Pirate-Jack

I had an idea I just had that may or may not fit into a diplomacy expansion would be custom fleet positions. For example, being able to design an Advent Battleball to have the Progenitor in the centre with rings of guardians/carriers around it and three Halycon cap ships on the rear/sides. Illums would take up the space between Halycons and a Radiance would be on point with HCs or disciples filling the gaps. It could even venture into the Z axis that almost never gets used so that a s

I don't often change the names of planets but on the odd occasion where me and an opponent are battling away over a single planet I'll take it and rename it Alderan or Hoth (if it's an Ice Planet) :D. Other than that I've used names of Ancient Greek/Roman cities (Alexandria gets used a lot, as befits the 13 or so that Alexander the Great renamed >_>) and a couple of names from the Dresden Files/Discworld (naming my home planet Ankh-Morpork always gives me a kick :P)

[quote who="JohnJames" reply="21" id="2240280"]# 3 Again a user using lrms to take out guardians with repulse and fleet will lose many many ships just to take out 1 guardians. Advent will lose 1 guardian while the other user will lose like 10-15 lrms or even more in the process.[/quote] Then you're doing it wrong. By the time the Advent Battleball is strong enough to work as it should your main unit as TEC or Vasari should be the HC units. [quote who="JohnJame

[quote who="JohnJames" reply="11" id="2240153"]3) With 2 or 3 halycon caps (or mass flak), you wont be able to touch the gurdians. Therefore the only way for tec to combat repulse is using caps abilities which is bad. The need to use capital ships to combat a support unit is wrong. Vas has it better using subs, but subs dont have the AOE or affects caps like repulse does. Also vas can use SB but thats another point[/quote] Fair point, though I did suggest changing th

1) I agree. 2) Agreed, though there are a number of other options that have been debated in the other Marza threads that could work too. 3) Does the Akkan's targetting uplink increase the range enough to outdistance the repulse ability? If not then the answer to the Advent Battleball is strikecraft, which unfortunately have been nerfed to hell so there is no viable counter. Perhaps limit the Repulse ability to frigates but ignore cruisers. Advent excel in close combat with the

From what I remember TEC get a 15% bonus to antimatter, Advent get 15% to shield restore and Vasari get a 15% bonus to DPS... They're pretty good in my eyes, especially the TEC one. Defensive wars are ten times easier in your own culture. Then there's the allegiance bonuses you get, which makes culture an important part of the game no matter the military benefit.

Culture is not meant to be a method of achieving victory, it is meant to give military advantages to defenders and those who took the time to spread their culture to enemy planets. That is why it doesn't flip planets, because otherwise the main point of Sins (the conquering of system) through fleets is negated. Why take all that time to set up a choke point when the enemy doesn't even have to go near it to beat it?

By micro I mean using them at a time chosen by me rather than just as soon as the antimatter reaches the required level. Say I was facing a Marza some frigates and some carriers, I wouldn't want my detonate antimatter or phase-out hull to autocast on the nearest carrier, I would want to keep them for when the Marza tries to use missile barrage, thus requiring a human element to time it correctly. Hence, micro. Also, scout auto-explore is a given most of the time. Put it on when you fi

No. Things like that I tend to micro depending on my area of expansion since they're not going to do much good firing on some random schmuck who I have no immediate quarrel with. Abilities on starbases, on the other hand, tend to get put on autocast if I have a second battle going on somewhere else that needs my attention more.

I solely play Entrenchment on quickstart as Advent now so I'll give my personal start up (since everyone's doing it) against as many unfair AI as you want. I generally have every setting on fast, teams are locked on free for all and pirates are inactive. 1) Set the free scouts to auto-explore and set them off. 2) Queue up two more scouts and five disciples. 3) Progenitor Mothership. 4) Build two hostility temples (military labs) and upgrade the logistic slots o

I once tried to suicide seeker vessel a Marza to death. It didn't work. It was good for the wtf?! factor I got from him though :D.

Proof reader s . You put the title of the Colonizer caps as Capital Carriers.

