Anyone managed to beat vicious AI early game?

x6 resource cheat, x6 research speed, ability to research while labs are under construction, ability to build units while enabling technology is under research...yeah, "early" wins against vicious are rare.

Trick to beating unfairs or above is to find a good location and plot down a starbase.  You have to start getting him to accrue casualties and diverting his money towards replacing units rather than building up.  This usually means you have to be aggressive and get that starbase in nice and close, but also in a location that will protect your economic assets.

If you get really lucky, the vicious can occasionally gimp itself.  It will build lots of labs to access high level techs but leave itself with only 1 or 2 factories.  Since it fills all its logistics space very quickly, if you can box it in it often will be unable to build units fast enough to use its cash.  I've seen a vicious AI with over 600 units queued up at a single factory, simply unable to use its cash.

Where'd you read that?  The normal AI doesn't cheat, everything hard and above does.

Uh, actually the AI does "cheat" beyond the Normal skill level.  I think Hard gets a 1.5x economy bonus, Unfair gets 2x, Cruel gets 4x, and Vicious gets 6x.  The AI isn't smart enough to beat you without getting an eco bonus.  (It actually does some very silly and suicidal things.)

It sounds like you might be ready to remove the training wheels and try it against real human opponents in online multiplayer over Ironclad Online.  Come try a 4v4 or 5v5 sometime without any AIs.  The action is on the Diplomacy expansion server.  You'll find that real Sins games against human players are much more interesting, more intense, more suspenseful, more strategically demanding, and more meaningful.  So log onto the Ironclad Online (Diplomacy) server sometime and give it a try.  There are even some newer players around.

OMG, lol.  600 units queued up at a single factory!  That's just one more piece of evidence that the AI isn't a worthy opponent and that this game needs to be played online against human players.

600 command in units, sorry.  I can't review the replay to find the exact number since it was an old version, but it was quite hilarious to watch.  I was sitting around scratching my head in-game wondering why the vicious AI was so feeble, then I suddenly realized how many factories it had and it all came together...

oh, thx for the info, 6x resource bonus explains it I guess lol

now Im impressed that I managed to keep up so well...

another question: is there a better way of dealing with size 150+ huge mine field farms except tanking the damage with capital ships? Vicious AI really likes mines and it takes forever to clear them out to secure the route for reinforcements.

a bit disappointing that even in super late game AI doesnt build more than 6 cap ships... 6 can be easily disabled in 1500 vs. 1500 fleet supply battle, enemy strike craft killed with my cap ship skills and then its over.

scouts with flak (about a 1 to 15 ratio) or fighters

6 is actually about right for a massive late-game fleet.  Maybe even a little high if he's TEC.  Unless you're Advent, you're probably shooting yourself in the foot by getting more.  As TEC and Vasari in a serious match, I have never gone above 8 capital ships.

The problem is twofold.  First, experience is divided equally between capital ships.  This means that having more capital ships will result in lower levels overall.  This means your abilities will be weaker.  Secondly, low-level capital ships are relatively poor performers in combat compared to just spamming extra combat frigates.  This means having too many capital ships will weaken your fleet and leave you more vulnerable.  Unless you're Advent with mass transcendance (free promotion to level 4 plus bonus XP in battle to level up faster) it just stops making sense altogether to add more capital ships after 6 or 8.

And 6 is the sweet spot cost wise.  Since it takes research to get additional cap ships, the 3rd, 4th and 5th cap ships are prohibitively expensive.  The research for the 5th opens 2 slots, so the sixth is 'almost' free, and it would unwise not to take advantage of building it.  That research cost can be spread across 2 ships.

Individual Cap ship cost: Rough calcs @4, Cap Ship cost: $5600 ($3000, 400M, 250C). Then there is the fleet research required for additional Cap ships:

Cap# Research Total$/

First        Free    -0-
Second  1500 7100
Third      2800 8400
Fourth    3800 9400
5 and 6  3400 7300
7 and 8  4150 7675
9 and 10 4900 8050
11 to 13  4700 7166
14 to 16  5400 7400

Thats why I play Advent, not only they have cool looking lasers but their capital ships are great in mass battles

For me the main reason to have more capital ships is to be able to support the fleet and kill enemy fighters... no other 2 ships can pretty much one-shot 50 squadrons, and having 13-16 capital ships makes sure I always have the most important abilities in the fleet -- mass strike craft death, mass shield recharge, radiance battleship's disable and 6 lvl huge AoE gun + all the other less important good abilities

