Factional metagame analysis

On the TEC:

You're spot on on TEC being the strongest economically, but they are not given to turtling/defense as you seem to think(wells etting aside the loyalists- I'm only talking about general TEC tools available to both factions)>

They have the best repair bays, but that's about it.  They have what is by and large the weakest of the three starbases.  The most notable thing about the TEC starbase as opposed to the others is it's self destruct ability, which while very strong is also kind of situational(though it the right situations it can win games to be fair).

For upgrades for static defense they have nothing on the level of phasic traps or shields granted to buildings the other 2 factions have.

And to top it all off the TEC has the weakest late game of any faction, so turtling to the late game isn't really to their advantage unless they have a truly overwhelming advantage.

By contrast the TEC are an extremely strong early pressure faction since their economy starts up faster then the other races, and TEC likely has the strongest military in the early-mid-game around the time hoshikos start coming out.  

Most of all though the TEC are exceedingly good at fighting a war of attrition- Ogrovs make even small attack forces a deadly threat to enemy planets, allowing small raids to be simultaneously conducted on  multiple enemy planets, dividing the enemies focus and certainly causing somecasualties. 

Every faction being bound by fleet supply, the upgrading of which will ruin any economy means just settling in and waiting til the late game isn't the ideal way to utilize a superior economy.  If you wait too long even the guy witht he poor economy will build a comparable sized fleet, and any late game vasari/advent fleet will obliterate a comparable sized late game TEC fleet.

The best ways to utilize the TEC's superior economy are to:

A). in a team game feed fronline allies

B ).Put early pressure on eenemies at the stage of the game where your fast growing early economy means you can field more shield quicker

C). Endeavor to make trades with the opponent.  If both sides lose the same resource value of ships/structures, the guy witht he better economy has a much easier time rebuilding his losses.  Raids on multiple fronts and Ogroves help a great deal with making theses trades

 On the Advent:

The advent on the other hand excels in most in the very early game(their combat ships are the most cost effective so at the start of the game when everyone has essentially the same economy they can field more firepower faster) and the mind-late game(The advent fleet's synergy is better then any fleet comp the TEC has).  Late game when the Vasari fleet finally becomes mature the Advent are nolonger the top dogs, but they still have a better super late game fleet strength then the TEC.

It's also worth noting the Advent are the most militant faction, they have a week economy, but a ton of very powerful military tools and very cost effective frigates.

Interestingly enough the Advent have by far the best defensive starbase- but they don't get access to it until T4.

On the Vasari:

You're partially right on the Vasari.  While they are not always "offensive," they certainly never want to be on the defensive(a vasari player on the defensive tends to be in a bit of trouble).  That said, they do have a few early offensive tendencies such as the offensive use of starbases often sent to the enemy homeworld to distract the enemiy and cause economic damage to buy time for the Vasari player to build an economy or get some much needed research done.

The vasari have the weakest early economy(though mid-late game their economy is better then advent) and least cost effective frigates, so their early game is pretty rough.  They compensate with the aforementioned starbase attacks, their scouts' ability to capture neutral extractors, and their superior capitalships.

That said, the Vasari are the game's quintessential late game faction- no other race can match the late game military might of a vasari fleet.  The longer the game runs, the greater the Vasari player's advantage tends to increase provided no one has obtained a decisive fleet/economic advantage over them.

As was implied previously, the Vasari starbase is notable in that it is very strong offensively.  

I agree. The turtling only applies to the TEC Loyalists. The Rebels access to truce amongst rogues allows them to move around the map at will if researched early enough. The earning money from bombardment and the stat boost while doing it gives an incentive to use that mobility to go on the offensive, since your colony frigates can expand without military escort (in a perfect situation). Their titan is perfectly suited to either destroy fleets with scattershot/explosive shot, while it can take out defenses and starbases with Snipe.

usually i found advent early game economically stronger than tec.

as tec you need tu put a trade line up as fast as possible and research your metal extractor uppgrades, this is the real tec early strengh. as counterpart advent have the best colony ship you can found, usefull in battle and colonization ability leading to great economical adventage with cheaper planet uppgrades. witch means you can switch to full military earlier and make pressure anywhere earlier.

as it tend to be you can colonize more and faster with advent due to their military early strengh and your colonies will be cost effective earlier.

