I'm starting to develop a liking to the crusaders, and now they're like my 2nd thing to add to fleets right after carriers. They're a quick and dirty solution to the problems: you can get them off the shelf, they are durable, they work without much tech and micro, and they allow me to deal decent DPS. This starts playing like Eve - I can imagine my progi flagship calling "primary target Hoshiko #1!" and the hv cruiser captains all going F1 F2 F3 F4 The enemy fleet goes down before mine does.

I seem to learn something new every game, but it is only so little and the challenge is great. It is very important to focus in the research - get your labs up quick so you can get the crusader early for example, or get the inhibs ASAP (only 3 harmony temples, I always build those for trade ports anyway).  How many games do new players usually need to beat the hard aggr cpu? And did anybody write an advent strategy guide yet?

What would a good defensive fleet look like?

The holy trinity of caps (150 supply)

4 disiples (16 supply)

4 guardians (28 supply)

4 crusaders (40 supply)

6 dominas (24 supply)

8 carries (160 supply)

total -- 419 supply

this along with repair bays / hangers / am recharger will deal with anything the AI will throw at you until you get reinforcements in( 90% of the time it will win on it's own)

btw

animosity/vengence means you are dealing the enemy fleets dps back on them, thats the fun part of advent(it's pretty fun to see an giant fleet killing itself on a tiny fleet knowing they can do jack about it bwahahaha)

define new players... never played an rts game? played 12343124345254657567hours of other rts games? 3 years old or 30 years old?

but say... 3'rd time you try is prolly the norm for most *not pro* players

it all depends on your approch to the game, you seem to *play the game*( this is by far the most fun keep it up) where i play to beat the game( this is not really fun) i figure out the AI the first game i play and never loose to it again... the diff is, i become *good* faster, but you have more fun abd you end up just as good anyway.

Sorry for going offtopic but i myself used to play eve (until a graphics update went beyond my graphics card i got a new computer like a year after so it was too late to rejoin) Great game huh? I got dominix within 3 months (mistake)

Anyway i myself feel this game to be more of a offensive game. Defense is key but have you ever tried if the ai is attacking on 2 fronts trying to attack with a big fleet on a 3rd front. Leave defense to small fleets and tactical buildings. I'm not sure if it will happen but maybe he will withdraw when he realizes that hes losing planets faster than he's gaining at the center of his empire. If his fleets are occupied attacking you, you possibly could get him to withdraw just to defend. With that in mind if you had phase inhibitors and a capital on each defending planet i bet you could get a few frigates before he withdraws and then take planets you lost while building a fleet for the counterattack. If you don't try this i don't care and if you do please inform us. I'm sorry if it costs you a game by trying it because i do know how long Sins games take.

Um I meant as in a defense fleet... the small one that I need 3 of?

BTW do you use dominas for the repair ability only (needs 6 labs to get that)?

Statistical average for Sins, new to Sins that is, whole population But yeah, depends on how one collects the sample, I suppose. So previous RTS experience helps in your mind?
 

Ah right, never found much joy in metagaming Fooling the AI might be easy, depending on the game. The thing is it never adapts to human tactical sillyness, so you can find a way to run circles around it. But then again, that makes the SP last a much shorter time, and if you learned to fool the AI is that any help in MP?

My plan was to concentrate on Advent, due to the game complexity, and learn at least one set properly, just to get a general touch on the game. How to handle the strategy, the tactics - fleet management, sequence of research, building the empire, etc etc. But dunno how well one learns just grinding and fine-tuning a very small set of conditions... Perhaps I should try the other side of the fence and go TEC vs Advent

yes the small one, thats 1257 supply out of 2000  leaving a large offeciv one ( remember you can go waaaaaay above 2000 supply as advent--> domination is funny. My record is 4500supply /flex)

and the reason i use dominas is twofold

1. their repair/heal has a secondary function. i keep it channeling on my caps to prevent disabiling rather than heal them

