Advent Strategy

Still up in the air. Yesterday I almost wiped a guy out by rushing after getting my first roid. He was going for assailants so I amassed huge amount of scouts and some disciples and over ran his homeworld destroying frigate factory, but his teammate showed up with skirmishers. And being mostly scout fleet I had to run.

I will keep trying. But it seems you do not need to go for defense vessel right away. We'll see thou.

Advent Cap ships make a good balance against the late LRMs: Illuminators. I've seen some experimentation with getting a second capship early, rather than rushing to defense vessels / Illuminators. Other than the high cost of the capship research this makes a good bit of sense for an economic player as you'll need the logistics spots for Civil Labs then Trade Ports/Refineries, and Broadcast centers. Since Advent capships are arguably their strongest suit, militarily, this fits with a longterm plan of cap-heavy fleets.

I usually build 1 lab at each early asteroid, then upgrade their logistics to fit a broadcast center and tradeport, or tradeport and frigate factory if on the front lines. With 2 asteroids and the starting planet, you can make it to trade ports, barely, but you'll want a 4th and 5th planet(oid) for military labs ASAP, or you'll face filling out your early logistics spots before you can place trade/broadcast.

This means scouting and taking 3 systems ASAP, which is a good policy anyways. The reason I mention it is that if this doesn't look like it's possible, it may be better to defer economics for military initially.

Just my 2 credits..

Last night against AI I fought my Evacuator (L6 or 7) and assailants versus his Radainc e(L2) and disciples. I had tier 5 phase missiles, he had steal AM. He completely ripped my cap ship apart. I assume it was the Radiance doing all the damage; my guy went down ridiculously fast. Right after the Evacuator died my planet killer cap warped in, and as it was only L1 it lasted a hot second.
I was just letting my assailants shoot his disciples though, which I won't be doing next time. FF on Radiance all the way.

The moral being: Radiance is good.

I've found that 1-2 Motherships(sheild recharge + malice) along with guardians makes for a really hardy force. I use illuminators for primary damage. Not for the beginning, but for early mid-game, it works, especially against AI.

I've also really liked the Halcyon carrier's ability to passively increase energy weapon damage of ships near it. That adds up quickly.

What's my Advent strategy? "Go big or go home". By the time I've expanded my empire so that I have 3 locations I normally have a second capital ship pulling out of the factory if not even earlier than this. If resources are on high I'll even have a third capital ship beginning construction now or shortly after that second one leaves. I normally do this by starting with a Progenitor Mothership for that colonizing ability and let it go alone for a while and get beat up. If enemies are nearby, then I'm building Radiance Battleships. If enemies are further away I normally build Halcyon Carriers. My fourth capital ship is normally a Revelation or Rapture. If I have extra resources I will stock up on Disciples but my main goal is to get Guardians, Crusaders, and Subjugators. This is an extremely risky strategy since it does leave you open to an organized attack early on. However, Advent capital ships are the strongest in the game so you'll have to play chess with them and Disciples to keep them in locations capable of expanding your empire but not leaving you open for attack. Letting those capital ships do the planet conquering normally helps them level up quite a bit so that they're a real match for your enemy's fleet. Remember to drive those Advent capital ships right up into your opponent's face to get all batteries firing.

It is also possible to mass units in Advent, but it seems to work better for me when I go after the capital ships as my main building goal. This is different from when I play TEC and completely the opposite of if I play Vasari. In TEC I have fleets made of a huge variety of ships and as Vasari I tend to avoid their capital ships.

Hmmmm...sounds like this strategy has potential. Alot of people slam Advent for being underpowered, but with the right BO, this might work. Do you have replays of this in online play?

With support from Guardians and a Mothership, the Radiance is a pure killing machine.

Nah early game the capital ships will have to retreat vs LRM blob. Don't kid yourself man.

I'm planning a game tonight with friends online. I'll turn on the replay recording since you asked. I personally think Advent is the strongest race, but that's probably because I like large survivable units. In RTS games I normally get a couple of the big units, pair them up, and strategically position them. Advent lets me do just that. The same thing can be done with TEC too; TEC seems to be the most flexible race.

- duplicate post -

I actually use a modified form of a tech rush, which puts me right at the Crusaders doorstep. Problem being if it's a 1v1, I can get uber rushed easy, which is why I don't play them

Having Crusaders when they're hitting up LRMs is win.

