How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

I searched around for strategies to use as an Organic player to beat a Crystallurgy player but I couldn't find any. I'm getting my *** kicked royally in a pbem game by a Crystallurgy player. It's damn annoying to see my nice big expensive Dreadnoughts being pulverized by smaller number of Battleships and I need to know how to build Organic ships that can beat Crystal ships. Any ideas?

Re: How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

Well, if the enemy is relying heavily on those armor-piercing shard cannons, ditch the organic armor.

Instead, you can layer on the shield generators, and use your organic seeker spores to stay outta range of shard cannon while overloading their PDCs with seekers every other turn.

If the enemy in using the AP shard missiles, shields & PDC will hold them off, since shard missiles are have horribly low damage Ratings.

Against the HEM deathbeams, you can't use armor (see Shard cannon), so you'll just have to stay outta range and hit em with your missiles.

Basically, use your organic missile weapons and shields to the max, adding PDCs to fit.

If you force a long-range missile battle, you'll win since your seekers do twice the damage of the crystalline seekers.

Re: How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

Build a class of ships that uses shields instead of organic armor. Your organic weapons typically pack more punch than his crystaline weapons, and shields will give you protection where armor won't.

(edit: SJ, yah beat me by a minute!)

[This message has been edited by Alpha Kodiak (edited 30 May 2001).]

Re: How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

What SJ and AK said, plus fighters with small acid globule's are pretty tough. That's about the best anti-ship fighter weapon in my mind. Plus you can crank them out fast because they are more balanced resource wise. Not all minerals like DUC fighters.

Organic's best asset is production. You are not going to design a super-ship to take him on one-on-one. But you ought to be able to out-produce and out-build him. If you have him outnumbered 5 to 1 in every battle, you are going to win more than you lose.

Geo

Re: How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

It's dangerous to assume that a 'special' advantage you have chosen will be the key to winning the game. History is littered with ruined military forces who thought they had a "special angle" that would carry them to victory in all situations. The only real 'trick' that the Crystalline tech tree gives against Organic tech is armor-ignoring weapons. Since your regenerating armor is effectively neutralized, just approach the problem as if you were a "normal" tech player -- as you should approach ALL problems, btw.

You, and everyone, would face the extra problem of destroying a ship equipped with crystalline armor, of course. But the solution to the armor-ignoring is roughly the same as the solution to the crystalline armor problem. You need to either attack from extreme range so they cannot shoot at you in the first place (missile strategy as suggested by others here) or you need to move very fast to avoid being hit -- 'dance' in and out of range. Also, you want to hit with few attacks and as high a damage as possible for each attack because this reduces the amount of shield regeneration they will gain from the hits. This is easy with missiles. They do lots of damage per hit. If your enemy has lots of PDC then if you didn't have the Acid Globule or Env. Acid Globule I'd say research torpedoes quick, or a special weapon that also skips armor like the Null Space Weapon... it has less range though and makes the "hit and run" strategy harder to use. Ships equipped with as many of the largest mount Acid Globule they can carry and max engines plus at least some shields will give the crystalline ships a lot of trouble if they are given a "max weapons range" strategy.

As in all games, ECM and Combat Sensors are very important. If your enemy has the same or better level in these than you do, you are in trouble no matter what. Make sure to use Ship and Fleet training facilities, also. It effectively adds a number of turns to 'construction' of your military forces but the advantage can be very important.

Something I have never been able to do with strategic combat is get missile ships to use their "missile dance" independently of beam ships maneuvers. If you could send in two seperate fleets, one full of beam ships and the other full of torpedo ships, the coordinated attack of these two forces could be very difficult to deal with. Unfortunately, the two fleets tend to get in each other's way. This can be very powerful in tactical combat though.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 30 May 2001).]

Re: How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

I've had pretty good luck with the standard weapons against all racial techs using the (well mentioned in these Posts) Phased Polaron Beams and the (not so well metioned) Null Space weapons. They seem to do especially well against both Organic and Crystalline 'cause NS weapons skip both armor and shields. The downfall is you have a slow reload time (3) and a relatively short range (5 IIRC) so you'd better have decent engine tech to get you in and outa' there. But, once you get a shot in, the damage to vital components (weapons, engines, etc.) racks up quite quickly and can shift the tide in your direction.

