My thoughts EXACTLY. The AI never used to do this in beta (at least this bad with huge siege frig rushes), and back then I had some awesome fleet battles. That is why I am so disappointed by release, it's musical chairs/chase the siege frigates.

Ok, to those of you who say siege rushes are a valid tactic... what, then, makes this game any different from any other RTS game and their rushes? Spamming any single type of unit makes for a boring game. Battles in this game should be about combined arms, not sending one single ship type in in vast numbers.

And, those saying to stop the attacks before they reach their target: How? I'm not being sarcastic, I'm asking as a new player that just can't figure it out. I've intercepted fleets like this, sometimes with every single warship at my disposal, they didn't stop to fight, they just raced on to their target planets. They've never hit my homeworld, but they have taken my outer colonies many times over.

I admit, I've only played as Advent so far, so maybe their defensive turrets need a bit of a boost, I'm not sure. If I was being attacked by a massive, varied fleet I wouldn't mind losing planets. I'm still being outplayed, but at least it's interesting, and I might learn about how to build a more effective fleet. All I'm learning from the AI so far is to win you need to build massive fleets of siege frigates, which makes me feel like I'm playing any other RTS game where one single unit dominates... which isn't very fun.

When your big ships are hammering the siege frigates, and those frigates are still bombing the planet...that's silly.

In combat, one of the worst things that could happen to you is being attacked on a flank, or the rear echelon.

The gun platform thing, doesn't work. Oh it hurts'em, won't stop'em. Really, some sort of defense platform/outpost is what we need. *wink*

My problem with the siege spam are the AI's that "trade" planets. Both AI will use Siege Frigate forces, hit each others planets, and keep going. In essence when one planet is killed for one side, the other guy loses one as well.

...then I launched a big offensive and won, but still!

Two more excellent posts from people who understand my frustration.

/clap

Now BOSKO I completely agree with. It shouldn't be one of the only tactics the AI uses.

Unfortunately, I still disagree with you Prof. All of your arguments insist the opponent already has these fleets of doom built. Why aren't you destroying the labs as soon as possible?

I can understand your complaint if you look at it purely from a "I want to be able to turtle and win this fight", I just disagree that ships shouldn't perform their function. If someone is willing to suicide their fleet into my planet to kill it, it should succeed. Even if it feels cheesy/frustrating. You could easily have attacked first. The only reason this doesn't work in your current situation is that you were playing multiple opponents, which throws the whole balance argument out the window.



Except when you don't CARE if you lose the ships, and your only goal is to destroy the target. This isn't exactly an uncommon tactic. But you guys seem to think it shouldn't be in the game?

Seems like the simple answer is to make siege frigates more fragile. Typically siege weapons of any kind are vulnerable.

I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more balance with planetary defense units either. Seems like a no brainer that a battlestation should be able to obliterate a number of ships pretty quickly if they simply park and start dropping bombs. Who would pilot a ship to bombard a planet and not even acknowledge the fact that a battlestation is railing them lol.

Personally I think it'd be cool if some / all of the defensive structures had some sort of point defense component that intercepted bombs (even partially). Would make ignoring defensive structures much more costly and would force a person to escort them properly.

As far as i know, there is only ONE stationary defense and i think there in lies the problem. Since there are upgrades to nukes in the tech. tree then there should be an anti nuke option for base defense. Mind you, it obviously can't be that powerfull, but since it will give you the extra time to mop up his flanks with your other frigates and Cap. it will help to stay off that first rush. Also, i think using the choke points on in the system and having that advanced warning is imperative!! This is my first time playing this sort of game but from what i've gathered so far (against the AI that is) are my above suggestions. Ultimately, stardock should buff up the cost so the AI doesnt go straight for that untill the add some sort of upgraded stationary defense. IMHO.

Or perhaps adding a differentiation between being fully idle (bombing) and simply being temporarily stationary. Idle ships could receive substantially higher damage? Just an idea - probably a big change to implement but its similar to idea of being caught 'flat footed' in d20 type games and would make it so that large bombing fleets that just ignore an opposing force (ship or defense structures) would get chewed up fast.

If there's a mod involved it's on your end, what kind of defenses are you running? I've had 3 capitals and 10 bombers (planet defenses and a portion of my fleet) fighting stationary siege frigates in orbit of one of my planets and it always takes at least 2 minutes to kill them all, timing it.

Any strategy that the AI spams is a strategy that makes the game less fun, whether or not it's 'valid' or balanced or whatever you want to say, it's not fun. It's not fun to fend off fleets of siege ships and then face...no resistance when you get to the AI territory. It's not fun to face an enemy that repeatedly kills your planets and leaves themselves wide open to attack by not building a good defensive fleet.

