advice for playing on tough/crippling

I am currently playing a game on either tough/crippling. I am playing the korath, and currently i have all my mini tech researched and my spore tech researched. My military is not really developed but i own 7 planets on a gigantic map. the only people that don' t like me and want to wipe me off the map are the iconians and the Thanlans. Well the thanlans are busy fighting their own war but they have allied with the iconians to beat me by giving them their own ships.

the thing is..since my military tech is not developed...the iconians have better beam weapons and some good armor. One of their defender has a beam weapon of 5 and an armor of 2. I don't know what techs they have, and then later on they come with a fleet of 3 ships with a combined beam weapon strength of 60, i don't remember what the rest of the stats are. Well this little fleet just comes and destroys all the denfenders on my various plaents. And there is this one planet i am trying to invade that is in my territory. I forgot if it got invaded or if they took it for themselves initally. Anyways....it has become a war of attrition, i would send my one ship of denfender with like a beam weapon of 3, missiles of strength 2 and armor of 2. Zero shields. I can send 3 of these and get completely beaten. The thing is, i want that planet because i have a spore ship parked right outside that planet dying to paid them a visit.

My problem is i never really understand how the defend stats work. Like if a ship has a certain stats, what does it mean and how do i counter it. I think someone produced some formulas on the forum eons ago, but i can't find it since it is buried under a billion different threads. If anyone can help me to a) give me advice on how to play better, what can i do currently as a countering strategy to the iconians.

One last thing, the iconians managed to take out all my mining resource star bases. I try to develop the starbase fortifications, but that did nto give me any defenses. am i suppose to develop the starbase offenses tech. They took out 2 of my econ starbase, one miltiary resource starbase, and one morale starbase. but my economy is going on positive, i can pull in 100+ bc per term if i am not building anything. It all comes to for me right now, keep researching military tech or keep building ship. I am on a very tight budget in order to balance the books.

the other good thing is some of the other races including the drengin likes me, and a few others. they give me their ships. I am guessing that there are alliances already being formed on the map, i happened to be the neutral player who might have been gotten into the wrong alliances. I don't have any planet defences or invasion tech developed. Why bother i figured, i have spore tech, send one ship in, don't have to waste the lives of my population, when i can waste all of the enemies on a planet. any advice that you can give me is appreicated

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

Remember using the spore ships will instantly put you in a hostile position towards others because genocide is not appreciated in the galaxy

Keep it until you have the military resources to afford a big war. Push your military to acquire more pressure on the others. Me personally often disregarded the worth of a big military force. Your influence on others stands and falls with the military power you have.
Btw - did you try to skip the planet over by building influence starbases around it? I assume if your forces get beat you are not able to defend such - again, push your military. Military starbases give you good bonuses in military rating.

Resource Starbases are better defended with ships rather than with fortifications. The SB fort. are in no relation to the time it takes to build a decent starbase fortification (that gets destroyed by the first big fleet getting to it) does not keep up with ships defending the Starbase. Rather concentrate on assist features, build ships, that surround and protect the starbase and get massive bonuses from it. Remember - each ship in a fleet gets an own bonus, so the whole fleet bonus is bigger, the more ships are in the fleet.

And - keep the enemy busy. Try to wage war against each other while keeping your own hands clean. That binds their resources and give you time to rise.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Hello there...

I enjoy playing the Korath but I take a different approach. I use spore ships as early and as often as possible. You might like to try this:

Look around for enemy planets that don't have much in the way of defences. Concentrate on sporing those. Even if you lose the planets once spored, you have still wiped out their population. Spore enough of their planets and their econ will start to fail as they aren't getting enough tax revenue.

Don't worry about defending against therir ships, as long as you take out any troop carriers that they build. AI often seesm tos end troop carriers on their own ie not part of a strong fleet.

This approach works best of you have researched faster engines. You don't need much research to build spore ships that can travel 9 parsecs a turn. You can move from a safe distance away to sporing a planet in 1 go this way. Great fun!

If your econ is a bit shaky, then once you've spored a planet just destroy the colony. That way it won't cost you anything, but you've still wiped out their population

Cheers

Successfully updated karma reason!

which techs links ship to starbase defenses?? i don't fully understand the planetary defense tech verses starbase assit techs. please explain

Successfully updated karma reason!

I have never played as the Korath but I'll answer what i can about general war making / game play.

First, to answer your question: Planetary defences give you better soldering, star base defences allow you to add better defences to your starbases with constructors. What Di55ection said about assist featurs was refering to military starbases only, what he was saying was that you should add the modules that assist ships rather than adding modules that add to just the star bases defences. And i agree.

As stated, its better to defend a star base with ships. I will add at least the first weapons to my starbases (+1 in each category) just to prevent some stupid defender from destroying it. In you current situation though I don't think you have the ships required to defend. Those "Defenders" are really not good for much except to make the AI send in a war ship before a transport, or to get you some sort of military rating in the early game. Basically those things are good for target practice and to draw the enemy fleets deeper into your territory.

To help you play better i would suggest that when a war starts you concentrate on weapons first, then miniturization and defences. Getting medium hulls helps a lot. Of course you still have to have good production and economy going. Since at first you're trying to defeat the enemies in your territory you can wait a little for engines to get more fire power. Your specific circumstances will dictate if you should do this though.

Mostly make sure you have the right defences for your enemy's weapons and you should try to use weapons that their ships dont have defences for. Its ok to lose your defenders, you don't actually lose anything until you get invaded. So slow down ship production and get better techs, then switch over and churn out some powerful ships.

Successfully updated karma reason!

the thing is i am confused with starbase denfenses tech versus starbase fortification. I thought starbase defenses is suppose to help me to do defenses.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I can't remember the specifics off hand but you have both star base defences and star base weapons. There are 2 branches in the tech tree, one called Starbase Defences (or is this Starbase Fortification?)and one called Starbase Mobilization.

The manual that came with the game actually names the the different modules and tells you what tech you need to get them. However, it doesn't tell you what the effect is (I don't think). I tend to never research either so i don't know. I may lose a str base or 2 but its not worth my researcgh time or the number of onstructors to protect all of my bases. And at the time that I'm too weak to protect them with ships I wouldn't have the resources to build them up that much anyway. And when i have the resources to do it I'm pwerful enough that I don't need them.

Successfully updated karma reason!