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strategy & tactics
hi,
i am starting to play se4 for the first time and the other players are some kind of se4-veterans. bad odds i know but thats why i like to ask all of you what can i do to secure my systems effectivly and what kind of general strategies and tactics do i have to keep in mind?? that would be a great support! thankx to all who help me out!! regards, newborn |
Re: strategy & tactics
Wellcome to the forums. Kinda hard to put several hundred hours of trial and error into one post but here is something to begin with http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
In general: - Expand as fast as you can. - When you think you have enough research, double it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif - Maintanance can kill you. When a ship is obsolete; upgrade or scrap it. - Train all your ships/fleets. - Watch your empires happiness. - Don't forget first level of cloacking (stealth armor) is damn cheap to research (both for you and your enemies). + + + + For a start, check out this thread on fast expansion Have fun |
Re: strategy & tactics
Welcome and good luck to you then!
I cannot give a comprehensive answer, since all games tend to be different. Instead, I will do my best to provide a few answers about defence. - First of all, you may want to prevent the enemy from getting into your systems to begin with. It is made easier if you have few warppoints enabling ships to reach your systems. Defending at a warppoint (also called wormhole) allows you to strike first, while being in range of the enemy. It means you will be able to deal some damage to the invaders before they can do anything, and so they will have a harder time entering your systems. To do so, you can deploy satellites over the wormhole (they aren't too reliable anywhere else though), fighters if you have researched this technology or your own ships. Fighters are fairly powerful early on, but are countered by Point Defence weapons, so you should add a few ships as well. If you do so, do not put the fighters and the ships in the same fleet, since it will rapidly deplete the supplies of the whole fleet. Another way to deny them entrace is to put mines over the wormhole. Mines are powerful, but you can only put 100 mines at the same sector, and they are destroyed by Minesweepers. Most invading fleets will have enough minesweepers to destroy 100 mines, and so you should only use mines early on during the game. - But fighting at your side of the wormhole will not be enough as the game goes on. There is a component that enables a ship to open a wormhole, which will bypass any defence you may have at your wormhole. So if you cannot hold the wormhole, you will have to protect your planets themselves. Weapon platforms, fighters, ships and bases can be used for this purpose. The weapon platforms are rather cheap to build, and they are designed for defence, so they are probably your best bet for now. Do not forget that they have mounts (click on Weap Mount to see them), which slightly improve the damage done by the platform, and above all, its range and its accuracy. Weapon platforms are more accurate and have a longer range than ships, and so you can hope to attack them first. Bases serve the same purpose as weapon platforms, but they are in space rather than on the planet itself. You will need a spaceyard to build a base, and they are much more expensive than weapon platforms, so they are not so commonly used to protect your planets. Lastly, mines are an effective way of defending your planets, but as before, most fleets will come with enough minesweepers to destroy any mine you might have deployed. (Obviously, fighters and ships can be used to protect a planet as well, but this is their usual role) - When being on the defensive, another factor is very important: happiness. All your planets have an happiness level, which goes from Jubilant to Rioting. You should strive to keep your planets Jubilant, as it improves production by 20%. On the other hand, Rioting means that the planet does not produce anything, and cannot build anything at all. Happiness is changed by events (such as building ships, colonising planets or signing treaties), and you can improve it by building the Urban Pacification Center (found under Psychology => Applied Political Science) and Troops. You will lose happiness if one of your planets is destroyed or captured, and so you need to keep your planets as happy as possible so that losing 10 planets will not make your other 90 planets riot. Because of this, even planets far away from the front can become useless because of rioting, and it may bring your Empire down more quickly than enemy fleets. This does not qualify as defending your systems, but it matters as much, if not more, than repelling the enemy fleet. In fact, you can win a game if you cause massive riotings to the enemy, even if you are losing all your major battles against his fleets. - Lastly, there are other ways to stop a fleet from getting into your systems, which usually involve breaking the logistics of the enemy: * Stellar Manipulation III (found under Astrophysics) allows you to close wormholes via a component (whose name I have forgotten). If you can close the wormhole the enemy fleet is likely to use, they will not be able to get to your systems. As said above, Stellar Manipulation III also gives a component doing the reverse, so it only works if you have a technologic advantage. * All fleets require supplies to move and to fire their weapons. If you can prevent the enemy fleet from getting new supplies, they will eventually exhaust their storage and will not be able to do much at all. Once again, Resupply V allows you to use the Quantum Reactor, which gives unlimited supplies, but this component is expensive to research. The Frequently Asked Questions thread also gives a lot of advice about the game, and would be a useful read if you haven't already done so. And what Primitive said is certainly the way to go with the game in general. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif |
Re: strategy & tactics
thankx a lot to both of you, primitive and alneyan!!