Another great bonus advent have is their early access to culture/propaganda. more culture means higher planet alligeance and that means more credit by taxes.

if you can manage to take some ice or desert you will found you have a better economy than any TEC in game, until you let the tec build up a too long trade line.

and for mid game, when your cultural/planet population is no longer an advantage because other players have already made their uppgrades and their own cultural broadcast system you can build up you own trade line.

i wont speak about vasari, their economy sucks until mid game when tjhey can feld engouh trade post and cultural  network. the only thing that help early vasari players is their neutral extractor easy taking, but this only works on randomly generated maps because most scenario maps tend to dont have a lot of these things.  Vasari economy is the harder to play.

things start to reverse in late mid game and all late game phases when tec and vasari players can uppgrade their trade goods value or extractors and have enough culture to counter the advent one.

but at this stage of game, advent have a good to strong fleet when other races tend to be still less agressive because building up their own stengh

Yes, but that is also exactly what I wrote so I'm not sure why it is being disagreed on:

TEC Rebels

Strategic doctrine: The antithesis to Loyalists, Rebels are much more geared towards aggression. They are still TEC, however, so the general defensive doctrine still applies. This means Rebels will play out in a more balanced way. The Rebel commander will still likely choose to stay on the defensive and fortify for the early game, the goal being to wait until the Rebels' second specialization can be unlocked: Neutral faction diplomacy & pirates. At this point the Rebel player will switch into an offensive role, coordinating his attacks with hired pirates to overwhelm defenders. The Rebel late game is about spending income on a combination of ships and pirate bribery rather than the Loyalists' continued defense.

Specializations: Planetary assault, neutral faction alliances

What is your take on the Advent, GoaFan? I find those the most difficult to characterize a general metagame ruleset for.

No, what I have an issue with is this line.

The TEC base faction is not necessarily defensive. With things like the Sova Carrier's embargo and efficient low level frigates, they can be one of the best rush factions. TEC Rebels just have techs that make this more defined.

I'm mostly an Advent player. Much of their faction relies more on "tactics", as their weaker economy means you've got to win against your foes militarily to win, often with inferior numbers. Basically your goal should be to get as many powerful synergies up as fast as possible, so research is a bit more important for them, especially to get guardians. Whether you rush or pursue opportunistic expansion and development doesn't really matter for this goal. Capitalships are also very important, second only to how important they are for Vasari Loyalists. 

The deal with Vasari is they have the weaker economy in the long run but it is faster to set up. They have the early upgrades that give them +40% population growth. That means their economy grows much faster than TEC's or Advent's, but only up to the point when the pop cap is reached. This is why I write Vasari is all about aggression: They need to keep winning battles and expanding, because they'll lose in the long term economy game. Also, their economic upgrades aren't so much about improving their actual economy but rather reducing the cost of purchasing ships. Again, this means a Vasari player just sitting still is going to lose - they need to keep building fleet and expanding.

Alright, I see your point. I still think they're defensive, though. When I said 'metagame analysis' it means it's about the strategy on the top-most, general level. So yeah, the Sova can use the Embargo and be useful - but it seems clear to me that in a comparison with the Vasari, the latter is a much better rusher. They have the Antorak Marauder which is dedicated to these rush maneuvers. The Sova can rush, the Marauder is rush - that's the difference (though I know most don't have very high opinions on the Marauder). Same deal with the frigates, of course, the Vasari frigates are relatively more geared towards rushes than TEC ships are. The Vasari also have things like the bounty collection research upgrades which also favour rushes - the TEC has nothing like it because overall, they simply aren't about early aggression, it isn't their main strength.

OK, that conforms with my analysis of them then. That, and I think culture is their focus - they need to use culture as a weapon against targets they can't break down with military force alone.

I am sorry, but this is wrong. After the early game Vasari economic is better than Advent economy and only surpassed by TEC.