There are lots of ways to get around that. My favorite is to jump in a Radiance, order it to fly right up into the LRM blob to literally smack noses with another ship, and then jump in a Progenitor to do shield repairs while basically having it run right into the back of that Radiance. This allows both ships to have all gun ports firing at something. At that close range the Radiance shouldn't last long...but if you look closely you'll notice that the missiles being fired by the LRM's overshoot their target and go spinning around to hit the Radiance and sometimes miss. If another capital ship is available it will jump in and go right into the middle of the LRM blob while an earlier, probably heavily damaged, Radiance retreats. The trick is to watch and see how much damage those LRM's are doing and then taking appropriate action to issue a retreat order to a heavily damaged ship before you lose it. Because the enemy will pursue a heavily damaged capital ship it is important to have a pair of repair stations standing by on that retreat planet and a well-prepared defensive force.

Alternatively, if I'm running Halycons instead, I just jump one or two of those in and give it circular move commands so it's running at top speed around the outer rim of the planet's gravity well. This makes it harder to hit. As soon as it completes one full circle I normally time a Progenitor jump in to match up with the Halycon to do shield repairs while it jumps out or another capital ship arrives for support if a single Halycon was used.

In the worst case scenario, those Disciples or Scouts will need to be called in for extra support. Normally several of those stay behind to play defense if someone has to retreat. I'll park them right where my retreating ship shows up so if a pursing LRM blob comes they're immediately fired upon. By this time the blob has taken such severe damage it either has to fall back or we're both sending reinforcements. This is where things get unpredictable and capital ships may have to retreat even deeper into allied territory. If that happens, it's important to go get and build phase jump inhibitors as quickly as possible to make sure that LRM blob never makes it back home or is unable to pursue.

EDIT: BTW, depending on the level of the Progenitor, the more research put behind it's damage propagation ability (I forget its name) the better since attacking a couple of ships will hurt the entire LRM blob.

wow thank you all

With advent it's best to fleet cap disciples and attack before they get many lrms out, overwhelmigng them, killing frig factory and construction ships.

If you wait too long after capping your first roid then it becomes too late very quickly to be offensive with Advent.

You pretty much have to do this now with tec's boosted eco in order to buy time to tech up to guardians+illums, otherwise you die before getting em.



How do you have 2 caps + a fleet 10-15 minutes into the game?..

I concentrate first on building the 2 cap ships, conquering the nearby asteroid and planet, and increasing their infrastructure only to stop credit loss. The first cap ship is a Progenitor so it can colonize. I won't even have a scout or disciple until I increase the fleet cap after the second capital ship is built (2 cap ships fit into the initial fleet cap). Sometimes I even temporarily scuttle the frigate factory for more resources. When my fleet cap increases I'll either be working on that third cap ship or building a defensive group of 4+ disciples and a pair of scouts to explore. The trick is to micromanage your resources so you have exactly enough to buy the things you want and nothing else. Immediately after buying what you want you'll need to build harmony research stations and increase resource income research.

I should probably mention that I like to play the game on normal or fast. This is a high risk approach to playing because if you get rushed early on you have to play things exactly the right way or you're screwed. If your opponent doesn't get you in those first 15 minutes, then he/she has absolutely no chance if you keep up the pace. Progenitor, Revelation, and Rapture cap ships are all highly anti-blob/fleet ships when their abilities are triggered at the right time.

Getting in an attack before the LRMs can really blob up is pretty important, from my experience. Using Disciples, your first capital ship (I prefer a Radiance) and Guardians as soon as possible, you can get the upper hand.

On your way to getting the Guardian you have to do Shield Research, which in total gives 15% more shielding, and, more importantly that early in the game, 15% faster shield regeneration. This benefits all of your ships, and if you can end up fighting the LRMs in small groups, one, two, three at a time, your shielding and it's regeneration rate can be a real lifesaver for your units when the fighting is such low intensity. Focus firing and taking the LRMs out each one at a time can be very effective, and if they stop coming in order to group up, you can just move on forward.

Something I've managed to do, if I don't have many losses that require replacing, is trying to go for those Heavy Cruisers relatively early. To get the five Temple of Hostilities needed you need another planet beyond just your homeworld and first asteroid (if you're lucky it was an Asteroid or a Terran/Desert and require no Temple of Harmonies to colonize). If you can bring them out while your opponent is still LRM spamming in relatively small numbers things, things can get really messy for the other player.