i think i will start with the mines and defending my homesystem. the hint with the wormhole is very interesting too because now i know what happened to me: as some of my ships flew through a wormhole, on the other side there were ships from my enemy waiting and i lost. by the way, i know that i can set a strategy for my fleet. but i really do not know which is useful. do you got an idea? regards, newborn |
Re: strategy & tactics
The fleet strategies you set based on the type of weapons the fleet tends to carry, or the role you want it to perform:
Optimal Firing Range is good for fleets that have weapons whose damage decrease over range, or for fleets going up against enemies that are hard to hit; it will bring your ships into the best range to do lots of damage and hit the most often. Maximum Weapons Range is good for fleets with lots of long range weapons with bonuses to hit, such as missiles or Wave Motion Guns. With Maximum Weapons Range, the fleet will try to stay as far away as it can from the target while still being able to hit the enemy. However, there is a bug in this strategy which causes ships with this strategy to charge in blindly on turns when the ship's weapons are reloading; the Ultimate Strategies Mod's "Max Range Slow Reload" strategy fixes this bug. Capture Enemy Ships tells the fleet to attempt to board and capture enemy ships; it is only useful if at least one of the ships in the fleet has Boarding Parties (research Military Science level 2 then Ship Capture). When all the boarding ships have used up their boarding parties, the fleet will attempt to fire at optimal range. Capture Planet will tell your ships to attempt to capture a planet; it only works if at least one of your ships is carrying troops (research Construction level 1 then Troops). If all transports are depleted, the fleet will attempt to fire at optimal range. Don't Get Hurt is good for unarmed ships; it will send them to cower in the corner of the screen and stay out of the main combat; sometimes they'll actually run out of the corner if someone dares to approach http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif Ram is useful if you install warheads on your ship (or lots of armor, especially armor which can regenerate!), or the ship has no chance of surviving combat anyway. (Ramming with colony ships is a valid and not uncommon tactic! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) Be aware, though, that the ramming ship takes 2/3 more damage than the ship being rammed, assuming both ships have the same number of hitpoints - and the ramming ship doesn't get to use its shields while the target does! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif Fighter Attack and Drone Attack are special orders that should not generally be used for units other than fighters and drones; I think Fighter Attack makes your fighters fly in really close and fire away, while Drone Attack makes the drones ram, weapons blazing. Point Blank and Short Weapons Range force the ship to fire up close; there's really no point that I can see to using them in place of Optimal Weapons Range. Is that everything? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif You can also customize your own strategies in the Empire Options | Strategies window, or, to make them persistent from game to game, edit the entries in DefaultStrategies.txt (you might want to make a backup of the original first!) or download the Ultimate Strategies Mod from www.spaceempires.net |
Re: strategy & tactics
If you really plan on dominating the universe, check out the Space Empires Evil Ruler Handbook . It is full of free hints and tips that can be usefull(and funny http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ).
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Re: strategy & tactics
And don't forget the ultimate gaminess, the art of Min-Maxing the Empire. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Might as well get started on the right foot!
[ July 13, 2004, 17:54: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ] |
Re: strategy & tactics
once again it is on me to thank all of you for your postings!
special thankx goes to Ed Kolis, Imperator Fyron for their hinds concerning fleet strategy and minmax settings! a great help for me! i disagree with Slynky! i will not change my forumname and like to ask him how he started playing se4? regards, tobi |
Re: strategy & tactics
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Re: strategy & tactics
Can we please reduce the number of sticky threads? It is getting out of hand...
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Re: strategy & tactics
Seconded.
First real post is rolling of the opening page. |
Re: strategy & tactics
Atrocities, you could link to this thread in "New Members Please Look Here".
