Darvin3

I suspect you chose "Point Blank" as your starting map. This scenario has both players starting side-by-side, so combat begins literally immediately. Normally on this map you'd expect to be attacked within 1-2 minutes, but since you set it to easy I could see the AI waiting 10 minutes before it invaded. Make sure, as Morthion has mentioned, to build your capital ship immediately. You also want to explore to discover the layout of the solar system. Find plan

My understanding is that you get into the beta by pre-ordering Rebellion. There was a discount on the pre-order if you already owned Trinity or the equivalent Sins/Entrenchment/Diplomacy set, but that offer has expired.

[quote]... which don't explode sometimes so gave up on that tactic[/quote] Really? Never seen that. The biggest issue that homing mines have is the damage delay. There is a delay of about a second or so between when they explode and when they deal damage. If you run a scout through a minefield at top speed all the mines will chase after him and cluster into a line. If you suddenly order the scout to stop, they will all slam into the s

The problem with resurrection is that the initial discussion is made with respect to an [i]older version[/i], and can cause confusion if people don't look at the date and realize they are reading a [i]very old[/i] topic. There's nothing wrong with creating an entirely new thread to discuss this topic if you're interested, and in fact this is [i]exactly[/i] what we're encouraging this poster to do. However, bumping old discussions is potentially harmful. </p

If you destroy an enemy capital ship or structure, and you have a capital ship of your own in the gravity well, you earn some money for the destruction. This technology is actually quite expensive to unlock, making it impractical in most situations. It's actually quite good if you're making lots of bombers and regularly knocking out structures, but otherwise you're better off putting your money into trade ports if you want to increase your income. Most of the tim

Actually, it wouldn't be too difficult to change the aggressor to spam LRF instead of LF like it currently does, which would significantly increase the difficulty. "Not suiciding on starbases", though, would be [i]a lot[/i] more challenging. [quote]That is in fact weird enought, since computers are beating humans at chess, and have a pretty good level now at very difficult games like go...[/quote] Chess is a discrete game by its nature, meaning it'

[quote]and happy also about this forum since there is NO informations in the game itself but a few poor tutorials.[/quote] Yup, the tutorials suck and the learning curve is steep. This is the only place where the game really dropped the ball. As much as we may rant about the game's shortcomings, it's still top-notch in most respects and even its weakest points still compare favourably against most RTS games out there. The tutorial is the one place where it re

[quote]No one pointed out that advent is hardest race to play[/quote] In singleplayer they're fine. This guy is still working on easy difficulty, he's not hitting multiplayer (where playing Advent is an exercise in masochism) any time soon. [quote]The victory was somewhat bittersweet since I only used 2 military labs and 2 civilian labs on my home world and just started mass producing the LRM's[/quote] Low-tech/high-upkeep empires are some of the most

[quote]Is there any other strategies you could offer? I do appreciate the Cap the LRM strat but it seems to be more bent on steam-rolling brute force versus tactical superiority.[/quote] I'd suggest learning to walk before you learn to run. Brute force isn't the end of the road in terms of strategy, it's just the beginning. Once you get a sense of what can be achieved by raw brute force and how to do it, you can start building more elaborate tactical approaches

Yup, it's a two-step change: A. auto-explore never chooses a revealed pirate base as its target B. units always avoid a pirate base when pathing unless they literally cannot get to their destinations without passing through it. Would be very nice; I often have to queue up orders to ensure my units go around pirate bases. Sometimes the "predicted" path shown is not the one they will actually take, which gets [i]really[/i] annoying since post-Diplomacy pirate b

Reducing LRF effectiveness versus capital ships is long overdue. Particularly in the case of LRM in the early-game and Assailants in the late-game, they just torch capital ships way too quickly to be countered effectively. This leaves many capital ships non-viable simply because they die too quickly.

[quote]From the actual site it says the aoe 3 multiplayer community is still alive and kicking.[/quote] There are many old games that still have multiplayer communities that are doing well for themselves. Warcraft II (yes, that's [i]two[/i]) online community is still doing fine, and it predates AoE3 by [i]a full decade[/i].

