How do i beat 2 Hard AIs in 1.82 beta?

So i gave myself a challenge, 2 Hard AIs in one team against me. I have beaten them before, but never in pure 1vs2 scenario, it was either FFA or i played with compstomps with my buddies - last time i actually singlehandedly killed 2 AIs, while both of them were dealing with the third AI...

This time however, i am struggling big-time and the levels of frustration are pretty high. I am about 2 hours into the game, me as ALs, them being TRs and VRs. I own one ice planet, 2 moons, one roid and that debris/graveyard kind of gravwell with husks of Advent/TEC capships. I tried to choke 3 frontier worlds i have with fully upgraded SBs with Mass Disorientation and Meteroid Control - and at first i actually managed to fend them off, destroying both their Titans and accompanying fleets. However, they managed to rebuilt their titans/forces pretty quickly, faster than i could mine (since i was trying to construct a Titan on my own and the TEC AI was trying to fuck me up using Novalith - they even hit my HW....OFC they attack me in coordinated manner at the same time...

 

So is there anything i can do now to win? Or was the only chance to win to beat them via early-game rush and now its not possible anymore (only maybe after 20 hours long game of attrition?)

9,054 views 8 replies
Reply #1 Top

If you were Vasari I'd say park a Marauder by your starbase, get it to lvl 6 then sneak attack their homeworld via phase gate. 3 chokepoints seem like alot to me. 1 or two is ideal, especially if they're within one jump). It is possible to win a mid length (6 hour) game against 2 hard ai.

I would retreat to a more fortifiable position, regroup and then push. And when you push you don't stop until you get to the enemy homeworld.

Reply #2 Top

Its actually 4 chokepoints/border worlds. Kinda bad, since i only have 5 planets.... i need to remind myself never ever play this map again this way.

I am 3,5 hours into the game and still there, although i reloaded the game about 3 times already, when i lost important battle, which would probably lead to my defeat. Managed to take from them important oceanic planet, which i lost to them before - but only thanks to the REPOSSESION ability of Coronata  - otherwise it would be a no go, since the planet is defended by a Orkulus with 19000 hitpoints. Some tough shit there. AIs seem to go into small hiatus for the last half-hour, no titans in my face since i destroyed them last time. I am screwed anyway, i lost all 4 my capships and my income rate is mighty 12,2 per sec. My only current saving grace is Coronata at lvl 8 - dat thing is amazing. Love its abilities.

BTW the Vasari AI has a weird thing for Marauders and Rankulases - seems to be some kind of  Hipster AI type :D

Reply #3 Top

doublepost

Reply #4 Top

Since you are AL, you jut might be able to use the AI's most annoying aspect to your advantage....if they plant a lot of mines, you can capture them and if you are lucky, kill a bunch of enemy ships for XP...

Since it is the AI, they aren't going to be using RB, and Orkies don't have any AoEs so you can easily get away with HC spam...probably could go with just HCs and Corvettes, using the corvettes to deal with the VR titan (and ogrovs on defense) and the HCs to deal with everything else...HCs are fairly fast so you can probably outmaneuver the TR titan's frontal abilities (besides, it's an AI)...

Guardians will help separate the titan or a pesky cap from the rest of the fleet...easier said than done but I've done it as suicide against 2 skilled humans so it is definitely doable against 2 AIs...

One thing you could also consider is building SBs on their frontline planets and surrounding them with mines...the only things then that will be a concern are titans or SC, but repulse and corvettes can handle those for long enough...

Of course if resources are at a huge crunch, it's going to be difficult to do any of that....if you are looking to attrition by leveling caps, you need to first stop losing them, and that almost guaranteed means you need lots of guardians with repulsion and a prog (or 2) with shield regeneration...if you are going to attrition and spam caps, I'd suggest shooting for 2 progs (malice and shield regeneration are good for defending with meteor storm) and then Halcyon spam after that (get ADA and TK push, only need one instance of energy aura)...

Reply #5 Top

Thanks for response.

Obviously money was the issue, i could not get anything of that going. TBF i did not tried the thing with mines, but i dont really know how they work with Advent, i mean they are somehow linked to light carriers and you have either choose fighters or mines - i chose fighters/bombers everytime. May try it next time.

This game, however, is good as lost, sadly. Just tried to play it for a bit and a massive TEC fleet dropped at my homeworld, where i only had my titan and maxed starbase with many repair platforms. And they simply rolled over everything, it actually took longer than i thought it will, but there was no chance in hell i could beat that.

Reply #6 Top

Quoting Timmaigh, reply 5

Thanks for response.

Obviously money was the issue, i could not get anything of that going. TBF i did not tried the thing with mines, but i dont really know how they work with Advent, i mean they are somehow linked to light carriers and you have either choose fighters or mines - i chose fighters/bombers everytime. May try it next time.

This game, however, is good as lost, sadly. Just tried to play it for a bit and a massive TEC fleet dropped at my homeworld, where i only had my titan and maxed starbase with many repair platforms. And they simply rolled over everything, it actually took longer than i thought it will, but there was no chance in hell i could beat that.

 

EDIT: I reloaded the last save, about 1/2 or 3/4 of an hour before this final attack and did some things differently, instead of trying to take over that oceanic planet from Vasari AI and pointlessly pouring money into Adjudicators to get rid of the Orkulus protecting said planet....this time around i rebuilt the capships and upgraded weapons instead and went for the jugular - straight for the TEC AI homeworld. Needless to say, Coronata at high level is a beast thanks to that subjugation ability. I swear i did not have a single frigate/cruiser in the fleet with her built by myself, all of them were of TEC origin - and it was quite a lot of them.

Anyway i managed to kill the AI somehow, even though it had probably 10x more ships than i did. It tried to stop me halfway the bombardment period, but it too was little too late. Well, AI unintelligence was quite obvious here. Since then, the Vasari AI went into weird hiatus again - i guess from this moment on, its going to be a sweep. So i was wrong after all, it was winnable - i just needed 4 reloads to tweak my approach. Obviously, big part of it is the capital victory setting, i dont think it would be possible without it - not before i would get bored at least - the other thing is Vasari AI getting passive later in the game for some unknown reason...

 

EDIT: Shit, wanted to edit previous post and quoted myself instead... oh well.

Reply #7 Top

How to roflstomp 2 hard AIs and above

Step 1: build marza and starbase

Step 2: Watch as stupid ai suicides into base, leveling marza to 6

Step 3: ???

Step 4: Profit

 

Reply #8 Top

Quoting Sinkillr, reply 7

How to roflstomp 2 hard AIs and above

Step 1: build marza and starbase

Step 2: Watch as stupid ai suicides into base, leveling marza to 6

Step 3: ???

Step 4: Profit

 

 

How do i build Marza as Advent Loyalist again? :)