Economic strength rating of all races:

Early game:

1.TEC

2. Advent

3. Vasari

Medium Game:

1. TEC

2. Vasari

3. Advent

Late game:

1. TEC

2. Vasari

3. Advent

Very late game:

1. TEC

2. Vasari

3. Advent

Military power rating of all races:

Early game:

1. Advent

2. TEC

3. Vasari

Medium Game:

1. TEC

2. Advent

3. Vasari

Late game:

1. Vasari

2. Advent

3. TEC

Very late game:

1. Vasari

2. TEC

3. Advent

While Advent fleets are superior to TEC fleets in very late game there very poor performance against late game Vasari fleets cost them the second place.

Very late game: TEC VS Vasari: TEC fights for its very life... but can hold the line by fielding much more ships.

Very late game: Advent VS Vasari: Advent fleet doesnt stand a chance against Vasari.... that the Advent fleet can decimate TEC fleets even more doesnt help that much under those circumstances.

Vasari can field more ships than Advent in very late game and replace losses easier.... because Vasari economy is better than Advent economy.

It is one of the many reasons why Advent do so terribly against Vasari..... Vasari not only have the better military but also the better economy.

The Antorak does very little for a rush strategy and it will loose to most other capships your enemy is going to field at this time.

Thats the idea... however culture is not very strong and only a unskilled opponent or one on the verge of defeat will fall to culture.

i think there is some mitake about what we call early economics.

personnally i m speaking about an usual economic multiplayer start ; 2 civic labs witch means trade port avaible for tec and culture available for advent, but when trade port start shining in numbers, witch means you need some like 4 to 5 on a line to make a real difference fast you can do the same with one or two broadcast center no necesseraly in a line to increase neighbouring planets allegiance and income.

this early phase dont last long, but most of the time in MP you will never be able to make much more economics than this two civic labs when the real fight began. In the eco spot however things are a little bit different, here i think TEC rules, without any immediate threat their early disaventage agaisnt advent cheap planetary uppgrades dont last long enough to matter.

==> spaeking about vasari, their population speed growth isn't a big advantage, it's useful in eco spot but not much, it just mean you will ned to uppgrade your population limit sooner, and doing so your planet will be cost effective sooner.

i found their mining uppgrades for both metal and cristal far better.

concerning advent difficulties late to very late game against vasari, i think it's just a matter of racial combat uppgrades, advent focus on shield uppgrades and have crappy armor/HP uppgrades when you have vasari who focus on by passing this shields with their missiles. missiles who are fired by bombers, and remember late game tend to be bomber heavy, the fault to starbases and titans. Sometimes you will see advent ships destroyed with still half their shields upp.

And vasari have decent HP/shield uppgrades and good armor second only to tec.

And this is the fact, for what you found tec holding their ground better against vasari than advent, they focus more on armor/HP than shield so by passing tec shields isn't that much a problem for tec because they dont really rely on it, but much more on HP/armor/Hoshiko synergy.

Speaking about late late economics, considering only trade post advent have the worst one (no uppgrade for trad goods like tec or vasari), but with their cultural uppgrades who allow them to increase planetary allegiance by 15% they have a great tax bonus at minimal cost, bonus you will need a really long trade line, and so a very big empire, to overwhelm.

You will be ahead economically, maybe, but not as much as you think. Culture isn"t an effective attack weapon, too easely countered, but it s a good economic support.

I sorry dude, but you're dead wrong.  The TEC are by far the weakest late game race i nthe game.  turtling up and defending is not t otheir advantage.  Thier military shines shine in the early-mid game- that's when they should be aggressive.  There is no reason for the base faction(before any loyal/rebel techs come into play) to embrace a defensive metagame- they have subpar defenses, they have a weak late game, and the longer the game runs the more chance the enemies with the weaker economies but stronger militaries have to catch up in fleet size as fleet size begins to be defined more by fleet supply then economy.  The only time a good TEC player would generally play defensively is if he's going pure ECO to feed his teammates.

The TEC loyals are a far greater divergence from the classic TEC strategy then then rebels.

And Vasari are exactly the opposite- sure they possesse a few rush strategies, but they are by far the best late game race- and they have a rather slow start.  Rushing isn't so much to their advantage. You claim you're talking about the top levels of multiplayer, but in multiplayer no one uses marauders- the marauder is probably one of the 2 weakest capitalships in the entire game. 