The only thing about Vasari that definitely needs a nerf are phase missiles. They're just too strong against capital ships.

One of the key differences between the Sins-verse and the two you've just mentioned is the way surface battles are portrayed. In both of those universes, surface battles are exceedingly important. In the Sins universe, they're portrayed as completely irrelevant. This seems to indicate that orbital weapons are [i]so powerful[/i] that anything that you could possibly build on the surface is completely harmless by comparison. From this, I'd say that the firepo

A lot of this comes up to opinion and taste. The only [i]really[/i] questionable stuff on this list is the inclusion of AoE3 and the very high placement of E:TW. I don't have a problem with counting the Total War series as RTS, though you are blurring the lines by doing so. I tend to think Starcraft II is placing highly because of how new it is and how much hype surrounds it. I'd probably put it near the bottom of my top 10 rather than near the top. I&#

Online, everything is about reputation. People [i]know[/i] who the best players are.

For a total conversion, yes, but at that point you're basically throwing out the game as it exists and building a new one from scratch.

[quote]I always wondered what the consequences would be for the game if it took 100AM to jump, rather than just depriving you of 100AM if you have 100AM or more. [/quote] Would mean you'd need to [i]heavily[/i] nerf any ability that removes antimatter (detonate antimatter) because they'd basically be a gravity bomb with a duration longer than cooldown. And you'd need to completely redesign the Disciple (which has antimatter but no AM regeneration), and this woul

[quote]Advent starbases, with meteor, are still a crappy starbase. Its laughable to even compare them to the orkulus starbase anyways[/quote] Depends on the fleet size we're talking about that they're fighting against. If we're around 500 command points of units, Orkulus is the god of starbases and even a small amount of healing makes it invulnerable. Once we start pushing over 1000, Orkulus loses its luster and can be bowled over by brute force and none

Against the AI, go with the carriers. Even the vicious AI is a push-over once you have 100 squadrons at your disposal (you can have this plus support cruisers plus capital ships for less than 1000 command points). Against humans, it totally depends. Either approach will work and it's entirely possible to start with one and develop into the other. Either way, the Iconus Guardian and Rapture Battlecruiser are exceptional long-term investments. For destr

[quote]Lol.[/quote] I was trying to give an example where Advent would have opportunity to directly jump to their mature fleet. Obviously this isn't played for a reason. [quote]I don't know man...those dem bots can shut down entire fleets and unlike subverters without having to micromanage much...I mean, that's a full minute of no weapons and slow engines...[/quote] Would still take Repulsion between the two of these a

Early-on it's the hoshiko hands down. Later it's the Iconus, hands down. The demo-bot change means the hoshiko stays on top for much longer than it used to, and combined with the general weakness of the faction Advent rarely lives to see the full potential of the Iconus anymore. However, if you play a large multistar where the Advent has free opportunity to get a fully mature fleet online and you'll feel the full power of the Iconus Guardian.

[quote]Two capital ships I would also seriously consider are the Kortul and Rapture....I'd argue these are the two best caps other than the carriers and colonizers...[/quote] I'd totally agree with this. These are two highly underrated capital ships and they [i]belong[/i] in any balanced late-game fleet for their respective factions.

For all its shortcomings, I have to agree with Desconnor that Storm Front is far and away the best stock map to ship with the game. It's the only one in the current lineup that I would even [i]consider[/i] for a competitive ladder. Do have to disagree about starbase-based trade. The number of extra links you can achieve is minimal and the cost to get them is quite substantial, and there aren't that many trade ports you can support on the limited logistics space off

I personally don't see a lot of reason to take ion bolt above level 1, especially when level 3 targeting uplink allows LRM's to outrange starbases and Ogrovs to outrange meteor control, or starbases to outrange Ogrovs. Really, once you get out of the early-game (where carrier caps reign supreme, and colony caps are hands down your best empire builders) everything is viable in some way or another. I generally find 3-4 capital ships is the sweet spot that balances a