My current game, which I'm fearful to load back up, currently has three of my planets under siege by different forces. I was doing well with one fleet guard and one fleet attack, but I can't have three guard and three attack (at least not with my current skills with this game). I personally can't figure out a way to stop the siegers from getting to whatever planet they want to, but it is only day two.

The siege strategy works really well against the computer, just build 12 of them and send them on their way to rape and pillage. This basically turns all other ships, including the caps, into defenders, which is kind of boring.

I'm wondering if anyone else thinks the fighters and bombers are a bit underpowered? The computer never builds any flak, nor do I really. At this point they just seem kind of a nuisance, not something to waste logistic points in countering.

Just a point, but this is a pet peeve of mine (and probably irrelevant); I'm sure psugar would agree:

A crescendo is not a climax; one doesn't build towards it in the way you mean. The crescendo is itself that build-up. The crescendo is the movement towards the climax.

Terribly sorry to bother with such irrelevancies... but I can't read them without prejudices...

To be entirely honest, I don't think that, regardless of whether or not the siege fleet can be stopped, the strategy is really viable. In mediaeval times, would you have tried to swamp you're opponents with trebuchets? In the American Civil War, would you have tried to swamp the other side with only cannons? Today, would you attack the enemy's home base with a whole lot of artillery, or even howitzers, and nothing else?
If you answered yes, then you belong in run-of-the-mill RTS's.
If you answered no, think about why. I can think of a couple:
1) Your units would be useless against things like cavalry/light tanks etc.
2) Regarding the expense of siege units (a trebuchet is extremely difficult to make, apparently; artillery and cannon are expensive), you wouldn't do a charge with them, even to take out the enemy home base.
3) You can't really take anything on except structures (here, planets) and tight troop concentrations, though if one is going for the home base then this doesn't really go to the detriment of the force.

The AI ignores all three of these points (though from the sound of it it doesn't really care about the third). Is it then behaving rationally? No. Why not? Probably because the statistics of these weapons are not in the character of siege units, and don't stop the AI from using them rationally.

In my opinion, that's good enough reason for a nerf BUT i think Schod's right in that we should wait at least a week to see whether these three reasons are actually enough to come up with a solution to the problem that doesn't require an arcane formula. THEN we should complain.

Sorry about the length

When the a.i. is clever enough to exploit a supposed problem, something is wrong.



It really is disappointing that such a unit is so effective. Defeats the purpose of combined arms and enables old style rushing, which is something I thought this game was trying to escape. But I'll wait to see what others say, though I reckon their opinions will not change.

Why are you guys comparing the Krosov and its analogs to artillery? Its a heavily armored (from the description) unit -- its designed to compliment the primary assault by taking out the planet while you suppress defenses.

And while it might -- might -- be overpowered, try to remember that fixing its being OP shouldn't involve changing its role (for all you who want it to be paper-thin and easily killed). As things stand, you can force the enemy to choose between killing your combat units, or killing your sieges, and that is a lovely choice to make them make

What about having to set up the orbital bombardment platforms? I mean, if the siegers could only set up a platform like the Vasari capital ship does, and these platforms were weak, it would require them to either protect them or to clear the area before bombing. It would basically just turn them into siege engineers of sorts.

Apologies for inconsistency between my argument and the game's siege frigates - I haven't played it and am going by the assumption that the siege frigate is analogous to present-day arty. (Obviously...)
In my opinion though, if it's so heavily armoured that the AI can use it in a rush, then it's missing the point that

I'd be much happier if it were lightly armoured and complimented the primary assault than heavily armoured and could spam successfully.

Even apart from that, shouldn't it be a bit more expensive if the armour isn't going to change? Because there is clearly a problem with the AI understanding the philosophy of what a siege unit is if it just spams them. I don't think it's a valid strategy.

What we need is a Shofixti-style ship from Star Control II. Huge fleet of siege frigates?

Single small frigate with a glory device goes in the middle of them! Kablooie!


