crazy difficulty completed --> observations/strat discussion
Jul 21, 2014 0:02:44 GMT -5
phantombudgie, lixxx235, and 5 more like this
Post by jayte on Jul 21, 2014 0:02:44 GMT -5
Previously made a thread regarding completing hard difficulty. I just finished crazy and learned a lot. Let me share some notes with you all:
1) Expansion is one of the riskiest things in the game. At first, one would think you can make the starcraft-like play of grabbing early colonies and using them to further your economic base. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that in this game. New colonies are HUGE money drains, and it takes many, many turns to make a colony profitable. When you're using colony module 1, with early game upgrades, and not a lot of cash to subsidize a factory 2, hab 2, then an exchange 4 to get the colony started, (or even have these things researched!), it's even more of a drain. My next game, I will wait until my initial colonies are far more mature, plus I have more colony modules to expand.
2) Did I mention expansion is risky? It's NOT risky if your name is evil aliens. Their expansion rate seems to be constant. I lost several times trying to take a nice forward line of colonies, and around the same turns, every time, the aliens came and attacked me.
3) Despite my new realization that early expansion is pretty much stupid, I did it anyway in the game that I won. I found what I believe to be the furthest out planet that you can take, hold, and defend. (as you can guess, I lost the game in this screenshot lol)
This picture here from one of my losses illustrates what I've learned. You can take all the planets in the green outline fairly safely. The red line is where you will be HOTLY contested. The yellow circled planets will be taken by Xeno, but you can likely defend them or take them back.
If you try to expand too quickly to anything outside the green outline, it's game over. I was able to snag the two north most planets in the green outline, then defend them with cheap fighters.
4) Let's talk navy. For a long, long, long, long time, your best bet will simply be to have a handful of fighters and maybe two torpedo cruisers to shoot the mass drivers with. Your midgame goal is to defend your most forward planet with something like this (if you don't have repair carrier, just use more fighters and MAKE SURE TO TAKE REPAIR CAPTAIN SKILL)
The setup above is actually more developed than what's necessary. (note that two of the carriers are melee range repair carriers, two are missile range refuel carriers). Being that the enemy is more than happy to come to you, and keep coming, as long as your fighters are able to absorb the occasional missile hit, you should be able to fend off huge streams of enemies using repair and retreat tactics.
A cool thing about the enemy in this game is that they will probe your colonies for weaknesses and exploit them. If you are not ready to defend any of your border colonies, rest assured, they will be hit. The enemy loves to fight you on two, three, four fronts at one time, and are willing to sacrifice colonies in order to hit your weak points.
Despite the fact that my fleet on the east side of the map was outnumbered, they were able to hold off the impending swarm. I did suffer losses, though, as for some reason, I didn't have repair carriers. Pretty sure I lucked out, as the Xeno called a cease fire shortly after I colonized the two planets on the far left.
5) Time management is really important, even though my game lasted over 1,000 turns. Every time the xeno call a cease fire (noted by 'star traders noted a decrease in xeno activity), two big things happen - if the xeno are currently attacking you, and you are defending, they will literally turn tail and leave, and they will not come back until captains report their movements have increased.
This creates a huge opening for you to recover some economy, as these cease fires tend to last quite some time. You need to make the most of them, as the xeno use the time to rebuild their fleet. Usually, once the cease fire has ended, their next attack will be stronger with the last one, likely with upgraded ships.
I immediately destroy any unnecessary ships to minimize the drain on the economy. This includes military transports, if I think that I will not be invading the xeno in the near future, OR if I think I will be upgrading the transports' abilities anytime soon. Let's look at that above picture, where I have five freshly colonized planets. While you can't see it, at the time, I was losing money at the rate of 600 a turn. If I continued to press into the xeno territory, that loss would have gotten far worse. Instead, by taking 100 or so turns, killing off my damaged, inefficient, or about to be upgraded ships, and really maturing the new colonies, as well as upgrading my navy's capabilities, I go into the next defense phase far more prepared.
You should never be pressing further into Xeno territory when you have many new colonies to take care of. It is hard to fathom just how expensive new colonies are, and just how long it takes for them to stop being a drain. You literally need an exchange 4 (provides lots of money, and lots of spice), at least 5 hab units and factories, and then some mines before you can consider a colony well established. Even with subsidizing the exchange (a move I HIGHLY recommend), it takes a while.
For new colonies, I recommend in this order: Colonize with colony module three, subsidize factory 2, subsidize hab unit 2, subsidize exchange 4, build mine 5. interrupt any step to subsidize another hab 2 if necessary. By this time, your new colony will start making some serious dough and will have enough CP to deal with whatever needs to happen. A high quality colony should always have max CP. Lower quality colonies should have at least one factory 5, which, along with starport 4 upgrade, should provide a decent amount of CP.
