Exercise in Futility

I hate to tell you, but the normal AI doesn't cheat (ie, resource bonuses). IIRC, only unfair, cruel, and vicious AI's cheat (cruel and vicious are only in Diplomacy).

I'd tell you to just keep practicing (5 games is not a lot), and maybe lower the difficulty to easy, but you seem determined to not like the game. It would be an exercise in futility on my part (hahaha ).

Oh, and btw, Civilization isn't an RTS.

Yea, normal AI doesn't cheat at all. I'd say if you're having so much trouble with RTS than you should probably stay away from the genre. I've played 3/4 of the games you mentioned, and found none of them very challanging except on the hardest of difficulties. Even then the AI ussually made that beatable as well.

You're right; I should stay away from RTS games (except I really enjoy Hearts of Iron II, Company of Heroes, and Men of War.) If Civilization isn't RTS, then what is it?

If the SoaSE AI doesn't cheat, then how is it able to attack with three times the amount of ships that I have, PLUS be able to defend four or five planets when I don't even have enough resources for a moderate sized force and the capability to support/defend ONE planet? I can't even try to expand onto another planet until much later in the game and even then, it's already too well defended. And the statistic graphs show that I'm inferior in every category.

And the game would be impossible with pirates activated  .

You need to expand quickly, not slowly. That's your problem. Because planets are your chief source of resources, you need to move quicly to claim as many as you can. Pick the colonizer cap for your race, support it with 5 scouts (set to auto-attack) and 4-5 light frigates, and go grab planets. Get the roids, and get ice and volcanics. Grab the terrans and deserts, too - but be careful, their militias are much stronger.

 

Civilization is turn-based strategy. RTS is real time strategy, it means everything is happening simultaneously.

I feel like you do from time to time. But it's in the timing. Expand to an astroid and a planet, upgrade the colonies so they start making you credits then upgrade your fleet supply and fill it with ships. Grab a couple more planets, upgrade fleet supply, rinse and repeat. Once you begin meeting enemy frigates on the fringes of your empire you need to start building turrents and defenses on the outer fringes of your network. The AI will respect worlds that have defense turrents and won't be so quick to whisper "hey. say goodbye to planet x"

It used to frustrate me to no end. I would always get attacked way before I was ready. Build up fleet first then defenses.

It's a TBS, Turn Based Strategy. There is no real time in Civilization.

 

I also seem to struggle against overwhelming odds, whichever race i play, no matter how many ships i have the computer always seems to have a bigger fleet and not just 1, always decimates my fleet with barely a few losses, have read through the strategies and always keep a mix of ships. I choose small fleets, turn off pirates, yet his fleets nearly always better  mine, have a had a few  wins against easy and a couple against medium but only when i have allied myself. Sins original seems to work better for me but i do love the starbase in the later games. Keep playing and practicing i guess.

Only hard AI's and above cheat, so any advantage a normal or easy is getting over you in terms of economics is purely a better planned economy.  What you have here is a learning curve issue.  Unfortunately, it's very difficult in strategy games for developers to come up with a "one size fits all" difficulty.  Learning curve has been a substantial issue in Sins from the beginning, since it lacks a campaign mode that guides you through learning the game and its pacings.

You just answered your own question.  One planet, even a terran homeworld, cannot generate enough money to fund an empire in the long-term. You need to start colonizing immediately at the start of the game to build a powerful economy.  I'm actually surprised that the AI's fleet is only three times larger than your's with an empire that much bigger.




Asteroids are easy pickings, you should immediately send units out to grab these.  Almost every map in existance has one asteroid right next to your homeworld, so you have no excuse for not having it under your control within the first five minutes.  After that, identify other planets with low militia counts (usually there are several with less than 10 units; your capital ship on its own can take these on).  Keep your momentum and never stop expanding; the only reason to stop colonizing is if you're fighting the enemy or there's nothing left to colonize.  Even with a slow pace you should have 4-5 planets within the first 15 minutes of the game, and this will give you a far superior economy to what a single planet will offer you.

