Breaking a stalemate

I just started learning this game and I have a question about how best to deal with the situation I've gotten into in my second 1v1 small scenario game.

I figured how to get the economy to sing in this second game and built up a big mixed fleet. Decided to cross the border with my mega fleet and go for the AI. Turns out it has also built up a big fleet - exactly the same size as mine by the looks of it - and as soon aa I attacked one of its planets it sent the whole lot in to defend it. The result is a gigantic battle that's been going for about two hours with neither side able to do much damage to the other presumably 'cos we both have plenty of repair cruisers and other support support ships.

Looking at the graphs after i quit I see I was significantly in the lead earlier on, so I think I was too slow to go for it, but my question is what one might do in this situation:

Is there something meaningfull you can do to manually intervene in giving specific ships intructions in a big battle to give you an edge?

Is it a better bet to create multiple smaller raiding fleets and send them off to attack several enemy planets at once, keeping your capital ships plus some support back to crush local resitance pockets serialy?

I tried replaying the last hour or so of this scenario attempting to trash enemy planets in turn with my big fleet with the idea of terminally weakening the AIs economy. I trashed about four, but the AI followed me around with its own mega fleet and it seems to able to pick off straglers during the jump procedure to the next planet. Lost a couple of capital ships trying this.

7,053 views 12 replies
Reply #1 Top

You need to scout. Before making an attack, send a scout to check what your enemy has. By doing this, you can build and increase your fleet with the appropriate counters. This is essential in breaking a stalemate, because destroying an enemy's huge fleet virtually guarantees victory.

Otherwise, micromanage capital ship abilities. Many abilities are best used during a certain part of the battle, like Shield Restore when a capital has lost its shields. Turn off autocast for capital ship abilities and manually activate them, to save antimatter. Some abiities you can leave on autocast, like Missile Batteries and Scramble Bombers, and don't need to be micromanaged.

Reply #2 Top

Sins lacks a whole lot of "Superweapon" options for breaking end game stalemates, but if you use what is there effectively you should be able to break through eventually.

The TEC technically has the most methods, but they are also the most situational. Their Starbase's safety override protocol is the most powerful ability in the game, capable of destroying every frigate and low level capitalships in range (and it is decent). However, the starbase is destroyed in the process and it will take your ships out as well, so you need to be careful with it. The Marza dreadnought's Missile Barrage ability can deal good damage to an unlimited number of targets and will destroy most frigates and a couple of cruisers, and leave the stragglers greatly weakened. They also have the Novalith cannon, which can destroy any planet with two shots that hit close together (unless they have a starbase with a certain upgrade in oribt, but the AI rarely does this). They are also the best suited for attrition warefare, due to their late game economy and build time upgrades, as well as their superior repair cruisers, and their starbase's ability to produce frigates in uncolonizable/enemy gravitywells. Their capital ships can also help out with this, as the Sova carrier's lvl 6 ability, Rapid Manufacturing, increases ship production rates by 250%, while its embargo ability supstancially lowers the enemy's build time and gives you some of his income, and the Akkan battlecruiser, whose armisitice ability allows you to make strategic retreats to regroup with newly produced frigates.

 

The Vasari have the most fleet destruction methods avaliable, and their tactics can be downright mean sometimes. First and most importantly is phase missiles, which when fully upgraded do by far the most damage of any weapon in the game, and they have several ships that use them. Their starbase, while initially the weakest one, when fully upgraded is devestating and when supported by a decent fleet should be able to wipe out anything, especially as it is the only one that moves. They also have subverters, a support cruiser with an extremely dangerous area of effect ability that can disable frigates and cruisers, effectively making fleets in tight formation sitting ducks. Recently this has become devestating when combined with minelayers, who then lay mines on top of the disabled enemy ships to detonate a minute later, doing massive damage. There Kosutra cannon superweapon doesn't damage enemy planets, but it does act like an EMP against structures and ships, and it also opens a phase stabalizer on the target planet, making the only faction that can conduct surprise attacks (and bypass chokepoints). Also, the Desolater and Kortul battleship also have decent area of effect attacks, while the Skinantra carrier can produce a lot of bombers (usually more useful late game) while healing your fleet at the same time.

 

The Advent are in a way both the most subtle and obvious stalemate breakers at the same time. Their super weapon, the deliverence engine, is usually of little use and any sufficiently powerful opponent will be able to deal with it even off gaurd. Instead, they rely on simply besting the enemy fleet in straight forward combat, often utterly. They do this with a series of synergies between ships whose combinations can be almost endless. The most common is the "battleball", which sees at least one mothership surrounded by a couple of guardians, with substancial amounts of other capitalships and frigates, mostly Illuminators. The guardians can be used to either use the repulse ability to constantly push enemy ships out of range or shield projection, which allows them to soak up lots of damage from the actual combat ships. The mothership will then start using shield restore, which will recover the shields of both the ships you are attacking and the guardians you that are shielding them. This dilutes your DPS to the point that you won't be destroying anything anytime soon, while the Illuminator's weapons, often powered up with a Halycon carrier, will be tearing through multiple targets much faster. Pretty much all of their capitalships and some of their other frigates can add other deadly dimensions to this combo, but this is the basic version you'll probably end up seeing if you survive the initial Halycon/Illuminator spam. Their starbase also has some powerful crowd control abilities in mass disorientation and meteor control, but you rarely see them used offensively due to the difficulty of getting a starbase up in enemy territory (the TEC get more from doing it and the Vasari can do it more easily).