Another downfall is ships I've equipped with NS weapons don't seem to do well at all in strategic combat. But in tactical (with my favorite component - the Talisman), I have taken out 4 dreadnaughts with 1 LC using just NS weapons and standard mounts!!!

Of course, the PPB's do well 'cause of their quick reload, decent range, and of course, shield skipping for non-phased shields (for early game advantages).

(EDIT)
...and to Baron:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>If you could send in two seperate fleets, one full of beam ships and the other full of torpedo ships, the coordinated attack of these two forces could be very difficult to deal with...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I too would like to do this. I have made a suggestion before (and other posters have as well) about a 'Battle Group' feature - being able to combine more than 1 fleet into a group. Give each fleet different combat orders, yet move them as fleets work now. That way you could have for instance, a group of missle ships working as a fleet doung their 'dance' and direct fire ships flanking to close off their escape and at the same time, fighter Groups from a mini-fleet of carriers closing in close to overwhelm any PDC's and mop up the straglers...

[This message has been edited by rdouglass (edited 31 May 2001).]

Re: How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

The Null Space weapon is great as either an 'ambush' weapon -- put it on satellites guarding a warp point for example -- or as a siege weapon where you have to go in and attack some incredibly huge and well defended base/planet. You can start doing damage immediately instead of having to break through all the shields/armor. But in standard combat where you have to close with another moving ship to fire and then get away the slow fire rate can be a problem. Note: The PPB penetrates planetary shields. They are 'normal' shields. So, this can be a very useful planet attack weapon, too.

Re: How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>one type of ship armed with PPB's and another type armed with Shard Cannons<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Then just go for missile ships, and hammer him from range 20 with your seeker spores. Stay out of range of his weapons, and load up on missiles rather than defenses.

Blow them away before he gets in range.

As a long-term goal, get those phased shields, and you'll be able to get in close to use your beam weapons again.

Re: How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

His ships are packed so full of PDC's missiles would be no good. Like throwing snowballs into hell, they'll just melt away.

Re: How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

Make some big ships with shields, shield regenerators and armor only. If you can get phased shields you will have it made. You can put a lot of shields and armor on a BB. Make smaller ships with your weapons.
The computer usually targets the largest ships first. Let the enemy fleet pound at your "target" ships while you fire back in relative freedom.

Re: How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

Then Jubala, you should surrender to him!!!! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Hey, but you can use PPB too! Also, never forget to use fighters.

Re: How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

That's very intresting. He has both armor skipping and shield skipping weapons. Here we have an example of a problem caused by too many 'special' abilities being too easy to acquire. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Maybe you need to visit the other thread talking about how races with special abilities need to have a disadvantage when researching other 'standard' technologies? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

But setting aside the game design implications, this sounds like a situation where you need to radically change tactics. There are other considerations than special weapon abilities at the strategic level. Are mines available in this game? Especially when placed at warp points they can be very effective. Might be a good idea to spend some research on those. I'd suggest a switch to fighter tactics, but if he's got enough PDC to make missile attacks useless he'll be quite devastating against fighters, too. Do you have stealth armor or cloaking yet? Build some cloaked ships and try to slip into his systems and raid his colonies, damaging his economic base. Think "submarine warfare" for guidelines on how to design cloaked task forces. He can't build these killer ships if he doesn't have the resources to pay for them. On the defense front, you've got to stop letting him dictate the time and place of battle. You've got to think and use old fashioned strategy to out-maneuver him. Concentration of forces can make a technologically inferior enemy superior locally. Find his fleets with your cloaked ships before they can reach your borders and drop mines in their path. Find his ships before they mass into fleets and destroy them piecemeal.

Re: How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

You really need to get phased shields. Once you get phased shields, you won't be slaughtered.
You could try to design a ramming ship in the meantime...