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Re: strategy & tactics
hi!
it is me once again. got very helpful hints and answers from various members, whom i like to thank a lot. their answers made me reading a lot in the forum the related links so that i got some more detailed questions ... i still try to understand fleet combat and how to design a powerfull fleet. my opponents in the game are using PPB, CSM and PD combined with the talisman and boarding parties. - when it comes to combat, who is starting first? is it the defender? - is there an order in which weapons are fired during combat? - the same with ships in a fleet: is the order of ships in a fleet important for success and the choosen formation? - do the talisman make combat sensors useless an a waste of space in my hulls? - i like to design a fleet with medium and long range firepower because at the moment my favourite weapon is the PPB V and PD V. my enemies as i pointed out also prefer the PPB and PD. so what kind of long range weapons are usefull in your opinions? -maybe torpedos (not hit with PD?), shild depleters or the APB? - is it an advantage to build SY-bases at the early beginning of a game? if yes, how many will do best? the other players build a LOT (about 10) of them at the beginning. this game is really fascinating but horrible difficult! anyway thanks all of you for your mentorship!! best regards, tobi aka newborn |
Re: strategy & tactics
- The defender fires first indeed. There will be problems to determine who is the defender if two fleets, with the same speed, moves to the same sector at the same moment. In this case, it is random. Being the defender gives a strong advantage when the attacker warps through a wormhole; otherwise, the defending fleet will not be in firing range, and so who fires first depends on the speed of the two fleets. (Being the defender may be very useful when the two fleets are so big they take the whole battle area, but I have yet to see such a battle)
- Weapons are fired in the same order as they are in your ships, provided they can be used (a ship will not fire its Shield Depleting weapon if no enemy has shielding for example). Point Defence Cannons are fired when an enemy moves in their range, and so aren't fired along with the other weapons. - In a fleet, ships will fire according to their id number. So, your oldest ships will act first, and your newest warships Last (at least, it is the common opinion about this as of yet). So you cannot change the order of the ships in a fleet. Formations can matter, but I am no expert on formations and ship strategies, so I cannot tell you anything more on this one. - When you have the Talisman, the only purpose for Combat Sensors is to act as a backup. If your Talisman is destroyed, but your ship still has Combat Sensors, it will be able to have a chance to score a few more hits. Since the Talisman is a big component (50 hitpoints), it is more likely to be hit than most other components, and so you may find a ship with a broken Talisman but a few weapons still running. Besides this, Combat Sensors are useless on a Talisman equipped ship. - Torpedoes deliver very little damage per turn and per kt, and they have no bonus to accuracy in the stock game, so it is not advised to use them. Shield Depleters are useful if your opponents are fond of shields, and the APB is a very good weapon when it reaches level VII or VIII. You will seldom be able to hit at range 8 though if your target has all the components helpful for defence, and adequate training. The Wave Motion Gun can also be useful given its range (8) and its bonus to accuracy (+30%), which makes this weapon able to deliver some damage at maximum range. It only fires every *three* turns though, and deals less damage per turn per kt than the APB (for example). Still, if you do not expect your ship to survive for more than one turn, and would prefer to deal as much damage as possible, the WMG is useful then. If you can afford the research to get it. - Some players like to build BSY (Base Space Yards) early on, whereas others put all their efforts towards research and colonisation. So there is no definitive answer here I believe. For what it is worth, the only use I make of BSY in the early game is to be built while my homeworld recovers from the first 11 turns of Emergency Build. To counter Boarding Parties, you may want to use Security Stations or the Self Destruct Device, depending on how many Boarders you are facing (if there is only one per ship, the Security Station is likely your best bet). Shielding may help as well, if they do not use Shield Depleters (since they already have the PPB). And PDC will do wonders against their own seekers. Be careful of them using fighters to overcome your defences though; if they have too many resources on their hands, fighters may be a nice way to put these extra resources to good use (a few fighters aren't too powerful; a few thousand of them are another matter). [ July 16, 2004, 14:00: Message edited by: Alneyan ] |
Re: strategy & tactics
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If so Point blanc is a good strategy for a non-talisman ship/fleet to use against a Talisman ship/fleet that will hit at any distance. So no need to keep the distance then, get in close.. |
Re: strategy & tactics
Can fleet experience (i.e. 29% +) make a differnce when both sides are using talismans?
