First question: The AI doesn't crew the extractors that I crewed. That let me crew those extractors for posterity, despite the fact that those resources are very close to AI's territory.

 

Second question: AI should have hit (Reverie) my Marza bearing missile barrage. Instead, it hit my novice Marza, leaving my experienced Marza free to do a barrage.

 

Third question: Hmm. Then I might just get Entrenchment, since it doesn't throw the game off balance. Adding defensive tools without giving rise to unbeatable defensive stances? Sounds good.

First question: I crewed a neutral resource extractor. I left the scene. Enemy AI came upon the scene with some missionary vessels. Enemy AI just stood there, not taking over (crewing) the extractors that I had crewed. 2 unfair benefits it gave me are... free sight of passing ships, truly "invulnerable" resource extractors.

 

Will I have to relearn lots of stuff with Entrenchment? I've barely finished looking through the .entity files and figuring out what counters what. (Eg. Kol is the only way against Advent fighter/bomber spam).

 

I don't request for new features often (eg moving starbases around or something). I prefer to be surprised by the game designers. But I want the surprise to be good, the features balanced against lopsided exploits. (I love the Reverie against Marza's missile barrage).

You saw my replay?

 

The 1st Kol is free. I noticed that flak frigates don't kill fighters as fast as fighters kill fighters, so they're quite expensive to use to counter fighters. Bombers will get chewed up by fighters faster than my flak frigs can kill them fighters. But I guess I'll have to use flak frigs if I don't have the Kol. One capital ship can be replaced by 12 flak frigs (ship slots). That actually seems much better than the Kol's flak burst; no need antimatter or leveling up to kill fighters. Maybe I'll try this.

 

Any other "1 versus many AIs" replays I can find out there?

The problem will not be the starbase. That helps greatly. But the amount of small planet bombing frigs the AI sends in is terrifying!

I tried 1vs9 unfair AI several times with TEC. Built up a starbase and 3 caps with repair bays as a defense ball. Then about 100-150 frigs invade the planet, about 15 to 20 of these bombing frigs. The caps, SB and repair platforms stay all fine. But the planet goes down like whoops! Maybe you could install the auxiliary government (or equal) on the SB, and try a breakthrough with 3 or 4 lvl 10 caps. But, this still seems somewhat risky!

Wow, all that additions with Entrenchment seems like there's more to learn. Isn't the AI also a loaf of bread in vanilla Sins? They always go for my repair bays and gauss cannon cluster.

 

Fighters chew up siege frigs fast. But against advent fighter/bomber spam, my TEC fighters don't survive at all to do anything. And flak frigs simply don't kill their bomber blobs fast enough before they take out my repair bays (within 1-2 mins). Kol is the only answer, as in my replay.

 

I'm still waiting for a chance to play Vasari versus Advent fighter/bomber spam.

And that's the problem. They go after only my repair bays, not my harder gauss cannons (I have no Entrenchment yet). My repair bays go down with almost full antimatter. Yeah, bombers fly fast.

 

By the time my flak frigs thin out their fighters, 2 repair bays are gone. Their Disciples may also try to chew on my flak frigs, forcing my LRMs to focus on their Disciples (and not the siege frigs). (Don't you love the AttackType mechanics in AI? Nice. )

 

By the time my docked fighters now take on their bombers, new squadrons of Advent fighters are produced (1-2 per squadron). Again, no Entrenchment, no slowdown of carriers' production in battle.

 

My fighters barely halved their bombers, and their frigs have almost killed my cap ship (no repair bays).

 

While my fighters were docked, siege frigs bomb my planet to a crisp.

 

1v2 unfair AIs is like playing 1v4. Each unfair AI gets a resource/income boost.

 

I know. I'm masochistic.

Yes, I tried getting trade ports early.

But if I do that too early, I can't get a 2nd cap ship that is needed to prevent my enemies from getting more planets (each planet with credit income of 3+!).

Even if I trade-port my only 2 planets (home and a desert), I can't out-econ the 2 unfair Advents. (Each trade port takes 10 mins to break even, not counting the metal/crystal costs. My game ends in 30 mins if I don't get 2 Kols up soon enough.)

If you see my replay, the only way I could win was to split their forces. Bombard their fringe planets every time they start making a modicum of credits from them. I'm too weak to go for resource-deprivation.

Of course, I will be terribly underpowered to handle their fighter/bomber hordes. I used Kol to do that. I just parked my fighters beside my Kol, then flak burst the incoming fighters. (AI fighters tend to go after my fighters).

Making my stand at home planet is no go. First, no trade port chain. Second, constant bombardment of my home planet pushes my credit income down from 10.1 to 3 often.

I played the 3-player map "Balance of Power", in case you wanna try this masochistic experiment yourself. I took 2.5 hours to beat the 2 unfair Advents.

I'm unwilling to go Entrenchment yet, until the AI is beefed up more and any balance issues ironed out first.

By the way, the Kol's gauss gun is fantastic. Just make sure you fire it at a target with only 15% shield mitigation (and not 65%).