Defense-wise, don't get caught up with building lots of structures around each planet.  In fact, in most games your backwater planets will never see real action and defenses are a complete waste of money.  Instead, your best defense is a good fleet.  Build static defensive structures only on tactically significant front-line planets. 




Once you learn the tricks to this game, you can do amazing things. I routinely have 9 or 10 planets colonized by the time the unfair AI has finished colonizing 3. My empire is that much stronger, meaning my fleet is that much stronger, and pirates are that much less threatening.  If you give the game a chance and get to that stage, you'll see what I mean.

Sins on Easy has become harder since Trinity/Diplomacy has come out in that it is now spending it's credits. The old Easy would have an ever growing surplus of cash that it was slow to spend. Now Easy will use it's resources.

If you are willing, might i suggest watching a replay of your own game. Look at what the AI is doing and compare it to what you are doing. You might be surprised at what you learn.

Make sure that you LOCK the teams so that the AI doesn't ally with itself and gang up on you.  Try starting off playing a 1v1 agaisnt AI.  Then add two more AI for a four player free-for-all.  You don't have to play it with 9 opponents at once.

If you are playing Diplomacy, note that the pirates were heavily buffed up, so just turn them off.

Sorry if you already knew this, but it took me more than 5 games to realize it: your first capital ship is free.  So the first thing you should build is a capital ship factory, and one capital ship.  Most people think it's best to pick whichever one has the 'colonize' ability.

Also if you are new it might be best to play with pirates off and only one A.I. player, so that you can ignore diplomacy and just focus on warfare.  Because if you ignore diplomacy with several A.I. players they will usually gang up on you.

I also suck at RTS games, but this is a pretty good one.

If you can't win playing Sins on easy, you probably can't play RTS. I won that my first try. Sure, it felt like an epic struggle against Admiral OneGreenStripe then, but I still won...

You have to use your resources very wisely and expand quickly. Otherwise, you get overrun quickly. Also, if you just want to zerg it out so to speak, you can change your starting credits and such per map if you wish. Cant play online if you do that (you can always change it back). It wont help you learn how to play the game, but it can be fun sometimes.

Joe also there are people out there like myself who will play a relaxed game online with you to show you the ropes a comp stomp to say.  Just to get you started, this is a very enjoyable game once you can defend yourself properly.  I always try to pump out a repair station (TEC) on my outer most planet because the AI is to stupid to attack it.  So my ships regenerate quicker and it can help win those even outnumbered battles. 

Good trick - except the AI gets the same cash and knows how to use it (Diplomacy)...!

It's all about practice. I started out by getting trashed before I could colonise a single planet. These days, 1 1/2 hours in, I usually have three massive fleets. Two colonising and one hunting/defending. Also by that stage you are making sure all your outer planets are well defended before you leave them.

Thanks for all the advice. I have tried a few of the things mentioned already (built my capital ship factory first, and tried to expand ASAP.)

I gave the game another try last night (vanilla SoaSE, 1v1, pirates turned off, normal difficulty) and played for almost four hours. I was able to establish bases on two asteroids and another planet, research was going along well, and I had five capital ships and a number of frigates in my fleet, plus a repair cruiser. I was building up defenses at some of the outlying bases. It looked like I had about four bases and the enemy had about four or five.

Then the inevitable happened: an asteroid was attacked and I lost it after a long battle, all the while churning out frigates to defend it, and while I was retreating, my other planet revolted and another asteroid was attacked! I tried to take one of the enemy's planets while they were busy with decimating the asteroid, but that too was defended with overwhelming force. Their fleet was about five times as big as mine. So while they were destroying my asteroid, they still had a gigantic fleet that was able to defend one of their asteroids.

If I try to take one of the enemy's less-defended planet/asteroids, by the time I can even destroy one structure, his fleet shows up in overwhelming force to defend and I must retreat.

I don't see the benefit of all my research into advanced weaponry when it takes my whole fleet concentrating on one enemy ship so long to destroy it, at the same time that my own fleet and defenses are being destroyed. What good is all that advanced technology when it takes my whole fleet so long to destroy enough of the enemy's structures in order to be able to colonize his planet/asteroid?