2. they disable enemy support cruisers

thou' they don't really do any dps they make it much faster and safer to kill enemy fleets

yes and no, there is allways tec's that can be carried over to multiplay, and even if they can't there is most likely elements that can( the AI does not launch it's stikecraft when traveling through sun's grav well-- in multiplay it's still a good plan to have a carrier heavy fleet at the sun)

knowlege is power

Uh you're describing something like my main fleet on a good day. I gotta do something wrong on the empire side? I never have enough units to put up big defense fleets, while the (TEC) CPU seems to be swarming fleets all over the place.

your not supposed to havethem all up and running in 5min, after the initial spread and all things are colonized just slowly build up

don't spread until the 2'nd fleet comes online, then take a new sector... build the next fleet take a new sector

this is the slow and steady but inevitable way of the unity, theese fleets will take ZERO looses vs an AI, if you downsize them to much there is a good chance you will start loosing to many ships to keep up.

remember the advent is the turtle, in the endit wins the race

What the Tec are known for is thier ability to swarm fleets. I've never played advent and don't know them enough to know abilities but from what i've seen thier static turrets are the best. They are teh best at swarming strike craft and easily have the best shields. I'd suggest going for static turret upgrades and repair bays. Turrets get 50% damage increase with a certain upgrade. Can't remember which though. Just keep spreading culture. It may take awile but have only defense. Don't worry much about offense until you have enough ships to mass and attack. Slowly build up a fleet and attack. Keep lots of repairer ships and frigates. Frigates are great at cuasing computers to lose attack power. Mostly because they don't focus fire. Which means 20 heavy cruisers could sprread fire over 50 frigates lowing effectiveness if you have 20 or so repair ships. Advent win fleet battles in long an grueling affairs that normally result in reinforcements form both sides. Just keep sending reinforcements if possible take the planet and build repair bays. Most of all keep hammering the same system. Don't attack here then there. That doesn't work in this game. You may lose 2 or even 3 good sized fleets in the same system. It may seem as if the ai isn't losing ground but normally they are. They're good at not showing it. Eventually their stored resources will run out and they will cease to defend. If after 4 or 5 attacks and you haven't gained ground or lost it then i suggest moving to a differant system to attack or upgrade your warships or economy so you can field better or more ships.

Thanks for more tips I'm actually playing TEC at the moment and the research tree is refreshingly different. Advent has no turret upgrades, just the generic damage updates which (might) apply to turrets as well. TEC is different because it gets structure discounts, faster build speed etc. It's amazing how much TEC research tree is geared to just production and spamming stuff There are some things which you have learned to depend on playing advent that are missing, like all the culture upgrades. Now imagine what happens when the advent opponent starts using culture.. those nasty buggers!

So, TEC vs hard econ advent on Centrifuge. In the beginning I had 1 terran + 1 volcanic, the cpu had 3 terran + 1 desert. I had to turtle a while but the enemy fleets never were too impressive, just a capital and a few guardians and a good strike craft swarm is all he managed. When I conquered finally the desert planet it was a quick downhill for the AI.

I noticed my metal output was twice his, presumably due to the volcanic planet (+research?)? However, the CPU had twice the peak credit income. I assume the extra terran planets explain that - quite a nice resource to have? Or could culture have played a part, there were multiple culture structures in certain systems?

I don't think multiple culture structure does anything except speed up culture which in turn would make your planets hit full culture faster but after that planet hits full alliegence you might as well destroy the unused one to make room for something else. Don't forget about refineries. If you get a desert planet then asap get refineries. I've loaded a desert planet up and got over 1.0 extra income on cystal and metal. Another thing is refineries affect planets around them too. So building in a central planet could cost you some logistic points but can definatly boost your resource eco.

I have to agree with you on that. Metal output was probally better cause you focused on it and advent have bad eco except with culture. His credits did come from his terran planets. Because if i'm not mistaken you can easily upgrade a terran planet to hit about 8+ second income for credits.

Sorry to sound offensive but it seems that you should have lost. Volcanic planets are close to worthless credit wise. You can hit possitive income but i don't know how you were able to win. Culture would have boosted his resources as well. I don't know much about advent playing as or against but i'm guessing it was just AI stupidity that made it so you more metal. Because if you had i'm guessing 6 metal extractors (2 on terrran,4 on volcanic) While he had maybe 7 (2 on terrans each, 1 on desert) It probally was upgrades and the fact that you probally built them sooner than he did. Which probally gave you an advantage. Most likely he was wasting resources on useless upgrades while you were building fleets.

