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Re: IT gates Mon, 30 June 2003 01:30 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Zaphod is currently offline Zaphod

 
Crewman 3rd Class

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Registered: June 2003
Location: South Africa
Hmmm, I have not played in any games at the library, but the fact is I am not a fan of the broader multiplayer games, they get stressfull when I try to micromanage and take 2 hours to play a turn, wrecks havok on your life. I do not open the calculator often (my math sucks), and prefer going on gut feel. That is my only "rant" on stars, which is the best.

More on-topic. The IT is expensive to play, but if U use all the plusses wizely (Ie dont' play IT like a HE or a WM, and use the mineral tranporting option) your PRTs have to be used to the max, or else you wasted the pick-points, and should play JOAT. For instance try CE, and use bigger fleets to overcome that anoying fault. Cut down on #mines, and transport minerals around more. I am not saying CE is a wize move, but in fleets >10 ships, I am not sure it causes U pain anymore. Another trick is using AS, and building a quick gate by colonizing with just the required minerals to build. After that, the CE trait does not hurt U at all, and U can bring in the needed upgrade minerals in one turn. The downside is than a planet that gets cut of with no gate is toast next round.



If you much it up in the beginning as you learn the ropes, and make intentional mistakes. And then bust open the top-scorer's head suddenly, it comes as a big surprise to everyone. (this only works once)

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Re: IT gates Mon, 30 June 2003 08:46 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Paladin is currently offline Paladin

 
Officer Cadet 3rd Year

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Zaphod wrote on Mon, 30 June 2003 01:30



Another trick is using AS, and building a quick gate by colonizing with just the required minerals to build. After that, the CE trait does not hurt U at all, and U can bring in the needed upgrade minerals in one turn. The downside is than a planet that gets cut of with no gate is toast next round.


I'm not sure I understand what "AS"

Paladin

[Updated on: Mon, 30 June 2003 09:17]




"There is no substitute for Integrity"

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Re: IT gates Mon, 30 June 2003 09:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mazda is currently offline mazda

 
Lieutenant

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Paladin wrote on Mon, 30 June 2003 13:46


I'm n ot sure I understand what "AS"

Paladin


Advanced Starbases is my guess.

[Updated on: Mon, 30 June 2003 09:08]

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Re: IT gates Mon, 30 June 2003 10:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Zaphod is currently offline Zaphod

 
Crewman 3rd Class

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Just goes to show how long since I desighned a race, AS, I meant to say IS (Improved Starbases), but I am chuffed U thought I am on to something.

Oh nooogghhhh I have unleashed the monster says Jorrus.



If you much it up in the beginning as you learn the ropes, and make intentional mistakes. And then bust open the top-scorer's head suddenly, it comes as a big surprise to everyone. (this only works once)

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Re: IT gates Mon, 30 June 2003 13:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
LEit is currently offline LEit

 
Lt. Commander

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Zaphod wrote on Mon, 30 June 2003 01:30

For instance try CE, and use bigger fleets to overcome that anoying fault. Cut down on #mines, and transport minerals around more. I am not saying CE is a wize move, but in fleets >10 ships, I am not sure it causes U pain anymore.


The chance for engine failure does not depend on the number of ships in the fleet. If you mean splitting the fleet to get 90% of your fleet there, there are other problems with this (10% won't make it, you don't get shield stacking, and number of fleets is limited to 512)

Zaphod wrote on Mon, 30 June 2003 01:30

Another trick is using AS, and building a quick gate by colonizing with just the required minerals to build. After that, the CE trait does not hurt U at all, and U can bring in the needed upgrade minerals in one turn.


You do not need ISB (Improved StarBases - so as not to confuse it with Inner Strength) for this. You can toss a gate on a fort, and then gate in everything you need to upgrade from there - assuming you have 1/1000 pop efficency that isn't too hard, 1/2500 and its a bit more painful. A good reason for IT not to be HP style.