Re: How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

All good ideas, thanks guys. There's only one little problem. My enemy uses a mixed fleet with one type of ship armed with PPB's and another type armed with Shard Cannons. I can design a counter for each of those designs that whip them good, but then that design is a complete sitting duck for the other enemy design. If I try to design a ship that can stand up to both of them it gets clobbered by both of them. And since there is no way to control which ships engage which enemy ships in strategic combat (pbem game) building two designs that can beat one of his but is mauled by the other doesn't seem very appealing.

Re: How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

I'm researching Phased Shields as fast as I can, which aint all that fast any longer. I tried using Fighters. I had a mixed fleet of about one hundred ships that broke down something like this:

Carriers 20
Light Cruisers 17
Dreadnoughts 42
Battleships 4
Battle Cruisers 11
Non-armed 20 (sweepers, repair and transports)

The Carriers had about 1000 medium and large fighters on board armed with small electric discharge III split about even between medium and large.

That fleet they went up against was an enemy fleet of about 70 ships broken down like this:

Battlecruisers 31
Battleships 21
Boarding Ships 15 (DD's and LC's)
Carriers 3
Noncombatants 5

My entire fleet was destroyed for the following enemy losses:

LC 4
BC 10
BB 5
LX 3

Losing close to 100 ships and destroying less than 25 in return is not a favourable rate of exchange. Unfortunatley that's about the best I've been able to do most of the time. I took down a fleet of his with 30 ships in it with a fleet of mine with 50 but lost close to 30 doing it. Many of his remaining ships from this latest battle are heavily damaged but I don't know how damaged or what is damaged on them because of the very poor after action reports you get from Strategic Combat.

I think I should mention that we are about equal in technology when it comes to weapons and protection except for shields. He has Phased shields and I do not. Not the best of them yet, but he's getting there.

With the result of my latest battle above I'm kind of wondering what the point of fighters are. One would think that 1000 fighters should be able to cause some serious damage but as you can see they did not. That probably has something to do with the AI's piss poor handling of them in strategic since I suspect it doesn't hoard them and fling them all the enemy in a big wave but launch and fly at once so they come in staggered and gets eaten alive. But still, they should be able to do something!!!

And I will not surrender! Never! I always try to play my games to the bitter end. I often keep playing even after it's clearly pointless to continue and all that is left for my opponent to do is mopping the remains. As long as I can build ships I will do so and throw them defiantly into the face of my enemy! No retreat no surrender! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon8.gif

It's late and I'm tired. Good night.

Re: How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

Fighters are awesome in certain circumstances, but up against a fleet of 40+ heavily shielded ships with lots of PDC, they will get pounded. Of course you don't need me to tell you that. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

No tactic or tech is going to be right in every situation. It's basically a great big game of rock/paper/scissors.

I agree with SJ you need to close the gap in shield technology. Perhaps you should play a defensive battle for a time. Mine the crap out of your planets. Make him pay for every inch of ground, but keep the bulk of your ships out of harms way. Small fleets roaming around picking of straglers.

Get some ships in his rear either by stealth or outflanking. Then go after his smaller less defended colonies. Make him spend ships defending his colonies and going after your raiders and that's less he can send after you. Don't try attacking his big colonies. They will be too heavily defended, and will tend to have ships in orbit as well.

Wiping out a couple of small colonies in a system can have a devestating effect. The remaining colonies will start to get angry which causes him to lose production. This way you can eliminate the larger colonies without actually attacking them, which would be futile.

I agree that allowing him to set the time and place for battle is getting you nowhere. Make him react to you for a while. That will take some pressure off and allow you to build up your fleets.

Geo

Re: How to beat Crystallurgy with Organic?
 

There is always the diplomacy option, if you have contact with any other empires. Is there anyone you could form an alliance with? A 'second front' can sure be helpful in a war with a superior foe. Trading technologies effectively doubles up both of your research abilities.

As far as other research areas, have you got an bio-weapons? Especially if this is something you don't usually use, it could be a surprise and he might not have medical technology. All you need to do is get ONE hit on a planet, too. Not destroy it. If you can get at least level 3 plague bombs and catch him flat footed, you could do a LOT of damage.