Really, I have no problem with suicidal attacks. But, at least make them varied, and not the same thing over and over and over and over again. A proper suicidal attack might be sending siege frigates along with a few other ships to distract the defenses while the siege frigates do their work. *That* is strategy. Though, again, it'd make a boring game if that was all the AI ever did too.

In WW2 Kamikaze attacks by the Japanese did sink a number of ships. But, such attacks weren't the only strategy they used. (And, really, it was a desperate last-ditch strategy anyway.)

Let me start out by saying that I've played Real Time Strategy games since Dune 2 till the present. That being said, I did not play in the beta for this game, and have only played it for the past two days. However, one thing stands out for me. In my opinion, that being the key phrase, no siege unit should be able to withstand direct barrage from the defenders. In modern warfare artillery is not on the front lines, becuase it is designed for range and a support role. Keyword support. I shouldn't have to go into any more detail than that. And secondly, who is anyone to tell someone else how they should play their game. Regardless of the effectiveness of attacking first, if someone wishes to turtle then beat the ever living heck out of someone they should be able to. To quote a dev on this one

"Sins is about strategy – combined arms, strategic decision making. It’s for people who want to dedicate some time into building up their industry, their economy, their technology, and so forth."

There is no true strategy to a one unit win. a zerg rush will always be a zerg rush. And a final quote from a dev to drive my point home...

"I don’t want to be told by some guy on a forum how some lame rush strategy could have “easily” been countered if I had simply followed a 10-step counter strategy that, naturally, required prescient knowledge of the impending rush. A counter strategy should never be more complicated than the original strategy."

I agree, if you don't care about the ships - then they're just that, cannon fodder.

The siege rush doesn't seem to affect me as much, since I tend to have my outer colonies combined defenses and ships. My more curious note is how they AI will use this against one another, accomplishing very little, except trading planets to each other.

...now, if the AI learns to follow up their Siege Rush, with true combined arms/colony frigate...ouch time.

I don't want to take sides, and I acknowledge I haven't played the game and can't really make a valid strategic comment, but I must admit that if I saw an opponent building a huge fleet, I certainly wouldn't
1) Wait for a *completed* siege fleet to attack me; their fleet is specifically designed, by its nature, to go for a suicide run on my planet and kill it off. So clearly I wouldn't want the opponent to realize this goal.
2) Try to attack the *completed* fleet (regardless of whether they've arrived yet), because of course they'd dodge and jump and so on. By the time the fleet is completed, it could be too late for a quick and easy solution.
3) The only solution seems to be to cripple their production as soon as I see them building their fleet. This is what Scynix is saying, I think.
Does this make sense?

One thing that no one has really touched on is bigger maps and multiple players. Especially if they are human, sending off your fleet to attack someones production can leave you terribly exposed to another player. You are really screwed if he chooses the same siege strat. By forcing you to fight them where they choose the siege frig player has an advantage.

On the bigger maps there is simply no way to stop someone from amassing siege frig armies. Losing the outer colonies is annoying, but it is exceedingly easy to just rush the capitol and win, which is the main concern here.

Playing reactively and not pro actively is a surefire way to lose. The only thing that is going to always force a reaction from any player, at almost any state in the game, is them seeing that many siege frigates.

The problem is that the nuke strategy doesn't actually involve constructing a "fleet" to "siege" the planet. All it involves is spamming one of the most basic frigates, the siege frigate. No other ship is necessary. There is also no way to prevent this, because all the siege frigate spam requires is a basic shipyard, which can be built anywhere at any time. In a matter of minutes (less if you have multiple basic shipyards) you can create a spam of siege frigates that can take out an entire empire worth of planets. There is no stopping this spam short of eliminating your opponent within the first five minutes of the game. That's the problem. There is no counter. There is no defense. There are no alternatives.

So, to counter, you either need enough scout ships to be watching every planet all the time, or some technology (which must be higher than siege frigate technology as I've never found it) to watch everywhere already. *And* you need a fleet big enough to attack the enemy shipyards and hit the fleet being built plus any defenses, without leaving you open for attack from other AI, and hope you can make it across enemy territory in time before the fleet launches, or it'll never stop before it hits you.

Doesn't really fit the quote mentioned above.

*shrug* I guess those are valid points, guys - and thanks.

And actually, I sort of agree now - Fobok's reference to that quote (wasn't it an interview with a staff member?) is indeed a good one, though I must state that this idea of taking out the enemy's factories was more of a common sense thing, instead of a pre-made formula. But having heard how hard it would be actually to accomplish this, I concede the point.