- LEit

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Re: IT gates Tue, 01 July 2003 02:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Zaphod is currently offline Zaphod

 
Crewman 3rd Class

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OK, the IT strat. I used is to put resources at 1/1200, and just build 1 or 2 factories (U could try factoryless, and go to 1/1300 or more, but it sux with the other negatives stacked together against U). Colonizing with a ship carying just below the needed minerals, and then using some luck on the scrapping for the remainder ,look at ship components and count on the colonizing minerals making up the rest. Once up U can assign orders to drop enough to build a dock, the 1st step is a mission, and almost a waste, but I cannot work out a way around this.
PS. has anyone ever won a (fair) game by playing with the Cheap Engines trait?



If you much it up in the beginning as you learn the ropes, and make intentional mistakes. And then bust open the top-scorer's head suddenly, it comes as a big surprise to everyone. (this only works once)

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Re: IT gates Tue, 01 July 2003 03:10 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Paladin is currently offline Paladin

 
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Zaphod wrote on Tue, 01 July 2003 02:51


PS. has anyone ever won a (fair) game by playing with the Cheap Engines trait?


Yes, on m ore than one occasion but only with IT. Cheap engines requires a different attitude than most other traits. And you always plan on them failing. If they don't then fine but if your plan relies on the 90% of your fleets engines engaging, then luck will dictate that they will fail.

I also like to travel within 36 LYs and then I can launch my final assault at warp 6 and not have a chance on failing.

But remember, when you are building Battleships with the interspace-10 engine, CE will make your ships 60 points cheaper to construct. So it's not just the Advantage points you gain during race creation, you save resources during the game as well.

Paladin my 2 cents



"There is no substitute for Integrity"

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Re: IT gates Tue, 01 July 2003 08:31 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iztok is currently offline iztok

 
Commander

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Hi!
Zaphod wrote on Tue, 01 July 2003 02:51

OK, the IT strat. I used is to put resources at 1/1200, and just build 1 or 2 factories (U could try factoryless, and go to 1/1300 or more...

For a race with factories there are only 1 reasonable pop eff settings: 1/1000 or 1/2500. Maybe (really just maybe) 1/1100, because you are losing 9% of (free) resources from pop for mere 40 RW points.

For factoryless races it is usually 1/1000 (1/900 or 1/800, if you can afford, but IMO it's better to put RW points in hab/tech). Anything less for a -f is just postponed suicide.
BR, Iztok

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Re: IT gates Tue, 18 November 2003 01:42 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Cirrus is currently offline Cirrus

 
Crewman 3rd Class

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Interesting....

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Re: IT gates Wed, 31 March 2004 04:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Steve1

 
Officer Cadet 2nd Year

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Quote:

PS. has anyone ever won a (fair) game by playing with the Cheap Engines trait?


Terrible trait !!!
I would never choose it even if I was IT.
True it does give you a nice starting point advantage and at the start of the game it might not affect you as much, but many many battles in the mid to end game are critical and to not have your ships arrive at the destination can be devastating.
I would even start to wonder at the value of testbedding with this trait. There's enough variables that can affect the outcome of a battle without including this dreadful LRT.

It works well for an IT on the defensive or any race for which your ships are all gateable (that's on the defensive), but attacking an opponent with unreliable engines would be incredibly frustating.

Consider too, that colonisation would be slowed throughout the entire game. One year slower for 10% of each of the planets you go for that are within 1 year (warp7 or above) of colonisation of a gate, but then consider on top of that how many of those planets might take two years or more to colonise.
That's not all; then you send your LF's to each of those planets and there's the whole compounding effect of potential growth lost !
Even an IS isn't helped much by this trait because it makes all your growth calculations (whilst in transit) askew.

CE is something I've never chosen and never will unless the game has some oddball rule - like no travel beyond warp6/7 !


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Re: IT gates Wed, 31 March 2004 04:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Steve1

 
Officer Cadet 2nd Year

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Quote:

Jump gate - head away from your planet at warp 1 for one turn. Then stargate to the planet of choice... eh volia... 2 year jumping with cargo.