I mean, 1 good placed Cleansing Brilliance (lvl6 radiance ability) can do like 40k or more damage overall if you fire it from a side through the enemy fleet, add another lvl6 battleship and you got a half dead enemy fleet... and what if you got another 4 of those? theres no way frigates and cruisers can out-dps that... even if your ship dies because it was too far away from guardians/motherships/repair frigates to get in a good position to fire -- doesnt matter, damage still done, enemy almost dead already, make another battleship after the fight and lvl-up it with your lvl6 mothership...

also, that Perseverance ability of the advent repairing frigates is just sick, makes the ship immune to disables... not that I need it vs. AI but I can imagine how powerful that is when playing against another human.

but yes, in a serious match I suppose you never have the opportunity to turtle so much that money dont matter anymore and all you have to do is to get a clean victory so that the enemy just doesnt have time to rebuild his fleet while he loses his good defended colonies.

A classic challenge is to fight a vicious on point blank...that can be really interesting...

Done it before as Vasari vs. Advent, it was brutal but it is possible...have yet to try it with TEC or Advent...

Yes I think point blank is only option to win against Vicious AI without exploiting AI weakness by building SB .......

On point blank I won him with all races in 1.19 version. I did win only 1/4 of games though. 

Vasari can do it with a starbase rush.  Advent/TEC... put up frigate factories, spam light frigates, and hope you can knock out his constructors and frigate factories before he builds up critical mass.  Distracting and kiting with your cap is a good idea.

Yes a lot depends of what type of AI it is. Researcher, Aggressor, Defender, Economists....

lets all try it and post the recordings, lets see who can survive the longest..Lol (P.S camping not allowed  )

I actually tried one time with seeker vessels to take out the constructors...problem was that they colonized the asteroid and built a factory on it, so they were still producing ships...

you dont need to exploit SB or play on point blank, just make a custom map where every player has a choke point planet connected to the star in the middle (I was just playing with 2 visious AI on that map) rush to that planet, build maxed defenses and camp there... 34 beam platforms with synergy and a hangar for extra shield regen and mines + your fleet = no losses if 1 full fleet attacks. If they come together you lose like 20% stuff there but the battle is so much fun to watch

Im gonna try to turtle against 3 next, wonder if its possible to hold off 3 big fleets watching big battles in this game is so awesome... but vs. 3 its gonna be laggy I bet...

I would like to see reply of the game when human wins against 2 allied Vicious players.

To my knowledge either with SB or not it is impossible. I did beat 2 cruel AIs allied against me but 2 Vicious? I don't think its possible.

As of Vicious building ships from asteroid. Keep 5 scouts there to constantly kill constructor frigates....

I'd imagine if you hand-tailored a map for it, it would be possible.  Otherwise you'd need a stroke of luck.  As I mentioned earlier, the vicious will occasionally gimp itself by not building the right logistics structures and being unable to produce units fast enough.

Pity I lost mine. I did.

Exactly. And the DS mod helps a lot.

I would think that DS with more upgrades per tier helps but I had in mind normal diplomacy expansion. I wonder if wouldn't AI research all 4 researches in each tier be much faster with it and made gap between them even bigger. True your SB and your caps would be much harder to kill but wouldn't extra research offset for that. 

And yes hand tailored map with 1 planet to give to each AI bunch of empty neutrals in between and some good planets behind your HW which counts as a choke. I bet that scenario would be easy.

I had more like random map or at least map in which AIs aren't handicapped from start in a way that negates all their benefits that they get as Vicious AI  

no, the 2 AIs have same planets as I do on their sides of the map, the idea is that you only need to defend one spot and you can fortify it so you can take out a larger fleet without losses

If you want to delay one (or 2) of the AIs from attacking too early - put a pirate planet right after his choke planet, this way its still kinda fair but he needs to kill pirates first while you hold off the second AI... And the first attack from the pirate-killer AI will be more fun cause he got a lot of exp on his cap ships (as did you after the second AI's attacks)

That is the problem with Vicious AI. If allied they tend to attack together and if they attack same planet its really hard to defend against them. If you can split them that they attack different planets then you have a chance.....

I usually play me vs 3x3 cruel or me vs 4x2 Vicious AIs on 10 player random map.

If 2 Vicious attack me with their full fleets after a while they usually wear me down and eventually i loose