Re: Defeating the Talisman
 

I think we just have to go into those caves and get them out, although I did see a news special about how they were going to use soundwaves to make them surrender...oh, you said TALISMAN! Sorry!

Re: Defeating the Talisman
 

Not to belabor the point but I now know someone that has made the comment that as an Economic Powerhouse combined with the talisman he would be undefeatable in any game where he is allowed to get to Economic Powerhouse stage(about a million metals coming in per turn). It appears that the only defense against a Talisman player is to kill him early in the game. The talisman is way too strong. It need to be modified to miss about 10-20% of the time. Or be made very expensive to build/maintain.
Gozra

Re: Defeating the Talisman
 

Sure, we can beat those Taliban....

http://www.gotlaughs.com/funpages/bin2.swf

Re: Defeating the Talisman
 

This was a very interesting thread!

Wardad, I particularly enjoyed your number-crunching analysis. Very enlightening, indeed!

Re: Defeating the Talisman
 

I'm just about wrapping up my first victory with my partner in a team game on PBW after a long and challenging 9 months.

I won't go into detail on what specific factors were involved, because really, winning encompasses much more than fleets and battle strategies. See the "When to Attack" thread...

The biggest and baddest player for most of the game was a very good Talisman player. His empire was getting huge. The honest key to victory was planning and pulling off a coordinated surprise attack just before he was in position to do it to me.

I attacked his economic base and raided his planets, bypassing his defensive fleets. He opened warp points on my front lines, which I used against him to launch deep (expendable)strikes behind his lines. While he reacted with damage control, I consolidated my fleets at the front to the best of my ability, even though my ships were far inferior.

I played an Organic race, and pumped out as many Base ships packed with Organic armor (and just a few weapons) as possible. I set their strategies to short/point blank. They acted as fodder. I also configured a few strats to allow some Organic ships to "dance" in and out of combat, taking advantage of the armor buildup each round. But what I lacked was a punch. I got it by building long range strike ships; and my partner helped me out with some of his ships, which were better on the attack.

Best of all, I attacked him with his own ships by insurrecting them slowly and surely... and adding them to my defensive fleets.

Intel. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Gotta love it. I don't believe anyone mentioned it, but massive Intel superiority is devastating. Truly a key. Broke all his treaties, stole his ships, and robbed resources.

After consistant pressure for many turns, his economy was in shambles and his planets were rioting, halting production. To win, you must be ruthless and relentless, pressing the advantage, and never letting up. It was all down hill from there.

Re: Defeating the Talisman
 

I believe Stone Mill just showed us very convincingly that there is nothing "unbeatable" in SE IV.
I hate to say it again, but for those who complain that the religious talisman is too powerful: you can mod that yourself!! Increase the size (and may be the cost) to any level you feel appropriate. If the religious talisman takes up 500kT of space, just to give an extreme example, it won't be too powerful anymore.

[ October 26, 2002, 08:13: Message edited by: Q ]

Re: Defeating the Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Q,

your point is only valid if people want to play against the computer. If I believe the Talisman is massively overpowered (which I'm not sure I do...), it's no good me creating my "Talisman costs three times as much" mod if nobody else agrees with me about both problem and solution. Game-balance fixes are really going to have to be implemented by Malfador. Mods created for game balance are just not going to attract players.

Mark