Why would a race with the game's best late game and weakest early game military/economy be based around an all-out aggressive rush strategy?

Again you have a kernel of truth as though the vasari are not intrinsically aggressive early, they do tend to be in serious trouble when they get put on the defensive.  So they may stay on the offensive with raids and harassment just to keep the enemy busy and prevent the enemy from attacking them- but that is more a matter of buying time to reach their late game then a general propensity for offense.

The Antorak

1) Gets your fleet to the enemy faster

2) Let's your fleet outmaneuver the opponent's, useful for letting your fragile siege ships avoid defenders

2) Has a skill (subversion) meant precisely to lock down opponent's production so they can't keep up with yours

If this isn't an optimal offensive ship I don't know what is. Maybe the ship isn't powerful enough but its skills are all centered on and highly useful for attacking. The comparison was with the Sova - the Sova has just a single ability that is decidedly meant for offense.

I think the idea with culture is to force opponent into also investing into culture buildings. Even if it's very slow it nonetheless guarantees neutralization of enemy world if they don't also invest into culture. Even then, as Advent, you'll still be pushing them back and lowering allegiance thanks to your upgrades. There will most certainly be situations where both you and the opponent have a hard time making progress into enemy territory - that's where culture comes in and actually becomes important. Culture lets Advent put additional pressure on opponent and serve as an equalizer in that it forces the opponent to spend many more logistical slots on culture than they would prefer, lessening the economic advantage they otherwise would have had, giving them much less of a lead over the Advent.

Why would the TEC go on offense? It makes no sense. They have the weakest, slowest ships. They unlock ship classes later than the other factions, requiring more research to do so. On the other hand, they have the earliest access to trade ports. Most of their early upgrades focus on improving the economy, such as armor upgrades for their trade ships.

If they want to build an early fleet they can't also maximize their trade network - that's always an either-or. Should they disregard the fact that all their upgrades center on economy while lacking offensive upgrades in order to instead attack? Why?

It seems much more sensible to me that they would try to defend while making use of their superior economy upgrades. You say that they have a weak endgame, but if their economy is larger and they succesfully defend it they'll reach this endgame earlier than Vasari or Advent can. Weak endgame or not, if they have 30% more used supply they'll probably win anyway.

As for defenses being weak, this may be where I don't have enough experience - however, it looks like TEC gets more options: they have more upgrades for their tactical structures than the other factions. Gauss Cannons get both rate of fire, range, burst rockets and meson bolt upgrades. Their hangar gets more upgrades, as well, and they have the best repair pad by a long shot. This is subpar?

How does the Vasari have a slow start? They have upgrades to make populations grow faster. They have scouts instead of colony ships claim space junk resource nodes. Also, I can again point out how their upgrades don't focus as much on actually improving their economy but instead of lowering the cost of their ships. How is this a slow start, and how do they not benefit from rushing?

I occurs to me that you dont play for long or online.

TEC may have superior numbers in late game but both Advent and Vasari have certain late game abilities that are quite capable of forcing you into a loss ratio of 2:1.... and believe me... TEC Economy cannot keep up with that.

Most economic upgrades are only worthwile in the long run..... you usually are killed long before they pay off.

and Civilian Ship Safety act is a very very worthless resarch. Trade ships losses are irrelevant because the loss of income is hardly noticable.

Actually in the early-mid game their frigates are better then vasari.  Vasari frigates have the worst DPS per supply & per cost in the agme.  They rely on heavy research to become strong.  TEC frigates by comparison are cheap and efficient right out of the gate.

And the hoshiko which comes out at T3 military is the golden age of TEC military, it is by far the best early game support cruiser in the game and gives the TEC a decisive mid-game advantage.

and FYI, every faction's ships are the same speed for each class of ships

No they don't.  they unlock LRF earlier then advent, they get T1 corvettes(vasari don't get vetts til T2), and they get defensive support frigate at T3 which is pretty standard.

Cielo comes late, but it's not necessary til late game anyway.

how do you figure? hoshikos requires 2 techs you should be researching anyway.  other then that only ogrov has extra prereqs and it's well worth them.  Nothing as harsh as the 3 shield techs advent has to research to get guardians.

