My Gold military win win strategy!

Wow...

While I applaude your enthusiasim for making a "how to" guide, I must admit that I disgree with your technique.

I have been noticing that about 45%(actual statistics may vary) of all GCII players play on normal difficulty or lower mostly because the AI always becomes a military challenge.

I'm guessing that you have been winning your victories off of the Metaverse, since your posted record doesn't exclude you from this catagory. That's no big deal since I play most of my games off the 'verse. But I am curious as to what difficulty level you've managed to consistantly win at by using this stratagy?

Further, you mention that it should be used on a small galaxy with 3 opponents. Have you had any success with this using differant settings?

I'm also another player who disagrees with your strategy. I say, the best offense is a good defense. I win most of my games by either influence, or diplomacy victory. By possesing a powerful defensive military, the other races will not dare attack you, even if you are spamming influence in their territory.

Edit:
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Don't let the fact that we disagree with your strategy intimidate you. You might have a good point.

I'll try to remember this, thanks!

A "strategy" that relies upon restarting the game until you get nice tiles on your home planet is more of a cheat.

There are plenty of other ways to pursue a military victory that do not rely on cheating.

Edit: -------- Don't let the fact that we disagree with your strategy intimidate you. You might have a good point.

I agree, we aren't trying to discourage you, I hope I didn't sound like I was!

I've always found that the AI military is pathetic in the late stages of the game. With a similar tech level and two strong fleets, I usually wipe the floor with them on crippling.

I want a strategy that makes the AI strong in the late game.

I've always found that the AI military is pathetic in the late stages of the game. With a similar tech level and two strong fleets, I usually wipe the floor with them on crippling. I want a strategy that makes the AI strong in the late game.

given all of the improvements made to DA's AI, I'm pretty sure you'll get your wish!  

I use a strategy for large maps and bigger that works pretty well for me. I am not saying this is the best strategy, but I enjoy it and am getting better with the timing of everything and research paths. This may be a poor strategy for someone else, but I find it very useful.

A lot of people say that military production is the key to the game. For me I find that economy is the key. They build ships, I buy ships and improve the ones already in my fleet. I usually pick a bonuses to moral as higher taxes early really helps me. Hitpoints and repair are favorites of mine. Hitpoints more for intimidation and inflation of my military might score and repair because I like having experienced ships with ... lots of hitpoints. Luck is a must for me. A slight boost to population growth and/or planet quality if I can afford it.

I don't usually get reseach, military, defense, influence, or economy as a bonus because those can be found in game with the right resources.

For a superability I pick making factories in 1 turn. I can't mimic that with anything else(short of buying the factory every turn) and it really helps with upgrading planets in early/mid/late game.

1) During the colony rush try and get a planet with Starship bonus on it of at least 40%(usually not too hard on larger maps). The larger the planet it happens on the better, though I got a rather large bonus on a level 1 planet and ended up with a powerhouse so some things have changed in the expansion.

2) On your Shipyard planet put the following things.
a)Factories(equivalent) in every tile you can.
b)Starport
c)Manufacturing Capital
d)Power Plant
5)Hyperion Shipyard(optional but recommended, especially if your planet in step 3 is not close)

3) Closest junkiest planet next to your Shipyard(planet) gets named "Fleet Planet" and gets the following:
a)Spin control center
b)Omega defense system
c)Hyperion fleet defense (Optional, probably not needed as no one's been dumb enough to attack this planet yet for me ... but because random events can drag you into war, as well as Allies, I suggest it.)
d)Whatever else you want ... I stay away from putting a starport on this planet. If you wish to make it a research planet or an econ planet that would work well. This is usually my only planet without a starport.

4) Shipyard(planet) will build the biggest ships you can packed only with weapons and send them to your fleet planet.

5) Continually update the ships sent to Fleet Planet and upgrade the ones already there to the biggest, meanest weapons you got. You'll end up with 10 huge ships there eventually(9 if you build a starport on your Fleet Planet). Your ships on Fleet Planet should account for the majority of your military force and be an intimidating force to everyone else.

6) I usually have the majority of my other planets making constructors and building econ starbases around my Shipyard(planet).

Tip 1: End your Colony rush a little earlier than everyone else. It's better to have stronger planets and switch over to building up your empire earlier than it is to have a couple more planets.

Tip 2: Military starbases support fighters best. If you use military starbases to support your fleets I use fleets mostly composed of fighters. The bonus is applied to each ship as a set amount so you can get a bonus of X to 1 huge ship, or the equivalent of 5X to 5 tiny ships. Put at least 1 point of defense on your ship if you can. You only get the bonus to defense your starbase can provied if the ship already has a defense. I don't think any of that has changed


My fleets usually look something like this:

Sponge Ship(s)[1-3 ships](Huge Hulled ship(s) Loaded with Weapons, made on Shipyard(planet))
Fighters[the rest of logistics short of 5]{few weapons, loaded with defenses}
Radar Ship[1](Cargo hull with engins and scanners, can add defenses if you so wish, no weapons though)

The sponges should be the first shot at. They shouldn't take much damage because of the defenses of the fighters(odd but true) and whatever damage they do take can easily be absorbed by thier hitpoints(hopefully).

The Fighters should be fairly safe. While not making a very damaging fleet themselves they keep the Sponges alive, and add to slightly to damage. Supported by military starbases they become very powerful.

The radar ship ... I took out that eyes of the universe thing because it always felt like cheese to me. With 1 radar ship that'll be targetted last because it's no threat you can still have a fleet with good sensor range without wasting space with scanners on multiple ships in the same fleet.