From the current build, it looks like Advent has to win early or not at all. Get in before the LRMs can mass, stop the TEC before his or her economy gets going, stop the Vasari before his or her Dark Armada starts showing. If you don't, you can probably drag it out, but things will probably go against you in the end.

The Jarrasul Evacuator doesn't have any Phase Missile launchers. Phase Missile upgrades are worth zilch for this ship.



What? You mean TEC missiles don't just snap into the correct course and hit the enemy ship anyway(like Vasari Phase Missiles), and actually miss the target?

I ran my strategy on 1.03 last night for the first time against human opponents and it stalled badly after the second capital ship. Yes, I was the capital ship leader the entire time (I always had one more than my opponents), but I had a ton of problems allocating resources due to all the black market changes and because I was fighting a war on two fronts plus dealing with pirates. Resources either sold for less or were bought at a higher rate the entire time, which seriously screwed things up initially. However, my capital ships were at higher levels than the enemy and it was a breeze to just steamroll over the first guy (playing Advent). The second guy (playing Vasari) was a bit more annoying, but a guardian or two would stop him from attacking one of my planets just long enough for my main fleet to start causing so much damage to his colonies he had to come back and fight my fleet instead. By the end of the game he had 3 capital ships and I had 6 (#7 under construction) plus a modest fleet. Guardians and Halcyons packed in a fleet with tight formation frustrated my opponent so bad he quit instead of surrendering and then the game crapped out during the migrating thing instead of giving me a win. Unfortunately, I don't have a replay because all my settings got wiped out by 1.03.

so i'm no expert on Advent, i hardly ever play them, however i have a suggestion.

it seems like everyone is complaining about how hard it is to beat the early game LRM frigate fleets that will be used by both TEC and Vasari players. advent get early access to carrier cruisers (2 military labs), right? fighter strike squadrons are amazingly good at tearing LRMs to pieces. you'll have to contend with enemy Flak frigates before the fighters can do their damage, but a relatively small number of Disciples should be able to get the job done before getting take apart by the LRMs.

is there some reason why Aeria Drones + Disciples doesn't beat LRMs + Flaks?

Aeria Drones and Disciples can work, I have seen that. But the trouble is that LRMs do great against Disciples, so if the LRMs stay and fight your Disciples targeting the Flak instead of chasing the Drone Hosts around you can be down to just your Hosts soon.

I've been trying to play with the strategy myself by also trying to get Guardians to the field early to assist the Drone Hosts. Guardians are only T3, although they require you to Research 3 different levels of Shield tech, those shields help everyone. And if you manage to get 5 Temples of Hostilities and get the Guardian Repel ability, you can really be in business.

The trouble is, at present, TEC LRMs out range the Guardian's Repel ability, or if your Guardians get hit by some Vasari Subverters you can be in for trouble. Although Carriers can make short work of Subverters, and Disciples can steal the Subverters Antimatter if you get the upgrade for them.

Advent have a lot of potential interesting strategies in their playbook (probably a good number of ones out there that people have yet to stumble across or appreciate). But they're more complex really and require more micromanagement than just pumping out vast numbers of LRMs.

Well i play advent a ton, almost exclusively. There are alot of good opening strats but it all depends on your intel as what to build. Lrms die really fast to progenitor mothership and swarms of defense vessels. Getting a second mothership gives you a second colonizing ship and gives you a second shield regen. The advents true power comes in keeping your formations nice and tight. Two mother ships firing off shield regen swarmed by 20-30 defense vessels wipes out lrms en masse with little cost to u in ships lost, get a radiance and get it the taunt ability and it gets even nastier. Advent rtuly start to shine mid game with a properly balanced fleet, again keep them together and use the repel ability of the guardians.

Ummm, what does that phrase mean in English? Whatever it is, it sounds painful. heh.

You are lucky, if you played a better opponent, instead of stalling you would die outright.

wait...

Advent Scouts > Assailants ???

cost for cost , obviously.

There was no such thing as a better opponent on that map. The stall was related to affording a fourth capital ship. At no time did I have any problems with defense or offense. I'm pretty sure the map was Centrifuge. With the new resource and black market limitations the self-identified "hardcore" Vasari player was whining the entire time about how hard it was for him to get resources. He was spamming assailants (had 50 to 70 of them) and promptly quit because he got outplayed. People die when they don't adapt to what's going on at the moment. A "better" player would likely have quit even earlier back when my opponents were complaining that I had too many capital ships.