I'm guessing part of it came from your playing a hard ECON advent. The probally contributed to the useless credit income. He didn't need that much but it was probally just the econ part of the ai. Try it with fortifier or agressive. Also learn to expand faster. If you need to rush a second capital. Its a new strategy that people are thinking about. It's possible to get 2 caps within 30 minutes and that can give you a big headstart in military. Sets you back a little though. And if you do try 2nd cap rush then i'd suggest making sure your credit eco can take all the extra planets. I'd say 2 caps are Marza and Kol(if not kol its the ship wiht colonize)

Another useful thing to know is how do you start off. What do you build first and what exactly do you do to start off. That could be the issue. Though i doubt it.

If i'm wrong on any of this please correct me because i've only played centrifuge twice.

@XaviorsFist (earlier): That is a bit situational. Sometimes I have managed to make the AI withdraw with a good attack, at other times it just proceeded to raze my planet(s). As said inhibs are essential, and you can build them early too. Good way to cull the enemy fleet in preparation of your counterattack. But this all depends, whether you can keep your fleets alive so you have defenses and enough strength for attacks. It's dependent on all your minor player skills (like understanding how shield mitigation and focus fire works!).

@XaviorsFist (later): I'd like to think it was my superior tactical genius that won the game Then again Centrifuge has the inner ring of asteroids, I had 3 colonized which was a match to the AI in those parts. True that aggr AI is much tougher than other types, but also the AI might not be that effective in using the fleets - I kept winning even fights as TEC (had some static defenses as well, though).

I think my start is the very canonical one: sell metal, build cap yard, extractors, order 3 scouts, capital, upgrade HW... This time I was also trying the 2 cap strategy: kol BS and dunov BC. Didn't help much in initial expansion because the 2nd cap comes so late and takes a lot of resources - it is good military wise though and gave me ample defense in the late early game.

Guess I may have learned my game now, beat hard aggr twice in a row, though in different conditions. First I played it on Devil's Cauldron, I was vasari this time and the cpu advent. It felt a bit like the next game - the cpu can't play good if it's a complex setup with 20 planets or more. It can't manage a complex empire strategically. It could be that it just lacks strategy and adaptability, humans will in the end always beat it. The computer is just not capable of persistent aggression - it keeps the offense up in the early game, just like in any other title, but at some point it seems to lose grip - you have some static defenses, the cpu will send a little fleet maybe even with a cap to poke it and maybe even bomb your planet, but as soon as you jump in some frigates and cruisers, it gives up and runs. The cpu doesn't hold a grudge for this, it does not think how to beat these defenses, how to wield what strength it has to strike at your weak points.

The second game was very enjoyable, I was going with Aginor (TEC) vs. 2 x hard aggr cpu (TEC and vasari) on Flashpoint. I spawned right next to the vasari cpu, grabbed a couple of asteroids but the cpu kicked me out very quickly - I had just 1 roid and my terran HW for a long time, but somehow I scraped together survival and think lost only 1 cap in the whole process. Aginor initially fared better, but soon started getting some love from the cpu on his side, and could hardly feed much resources to me. The map was bad for us since we spawned on different sides, came under pressure and barely could colonize our own fertile backyard. However we stood our ground and gradually our position started to improve. The cpus started losing their capitals, and we started gaining ground... Finally Agi's economy started kicking in and I developed the core set of hostility tech, and from that point on it was a rapid stomp around the map, first killed the cpu on my side and then campaigned just next to the other's homeworld... Our production graphs were roughly equal - I had the planets but Agi had the econ tech; resource passing helped and teamwork was fine. GG and 3 hours of late night fun

So in the end, it's all about the fleet, and keeping adding to it, while letting the enemy weaken his. Fleets are more important than planets: even if you lose a couple, you withdraw and regroup, foil the next attack and come back for vengeance twice as strong anyway. This is the key, getting a solid fleet built up and having it survive from one battle to the next - especially true for playing advent, while TEC might be an exception, as you can just rapidly rebuild so much stuff. Static defenses have only a minor role, they hardly kick the cpu fleet out. Another cornerstone of your play is focusing the research. You have to get the labs up quick, and you have to decide when to concentrate on the military side and when the empire side, depending on the scenario and the situation. Then select the key technologies and leverage them for a strategic advantage. This is all about efficiency and adapting to the circumstances.