I'm not argueing that TEC shouldn't ECO- Eco is there thing.  But the TEC economy starts up so fast you can afford to start putting pressure on the enemy early even while building your economy.

I'm not suggesting you T0 rush the enemy right out of the gate- that's what advent excels at.  But early-mid game pressure facilitated by their superior economy is where TEC shine most

It's not necessarily either or.  In a FFA or small team scenario ECoing too hard OR going military too hard will get you killed.

That said in larger team games it is one or the other- but in that case which is dependant on start position rather then race, so we'll restrict our focus to the smaller team model.

Frankly in that setting every race needs to do some eco early game.  The TEC just get started faster and have more spare cash to raid enemy space.

I'm not saying you should completely disregard your economy- but the TEC late game simply isn't very strong.  Going pure all out eco in the long run only really makes sense if you have allies to feed.  Otherwise you're better off setting up an econ quick then making war on your neighbors during the midgame in which TEC shine militarily most

[quote]

It seems much more sensible to me that they would try to defend while making use of their superior economy upgrades. You say that they have a weak endgame, but if their economy is larger and they succesfully defend it they'll reach this endgame earlier than Vasari or Advent can. Weak endgame or not, if they have 30% more used supply they'll probably win anyway.

Actually in the early-mid game their frigates are better then vasari.  Vasari frigates have the worst DPS per supply & per cost in the agme.  They rely on heavy research to become strong.  TEC frigates by comparison are cheap and efficient right out of the gate.

And the hoshiko which comes out at T3 military is the golden age of TEC military, it is by far the best early game support cruiser in the game and gives the TEC a decisive mid-game advantage.

and FYI, every faction's ships are the same speed for each class of ships

No they don't.  they unlock LRF earlier then advent, they get T1 corvettes(vasari don't get vetts til T2), and they get defensive support frigate at T3 which is pretty standard.

Cielo comes late, but it's not necessary til late game anyway.

how do you figure? hoshikos requires 2 techs you should be researching anyway.  other then that only ogrov has extra prereqs and it's well worth them.  Nothing as harsh as the 3 shield techs advent has to research to get guardians.

I'm not argueing that TEC shouldn't ECO- Eco is there thing.  But the TEC economy starts up so fast you can afford to start putting pressure on the enemy early even while building your economy.

I'm not suggesting you T0 rush the enemy right out of the gate- that's what advent excels at.  But early-mid game pressure facilitated by their superior economy is where TEC shine most

It's not necessarily either or.  In a FFA or small team scenario ECOing too hard OR going military too hard will get you killed, you need a mix in that setting

In large team games on the other hand you go pure eco or pure military based primarily on start position rather then race- so we'll restrict the dicussion to the small team setting.

When it comes down to it, the TEC fleet is the weakest by far late game- and it's not like you have to get to late game before their strong economy is noticable- the TEC economy starts up fast, meaning by the time they are exerting early-mid game pressure they already have more income then their opponent.  

In fact often the goal of the raids is to widen the game in economy.

You're going to have a stronger eco as tec at all stages of the game, so it seems more sensible leverage that gap during the stage in which your ships are strongest.

The Tec do have the best repair platforms but that's about it.  First off, turrets aren't even worth using for any race for DPS- at best they have niche uses for their abilities.  The TEC one(reduced armor) is decent but not really gamechanging. The same goes for the flak turrets on the hangers.

By contrast the Advent gets the ability to add shields(and shield mitigation) to ALL of their structures and the Vasari get an activated ability on their hanger that disables 20 squadrons of enemy strikecraft for 60 seconds..

The real area TEC defenses fall short is their starbase though.  It's only real notable point is it's self destruct ability, which is pretty good if situational.

 By contrast the Vasari starbase can move(allowing it among other things to be less vulnerable to ogrovs), has better weapon systems,  and is by far the hardest to actually kill.  The Advent starbase has a 30 second cooldown 850 damage ability which easily hits entire fleets and has huge range and additionally a second activatable ability that disables the engines of nearby enemies(huge radius, will also hit entire fleets) and reduces the accuracy of every affected ship by 50%.