Look at the upgrades and methods I'm outlining though, and think of the cost. This type of building is absolutely impossible anytime early. I think it will be much more beneficial to simply mature your starting colonies and slowly grow outward, as opposed to getting extra early ones and frantically trying to defend them while researching essential upgrades for both ships and buildings.
6) Endgame will test how well you've managed your time and money. Once the xeno have upgraded to version 5 of their ships, everything except high end weaponry will only scratch them. You will simply be overrun unless you've managed to get the most out of the starship tree. A battlecruiser can two shot a level 5 mass driver, and a heavy carrier can one or two shot an enemy torpedo ship. Your fighters will take 8-12 turns for the same results (NOTE: upgraded cruisers are still very good here, as they can hold the big torpedoes, and I definitely recommend keeping a couple around). The best light gun really is a piece of crap compared to the godly weaponry a heavy carrier can hold, not to mention the fact that they seem to miss a lot more than the carriers do. Fighters at this point should be retooled with more armor and evasion to soak up some of the 50 point mass driver hits. I actually started to fall behind at this point.
My fighters were missing over and over, and my carriers didn't have enough oomph to really cut into them. My war funds went from over 400k at the start of this invasion, to under 80k when I finally started to get a profit again. I got cocky with my large war fund, expanded too quickly, and didn't upgrade my fleet enough. As a result, I almost lost the game. Real talk, I probably would have thrown my tablet at the wall if I did.
But I didn't. Final screens from the win below:
Looking forward to trying the next difficulty!
Some comments about balance: In this case, as opposed to my similar post about hard difficulty, it seemed that everything had a place. Overall, I am very satisfied with how the game played out, and even satisfied at the fact that there was some endgame risk. I feel that fighters might be a touch strong, since they are the only thing that can be repaired, and they can soak so much damage so well through all stages of the game. Cruisers and everything else are delicate flowers that must be protected, and this causes a lot of passive play - cruisers have to be built with like 5 captain skill in repair for the occasional torpedo hit they take, and can't be put anywhere near the front. As a result of their inability to be repaired, as well as the fact that fighters do the job so well, cruisers should be torpedo only.
Assault fighters are very good, and allow you to use crappier ships against better opponents. They provide an excellent 'stopgap' until you properly upgrade your fleet.
Fast reactor 7 is essential technology. I am kind of glad there isn't a better 4mp 2 mp reactor with higher mass, as it really makes you change things up later on. Do you put a higher end fast reactor on a fighter and have a poor man's version of a heavy carrier or do you build the carrier, get the very strong melee attack, and then use fast reactor 7 fighters as your tanks? I think the latter is the superior option, but just having the choice is great.
love the game
1) Expansion is one of the riskiest things in the game. At first, one would think you can make the starcraft-like play of grabbing early colonies and using them to further your economic base. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that in this game. New colonies are HUGE money drains, and it takes many, many turns to make a colony profitable. When you're using colony module 1, with early game upgrades, and not a lot of cash to subsidize a factory 2, hab 2, then an exchange 4 to get the colony started, (or even have these things researched!), it's even more of a drain. My next game, I will wait until my initial colonies are far more mature, plus I have more colony modules to expand.
2) Did I mention expansion is risky? It's NOT risky if your name is evil aliens. Their expansion rate seems to be constant. I lost several times trying to take a nice forward line of colonies, and around the same turns, every time, the aliens came and attacked me.
3) Despite my new realization that early expansion is pretty much stupid, I did it anyway in the game that I won. I found what I believe to be the furthest out planet that you can take, hold, and defend. (as you can guess, I lost the game in this screenshot lol)
This picture here from one of my losses illustrates what I've learned. You can take all the planets in the green outline fairly safely. The red line is where you will be HOTLY contested. The yellow circled planets will be taken by Xeno, but you can likely defend them or take them back.
If you try to expand too quickly to anything outside the green outline, it's game over. I was able to snag the two north most planets in the green outline, then defend them with cheap fighters.
4) Let's talk navy. For a long, long, long, long time, your best bet will simply be to have a handful of fighters and maybe two torpedo cruisers to shoot the mass drivers with. Your midgame goal is to defend your most forward planet with something like this (if you don't have repair carrier, just use more fighters and MAKE SURE TO TAKE REPAIR CAPTAIN SKILL)
The setup above is actually more developed than what's necessary. (note that two of the carriers are melee range repair carriers, two are missile range refuel carriers). Being that the enemy is more than happy to come to you, and keep coming, as long as your fighters are able to absorb the occasional missile hit, you should be able to fend off huge streams of enemies using repair and retreat tactics.
A cool thing about the enemy in this game is that they will probe your colonies for weaknesses and exploit them. If you are not ready to defend any of your border colonies, rest assured, they will be hit. The enemy loves to fight you on two, three, four fronts at one time, and are willing to sacrifice colonies in order to hit your weak points.