Thank you for the reply on so much of what I said. It seems you have a good from my standpoint start. But playing vasari makes credits and metal all the more worthwile. Part of the thing is that it really should be Marza and Kol so you can take out enemy planets while colonizing. Marza has the most damage for a TEC capital overal and has a good amount of health while a Kol has the ability to colinize making it hard for the AI to gain planets due to their 1 capital. The point of building another capital isn't supperior firepower its that. Instead of building 10 frigates you build 1 more cap. It just makes it so in a situation you may lose a frigate but you would never lose the 2 caps. You would keep them alive. I've never actually tried attacking while the ai is attacking me and i think I need to test that so people could know.

Part of the winning even fights is the ai's less than supperior fleet mix. You may have a bettter fleet mix or better ships overall which could constitute to you winning. I've also found that enemy fleets won't leave a system as long as there is at least a few buildings or ships in it. So even if you warped in 10 or so scouts and had them run around the gravity well. You could buy time for your defense to warp in.

I also agree that the attack while they are attacking you is situational. Normally you would use it when you could beat attacking fleets but couldn't get there in time to stop the damage so you might as well attack. Normally it would be either when the enemy has a less superior fleet, OR is attacking at 2 locations in which case the enemy might withdraw one fleet.

The 2 cap strategy is worth it mostly because of the ability of harassment that they can cause having 2 caps running amok in a empire in which you only have 1 cap and maybe 5 frigates could be a pain. They destroy one planet. They would get a boost in the initial expansion and it would become very crippling. Myself getting the ful game just today. (and still having technical issues) Haven't been able to try the 2 cap before. (Playing off demo) I'd say the 2 cap is only good if you can get out the second cap within maybe 5 minutes. Sacrifice a bit of research. If it didn't work for you then it doens't bother me.

what?

sorry wrong ship. i'm not very familiar with TEC whatever the colonizing cap is. I play vasari it doens't help this thread is about Advent then TEC. You get my point.

If you're doing a map where you spawn nearby your enemy, I suggest getting a sova carrier as your cap ship and harrassing his capital with the embargo ability. If you wanna rush just build up LRMs (don't bother with any civic research), but if you'd rather not rush just work on your econ... the sova will be giving a good boost to your credits and should slow the opponent down some.

Question...

Is there a max you can have in a fleet?

Or can the ships just go around joining and leaving any fleets that need/dont need ships?

I guess im asking if you build a fleet, the fleet is stuck together, set in stone, etched in diamond...etc...

You can select a ship and then click to leave fleet... it's in the same panel.

nice, i was gonna ask that question but its already answered!

It sounds to me like you're playing the Advent as if they were the TEC, and getting stomped when you don't have enough fleets to go around. If you haven't already, try better scouting and a more connected chain of planets, so your enemy has only one spot to attack that you can be certain of. The Advent will win every time in a head to head engagement against the TEC. Also, 2 regen. bays and at least one hanger defence per planet is a fairly cheap and effective defence against the AI.[edit] early game, that is. more hangars late game, and incoming fleet warnings,

I found that in a longer game 3 Rapture Crusiers,5 Progenitor Motherships, 4 Halcyon carriers, 4 Revelation Battlecrusiers Work extremely well along with about 40 Donima Subjugator, 50 Destra Crusaders,11 Aeria Drone Hosts.

It allowed me to take out a couple of Hard enemies though all AI since i have a basic version.

In shorter games, 2-4 players, the amount of ships and strike craft are key. Aeria Drone Hosts, Motherships, Revelation Crusiers, and Halcyon Carriers.

I agree flamburn, by the middle of the game I end up with 2-4 regeneration bays, as many hangers as each planet can hold and fill in whats left with turrets. 

1-2 more bomber squadrens than the other strike craft will hold off up to a moderate fleet size if the capitol ship leading is not near max.

Research is also a big key with increasing ships in the squadrens and as mentioned above, the incoming fleet warnings.