Reply #3 Top

Probably the best way to break an AI stalemate is to lure the enemy fleet into a trap.  Make sure your frontline world has a fair amount of PJI's and repair bays, and maybe a starbase with Override protocol on the edge near where the AI will jump in.  You then position your fleet in a neighboring starsystem, aligned to jump in.  When the AI commits to the attack, detonate the starbase to take out a chunk of the AI's fleet as your fleet is warping in.  Then wipe out the enemy fleet while it is stuck by the PJI's trying to jump out.  You should be able to almost completely annihilate an enemy fleet this way, at which point you immediately pursue and crush the enemy before they can rebuild.

 

The other way is you patiently fight it out and level 2-3 Marza's up to level 6.  You then engage Missile Barrage on all 2-3 of them at one time and completely wipe out the enemy fleet.  By the time the enemy has rebuilt your Marza's are ready to repeat the performance and you can leisurely walk through their worlds.

Reply #4 Top

Just a quick note here:  You both had repair cruisers and whatnot, but eventually, somebody was going to run out of Antimatter and have a bunch of worthless bricks in their fleet taking up space for hitting power.  My recomendation would have been to build another 20 or so repair ships while that battle was on and slip them into position 1 jump away, then bring them in when you ran out of antimatter in your current set, then scuttle the empties and replace them with warships, sending them to the fight right away.

Since Idealy, you will have been capturing planets as you go to them, you shouldn't be far away from that battlefield and wouldn't have far for these ships to travel.

Also, a Starbase goes a long way towards giving you an edge.  Even if the AI tries to kill it before it goes up, it's still soaking up damage while your fleet kills theirs.  And if it does go up, you pretty much have the planet. 

-Twilight Storm

Reply #5 Top

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 2

The Advent are in a way both the most subtle and obvious stalemate breakers at the same time. Their super weapon, the deliverence engine, is usually of little use and any sufficiently powerful opponent will be able to deal with it even off gaurd.
End of GoaFan77's quote

I have to disagree with this. If used correctly, Deliverance Engine can win the game. What you want to do is have a decent fleet defending your border worlds, along with starbases on each of them. Next, place at least 2 engines on your rear worlds. The more the better though, I've done with this about 5 engines at the same time. Manually fire them into the center of your enemy's worlds in increments that give you a "rapid fire" raining down on the enemy. If you can hold a defensive line long enough while doing this, culture will destroy the enemy from the inside out, bringing victory. It helps to have another player on your team though who can harass the enemy while you build your engines. If you can pull this off correctly, its unstoppable unless your enemy is also Advent, and even then its hard to counter multiple engines targetting the same planet back to back.

Reply #6 Top

With regards to the Deliverance Engine, it can be of great help to an attacking fleet. Depending on the flavour of the game you're playing, your ships get a damage bonus (15% for Vanilla, 25% for Entrenchment/Diplomacy) on the affected planet and you can temporarily deny the enemy their cultural bonus (and possibly give your own ships the Advent's shield mitigation culture bonus).

Reply #7 Top

Quoting OmegaHunter24, reply 5
.
I have to disagree with this. If used correctly, Deliverance Engine can win the game. What you want to do is have a decent fleet defending your border worlds, along with starbases on each of them. Next, place at least 2 engines on your rear worlds. The more the better though, I've done with this about 5 engines at the same time. Manually fire them into the center of your enemy's worlds in increments that give you a "rapid fire" raining down on the enemy. If you can hold a defensive line long enough while doing this, culture will destroy the enemy from the inside out, bringing victory. It helps to have another player on your team though who can harass the enemy while you build your engines. If you can pull this off correctly, its unstoppable unless your enemy is also Advent, and even then its hard to counter multiple engines targetting the same planet back to back.
End of OmegaHunter24's quote

Just because they can win the game for you doesn't make them worthwhile. 5 Novaliths should be enough to take your opponent out of the game, 5 deliverance engines might cause him to lose a planet. It still gives by far the worst bang your your buck, and they are the same price. The culture advantage can cause some economic damage, but the money the costs you to get these things out is probably more than what you end up costing him. Thus, maxing out your fleet would be a far better use of those resources than deliverance engines.

Now the damage bonus and culture benefits the deliverance engine can provide can be worthwhile, but as this is basically an extension of advent synergies I didn't want to explicitly metion them. Regaurdless, the rediculously buffed Advent fleet is what breaks the stalemate, the deliverance engine just acts as a really long distance support ship.

Reply #8 Top

Thanks everyone for the intesting comments.

As it happens I have 5 Novalith cannons built so I will try to systematically destroy his planets with those while keeping his fleet busy. I had a go switching off auto-use of capital ship abilities but with 150+ ships a side, about 100 fighter/bomber squadrons per side, and 10 capital ships each as well I found it hopelessly confusing to manage manually at this stage of my career and I seemed to be doing more harm than good.

I think will start another game and learn how to manually manage capital ships and their special abilities in some smaller early battles.

 

 

Reply #9 Top

I would pcik at least one cap ship ability you want each one to auto use.. then use the others manually.  Also you can use concentrated fire on the repair ships early with your bombers to change the battle... use alt and left click to select all of one type of ship to do this so that you dont mess with your healing ships.

Reply #10 Top

Abilities you know that you want to be activated ASAP you can leave on autocast (examples include the Sova's Embargo, the Kortul's Power Surge, and the Skirantra's Scramble Bombers), although if you find you need to reserve your AM, definitely leave them on manual control, otherwise your caps will burn through their AM pretty quick (which the Kol is notorious for).

Reply #11 Top

If you're playing Diplomacy, just win a 5,000+ credit pirate raid against the enemy.

The stalemate will be broken.

Edit: Don't mind me, I'm bitter.

Reply #12 Top

That works both ways, don't let your opponent get it first.

-Twilight Storm