So me and a few friends decided to pick up sins as a new rts to play and have only been at it for 2 weeks or so and all the games we have played have been version 1.0. I have played TEC since we got it and have always been successful winning a few ffa's and a couple 2v2's. Then came the 1.4 patch...
...and a complete beatdown of me and my Vasari ally by an Advent/Vasari team. I will outline the general strategy my team had as well as the general progression of the game to see if someone can improve my play beyond being massacred by Illums.
So to begin, me and my partner formulated a RA rush backed by TEC economy. Note that this game was played as a 2v2 on the Single Large Random Map (1 star 41 planets). We start fairly close to each other toward the bottom right of the map and I begin what I believe now to be a stupid decision of rushing lrms with a Kol for wiping neutral fleets and mobile defense to cover us both while he expands and rushes empire tech to RA. This proceeded to slow me down to 2 Civils and Trade Ports and thus didn't provide the solid economic backing we needed as quickly as I wanted it to. Despite this, I was still happy with my Kol + 11 lrm fleet that was prancing its way through planetary defense forces while I colonized behind. At this point I was sitting at 4 planets total (home, 1 asteroid, 1 volcanic, 1 ice) while my partner had colonized rapidly and secured 6 including a desert with only 1 planet sitting between our borders. We had even boosted him to being just 2 empire labs away from RA research. Things were looking up.
It was then that a combined force of a Vasari Vulkoras + 17 assailants and Advent Halycon + 7 disciples + 12 illums + 7 drone hosts + 2 guardians hit my ally's outskirt volcanic and quickly proceeded to jump to the next controlled asteroid. At this time I am still sitting with my original force of Kol and 11 lrm and quickly try to scramble over and intercept at the asteroid. If intercepting involves charging in with guns blazing and quickly getting slapped around by beams and missiles while I barely scratch the carrier then my interception was a complete success. Suffice to say, we lost that battle as well as losing almost our entire fleet and were completely on the defensive after that. The only good news at this time is that RA has been researched and the phase gates are going up.
At this point i start claiming planets left and right toward the other side of the system hoping to out eco the other team and keep the pressure on with raids of lrms until I get kodiaks. I was thinking this was a good idea until I had to put all my resources toward defending my ally while gates went up and hoping they would save our lives. Unfortunately, they were not the superweapon we were hoping for. The first time only 6 ships came from RA we knew we were in a little trouble because the enemy force just kept growing as they added ships to it and our small attacks by little forces on their blob didnt even scratch anything. Slowly the massive force destroyed planet by planet with us eventually setting up a final defense on my ally's two remaining planets.
I believe it was around that time of agonizing defeat of defensive forces that I lost my tactical mind and just did stupid things. Rather than put the pressure back on the undefended worlds of our opponents, I mindlessly threw kodiaks and capitals at the blob of enemy ships hoping to somehow get my partner back in the game with a huge RA counterattack. Unfortunately, as I said before, this was our first time to play 1.04 and my first time to experience the carnage of an Advent fleet (especially the improved illuminators). It seemed like I could do nothing to stop it no matter how many shenanigans I pulled.
Long story short, by the time I decided to try and turtle while novalithing from my back planets, it was too late. The force had already consumed my ally and was bearing down on me and I couldn't pull together any kind of a fleet to hold it off.
The point of this incredibly long story is to seek help in bettering my TEC play. I felt like I really didnt pull my weight this last game which really frustrates me because in the past it seemed like I was leading the charge to victory. Please keep in mind that the kind of games we usually play is very similar to this, usually being 2v2 on pretty large maps with either 1 or 2 stars and normal resources, tech, etc.
Thanks for any help you guys can give me and insults will be very acceptable because yes I did make a huge amount of mistakes and deserve to be ridiculed for my horrible performance during that game.