I can't believe that the enemy is able to be as technologically advanced as me AND have enough resources to produce enormous fleets! 

I have never been so frustrated. I'm ready to move on to something else. This isn't fun.

 

also, on the defense aspect

 

the comp wont do things like rush through a border world to get to your core worlds and trash everything before your defense fleet gets there

it will attack the first world it gets to, and wont leave till it falls,  so you can stack all your defenses on a chokepoint world, and effectivly be defending your whole empire

 

Joe, consider doing less research and building fewer capital ships and instead building more Long Range Frigates.  Try to think, "Fleet, fleet fleet!"  Also, focus on trying to increase the speed of your early expansion.  Take your asteroid first.  Consider making your first capital ship a mothership--the one that can colonize.  By the time you meet enemy forces, you want to have a stronger economy and an even-sized fleet or an equal economy and a larger fleet.  As an exercise, try to play the game without building more than two capital ships, at least not in the first hour or two of game play.  Capital ships really are not all that amazing (unless the ship in question is a Level 6 Marza with the Missile Barrage ability).

Are you upgrading the planets health right away after getting it.. If you dont it costs you money instead of gaining it .. Also you need to build on the resource asteroids right away!!! If you see colored lines coming your way then you need to research and build media centers to stop it from making your planets revolt... You should have those 4 planets in less than half an hour....The Instant you get a planet at the beginning of the game go for the next one.Try to research trade ports and the resource building early and build them where you get bounuses to supplement your income. You only need the mothership to defeat the beginning planet fleets at asteroids and ice/volcanic plantes.. you will need a few extra ships to take over the terran and desert ones.. once you've expanded to where the enemy is then build the fleet up quickly.

 I was retreating, my other planet revolted and another asteroid was attacked! I tried to take one of the enemy's planets while they were busy with decimating the asteroid, but that too was defended with overwhelming force. Their fleet was about five times as big as mine. So while they were destroying my asteroid, they still had a gigantic fleet that was able to defend one of their asteroids.

Ok for this right here you need to build broadcast(TEC) centers to keep the pop from revulting.  I dont even remember the last time this was an issue. 

 

If you are playing entrechment you sound like you need a nice healthy SB(Starbase) to help with large battles.

 

If you still need to learn how to play I can give you two last options

 

1.  4 player map,turn pirates off

player one you

player two Ally normal AI

player three Ally normal AI

Player four Enemy AI EASY

 

Lock your teams, enjoy if you cant win like that there is a user error.

 

2.  20 or less star map, turn off pirates

Player one you

no other players

enjoy a non violent game

 

EDIT Option three

Play tutorial.............. again

That fleet isn't well balanced.  You should have fewer capital ships, and far more repair cruisers.  As a rule of thumb, your fleet supply research should be an equal or higher level than your capital ship crew research.  This means that for a fleet with five capital ships, you should have well over a hundred frigates.  If you have fewer frigates than this, you're going too heavily on capital ships.

As for the Hoshiko (repair cruisers) you should have over a dozen of them.  The sheer longevity these things can give your fleet is absolutely phenomenal, but if they run out of antimatter then they turn into big bricks that don't do very much.  You need a lot of them to get efficiency.



What kind of defenses were you building?  Generally the best form of defenses are cheap repair bays.  These stack with repair cruisers (enabling you to potentially heal for over 60 hull points per second) and are really cost-efficient.  If you want to build a more powerful defense and intend to spend more than 3000 credits, you may as well build a starbase.  Now 3000 credits may seem like a lot, but a few tactical planet upgrades, a couple of hangers, and a smattering of turrets later and you may have spent far more than that.  Turrets in particular are deceptively expensive due to their high metal and crystal cost.

It's a good idea to surround any starbase you build with repair bays.  Usually this defense requires no tactical upgrades from the planet, which actually ends up costing you a lot less while getting you a better defense.




