Question about general strategy: missles vs. fighters vs. drones vs. direct fire, etc

[teal]

Originally posted by kingdom:
Personally, TEAL there is nothing more pathetic than a suck. And so far you have lived up the that title very well in this game.

Your right! I definately suck. How else to explain how I have failed to get very far at all against my enemy for 50 turns despite having what he seems to think are overwhelming advantages?!

[DavidG]

Originally posted by teal:

Sure no trait is all powerful in a multiplayer game. My point was that all other things being equal having bezerker with maxed aggressiveness/defense is much better than the alternatives. Things are never equal ("no admiral in his right mind goes out picking a fair fight").

I think this is only true in either a 2 player game or a game that is likely to be short and agressive. In a longer game with more players then I wouldn't pick these stats. Even in a 2 player game I think 125/125 agressive defensive is a little pricey (i usually go 120/120)
I think the berzerker stat is also only really usfull early in the game. later when everyones ships are fully trained with sensors and ECM it has less of an impact. (ie my berzerker status is have little impact of our Last few battles )

[teal]

Actually I mostly agree with you. Especially for multiplayer games where anything that paints a target on your own forehead must be very carefully considered as I have learned when trying to play a religious race. My views on this issue have changed somewhat over time as I have gained more experience.

I also think that training is way more important than Bezerker. This whole thread started with my questions about other "strategies" remember? As SEIV works now Direct Fire weapons are the only thing that really works well. Bezerker and training are correspondingly quite important (although perhaps not all important). Ramming could work well even unmodded if the ramming targets issue was resolved (it stopped your first advance). But as it is now it is too easily countered by your opponent just putting a non-combat ship that is one hull size bigger than your combat vessels into his fleet. I bet this was never really playtested as the designers probably didn't really think people would use ramming that much.

[DavidG]

Yup clearly training is extremely important. I would say the reason one empire in our game is virtually gone is due almost entirely to his ships lack of training. He actually had technically superior ships and in several battles even had more ships but got wipped out because my ships were all trained to the max.
I usually consider my ships incomplete untill trained to 20 percent. Of course this becomes hard to maintain as the pressure builds to get ships to the front.

[PvK]

Training is clearly more important than Berzerker, and ECM and Combat Sensors are more important than training...

...except...

players don't have to choose between them - they can get all of them, and they add together linearly ...

...except...

they can't develop Berzerker, or Aggressiveness/Defensiveness, during play, and except for Racial advantages, all the material bonuses and training eventually level out so everyone has the same thing, which means that the player who took the most racial combat advantages will have an advantage throughout the game, and particularly at the end.

PvK

[DavidG]

Originally posted by PvK:

they can't develop Berzerker, or Aggressiveness/Defensiveness, during play, and except for Racial advantages, all the material bonuses and training eventually level out so everyone has the same thing, which means that the player who took the most racial combat advantages will have an advantage throughout the game, and particularly at the end.

PvK

Ah yes but this assumes that the non berzerker player does not take advantage of whatever racial options he took instead. The berzerker may have the advantage at the end in even combat but hopefully the non-bezerker has used his attributes to develop a much larger fleet and a bigger empire.

[PvK]

Yes. That'd be true with something like PvK Balance mod in place.

Unfortunately, the unmodded empire costs aren't even close to balanced, and the no-cost culture settings certainly are not. Berzerker's +10 to ship attack and defense is worth I'd say about 1500 points, and its disadvantages come nowhere near correcting that.

The only other culture choice which seems like a competitor for value might be the one that reduces maintenance the most (Engineers), combined with maxing out maintenance reduction.

The unmodded game lets you get pretty darn low maintenance reduction, and pretty darn high combat bonuses, without limiting much else enough that it really matters, even with only 2000 points. With more points, you can max both, and should if it's just a competitive game, which indicates imbalance to me. I guess there is still a choice between Berzerker and Engineer, but by changing the costs, there can be many more interesting and balanced empire choices.

PvK

[ July 24, 2003, 02:44: Message edited by: PvK ]