Foot in Mouth (a journal)

from Sins Forums
Ok, so I have been playing for almost a week and patting myself about how awesome I am at defeating the horribly weak AI even on HARD! That is right I am the man!! (kidding of course) Anyway, so I am playing the huge random map with 10 players. I dominate my local star and am well on my way to being master of all survey....

OOOPS

How do you assault into the other star systems? Ok, so I held my my star killing most comers and am ready to go to the next system while defending my home system with defenses and a few frigates scattered about. I am allied with one nation, there are 4 enemy nations, and 4 dead nations.
So, I head off to the next star and fight a battle there kicking tail of course. However, here is where I unravel. I take my armada and start blasting enemy planets(like a big raid) in an effort to stop there production, etc. Here is where I go wrong. I should have broken off a smaller fleet to conquer a few worlds and use my large fleet to hold the bottle necks. Instead, as I run around with one fleet, I am losing ships slowely, but I can't replace them because the other 3 enemies are all over my home star!

What I have learned:
I should have attempted to hold planets with a smaller fleet while my main fleet defeated all comers. I could have done this because 3 planets were easily blocked from the main group of planets of this particular star. Something I didn't think of until my home star was in serious trouble and my armada was pretty cut-off and cut-up.

So, yes I was over confident and I learned something. However, I do have a question. Towards the middle stages to late stages will raids slow an enemy's production or are resources so stock piled that as long as they have one planet they can still produce like they have 10?
I turned those 3 planets into ghost towns, but his fleets seemed to get larger and the stockpile seemed to be the only angle he had. This is not a critique of the resources in the game, I am just curious if they AI gets the same kind of stockpiles as I seem to have (even though they are forced to build a lot more ships because I blew theirs' up! :)

Anyway, love the game and I will not think I am the greatest space empire guy of all time.....for a couple of days at least!

great game
14,388 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
However, I do have a question. Towards the middle stages to late stages will raids slow an enemy's production or are resources so stock piled that as long as they have one planet they can still produce like they have 10?
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There was a big thread on the very subject not too long ago. The short answer is that resources tend to stockpile quite a lot in long games. Before beta 4, all asteroids were finite, so eventually they'd run out (you would still get resources out of them, but a tiny fraction) and you would need to rely on a network of refineries for your metal/crystal. Now, they don't run out, and the longer the games go the fewer things you have to spend resources on (and the greater your income is). So definitely on a multi-star scale, it's very difficult to hurt a player economically by taking over a few planets. It is, however, very easy to hurt him militarily by taking over a few planets (or at least bombarding them, even if you can't recolonize because of influence), since at those stages most planets are fully upgraded for fleet supply, and losing several planets (unless they're all dead rocks, or mostly asteroids) will be a pretty huge blow to the max number of ships that player can deploy.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
One thing I've noticed about the AI in the game summaries is how much money and resources they stockpile. In the late game I tend to have a lot of stuff but the AI get tons of resources and money fast...and never spends it.  ;p 
Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
It is, however, very easy to hurt him militarily by taking over a few planets (or at least bombarding them, even if you can't recolonize because of influence), since at those stages most planets are fully upgraded for fleet supply, and losing several planets (unless they're all dead rocks, or mostly asteroids) will be a pretty huge blow to the max number of ships that player can deploy
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This is exactly what I was going for, but I sure didn't see that I had accomplished it. My dam had to many holes to plug that I didn't "feel" like he was hurting. Maybe I would have noticed if I had let the situation develope more instead of taking my solar ball and going home (after all it was late and I had to work today!) I do plan to go back to an earlier save and give it another go...
I have been telling evrybody I can (I work in the tech world so lots of gamers) about how awesome this game is in BETA!!
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Well, when you have really big fleets fighting it's easy for even 200ish fleet points go fairly unnoticed visually, but you should notice the enemy fleet getting obliterated that much faster, with fewer of your own losses :P
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Fleet points is another thing I have to get used to. Right now I just look at the ships running around, but I need to be able to look at the types of ships and be able to know the costs in FPs and resources etc....
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Eventually you'll get used to looking at the stacked numbers (you did find that you can stack the icons in 10s, I hope :P) in the empire tree, and thinking to yourself "Piece of cake!" ;)
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Stacking icons is very handy so you can order your own ships to attack groups of enemy ships with a single click. ;)
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
you did find that you can stack the icons in 10s, I hope
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... You can?
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Haha. It's the very left-most button on the top UI bar :P Compacts everything in the empire tree into stacks of 10.