It's not so much the TEC defenses are bad as the other factions have multiple gamechangers in their defensive repetoire.

They have a slow eco start because they don't get trade ports until T4 and culture until T5 T3.  Additionally their colony frigate's secondary effect on colonization has the lowest impact effect on Eco-growth of any of the colony cap-ships.   You mention the faster pop growth techs: those techs easily take more then 10 minutes to pay back the cost of researching them- not something conductive to a strategy rushing for early combat.  

 They have a slow military start because their early game frigates have the worst firepower per cost ratios of any race.  Vasari strength is all in their research techs which turn their otherwise inferior frigates into the strongest late game frigates. Additionally in a proverbial double-whammy their slow Eco start means they have less money to spend on military early game as well.

To give you a good example, you know how most weapon techs scale up to +30% damage over 3 upgrades 2 ranks each?

By contrast vasari phase missile upgrade techs, due to the way they work are at max rank easily an +80-120% increased damage dependent on the max shield mitigation of the target.  And something like 70-80% of that damage ignores shields and is dealt directly to hull.

Phase missiles are the largest examples, but all in all the vasari military benefits A LOT more from research then other races. 

Again though all it really comes down to is the TEC ships are at their strongest early mid game so it's generally to your benefit to build an economy quick and then do some fighting during that window in which TEC ships are strongest.

I'd like to conclude by noting completely pure-rush strategies are rare and generally only work when the opponents start very close to each other.   Even "early military" strategies tend to grab 1-3 planets before they go to war.  Doing some fighting early on does not mean completely sacrificing your economy unless you start right next to an enemy.  In fact harassment raids are very often done specifically to widen the gap between your economy and that of your opponent.

I just wish to correct this: You need three labs to research and build culture as Vasari

Good catch, I misspake. 

I just want to point out that a thread like this is only going to get people arguing... The factions can't be typecast so easily anymore (Diplomacy-era you could make a case for maybe).The closest you could get would be to discuss the different ways the factions accomplish the same things.

Arguing is the very point of a forum?

Just call it a nice discussion.

People always say they can defend against advent starbase culture mid and late game but the question that always makes me laugh is the fact they expect to have a good economy while there building culture structures lol. Advent culture is an economic debuff for the other races by also lowering planetary allegiance.

I think that when we go into factional niches we need to generalize. Factions have advantages, but they're not usually solid.

TEC (economy)

Loyalists: defense

Rebels: offense

Advent (culture)

Loyalists: momentum

Rebels: reversal

Vasari (mobility)

Loyalists: run & hit

Rebels: hit & run

The most significant thing about TEC starbases is their economic effect. By building several starbases with trade docks and construction facilities you can boost your income and free up logistics spots for refineries or broadcast centers to further strengthen your economy. TEC is also the faction that is able to make the best use of the black market and pirates due to their credit focused economy and discounts for dealing with the underworld. another advantage of TEC is that with late game research their gauss platforms can become very efficent. While not capable of winning without support they do make a very cheap and effective guard for when your fleet is on the offensive. You can also use them to hold the territory you have taken with your early game aggression once the other factions start getting more powerful militaries. It is also a good idea to not research any farther than the first level of fleet support so that you can maintain a production advantage. If you are having difficulty winning in the late-game you can take advantage of the fact that while their ships may be outclassed by those of other factions they do take a very long time to kill. Using your ships toughness and your ability to constantly pump out reinforcements, your excellent late-game defenses, and the fact that your economy gets stronger as other players spend more you can hunker down and bombard your foes with novaliths while bribing the pirates with so much money that they become invincible.

Tec loyalists and advent loyalists have a superior advantage in their own territory per ship bases. Enemy titans are more likely to die from fleets than facing another titan.

The only thing I can see is a castle wall of text with some pathetic trolling sprinkled in. This is classified as FAIL.

I doubt it fails -how fast  can you build 10 capital ships and levels with a tec economy excluding Kodiaks..

If I tried really hard, maybe 30 minutes.

10 level 10 cap ships? or just 10 cap ships with purchased levels? Though I can't really think of a situation where I would want to rush to 10 cap ships aside from a game with a special ruleset like no building anything smaller than a cruiser.