Guerilla warfare in Sins

from Sins Forums
In most of the games i've played so far (in Sins), my wins have come from outproducing the AI and pounding them down. It hasn't gotten boring for me yet, cause my skill level hasn't yet reached playing against hard AI opponents.

There have been several games that i won however, not from outproducing and pounding my opponents, but by utilising guerilla-style warfare.  In these games, the opponent had out-produced me and had a bigger fleet. Hmmm, what to do....

I found out that by sending a few small fleets to attack two or three lesser targets, like Trade facilities or broadcast stations on asteroids, i was able to divide up his larger fleet while my main fleet swept into my main target planet for attack while also giving me time to spread my culture and buff defenses on key planets.

Of course, this method envolves a lot of suicide missions and/or running away when their bigger fleet shows up. But, by keeping a few small fleets busy quickly attacking and running, i was eventually able to wear the AI down untill my fleet size matched and then exceded the AI's. I found these wins to much more gratifying than my bulldozer wins.

Has anyone else played around with guerilla warfare tactics in the game? Or stumbled upon other strategies than just outproducing one's opponent?


26,206 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
In Multiplayer it's rather dominating..

Thank god they buffed PJI's!
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
What? People using strategy? NERF I SAY
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I had a guerrilla war period. After a while though I stopped getting into situations where my economy was outmatched. It is a more satisfying game and I think I'll try experimenting with the maps to see if I can engineer more of those games. It's not that easy because the constant drip-feed of credits and resources into the game tends to scale all the fleets up to the point where the end-game is a series of crushing victories for the player who is on a roll.. and if that's you there's not much need for hit-and-run any more.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
It's not that easy because the constant drip-feed of credits and resources
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You've got it there though. I don't see people take much notice of trade ships, they often have to pass through non-colonisable space, stars etc. There is no way for someone to defend them other than to divert enough ships there to kill a raiding party, otherwise you just slowly peck their trade income to death. Carriers are awesome at this because you can keep them at one edge of the well and move out the moment someone shows up to do something about it.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Hello,

I made a map for 1.03 that I was thinking of releasing. It can produce somewhat similar situations though. It's a very simple map called Forgotten Outposts, but the players start with an asteroid as their home planet and there isnt really anything else that can be colonized.

That means that your fleet can never exceed two cap ships and some frigates and neither can your enemys, more over, the amount of credits that you earn from a single asteroid colony is EXTREMLY low, so it will take you and your enemys some time just to get a fleet that size & forces you to treat your ships as precious assets.

It can make for a very long but enjoyable scenario. I would suggest you use the galaxy forge to make a similar "Asteroid Belt Outpost" map for yourself. If you dont want to take the time, let me know and I will upload my map for you to try, its pretty straight forward though.


Admiral Cobbs
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Hi,

I understand guerrilla tactics as raiding and hit and run strats, and I have had much success using such a strat. I've found the primary benefit of such a strat is not the destruction it causes, but rather making ur opponent divert forces and focus elsewhere.

Similarly surgical strikes with a few missile frigs also work great, for example, when huge engagements occur with both players bolstering their forces continuously i.e. line of frigs from frig yards to the battle front. In such a scenario a small flotilla of missile frigs do wonders taking out frig yards to disrupt the flow of reinforcements.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
this is definitely produces the best kind of game.

my favorite game to date was 3v3 with me in the unlucky sandwich(tm) position (i forget the map name), i got wiped out mid game by a tsunami fleet but managed to escape i with a progenerator(?) colony cap a few disciples and 10 drone carriers. i spent the next hour attacking planets while an epic battle raged between the two sides. i was mostly ignored by the enemy and only lost the disciples before my side eventually succumbed.

i've since tried this in my own games and it works well at distracting the enemy, buying time and slowly whittling them away. the only problem is if they just decide to go for your planets it'll take a while to regroup and get back, so i'm yet to win while doing this. though it does increase my lifespan in dire times =)
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Guerrilla Warfare is very possible. There are two tactics that are especially guerrilla-style:

1. Research the Tier 3 TEC Military tech 'Timed Explosives'. This gives your Arcova Scouts the ability to place time bombs on enemy structures for a whopping 1200 damage apiece. So make a pack of 10 scouts for only 2000 credits, send them deep into enemy territory, and inconspicuously place 5 bombs on 2 labs before beating the hell outta there as the labs blow up and catch your opponents attention(they'll lose access to some of their technology). Then you can either scuttle the scouts and build new ones, retreat them, or send them to an uncolonizable sector to harass passing trade/refinery ships for 15 minutes until they get new bombs.

All labs, all factories, refineries, trade ports, and all non-turret tactical structures make for expensive targets just waiting to be bombed. Defense Platforms(turrets) and orbital Extractors are too cheap and easy to replace to be worth the effort.

2. Send 2-3 cruiser carriers to an uncolonizable sector with enemy-owned Trade Ships passing through it. 3 Fighter Squadrons will be able to pop the flimsy passing Trade Ships in one pass every time, giving you a tiny bit of cash and denying it to your opponent. The more trade traffic, the better. Also, if neutral extractors are present, the carriers can switch over to Bombers and destroy them, so that you can drop in a colonizer or a Jikara Navigator(for Vasari) and take over the rock, denying resources to the enemy as well while taking them for yourself.

Although capital ships would be able to gain minute amounts of experience from these kills and would be more effective(the Antorak and Sova esp.), they would also be too precious to keep tied up for long stretches of time in dirty work like this.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
I've heard of people sending in a large amount of carrier cruisers loaded with bombers to warp in, sending out bombers to destroy infrastructure, and then warp out when finished/a fleet arrives. Rinse and repeat. It works especially well since Carrier cruisers can stay on the edge of a gravity well, and if they have PJIs, you can kill them with bombers first.


You could also be sneaky and send them in first, waiting for a fleet to arrive, warp your cruisers out last minute, while your real fleet is in transist to wipe them out. =)
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
I don't see people take much notice of trade ships, they often have to pass through non-colonisable space, stars etc. There is no way for someone to defend them other than to divert enough ships there to kill a raiding party, otherwise you just slowly peck their trade income to death. Carriers are awesome at this because you can keep them at one edge of the well and move out the moment someone shows up to do something about it.
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Yes, hitting the supply lines is an absolute classic strategy. You do have to watch out for Advent players with the special ability that puts a bounty on players when they destroy Advent trade ships. I don't just mean watch out when you are destroying them yourself - since the money comes out of nowhere it can become a useful income stream for players at war with whoever is blockading Advent trade trade routes.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
You do have to watch out for Advent players with the special ability that puts a bounty on players when they destroy Advent trade ships. I don't just mean watch out when you are destroying them yourself - since the money comes out of nowhere it can become a useful income stream for players at war with whoever is blockading Advent trade trade routes.
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Yeah, the other thing that puts Advent a little push against raiding is their in-culture vision tech thing which means they can see you in places even where they don't have ships or neutral extractors. I have to say I wonder a little about this '1.03 is all about credits' thing, in the late high-upkeep/fleetcap game a lot of people have an empire which is very far out on a branch, which is really only supported by % bonuses to extraction and trade income rather than having a big base value. If you take even a few refinery/trade ships or structures off 'em it adds up.