Well, you can still turtle up against the AI in Vanilla. It doesn't know better than to run head-first into a line of turrets supported by repair bays. Anyways, Novaliths would work if you have the time, but you'd need about one per planet you want to bust, otherwise it's a game of whack-a-mole where they just keep recolonizing.
There's one dirty trick you can use against the AI. Split your fleet into two groups, and then scout out his empire to see where he's positioned his main force. Attack the opposite side of his empire. He will immediately head there to protect it (you may want to equip some bombers to quickly destroy any phase stabilizer). As soon as he's a few jumps away, launch your second fleet to attack the newly defenseless front. As soon as he shows up to defend either locat
That strategy works against the AI because it makes lots of light frigates, which aren't very good against capital ships. In fact, they're practically useless until the enemy starts building support cruisers. By the time the AI gets around to making more advanced units, you can be well entrenched with high level capital ships. On the other hand, a smart player will move to those higher level unit types, particularly long range frigates and carriers, almost immediately.
Definitely maxing out reactor upgrades is a better investment than the recharger. The problem with the recharger is that it costs a lot of resources to get all its upgrades, and you need lots of civilian labs. Just not worth bringing out until later on. Advent has only two real weaknesses. The first is that their civilian tech tree is sparse after level 3, and their economy isn't as versatile as a result. If you spam trade ports, they'll do just
[quote] mixed teams? [/quote] [e digicons]:thumbsup:[/e]
The largest map I ever made was a hand-crafted 9 solar system map with 12-16 planets per system. I played that one to completion against 7 hard AI's.
I'd certainly play the game on locked teams when learning. Unlocked teams with the AI can be annoying as heck if you're just picking up the basics.
I've never once lost a capital ship to the AI, so I only add to ressurrection at level 10. However, against a player it's entirely another story. I've never payed a multiplayer game where I haven't lost at least one cap. As I said earlier, add a point to ressurrection only once there is something to ressurrect. If nothing is dead yet, don't bother adding to it yet. If there's something available for ressurrection, then go crazy, but don't pre-emptively add to i
[quote]You mean to say that a virus can't be hidden in a .jpeg file?[/quote] Of course it could be hidden in a jpeg, but just having the virus program on your computer doesn't make you infected. The virus has to actually run first. Unless there's some security flaw in the program reading the jpeg, there's absolutely no chance of that actually happening.
[quote]i think this is not a comparison you want to start making. not unless you're prepared to argue that Advent's late game cap ship spam is somehow a match for Returning Armada + Phasic Transmissions or Pervasive Economy + Industrial Juggernaut. [/quote] The old RA would be another matter, but in the current version I do think Advent cap spam is comparable with those other upgrades. Advent has a shitty economy, and no one will argue with you there, but on the flip side they g
Each resource asteroid can be supported by up to three refineries. The refinery quota tells you how many refineries are helping this asteroid. Any number above 3 doesn't increase resource production at all.
[quote]You can argue its "uselessness" all you want, but when i have mass transcendance and the ability to ressurrect my caps, they are no match for any other cap ships, simply because i can keep getting my level 8-10 caps back over and over, while the enemy loses theirs for good.[/quote] That situation is pretty rare, but when it happens it really makes life easy for Advent. So long as they retain at least one level 6+ mothership, they can get back all their cap ship experience
[quote] i wouldn't say the ships stats have no bearing on their usefulness. [/quote] I never said they didn't. I said better stats are always a plus, but at the end of the day you pick for special abilities. People [i]always[/i] pick mothership first as Advent, and I can tell you it's not because of its DPS or armour. Same goes for evacuator, it's picked for its special abilities and not base stats. I'll agree that battleships and dreadn
You've hit the nail on the head for the best ways to use culture - combat bonuses and depriving enemies of colonization. It should be noted, however, that your culture [i]can[/i] be negated if enemy capital ships occupy a gravity well for long enough, and eventually they will be able to colonize it. This can also make it very difficult to use offensive culture if an enemy fleet is defending your target system. That said, culture/novalith isn't as smooth a combo. The
The ressurrection ability is a great asset, but you don't "pre-emptively" add to it. If you don't have any high level caps to ressurrect, just add your skill point to something else. You add to this ability once something has died and you want to replace it. This ability works fine with all motherships after your first. The first mothership obviously has the paradox that it is the highest level cap and therefore the most likely to die first. I think this is fai
[quote]Could maybe understand if they couldn't be used online, since it might be possible to transfer viruses through ".jpeg" files(?).[/quote] The only way a virus could be spread through JPEGs is if there was a program vulnerability upon which they preyed. In any case, there's no method for file transfer on ICO; we can't even transfer maps, which is one of the biggest current flaws in the system. In any case, the real reason that can't happen is because some people wil
Advent has a clear advantage in huge single-fleet battles, while Vasari has a clear advantage in small-scale skirmishes. TEC comes somewhere down the middle. This doesn't mean that Vasari can (or even should) avoid huge fleet battles or that Advent can avoid multiple fronts. It just means they excel under different situations. Always evaluate the situation based on your current economic and military position. If you've got a map where you'll have to spend five mi
Typically you pick a capital ship for its special abilities, not its base stats. While higher damage and durability is always a plus, at the end of the day it's abilities like shield regeneration, nano-disassemblers, and flak barrage that decide whether a capital ship is good or not. Typically dreadnaughts and battleships are roughly on par for combat strength, followed by colony ships, with support and carriers bringing up the rear. That has no bearing on their actual usefu
Dead asteroids, space junk, asteroid fields, and magnetic storms are always undefended. Asteroids always have one TEC siege frigate and one light frigate. Ice, volcanic, terran, and desert planets have random numbers and types of defenders (always TEC units). They always have at least one siege frigate, and may also have light frigates, long range frigates, flak frigates, and heavy cruisers. Typically 6-12 units defend these planets types, and up to four of any kind ma
I think you can build more in a star's gravity well.
I'd agree, moons would be nice to have in a future expansion. Beyond moons, I'd like to see a greater role for gas giants (after all, if our solar system is any indication, they may make up about half of all planets) and perhaps an ice giant variant representative of Neptune and Uranus.
Bombers work well for attacking enemy capital ships. If you're up against a TEC with Marza, they may not even have fighters to attack your bombers. On the other hand, long range frigates are weak to fighters, so you usually err on the side of fighters early on. Typically you keep at least two fighters to every one bomber, and usually it's more like a 4:1 ratio. Bombers are pretty useless if your enemy has more fighters than you, so you either need abilities like jam we
I think that's the idea. Late game economies can be absolutely ridiculous, and if you suddenly started earning twice as much cash every time your fleet got a bit smaller you could easily rebound and never lose at all. I think this feature is actually important. It's not hard to run away and keep most of your fleet alive, in any case. Having upkeep based on your current army size worked in Warcraft III because resources were finite; the map would eventu
Well, I don't know about new Entrenchment techs, but Allure of the Unity requires 8 labs and lots of resources. That's not something you rush to bring out, especially when there isn't that much to grab along the way.
What I like about the Advent civvy tree is that, unlike the other races, you can have everything of importance with three labs. You have trade, culture bonuses, sufficient extraction boosts, and most of your other useful upgrades. Vasari need four labs to touch trade, and 6 or 7 before they get anything really dangerous. TEC needs 4 labs to get culture bonuses and even more if they want their more powerful upgrades. An Advent can realistically play a relatively long ga
Sins Forums