Again, without actually seeing the match I can't tell you what went wrong, but I'll try to give generic advice to help.  I suspect you had too little in the form or repair, and probably got caught by surprise, which is always a recipe for disaster.  Repair platforms are your top priority as a defensive structure, and you need to constantly be aware of the enemy fleet's position so your own fleet is ready to defend.  The AI is particularly slow with fleet-wide manoeuvers and deployment, so if you're paying attention it's very rare that the AI will actually get the drop on you.  My guess is that you got comfortable in a defensive position and stopped scouting, and weren't aware of the AI repositioning its fleet to attack a different front. 




Revolts don't happen overnight; they take about 10 minutes to occur on average, and give plenty of warning.  When a phase lane changes colour, it's because someone is broadcasting propaganda.  You can interfere with this by stationing defensive capital ships, but that's like bailing water in a sinking ship, a very temporary solution (plus a waste of expensive capital ships).  You can usually cancel it out with broadcast centers of your own; usually one defensive center for every two "attacking" centers is enough.  As well, friendly propaganda will give you a small economic boost.



What probably happened is that during the big battle, they lost many units.  The fleet you encountered was the new replacements built in the meantime.  It sounds like you still have ground to cover in terms of building a competitive empire and economy.



Well, the obvious problem here is that your fleet is smaller, and you still need to work on maintaining a competitive fleet size and economy. 



People have done the break-even analysis on those upgrades, typically you need dozens and dozens of units to make them cost-effective.  In most situations, you're better off maintaining a large fleet.  Now, hull and armor upgrades are a better deal, and different upgrades have different degrees of utility (Vasari phase missiles are to die for).  In general, though, fleet first, ugprades later.



He probably wasn't as technologically advanced as you, but if you have +20% damage, he only needs 20% more units than you to get the same damage output, but he has more hit points to back it up.  In general, those technology upgrades are slight advantages that tweak battles in your favour.  Putting all your money into technology is a bad idea, since you'll just be swamped by pure numbers of stock frigates.


Also can someone get this guy a replay of a comp stomp?  I don't have my gaming computer right now and can't produce one for him.  It'd be useful if he could see how an experienced player plans his economy and fleet. 

I might add if you are losing a battle dont keep building frigates and throw them at the battle..(sending in one ship at a time is suicide the enemy just concentrates fire and they get decimated... Just rebuild a second fleet behind the front line then counter attack

Thanks for all the advice and for taking the time to contribute to this thread.

I tried another game using some of the suggestions I received here, but before I could even establish a third base, I was attacked by about 40 ships. I was trying to churn out frigates to defend my base, but the attacks just never end. No time to think- just keep building those frigates. But there’s never enough resources available.

That’s the nature of this game; the AI is relentless, even on normal difficulty, and if you don’t have a certain pattern to hold off the attacks, you’re finished. No real planning your strategy, just keep churning out those fleets and try to sneak in a few new technological developments between the onslaughts. And my research into advanced technology doesn’t seem to have any benefit- it’s quantity, not quality, that counts.

Well, I’ve had about enough of this. I’ve already uninstalled the game. I’m looking for something where I can really plan strategy instead of holding off rushes, like the Total War series, Hearts of Iron II, Uncommon Valor, and Take Command-2^nd Manassas.

I really wanted to like this game because I think the product is top notch. It just doesn’t seem to be the type of strategy game for me.

Joe, almost everyone else who has purchased Sins has figured it out and can beat "Normal" AI easily.  You're still doing something wrong somewhere.  Don't give up.  Did you set the teams to LOCKED teams as I suggested?  Did you turn the Pirates to OFF?

How would LOCKED teams affect play if it's a 1v1 scenario? And yes, I did turn pirates off.

One of the things that concerns me is that there seems to be a "formula" that needs to be discovered in order to beat the game. It gives the impression that the game is scripted and there's only one way to beat it. What if my style is to out-research the AI in order to win using superior weapons or defense infrastructure instead of using overwhelming brute force for instance? It doesn't seem like I have many options other than build/attack/repeat.

I can't believe that the AI on normal doesn't cheat when they can have gigantic fleets already developed when I'm still just trying to build a small force. I've seen this before in C&C Generals, Act of War, etc.: no time for planning, just try to hold off the rushes.