Defeating the Talisman
 

In our current game we just saw the unthinkable, one race had 80 dreadnaughts (all phased V) and 4 fully loaded carriers of fighters against 32 dreadnaughts (all phased V) with talisman and the talisman race won and still had 21 ships left.

This caused the non-religious player to quit in a huff by surrendering to the race that was winning (not the race that kicked his butt) and exclaim, "It's impossible to beat the talisman! It's completely overpowered!"

So, I ask you minions of SE, how do you beat the Religious players and the dreaded Talisman? Prove our player wrong and that it can be done!

- Takr

Re: Defeating the Talisman
 

I smashed two homeworlds of a Talisman equiped player recently. One was guarded by a single DN and attacked by around 8 Meson V BattleCruisers, the other was guarded by three DNs and assulted by a 37-ship fleet of BCs, two carriers, and assorted missile-carrying LCs. The Talisman DNs were armed with APB X to XII, defended with decent ECM, armor III, stealth armor, scattering armor.

I lost a total of three ships to that fighting. Key advantages here: he was using armor, I had shields. *Phased* shields, so even if he had PPBs I would have been ahead. I had good sensors, so I hit him enough.

It can be done; but going up against a Talisman equipped fleet WITHOUT good sensors and good fleet experience is going to be ridicilously painful; you need to be able to hit him reliably. Nothing else matters. Skip the ECM, leave the scattering and stealth and home. If all else fails and you can't seem to hit enough, build ramming ships and missile ships. They never miss, and can withstand enough damage on the way in to give the missile ships a break. Stay out of his range, and remember that if you can get through the PDC fire, seekers won't miss.

If you need a direct-fire weapon, consider the Wave Motion Gun. +30% to hit.

You also have 1500 racial points, and 40kt over him. *Use it*.

Phoenix-D

Re: Defeating the Talisman
 

Here's another thread on this subject.
The unbeatable combination

I haven't had my morning coffee yet, so I will grumpily point out that your friend won't learn one damn thing more from that game now that he's withdrawn. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Defeating the Talisman
 

Well said Grandpa Kim, well said.

Undertakr, tell your friend that numerical advantage is no guarantee of sucess in SEIV. I have been in this community a long time and have played a lot of games. I have seen lopsided battle results such as you describe and worse where neither player had the Tailsman.

To beat the player using the Tailsman, you find his weakness and exploit it. Every player has a weakness. And if he doesn't have a weakness he would beat you anyway without the tailsman.

Tailsman has been very in vouge lately in PBW games. Partly becasue there has been all this talk about it being unbeatable. As more people use it, more people will learn ways to deal with it, and there are ways to deal with it. And as players using Tailsman start getting ganged up on and knocked out of games early and often, they will stop using the Tailsman.

The Deeply Relgious advanced Racial trait will soon become a great big target hanging around the neck of any player who chooses to use it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Geoschmo

Re: Defeating the Talisman
 

Although I've never had a big battle against the talisman 80 vs 32 and losing sounds like something else may have contributed too. Like maybe the level of armour, shields, sensors etc. Could 32 talisman DN's beat 80 idendtical non talisman DN's with the highest possible combat sensors?

Re: Defeating the Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Possibly David G, I'd have to run some tests, if the non-trailsman player was using optimal range or something like that for a strategy. One of the biggest keys to beating a tailsman player in a battle is to change your ships strategy to point blank. This helps overcome the advantage of the Tailsman never missing because your ships will almost never miss at point blank assumning they have decent Combat sensors and or experience. This will allow roughly equal weapons tech and greater numbers to overcome the Tailsman equiped race. But you are going to take a beating. You have be prepared for that going in.

Geoschmo

Re: Defeating the Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Rats! Geo beat me to it!

I will add, with optimum strategies (ie lots at point blank) and max fleet and ship training, the Talisman equipped fleet is dead. IF the Talisman fleet has max fleet and ship training too, you could lose. The big fleet will be missing a lot of shots against the additional 40% defense modifier. As well, with 80 ships you run into traffic problems-- not all those ships will be able to get in close, at least not right away.

Re: Defeating the Talisman
 

Basically the key to fleet warfare is hitting the other guy more than he hits you. The Tailsman is admitadly the ultimate SEIV tool to that effect. However, that does not mean the player using it is unbeatable, because there are other ways to beat someone in SEIV than to simply line up fleet to fleet and pound away at each other.

Beating the tailsman player takes unconventional warfare. It takes diplomacy, intelligence, research, production. It takes creativity, and ruthlessness. It may take pulling every trick out of your bag, and it may take coming up with a few new ones you've never heard of.

But as Grandpa Kim put it so well, one sure way to guarantee you won't beat the tailsman is by quitting.

Some of my favorite games have been after I reached the point of having no possibility of victory. Becasue that's when I am free to experiment and improvise. When the cause is loast anyway is a perfect time to take bold risks and wild plans. If they fail it makes no diffeerence. If they succeed, even in a small measure, you have learned something that can be used in a future game.

Heh, sorry to get preachy, maybe this post should go in the philosophy thread. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo

Re: Defeating the Talisman
 

With 80 DN, avoid most traffic issues by making half of them into missile ships. 40 DN can throw a ton of missiles. PDC will not be able to stop fire concentrated on 8 ships at one edge of his group. Use the other 40 as beam ships, focusing on closer ranged weapons. He must close to beam range of your missile ships or he will die. Your beam ships are there to get in his way. Shield regen comp. and rotating your front line of beam ships will keep him from sitting out of range of your ships and picking them off. Not to mention your missile ships will be steadily killing him off.

Beam ships: try PPB (even though he has phased, they still deal better damage with slightly less range). Ripper beam is good in close. Yeah, its only range 3, but you can make him get that close. On top of that, using shield depleters can help if he is too strongly shielded. Say one per ship. Also, consider Ionic disperser to kill engines. Keep your fleet moving and as you kill engines off. Leave those crippled ships to be picked off with missile fire later, possibly even in a different battle (not like they're going anywhere in the system with no engines).

If you have to fight in strategic mode, it gets more annoying. But it is certainly doable.

Re: Defeating the Talisman
 

While people may say that in the end game the missile ship is dead i totally disagree, a mix organic/standard missile baseship can be produced in 3 turns, as opposed to 1 year or more for a conventional baseship. each can throw about 20 missiles every other turn and another 8 every three turns. if you line up 10 or 15 of these no PDC will stop you, and if someone does build enough PDC to stop that you should just switch back to other designs.

Don't bother with fighters when fighting the Talisman, they will die fast as any ECM/to hit modifiers are wasted.

Drones in gold may be a useful strategy. When playing a talisman you can't out mass 2 or 3:1 with raw KT and firepower then try to pick your battles and draw him out, (then lay mines behind him while you head straight for his home worlds). Try fitting destroyers with plauge bombs and a little armor then sending one at EACH of his planets (lvl 5 will kill ppl real fast). how about luring him into a system of yours and then blow the star? also, get allies against him! BUT WHATEVER YOU DO, AND I HOPE Undertakr tells his friend this, DONT'T QUIT, that is weak and you don't learn anything (i know its been said before but im get so pissed at ppl like that, it ruins the game to a degree as well)

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keep fighting and if all else fails take religious too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif