them only with your capital ships. Kill the planet bombers first and it will be an easy fight with no casualties. Your repair platform will come in real handy. If you have a fleet up, by all means, bribe em. Watch where they go and hit another planet at the same time though. With the ai busy, you'll cost it a planet easily.


I don't like attacking along with the pirates, it gets messy to often.

For example, i'm attacking a enemy world, bribe pirates, take over world after big fight, pirates happen to pick that world even though when they actually launch the fleet i own that world (phase lane radar), so they go to said system and proceed to attack the now "my" world, forcing me to go back and kill them before they destroy the mines and colony. Or the colony is dead and i'm still fighting, but now the pirates turn on me since their target is gone.

It's also a bad idea to fight the pirates if you don't have to early in the game when your fleet is still small enough to take noticeable losses.

I've also noticed that the AI attacks less often when send the pirates after them. Sometimes it's better to to let the pirates come to you and get XP for your caps, other times you just don't care that much and it's not worth the hassle of dealing with a pirate raid and a now undistracted AI.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top

Ah yes, bribe the pirates, always bribe the pirates. And watch out for the AI outbidding you 3 seconds before the pirates set sail.

If you got maxed out defenses on a planet and a medium'ish fleet you can level up your capitals with pirate raids, what very few losses you will suffer will be worth it.


Heh, don't take this post lightly. If you're not the kind of person who enjoys drawing pirates into his base and reaping them for exp and laughs, then make sure you don't get outbid. It's easy if you can estimate the general wealth of your opponent (look at the black market. If it's bullish, there's a good chance your opponent is bleeding credits.) and just place a bounty so high that he can't afford to outbid it. Very easy if you're TEC.

They can seriously put a dent in your plans when they appear out of nowhere in the middle of your core worlds.