Good idea yes? har har

It is expensive -- thats the point people have been trying to make. Truth be told, I have no clue how the AI is pulling it off.

Ok, but...
Something is wrong. Something, somehow, somewhy *shudder*
Lovecraft, anyone?

I have an idea...why don't the people who disagree played against the people who agreed on the issue that the siege frigate are overpowered. I mean one side team up against the other using the same AI tactic and see if the other side can counter. No AI players or anything, and this once and for all can settle the issue. Oh why you guys are at it, make sure to record the entire game play. I am sure actual tried and true playing beats see saw arguing back and forth against each other.

Hehe, that'd be my prefered domination strategy. lvl 6 tech - hurl a large monster so bizarre people go mad just by looking at it and seeing its bizarreness.

This would of course be a long haul winning strategy... perhaps thousands of years, but it'd still be worth it to see him awake and devour a world for me.

I think that a much better solution (and I think it was mentioned a while earlier, but this thread is growing unwieldy) would be to allow Flak frigates and Fighters to intercept and shoot down the slow moving nukes. This would give fighters a more useful role and give the flak frigates a use outside of killing bombers then sitting around trying not to get killed. It's both somewhat realistic and gives a good limit to the siege frigs power, while not nerfing them. It would also force you to actually move in and suppress/destroy the defenses rather than just ignore them.

I don't really know if it's possible from a programming point of view, though.

Maybe if you weren't a douche and had a point besides "I've played longer than you, so I'm right. Oh and you're all clueless idiots." Even when other beta testers respond, you tell them that you don't recognize them, so clearly they're inexperienced morons too.

As has been mentioned, if the AI is doing it, it doesn't matter how long you've played. Even if you design a strategy to kill the siege rush - that's all the game ends up as being. You playing Rock-Paper-Scissors with the AI. Welcome to traditional boring RTS. The Siege spam is not only a railroaded 'strategy' that encourages and forces other railroaded strategies, but it's one that will always be present without changes to the AI.

I don't think you quite understand what Schod's point is; he says that we should wait a bit longer before calling a nerf. By "everyone needing a bit of experience", he meant that we should play the game a bit longer, himself included, seeing that it's only been out a couple of days. Beta experience doesn't come into it because (apparently) there was no siege frigate strategy that the AI used.
That's his point. Everyone, stay calm; the game hasn't been out yet, we need more experience. Am I right, Schod?

So read a bit more carefully before you go calling someone names. Half the trouble on this forum comes because people don't read properly.

Enjoy the game if and when you get it (if you haven't got it already )!

Anybody want to just completely mod them out? That would be one hell of a long game...

Hell yes. Who's up for it? Imagine the title and description: "The Treaty of Algeron: Never will there be another siege weapon, under fear of instant [insert doomsday weapon here]-ization by all other space-nations. In addition, the Federation should not invent a cloaking device. Thank you."
Or something simpler?

You could still bomb with caps, so planet destruction is still available. I kind of miss galciv's multiple ways of conquering.

As an RTS, I'm not entirely sure that that would be viable - but yes, I agree about the multiple victory idea.

I think that the best solution would be to just take planets out of the game. Then the siege frigates wouldn't be overpowered at all, and there would be no reason to spam them. You don't really need planets anyways. They should be replaced with giant scoops of ice cream. If anyone tried to nuke them, then the nukes would go right through! And our population could be made of chocolate chips, and our currency would be mint chips. We could build ships and structures out of cones and ice instead of metal and crystal. Its perfect! Hooray!

precisely.

dont you just love how I said it repeatedly, over and over and over and yet nobody listens?

I'm just checking, Schod.

But you know my view on the matter, so I disagree with you

*Write everything down for a future silly mod*
This is made of pure genius I say, pure genius!!!

*Drools* Well, then you could replace the siege frigates with Little Kids. A spam of Little Kids is so, so much worse than a spam of siege frigates. It would be armageddon.

Hmm a lovecraftian mod anyone? I would be up for helping out with that.

Hmm, and have Cthulhu come out of interstellar space every now and then and gobble up a civilization