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

[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 ]