Of course if you're jumping to your own or a friend's starbase you could just as easily travel the first year at anywhere between warp1 - warp10. An orbital fort as a destination would be different because you're not getting the refuel. At warp10 you can travel just over 100ly in the first year and then the year after, travel whatever the limit of the receiving gate is. Can make a big difference as to whether you arrive at a planet of choice or just a waypoint.

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Re: IT gates Wed, 31 March 2004 04:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Staz is currently offline Staz

 
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Steve1 wrote on Wed, 31 March 2004 10:20

Quote:

PS. has anyone ever won a (fair) game by playing with the Cheap Engines trait?


Terrible trait !!!
I would never choose it even if I was IT.
True it does give you a nice starting point advantage and at the start of the game it might not affect you as much, but many many battles in the mid to end game are critical and to not have your ships arrive at the destination can be devastating.
I would even start to wonder at the value of testbedding with this trait. There's enough variables that can affect the outcome of a battle without including this dreadful LRT.

It works well for an IT on the defensive or any race for which your ships are all gateable (that's on the defensive), but attacking an opponent with unreliable engines would be incredibly frustating.

Consider too, that colonisation would be slowed throughout the entire game. One year slower for 10% of each of the planets you go for that are within 1 year (warp7 or above) of colonisation of a gate, but then consider on top of that how many of those planets might take two years or more to colonise.
That's not all; then you send your LF's to each of those planets and there's the whole compounding effect of potential growth lost !
Even an IS isn't helped much by this trait because it makes all your growth calculations (whilst in transit) askew.

CE is something I've never chosen and never will unless the game has some oddball rule - like no travel beyond warp6/7 !


You can mitigate the effects by splitting your fleets. As an extreme example, if you send 10 fleets rather than 1 then you can be fairly sure that 90% of your fleet will arrive.

When colonising, send 2 coloniser hulls (individual fleets) with a bunch of privateers split into 2 fleets. Make sure that the colonising fleets arrive with enough pop and minerals to put up a gate within 3 years.

Not that I've ever taken CE of course, so this could all be a pile of crap Very Happy
...

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Re: IT gates Wed, 31 March 2004 05:17 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Steve1

 
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Quote:

You can mitigate the effects by splitting your fleets. As an extreme example, if you send 10 fleets rather than 1 then you can be fairly sure that 90% of your fleet will arrive.

When colonising, send 2 coloniser hulls (individual fleets) with a bunch of privateers split into 2 fleets. Make sure that the colonising fleets arrive with enough pop and minerals to put up a gate within 3 years.


Yes you could play your game in such a fashion, but there's two difficulties I see with this, as follows:
1) As already mentioned by Leit, there's the difficulty with the 512 fleet limit (although admittedly at the start that shouldn't be a problem).
2) Duplicating, your colonisation is actually quite expensive. It's easy to think that hey you're only sending one extra coloniser/privateer to take a planet, but if you do that for every world that you want to occupy, there's a cost to build into your efforts. Sometimes it might happen to work out that there's two or more suitable colonies in the same direction and in this circumstance it would work very well. Generally for a tri-immune or wide hab race it would be quite a good strategy, but otherwise for most races I don't think the overall game expense of doing such a thing would be worthwhile.

[Updated on: Wed, 31 March 2004 05:21]

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Re: IT gates Wed, 31 March 2004 06:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Staz is currently offline Staz

 
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Steve1 wrote on Wed, 31 March 2004 11:17


1) As already mentioned by Leit, there's the difficulty with the 512 fleet limit (although admittedly at the start that shouldn't be a problem).


Granted, but you wouldn't actually split your warfleets into 10 parts; maybe three or four. And only for fleets that absolutely have to be at a certain place at a certain time.

Quote:

2) Duplicating, your colonisation is actually quite expensive. It's easy to think that hey you're only sending one extra coloniser/privateer to take a planet, but if you do that for every world that you want to occupy, there's a cost to build into your efforts. Sometimes it might happen to work out that there's two or more suitable colonies in the same direction and in this circumstance it would work very well. Generally for a tri-immune or wide hab race it would be quite a good strategy, but otherwise for most races I don't think the overall game expense of doing such a thing would be worthwhile.