Despite the fact that my fleet on the east side of the map was outnumbered, they were able to hold off the impending swarm. I did suffer losses, though, as for some reason, I didn't have repair carriers. Pretty sure I lucked out, as the Xeno called a cease fire shortly after I colonized the two planets on the far left.
5) Time management is really important, even though my game lasted over 1,000 turns. Every time the xeno call a cease fire (noted by 'star traders noted a decrease in xeno activity), two big things happen - if the xeno are currently attacking you, and you are defending, they will literally turn tail and leave, and they will not come back until captains report their movements have increased.
This creates a huge opening for you to recover some economy, as these cease fires tend to last quite some time. You need to make the most of them, as the xeno use the time to rebuild their fleet. Usually, once the cease fire has ended, their next attack will be stronger with the last one, likely with upgraded ships.
I immediately destroy any unnecessary ships to minimize the drain on the economy. This includes military transports, if I think that I will not be invading the xeno in the near future, OR if I think I will be upgrading the transports' abilities anytime soon. Let's look at that above picture, where I have five freshly colonized planets. While you can't see it, at the time, I was losing money at the rate of 600 a turn. If I continued to press into the xeno territory, that loss would have gotten far worse. Instead, by taking 100 or so turns, killing off my damaged, inefficient, or about to be upgraded ships, and really maturing the new colonies, as well as upgrading my navy's capabilities, I go into the next defense phase far more prepared.
You should never be pressing further into Xeno territory when you have many new colonies to take care of. It is hard to fathom just how expensive new colonies are, and just how long it takes for them to stop being a drain. You literally need an exchange 4 (provides lots of money, and lots of spice), at least 5 hab units and factories, and then some mines before you can consider a colony well established. Even with subsidizing the exchange (a move I HIGHLY recommend), it takes a while.
For new colonies, I recommend in this order: Colonize with colony module three, subsidize factory 2, subsidize hab unit 2, subsidize exchange 4, build mine 5. interrupt any step to subsidize another hab 2 if necessary. By this time, your new colony will start making some serious dough and will have enough CP to deal with whatever needs to happen. A high quality colony should always have max CP. Lower quality colonies should have at least one factory 5, which, along with starport 4 upgrade, should provide a decent amount of CP.
Look at the upgrades and methods I'm outlining though, and think of the cost. This type of building is absolutely impossible anytime early. I think it will be much more beneficial to simply mature your starting colonies and slowly grow outward, as opposed to getting extra early ones and frantically trying to defend them while researching essential upgrades for both ships and buildings.
6) Endgame will test how well you've managed your time and money. Once the xeno have upgraded to version 5 of their ships, everything except high end weaponry will only scratch them. You will simply be overrun unless you've managed to get the most out of the starship tree. A battlecruiser can two shot a level 5 mass driver, and a heavy carrier can one or two shot an enemy torpedo ship. Your fighters will take 8-12 turns for the same results (NOTE: upgraded cruisers are still very good here, as they can hold the big torpedoes, and I definitely recommend keeping a couple around). The best light gun really is a piece of crap compared to the godly weaponry a heavy carrier can hold, not to mention the fact that they seem to miss a lot more than the carriers do. Fighters at this point should be retooled with more armor and evasion to soak up some of the 50 point mass driver hits. I actually started to fall behind at this point.
My fighters were missing over and over, and my carriers didn't have enough oomph to really cut into them. My war funds went from over 400k at the start of this invasion, to under 80k when I finally started to get a profit again. I got cocky with my large war fund, expanded too quickly, and didn't upgrade my fleet enough. As a result, I almost lost the game. Real talk, I probably would have thrown my tablet at the wall if I did.
But I didn't. Final screens from the win below:
Looking forward to trying the next difficulty!
Some comments about balance: In this case, as opposed to my similar post about hard difficulty, it seemed that everything had a place. Overall, I am very satisfied with how the game played out, and even satisfied at the fact that there was some endgame risk. I feel that fighters might be a touch strong, since they are the only thing that can be repaired, and they can soak so much damage so well through all stages of the game. Cruisers and everything else are delicate flowers that must be protected, and this causes a lot of passive play - cruisers have to be built with like 5 captain skill in repair for the occasional torpedo hit they take, and can't be put anywhere near the front. As a result of their inability to be repaired, as well as the fact that fighters do the job so well, cruisers should be torpedo only.
Assault fighters are very good, and allow you to use crappier ships against better opponents. They provide an excellent 'stopgap' until you properly upgrade your fleet.
Fast reactor 7 is essential technology. I am kind of glad there isn't a better 4mp 2 mp reactor with higher mass, as it really makes you change things up later on. Do you put a higher end fast reactor on a fighter and have a poor man's version of a heavy carrier or do you build the carrier, get the very strong melee attack, and then use fast reactor 7 fighters as your tanks? I think the latter is the superior option, but just having the choice is great.
love the game
I agree with most of the ideas here, I've found similar things too. Mind you, I have never gotten as much money as you. XD