Well to reach the first culture tech for Advent you need two Temples of Harmony, which leaves you rather weakened in the beginning if you're rushed or facing Vasari. On the other hand, if you go for two Hostility Temples you're leaving yourself woefully unprepared for the mid game since you have to spend extra resources for Volcanic/Ice planet colonisation rather than getting them right off the bat. Personally I go for 1-1 hostility/harmony because it gives me the first tier upgrades

Doesn't the Marauder counter the Marza already with phase out hull? So yeah, Marauder is the best way to counter the Marza for Vasari, whether you use POH or run rings 'round it.

Also remember to push your illuminators forward so that he can't focus fire easily and you can maximise the damage you're doing with the side-facing weapons. That is how illums and the likes are able to counter the more powerful direct-fire weapons like phase missiles.

Ye Gods no. The surrender option is almost solely there so that you don't have to hunt down every single units the AI has left at the end of the game. Just think of searching through every single sector on a huge random map for that one light frigate (or other unit, HC being the worst) that ran away. You'd be on for hours if it was a stronger unit since you couldn't just scout spam it to death.

The only problem I have with that is the third comment. A properly balanced fleet will massacre a spam fleet in every circumstance. Spamming solely the hard counter to whatever the unit is will just weaken you in the long run whereas balancing your fleet for longetivity and multi-purpose will let you counter any tactic your opponent uses.

Advent: * Synergy between units (Shield Restore + Guardians = Invincible Fleet and Malice + Cleansing Brilliance is still awesome) * Strikecraft. Lots of them. * Cultural Victory: It basically ups the Advent's already powerful shields when in their own culture, plus they get more culture upgrades (as well as seeing other systems through it) to aid in that on top of the economic advantages. Very useful. * Advent's starbase has the most powerful fleet killing abi

[quote who="Snowraven" reply="20" id="2172791"] Quoting JPHamel, reply 1[...]. But being a rts, that is clearly not possible. About 9 years ago there was a RTS game called Earth 2150 in which you only researched techs for modules, you had to use these modules for creating your units. But yeah, it wouldn't fit right into this game.[/quote] I used to love that game but I only had the demo version so I never got to play the whole thing. Couldn't find it anywhere

I'm currently on a 2v2v2v2 unfair AI game on the Implosion map. I'm about 12 hours in with Advent and have destroyed one AI and am half way through another. My computer is starting to lag a bit though so I probably won't be able to finish it, but I could easily see it reaching 20-24 hours if I could. Played a couple of fifteen hour games on 2v2 as well, those ones were fun. Don't know if I could ever enjoy a slow game though, I just don't have that sort of patience.

The culture effect is a bit of both really. If you get it set up early it can pay off much quicker than tradeports and gives you a slight offensive edge to work with on nearby worlds. It doesn't match up to a trade-line in the mid-late game but early on it is bascially a one structure trade link. On the expansion note it generally depends on the map. I generally tend to go for the nearest choke points and fortify them before raising my fleet to 'conquer-level'. Since the AI isn't real

Allure of the Unity raises the maximum allegiance for all planets, thus increasing the credits/resources you get per second. Resource Focus is the Advent's version of resource refineries, the only difference being that Advent use a tradeport with an alternate option instead of a separate structure. Induced Reverence is almost exactly the same as Allure of the Unity, but is limited to the grav well a starbase is settled in.

This should probably go in the general forum, since it's more of a personal opinion thread than a strategy one, but I'll bite nonetheless. My favourite is Advent. I've played all of the races and won games against hard/unfair AI with each (I've only just started playing multiplayer so I'll leave that out), and have come to the conclusion that Advent are my favourites. They are so mainly because of the capital ships. With TEC and Vasari you have a set of about 3 cap ships that

Advent counter the low dps by having insane shield mitigation and an extra shield upgrade on top of the standard hull/weapons research. TEC get armour and Vasari get four phase missile upgrades. Add in tat Advent generally get more strikecraft than the others and you're well on your way to a long range, defensive fleet that depends on using the synergies of the individual units to their fullest. Also, <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheComputerIsACheatingBastard" t

I've been reading these forums for a couple of weeks now and have seen many mentions of the Advent Holy Trinity and the Battleball but as of right now have little idea as to what would make up these fleets. The Battleball as I've been able to decipher from the clues consists of a couple of capital ships at the centre (Progenitor, Radiance and Halycon I think) with some guardians, lots of shield upgrades and a hell of a lot of frigates. Have I missed anything in there? The Holy