It's only the coloniser I'd double up on; not the privateers. And when the planet is colonised you still have one of the colonisers available; you can re-use this for a later colonisation effort.

Lets say your HW is producing 50K new pop every year. You fire off 2 fleets, each with a coloniser and a privateer. You make sure you split the colonisers out from the privateers 1 turn before arrival. If both colonisers arrive, one will find the planet already colonised, so you just unload it's contents.

Again, I should point out that I've never tried this.

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Re: IT gates Wed, 31 March 2004 06:47 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Micha

 

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Staz wrote on Wed, 31 March 2004 13:28

Lets say your HW is producing 50K new pop every year. You fire off 2 fleets, each with a coloniser and a privateer. You make sure you split the colonisers out from the privateers 1 turn before arrival. If both colonisers arrive, one will find the planet already colonised, so you just unload it's contents.

Again, I should point out that I've never tried this.


IIRC when both colonizers arrive they will both colonize ... IOW both ships are lost. (Will test when I get home.)

But I could be wrong here, happened to me once years and years ago when I was doing a teammates turn who had CE with every IT he played ... and he only played IT. Grin (Damn good IT player for the level we are playing at at that time.)

mch

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Re: IT gates Wed, 31 March 2004 07:10 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Staz is currently offline Staz

 
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Micha wrote on Wed, 31 March 2004 12:47

IIRC when both colonizers arrive they will both colonize ... IOW both ships are lost. (Will test when I get home.)


Damn! You're right (just tested).

Shows how much I know Laughing

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Re: IT gates Wed, 31 March 2004 08:30 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kotk

 
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CE means 10% slower expansion. There is no difference how lot of fleets and in what order you send. 10% of them will fail each turn (meaning 10% of your expansion effort is failing).

IT got improved expansion. About doubled. It is lot enough to avoid taking IFE, to take CE and still be about 35% quicker than other PRT-s.

It is thematic for IT to try and win some other major power present in game at BB era. CE makes IS-10 BB about 10% cheaper. Having 10% cheaper BB is quite fine bonus i think.

CE gives about 70 RW points. It is nice but not too lot of points. Maybe 10% bonus to 2450 score with careful design.

AS for my real game experience and personal opinion... CE is little but constant pain with all MM. CE is russian roulette in main battles. Some may like such virtual jackassing. Most people probably like to avoid it. Wink

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Re: IT gates Wed, 31 March 2004 09:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Micha

 

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Staz wrote on Wed, 31 March 2004 14:10

Micha wrote on Wed, 31 March 2004 12:47

IIRC when both colonizers arrive they will both colonize ... IOW both ships are lost. (Will test when I get home.)


Damn! You're right (just tested).

Shows how much I know Laughing



Thanks for testing that, saves me some time. Smile
So this is another reason to not pick CE. Wink

mch

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Re: IT gates Wed, 31 March 2004 09:50 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Micha

 

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Kotk wrote on Wed, 31 March 2004 15:30

CE gives about 70 RW points. It is nice but not too lot of points.

Don't forget the one extra level in pop bonus! Take IFE and as IT you're starting with AD8 (even your starting ships have that engine) without doing a single bit of prop research!
Combine that with grav immune. Smile

mch

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Re: IT gates Wed, 31 March 2004 18:18 Go to previous message
Steve1

 
Officer Cadet 2nd Year

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Quote:

Granted, but you wouldn't actually split your warfleets into 10 parts; maybe three or four. And only for fleets that absolutely have to be at a certain place at a certain time.


I can't speak for other players, but I can say that in most games I play I don't really have a problem with the 512 fleet limit. I think though if you're in a large scale end game war, that splitting fleets for each battle (or potential battle) might become a problem. Remember that for any new fleets built in the next year that exceed the 512 fleet limit, they are automatically deleted.

The other problems created are worse:
a) You lose the cumulative fleet shielding and will therefore get a higher attrition rate.
b) The opponent would be wise to use Gatlings against your ships. A good example of the benefit would be in a comparison of a Big Mutha Cannon to an AMP. The AMP clearly has more firepower, but the BMC gets multiple targetting and will devastate a non-stacked fleet.

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