Gus Smedstad

Reply to How to beat 3:1 or 4:1 Hard AIs? in Strategy Sins Forums

That's good advice if you just want to win, but I learned first hand that if you want the achievements, making an alliance can cause you to fail. Prozach2k3 claims you can get the achievement even if you make an alliance IF you're not allied with anyone when another faction dies. I can't confirm this, since I blew it the two times I tried that. Someone always died one way or another while I had an alliance going. The only really safe way to win, if you want to get "Comp Stomper" or "I Can Do

Reply to How is RA overpowered? in Strategy Sins Forums

I can see how you'd think that, but that's not actually how lab loss works. It's obvious that if you have a ship that you don't have the tech for, it continues to work. Many scenarios start you with HC's and no weapon labs, and of course you get advanced ships from RA without doing any weapons research. You keep researched abilities even if you lose all your labs. So if you research Reintegration, your HCs will still be able to use Reintegration even if you lose all your weap

Reply to How is RA overpowered? in Strategy Sins Forums

That's not actually true. If you blast his Civics labs, he can't build any more Phase Gates, but the existing ones will still fire off Returning Armada. And you have to kill 4 labs, because Phase Gates only require 5 labs to build. I just discovered this first-hand while playing RA against 4 hard AIs. They managed to knock out a couple of civics labs, which I thought was going to kill me, but the gates still kept giving me free ships. - Gus

Reply to How to beat 3:1 or 4:1 Hard AIs? in Strategy Sins Forums

I tried playing a Large / Random / Single Star map with 8 Hard players as Advent, and they left me alone until I'd pretty much assimilated one of my neighbors. I was #5 in terms of Fleet, but #1 in terms of Empire, and all 6 remaining Hard players came knocking at my door. I could have made an alliance with several of them, but because I missed the achievement doing that in Areolian Sector, I tried defending instead. I ran the Red Queen's Race for about 5 hours, defeating wave after wave but

Reply to How to beat 3:1 or 4:1 Hard AIs? in Strategy Sins Forums

I wonder how they define "leading." If you decide to go for economic boom with the TEC instead, and deliberately keep a relatively small military, do you think they'd still gang up on you? - Gus

Reply to How to beat 3:1 or 4:1 Hard AIs? in Strategy Sins Forums

I've played through a couple more games. On a Huge map (Aerolian Sector, 10 players, 6 stars, 67 planets), with 4 of the players set to Hard and 5 set to Normal, I won but did not get the achievement. I had cease fires with other players, but never a peace treaty. I tried to go to war with everyone moments before executing any kill, but screwed up on the 2nd to last Hard player. Actually, I don't know how that player died, since he still had planets. In any case, I didn't get either

Reply to Werid Computer Strategy in Strategy Sins Forums

That's what Jump Inhibitors are for. You jump away from your system, fully expecting an enemy attack. If the enemy doesn't attack immediately, you make sure to keep your fleet out of the gravity well, so it can jump back at a moment's notice. When they enemy shows up, you let them drive into your gravity well, and then you jump back. You crunch a good part of their fleet while they're still struggling to jump away, due to the Jump Inhibitor. It's an attrition tactic, but it works.<b

Reply to How to beat 3:1 or 4:1 Hard AIs? in Strategy Sins Forums

That's interesting, I sort of assumed that they had to be on a locked team. Mainly because I'd won several free-for-alls without getting the "beat 2 AIs" acheivement. But in retrospect, I generally did enough diplomacy to get an alliance, and didn't break it. - Gus

How to beat 3:1 or 4:1 Hard AIs? in Strategy Sins Forums

I managed to beat 2 hard AIs teamed with each other for the "toaster roaster" achievement, but I can't seem to manage 3, let alone 4. What typically happens is that I go capital ship -> scrap shipyard -> take asteroid -> take Ice planet -> build 12-14 LRM equivalents, and then I get smashed as the pirates and the 3 players alternating attacking either end of my tiny little empire. My ships rush back and forth, and while I can repulse the first attack, by t

Reply to What is the point of Team 2 & 3 for the AI if they just ignore each other anyway? in Strategy Sins Forums

It really depends on the map and what looks like an attractive target. On 4 player maps, I've managed to bring one or sometimes even two AIs up to Peace Treaty status. Once you've at least signed a Cease Fire, they regularly pester you whenever another AI attacks one of their colonies, so I know for a fact the AI players fight each other if they aren't allied. - Gus

Reply to Getting creamed in Pandemonium in Strategy Sins Forums

I've since beaten the map, after reading some of the general strategy tips here. * I could kill my neighbor earlier if I scrapped my capital shipyard for materials after getting my free capital ship. * Going directly for LRM's and ignoring all other tech made the kill more efficient. * I had sufficient force to take the hub immediately afterward, again thanks to LRMs. * Going for two repair docks in the hub made it a lot cheaper to hold it. Once I had the hub, two h

Reply to SoaSE, a Unit Reference Chart, v1.12 uploaded in Strategy Sins Forums

I really like the spreadsheet, but I'd love to know the stats on the pirate ships. In particular, armor and attack types, which you can only really guess at. It's pretty obvious the Reapers are analogous the the siege frigates, but I'm fuzzy on what niches the others fill, what the optimal anti-pirate trap looks like, and whether that changes over game time. - Gus

Getting creamed in Pandemonium in Strategy Sins Forums

I'm fairly new at the game, and I've been going through all the pre-made maps in order in single player. I'm at a complete halt with Pandemonium played as a 4-player free-for-all with 3 Normal AI's. This is the map where all four players start adjacent to a central hub asteriod, and the starts come in pairs where you can reach one of the other positions through an asteroid. All the other neutral planets attached to the star, and only reachable through the central hub asteroi