I have a legendary fleet of 300 that faced a larger fleet of 500 (equal to better ships) and we decimated them (not defending through a warp point either). Needless to say I survived with about half my fleet still in tact. I didn't take the time to watch the replay since there are over 800 ships. |
Re: strategy & tactics
It may have an influence indeed; fleet experience improves both your defence and your offence, which means that your ships were much more ready to fight without the Talisman than the enemy. It probably hadn't much of an influence though, especially if most ships were heavily armoured/shielded. The same reasoning would go true if some ships in the battle didn't have the Talisman (either due to a peculiar ship design or because of previous damage/retrofitting). However, save for this, two Talisman ships aren't influenced by fleet and ship experience when fighting, until said Talismans are destroyed.
However, the main factors were probably ship design and luck. Since you were in open space, who fired first was an open question, and I guess your fleet delivered first blow. Depending on the designs involved in the battle, it may have been very important; or not so, if you haven't been so lucky and only managed to do marginal damage in this first round. Given the end result, I gather luck was on your side for this battle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif |
Re: strategy & tactics
Talisman ships are definitely affected by experience, as it increases their defense/ECM value.
When fighting talisman fleets, it is a good idea to get as much experience as you can for your ships and fleets. The more you have (assuming the talisman ships are all at 20 exp), the narrower the gap in to hit rates becomes (100% talismans vs. 20% non-talismans could become 100% vs. 40%, for example). Experience still makes a huge difference when fighting talisman ships. The experience does not help the defense of the non-talisman ships at all against the talisman ships. |
Re: strategy & tactics
ok, i like to sum up the Last postings to get it clear for myself:
first scenario: if i fight a talisman fleet without having the talisman on my own, then i should 1. train all my ships/fleet 2. use combat sensor to get as close as possible to the to hit rate of my religious opponent. using ecm and scattering armor are worthless in a kind of way for me because the talisman always hits me, right. this free space could be used for more weapons or shielding. the strategy for my fleet should be 1. trying to get the first shoot 2. do as much damage as possible 3. maybe go to point blank range to do the most damage cause the talisman ships will hit you at any range. second scenario: if two talisman fleets are fighting each other, then 1. you do not need to tain your fleet and ships (because of 2. and 3.) 2. you do no really need the ecm/scattering armor bonus because you get hit by 100% 3. having the talisman as well means you do not rally need the combat sensor because you also hit 100%. ship/fleet training, ecm/scattering bonus and combat sensor are only useful as backup in case of a destroyed talisman. basically try to have the first shoot and more combat movement. strategy in this scenario should be range when you have long range weapons such as WMG or APB. otherwise you could use point blank as well using null space weapons or depleter weapons for example. |
Re: strategy & tactics
First scenario: Indeed, you need to increase your accuracy as much as possible to challenge the Talisman. If they are using Baseships, note that you will have an easier time defeating them because of the penalty to defence of the baseships and their lower speed (they will not be able to stay at range 8 where you cannot hit them).
You may also want to use special weapons, such as the infamous Null Space weaponry, if the Talisman ships are of the worst kind: heavily defended, with Scattering and Stealth Armour, fully trained and staying at maximum range. In such a case, your odds to hit are very low, and you will have to hit several times to break through the armour/shielding. So the Null Space weapon can pierce through armour and shielding, allowing you to target internals. You would have a fairly important chance to bring the Talisman or weapons down with this kind of attacks. Second scenario: Since both sides are using Talismans, ECM/CS/training only matters for ships that lose their Talisman during the battle, if you believe it may have an influence. I am no expert for designs to use in such a case, as I stay clear from any and all fleet with the Talisman even if I have the Talisman of my own. I don't feel that lucky to challenge them in a game of chance. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif |
Re: strategy & tactics
Strategy Guide Archive.
Please read through all the Posts in both threads, this one, and the one I have a link too. There are many other threads that have a lot of info. Sorry that it is not organized, we are all far to lazy to do that. If I had any motivation at all, I would finish my little instruction guide for game set up and play, and move on to a good strategy guide. Also be sure to check out the dubivous guide. There is a link to it in the "New Members Look Here" featured topic. |
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