So, I spent the last day playing the new beta of Entrenchment, and it's time for some feedback. This is going to be all over the place, so bear with me. For reference, I was playing a custom map (single star, lots of choke points), 6-player, 5 AIs on Random Hard, large fleets, fast everything. I usually wipe the floor with the AIs on that map; once you hit a point where you own 1/3rd the map and have a noticeable tech advantage, it's just mopup time. Last night, though, I only had 1/3rd the map and STILL had a horrendous time advancing. A few reasons for this:
1> The AIs are far more of a threat than they used to be; they'd build up some massive battle fleets, and they used them more intelligently than they used to. It used to be that I could maintain four 4-cap battle fleets, each of which was an even match for the best fleet an enemy would throw at me; last night, I had one battle that required three of those four fleets AND a starbase just to get the upper hand. (It completely broke that enemy in the process.) Part of it was that the AI wouldn't retreat nearly as often as they used to, but they also built their fleets more intelligently (fewer dinky frigates, more heavy cruisers and carriers). Also, they seemed to focus fire far better than previously; my capships were taking damage one at a time, very quickly, instead of the slow uniform decrease they used to have.
2> Starbases are insanely good now thanks to the multitargeting bank change; fully upgraded, they can wipe fleets of frigates in short order. The AI seemed to know this, and would sacrifice swarms of frigates to take out starbases under construction (or that hadn't been heavily upgraded yet). If I didn't have a support fleet there to help the starbase, it'd die. (On the flip side, that support fleet's capships would gain massive XP.) In several battles, my key tactic was to bring a ship along to construct a starbase right as I warped in; by the time we were heavily engaged it'd be done constructing, and the balance of power would swing heavily in my direction. Likewise, if the enemy had a starbase in their own systems (which they almost always did), I'd need a large fleet to neutralize it, far more than pre-patch.
3> I didn't see ANY mines being used by the AI. They might just be a little too expensive now. 700 credits and some minerals, for six stationary mines? With the new minesweeping changes, I'm not sure it's worth it at even half that price, especially since there's now MORE micromanagement involved (at least for the Vasari).
4> The game was very stable for me, only crashing once when I misclicked on a Kostura Cannon's targeting.
5> Pirates are a joke now. Between the starbase upgrades and the bank improvements on capships, a swarm of 30-40 pirate frigates/cruisers just doesn't pose much threat. Additionally, their systems aren't any tougher to take than they used to be; pirate systems should begin with 150 mines and some kind of starbase.
6> The Phase Stabilizers on the Vasari starbases didn't always seem to work. I had one on the base I'd built at the central star, and the game didn't seem to register it; any ships warping to that star would travel to one of my nearby planets and then follow a line in, as if the stabilizer wasn't there.