If you are having trouble with your stacking it may be a level problem. More experienced ships usually get placed lower on your fleet. Since the sponges are likely to be replaced with green(unexperienced) sponges if they are destroyed or heavily damaged you shouldn't have a problem. That is unless you put an experienced sponge in with a bunch of green fighters. I acciently do that when I rotate out a sponge to be repaired at a planet and then use it when I'm forming a new fleet in a couple turns. Usually only a couple of fighters are lost before I fix it.

Sorry, but your strategy is a load of [substitute rude word beginning with b and being another word for testicles here].

I like the strategy of overwhelming numbers of fighters w/ the best weapons i can find. All fighters are on Tiny hulls, so that they can hold little in weapons, but take up little space as well. It is also fun to watch them fly around:)

I like the fighters w/ military starbase tactic. It multiplies your bonus over several ships. That gives your smaller planets something to do, while your mega planets can put out capital ships and galactic achievements.

I have never gotten to real capital ships. I always just play until I can fodder the heck out of my enemies. It is an expensive way to go, but they look really really cool when you have 25 little attackers each hitting for a lot:D Sure, they are expensive, but looks matter more to me then anything else:D

GalenEvil

this is an interesting discussion! there are so many dimensions to this game that i think it's futile to speak of one single strategy that bests all others, and i'd say the best players are those who understand all the nuances of the game and can make the most informed decisions on the fly.

i'm only getting a hang for the changes introduced in DA. i used to find tough a relatively formulaic cake walk, but now it's much more difficult. i usually like playing on large or larger galaxies, because i like range to mean something. i usually set the planets/stars to settings that'll leave each player with about 7-15 planets (on gigantic, this is usually uncommon stars, average planets, average habitables).

i never thought i'd like playing as bugs, but the thalan super ability makes a huge difference in the early stages of the game. i've been playing such that i only build factories at first, set military spending to 100%, and have most of my worlds focus on research. i read this strategy somewhere else. i always used to lag in research early on, but doing this i beat the others during the early game. i can usually ride that out until NLCs are available, then i upgrade various planets to use those. i don't bother with the extreme colonization techs. i just use influence to flood any planets the AIs colonize in the area i decide will be mine. i can usually cover more area this way, and snag extra worlds once mid game starts. with all the factories i build this way, producing constructors en mass is easy.

i always used to buffer a few capital ships with fleets of fighters. i kind of wish SD would lower the logistics value for tiny and small fighters to 1 and 2. i use them as fodder and to diminish the enemy's defenses. often my capital ship fleets are built with two engines per ship, but i'll also frequently defend my home turf with fleets of small fighters that don't move nearly so fast. they're effective, cheap and disposable. i prefer arming them with mass drivers because drivers have the lowest cost for the component (even though a fighter armed to full load with posititron torps is actually cheaper than one with neutrino bullets, because you can fit fewer torps, but i prefer them to fire more frequently for lesser amounts, diminishing enemy defenses more quickly). i've found lately that it's difficult to incorporate tiny and small ships into my offensive fleets for me, because i'm still a sucker for fast ships. two engines per ship ends up costing so much that i want to defend every ship well, so my grand offensive fleets tend to be made up of medium and larger ships.

of course, the best strategy is tailored to the specificity of the situation you're playing in.

I will probably be making use of Capital Ships once I finally get DA. This would be due to the improved fleet battles where extra (non-fired) weapons would be targeted at other ships. Thus allowing a single capital to take down multiple fighters.

I think in my current game I will try to get to Capital ships so that it will be much more interesting. So far, in my AAR, a whole year has gone by and no offensive ships have come out. Hopefully war will break out soon, need to buy some people off;) and then get them to trade w/ me and sell off my crappy ships to them:D

I'm pretty new at this, but I have actually had success with a different strategy. I drive my research straight for medium hulls, expert mini, nano rippers, impulse 3, and superior duranthium. Nano rippers are expensive, but they are so much better than anything at a comparable tech level, as is superior duranthium armor. Ships with these will be expensive at that point in the game, but not that expensive, and going against outdated smalls and tinys they will be almost indestructible. You can conquer half of a large galaxy by mid game, and at that point you just walk it in.

As you must have noticed I don't have much inter-connectivity to the internet.
And I constantly quick save and retire to check my score. I am posting for the first time in a month. Does that prove it. Difficulty: Always between suicidal and challenging. I get bored on difficulties below chellenging

Quote:Frogboy:"That way they won't really do much except drool and make snarky remarks"

I get whipped on obscene and to be truthful I sometimes lose on suicidal and I find that galaxies bigger then small have too much room. Too much tech to research before I can reach the next cluster where another race might be.

The most powerful and cool ship I have ever designed: PES Dooku

6 ps/w
77 B 0 S
0 MD 12 A
15 M 0 PD
Gigantic hull

I tend to smack the weaker opponents first... I build a fleet roughly equal of 1/4th of the greatest fleet, get into a fight with my weakest neighbour and then annilhiate them. I usually send in my Troop Transports in waves, to make sure I capture 20-30% of an opponent in one turn. This takes some preparation, and coordination, but it does help a lot to crush them. Suddenly taking away 20-30% of their empire hurts a LOT!

As for fleets, well, it really depends on my mood. I tend to like a lot of small fighters, but once I get my tech going, I also build a few capital ships strong enough to take out half or an entire fleet on their own, and I will then send those ships off into the grey nether in order to harass everything they come across. I also build heavy fighter class deep space strikers with only few weapons but lots of speed in order to attack trade routes, undefended troop transports and undefended starbases. Harassment is always a key element in my strategy, unless I can overwhelm an opponent and strik him of his fleet in five or six turns. The more disruption you cause, the more his economy will suffer, and the more he'll struggle to win the fight. The deep space striker strategy can, if backed up by scanner ships, keep stronger opponents at bay for quite some time. Against some opponents it is not important that you win, it is just a matter of not loosing untill you've munched through someone else and annexed his colonies.