Looking for some advice on strategy

from Sins Forums

Good day all,

 

I'm looking for some strategy help.  Normally I play with a couple friends and we just computer stomp, but with Rebellion, it's been a chore.  One of us plays Advent (me), and my other two friends play TEC and Vasari.  We usually play against either 3 hard opponents on a team or a couple teams of 3 hards and maybe an unfair.

 

We all can get our initial planets and fleets up.  It just seems that by mid game (when you have to start attacking and there aren't any unoccupied planets to take) that it's nearly impossible to defeat enemy battle fleets.  As the Advent, I can have a titan with 6 caps (4 being shield re-generators), 10 shield sharing cruisers and a swath of 20+ frigates and it still seems like I can't put down an enemy fleet half that size.  This is also with at least half of the weapon and shield upgrades done at least by that point.  What are doing wrong or missing?

strategy
5,108 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

The biggest issue is that you are investing way too much into capital ships.

 

You should really only stick to max of 2 capital ships with the exception of the Titan.

 

Frigates are your main supply of damage. The fact you only have 20 means that your damage output is pretty pitiful even with a Titan. Capitals and Titans have to rely on abilities for damage.

It should be like 2 Capital ships to like 100 Frigates/Cruisers at leasts

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Thank you, I will definitely give that a try.  Tell me if this also is good or if I need to make some adjustments.  My normal start economy wise is to get three harmony research stations up so I can quickly get the culture spreader and then trade ports.  Only then do I really start moving to build military research stations and crank out shield and weapons research.

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

It varies over time, but capital ships (including the Titan) should, in general terms, take up no more than about 30% of your total fleet capacity.  It will vary by faction, but as a TEC player there is nothing wrong with 10 capital ships + your Titan when your fleet is fully upgraded.  Since so many capital ship capabilities get unlocked at the higher levels, however, it is important that your cap ships survive to get upgraded, so be prepared to retreat to save your caps even if it means sacrificing some of your supporting ships (and even your Titan, which will come back with all levels restored once you rebuild it).  Having starbases to fall back on as defensive positions in the event of such a retreat can also prevent a retreat from turning into a rout, by the way.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting HLT, reply 3
It will vary by faction, but as a TEC player there is nothing wrong with 10 capital ships + your Titan when your fleet is fully upgraded.

10 is probably too much for most games. I would have no more than 3 capitalships that are lower than level 6 at any given time (minus exceptional circumstances like if you really need a Kortul or Radiance to deal with an enemy titan). And is possible I'd wait until they're level 10 to add to those 3, unless you're having them fight at different planets.

Quoting Rovert10, reply 1
Frigates are your main supply of damage. The fact you only have 20 means that your damage output is pretty pitiful even with a Titan. Capitals and Titans have to rely on abilities for damage.

This is the main concept, but if you want to use capitalships they do become at least equal to frigates at very high levels (6-8 depending on the capitalship). However, because capitalships and titans share XP, having too many below level 10 in the same gravity well cause them to all level up slower. And as a few high level capitalships are better than many weak ones Arhes, it is best to try and keep your capitalships to a minimum (though as Advent you need a few to pull of your main strategies, and the Advent have a huge advantage in getting high level caps with Mass Transcendence and Resurrection).

Once a capitalship or titan reaches level 10 though it will no longer take XP as it is at max level, so after this Arhes feel free to add another capitalship to your fleet if you wish.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Hard and unfair is not easy to be killed by pure fleets, you have to be very good to do that, master quick expansion and quick fleet building but on smaller maps it is simply not even enough, it is much better just to get a starbase at one of your frontline worlds, AI will endlessly die on it, even with 1/10th fleet you can easily survive and level your capital ships and titans (at one time i managed to survive with only a Progenitor agains huge AI fleets, simply the advent REBEL starbase is cool, with the shield restore defensive research). And never build that much capital ships, it is oddly only working for Vasari, but I hate Vasari and I don't even know anything of their main strategies very well.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

As the Advent, I can have a titan with 6 caps (4 being shield re-generators), 10 shield sharing cruisers and a swath of 20+ frigates and it still seems like I can't put down an enemy fleet half that size.

Your fleet is all defense oriented.  You don't have enough offense (killing power).  You need more than "20+ frigate", and less than "10 sheild sharing cruisers".  Progenitor Caps with Shield Restore are great defense, but the Malice ability can also be used for great offense.  And don't get 6 caps, until you've researched tier 8 Mass Transendance as GoaFan suggests. 

Which Advent faction are you playing?  The Advent Rebel titan's Chastic Burst is an awesome offensive tool. 

What level of AI are you playing?  Hard and above get a significant cheat. In Rebellion Hard now gets 1.7X our income/metal/crystal.  Unfair 3X.  Cruel 5X.  Viscious 7X.  And to my suprise, Normal now also cheats slightly at 1.1X.  (Last time I checked, back in Diplomacy it was 1.0, 1.5X, 2X, 4X, 6X).

Yeah, like Turchany says, Starbases work well against the AI.  Especially with Meteor Storm, and maybe Mass Disorientation if you are fighting against a titan.

You may also be investing too much into econ, and not enough in military early on.  Three Civs is ok against the AI, but that would never work online against human players.  Remember it takes time for the investments in econ/civs to payback, often more than 20 minutes.  So be efficient.