Thanks

I still have a serious problem arguing balance in any 2vs1 scenario. A frigate rush just isn't feasible against an intelligent player in a 1vs1. It's just as easy for me to ass offensive ships/attack as it is for you to mass siege frigates and attack. There's absolutely no difference, except I'm scouting, and you aren't.

just watch your sensor data! its not *that* difficult

as for the tech: sensor level 1 should do it, 2 if your nearest fleet is far away (but that wouldnt exactly be your fault, would it?)

in any case I've never had a problem with the AI ninjaing my planets, sure it gets an asteroid every now and again, but it certainly is not "any planet" as upgrades can get most planets to 6000 populace (even 20 frigs unimpeded couldnt take that down fast enough for my defenses not to shred them apart, let alone if I defend)
its just a matter of knowing the battlefield. this is certainly NOT a nerfworthy topic.

I have great respect for IC, and anyone who is interested can quickly find out that I am a HUGE Stardock fanboy (search my posts on the GalCiv2 forum). The only reason I am so stridently pursuing this issue is that frankly, this game was fun in beta, but since release, with the appearance of the AI siege spam, it's lost all fun for me. I simply sincerely want IC and SD to look in to this issue and fix it. There are a number of excellent suggestions in this thread (create real plantary shields, lower the HP of siege frigates, etc) and I am hoping that IC/SD listens.

With standard game speed and resource settings, it takes a bare minimum of three and a half minutes *just* to get the mere capability of building siege frigs if you go straight for them at the cost of all else. It then takes 45 seconds to build each one, and that's if you have the resources to do so (If you dropped everything, you won't).

In order to finance a seige rush, you'll at least need to get your flagship up and send it out hunting so you can get additional mines up on other planets. That will delay the initial availability of sieges a fair amount (not enough crystal to do both, and one mine gives you a pretty sad trickle).

Financing aside (and that's a big aside), it will take you seven and a half minutes to build ten seige frigs. For the cost of an extra frig factory (built while researching Krosovs) you can halve that... but that puts the total cost past 10000 credits and 1000 crystal, which is a very difficult price to ignore early-game.



For less money than that, a bit more metal, and a LOT less crystal (crystal being a big limiting factor early game), you could make TWENTY cobalts in less time, and have a strong fleet for creeping and colonizing to boot. By the time the siege player is ready, you'll have multiple colonies with resources rolling in, gained at least a couple of levels on your flagship, AND have a fleet strong enough to rip his to bits and be in shape to crush his homeworld shortly thereafter (regardless the status of your own capital).


It's all a matter of strategy. Siege rushes may be powerful against an unprepared player, but they're a huge gamble and are hardly unstoppable. Much like rushes in other games, a failed rush attempt pretty much guarantees your own loss against a competent enemy.

you should HAVE that knowledge, the sensor data is level 2! you shouldnt even be CLOSE to your enemy before you have sensor data up. let alone them having "20 siege frigs", by then you should either 1) have them on the defensive (if we're talking relatievly early on) or 2) you should have the second level sensor up (if we're talking anything mroe than 30 minutes into the game

beyond that its a matter of just paying attention, no godly might or divine scrying nescessary.

Prof I've seen you a grand total of 1nce during the beta, there are far more experienced people who have been keeping pace with the game and can handle the siege frigs with the ease of a lazy dog shooing a pesky flee. I hate to say it: but most of the people here are newcomers, you need to give the game more than a few minutes pause to begin to develop a coherent strategy.

for godsake, I felt like a complete noob switching over from beta 4 to release, and I'm one of the most experienced players on this forum, following the devs and a handful of other forumites who have not supported your point.

knowledge of betas 1, 2 and 3, even 4 is not enough to start calling this a cheap "OP" strategy within hours of the games release. seriously, look at your DATESTAMP. thats within 20 hours of the games release! even I dont have enough experience with the game to call anything "OP" yet, so lets not go breaking a perfectly fine game because we dont see the light yet.

*kowtows to the great explanation master*

Ok, just to clarify my point. In the game I'm playing now, a 3-way FFA on a small map, the AI spent most of the game attacking me with siege rushes, keeping me from expanding beyond 3 planets, and making the outer 2 planets change hands so often I was constantly running out of credits. One AI would siege rush me, then the other, and I was stuck between them. This was frustrating, and to me, boring. It wasn't losing ground that bothered me. It was facing the same ship over and over and over and over again.

I finally decided to build a nice fleet by selling off the majority of my stockpiled metal and crystal to get the credits I needed, and built up a nice well-rounded fleet, I was preparing to strike one of the AI with it, to hopefully end it. I fully admit I probably waited too long.

Now, as of a few minutes ago, they ganged up on me, each sending a massive attack fleet to one of my two outer colonies. I managed to fight one fleet off with the defensive fleet I'd stationed at that planet, but the other decimated my other fleet which had 3 of my capital ships, 2 brand new, and most of my prepared attack fleet.

I lost that last battle, and it's probably going to cost me the game, but it was fun. I absolutely loved it. Being attacked by the siege frigates for most of the game wasn't fun at all, though. It was effective, but it wasn't fun.

Interesting posts...

...btw...Scynix did we game together somewhere?