Schem's 11.5 commandments of fleet management!
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Well I had an interesting battle against BetaAlpha and Ron, it was a singular battle. IIRC(which I might miss one number or so, their side, not mine) it was 3 cap ships (mine) against 5, of which I lost 1, nearly lost another and had killed all 5 of theirs. BetaAlpha said he expected a thread about my micromanagement strategies, so here it is:
oh, note: I've played against ron and BetaAlpha on several occasions, neither of them are bad at sins, in fact I would rate them under Multi, but just barely so.
DISCLAIMER:
I do not garuntee that my tactics are foolproof nor will continue to be massively succesful pending and post release, however these tactics have served myself well and repeatedly turn up victories despite terrible odds (sometimes, as in this case, in the order of 2:1) (they had many more frigs than me, maybe 15:5 frigs)
also: Multi will probably come in with some sort of "you lost so bad" remark because of my last battle, t'is true, but I would certainly attribute it more to the combined skill of Multi Ron and BetaAlpha, all particularly skilled players (with respect to the current makeup of the beta'ers), and their aggressive attitude than to any failure of my own.
well here it is:
THE COMMANDMENTS OF
CAPITAL SHIP FLEET BATTLES:
1. THOU SHALT NEVER USE THIS AGAINST FLOODS OF FRIGATES
god I cannot stress this enough, if your enemy is pulling a frig swarm, change your fleet makeup, do it NOW not later, and do it VERY QUICKLY. capital ships despite their great fortitude and strength, cannot stand up to groups of frigates. if you learn NOTHING else from me, learn this
2. THOU SHALT PRESERVETH WHO THOUTHT CAN
retreat is a very very important skill to learn, leaving at 2000 hp from near the planet will probably end up with you down one extra capital and your enemy with a free lunch, they can pick you off while you leave, taking your precious ship and getting almost free xp. few ships can shoot backwards in retreat, and those that can have a meagre backwards array. if you decide not to go all in to a battle, always always always always always do it before your shields fail, unless you are near the edges of the grav well, as then you might have some extra time
3. THOU SHALT PLACE PLENTY OF REPAIR STATIONS, BOTH AT YOUR FRONTIER AND ONCE REMOVED FRONTIER PLANETS
you dont know how incredibally useful some repair stations can be, even at half antimatter they can do a rediculous amount of repair, getting several together in a cluster can keep any ship alive in a 1v1 against another cap, and certainly survive to take down two if it has to. placing them at the "one out" can allow you to recycle your ships very quickly, allowing what you have retreated to re-enter the battle within 30 seconds to a minute
4. KNOW WHEN THOU IST OUTMATCHED, KNOW WHEN THINE PREY IS LOST
sometimes you simply should not enter the battle, sometimes you should simply let the level 5 cap ship at 500 health flee (although VERY rarely) sometimes you should just retreat and leave that terran planet for the attacker. I can imagine your reactions of horror "My god! who is this madman" etc. etc, but one thing any strategist of any form of warfare has to realize is when he can do more damage by retreating than by taking, in other words learn how to prioritize. Take for instance this example, you've been delt heavy losses, your enemy's cap ship is 1/4 way across the well from any of your firepower, at 200 health and almost done with the charge phase of its hyperspace into a well fortified gravity well with a bunch of repair stations. oh yeah, and its level 8. so what do you do? well under any typical circumstance the answer is: do nothing, you dont have a ship fast enough to catch it, unless your enemy is a complete dult (is letting it sit around) or has listened to moi (is sitting inside a cluster of repair stations) unless he is a complete dolt, it would be pointless and reckless for you to initiate an extensive offense, wait for the next time you engage in battle. yes, he probably will be level 10 or close next time you are in a fair fight, but frankly even if you did attack you wont accomplish anything but sustain losses. that is, unless you either are a) Vasari with a marauder capship
Vasari with both techs of gravitational cancellation against someone who doesnt c) TEC with an ionshot akkan that you are CERTAIN you can get within range in time. otherwise its a futile waste. now this rule also goes for planetary attacks, if you are going to sustain extreme damage without a garunteed victory, its not worth it, if you can sustain damage and garuntee victory, consider it, if you are going to sustain little to no damage, yet cannot garuntee victory, do it, and if you can take almost no damage and still garuntee, uh, you shouldnt need me to tell you the answer. Finally, and the lesson most people never seem to learn: sometimes giving ground is the simplest, easiest and best way to gain ground. whether you have just cleared a planet and are faced with the ass-sucking truth that you wont be able to defend it, or if you have to give up a well fortified planet to wait for reinforcements, the rule is the same: do NOT risk losing cap ships that you cannot replace (generally level 3+) unless there is some tangible chance of victory, otherwise letting your enemy take it, deal with the infrastructure buying, and then jumping in to own his ass is the best option (with reinforcements of course)
5. THOU SHALT NEVER ENGAGE IN THE FOLLY OF NO FRIGATES
frigates frigates frigates, you need them. I will be the first to admit I'm not the best with this rule, but they are there to deal a great deal of extra damage. if your enemy is concerned soley with fighting off your capital ships, and he cannot do it in a matter of seconds, then frigates will be your fulcrum with which you can leverage his ass to the moon, or his next planet, if you prefer.
6. THOU SHALT CHOOSE THE FEW BUT STRONG OVER THE MANY AND WEAK
this hasnt been a turning point in too many battles (except 1 or 2 against multi and emp) but it should be apparent that 1 moderately microed level 3 cap ship can deal with three level 1s "en masse" with ease, it wont win in a head on battle, but if you engage and pick correctly how you attack it will win through micromanagement. this becomes especially noticeable when you have 3 level 3s against numerous level 1s, the lvl 1s can barely swat at the level 3s while they get torn through. This strategy means buying new levels, as well as the very important TECHNOLOGIES that support them. this shouldnt be an issue, as a cap-er you've got quite a few military research stations up already, and have not focused solely on getting more caps, right? as a tac-on to this (a very important tac-on, listen to this part dammit!) if you can force your enemy to TRICKLE in with small ammounts of forces rather than FLOOD (by kiting or planetary defenses, or even splitting your fleet in two) you stand a much better chance of taking them down than by dealing with group-en-group attacks.
7. THOU SHALT FIGHT WITHIN THY PLANETARY DEFENSES
when on defense, I mean, this is just so completely DUH. unless your enemy is trying to bypass that planet and/or some other unavoidable reason for which you have to leave your cluster of HEALING STRUCTURES (hint, hint) you should let the enemy come to you, even multi and emp will admit that they can tip the balance by a ton, if they deny this utterly undeniable truth I'll simply post the replay that shows them getting torn up like construction paper during artsy-time in elementary school. trust me, defenses defenses defenses. and if you can FORCE them into your defenses using the phase inhibitor, all the better (which will be right smack dab in the center of your HEALING CLUSTER! right?)
8. THOU SHALT BOMB RATHER THAN LIE IN WITH THY NEIGHBOR'S TURRETS
obvious, one of the benefits of cap ships is that they can bomb very quickly, and also attack defensive structures without flipping out groups of one ship for another, so when your enemy has clustered all of his defenses in one area, go around and hit the planet instead
9. THOU SHALT HIT IMPORTANT PLANETS OVER CONVENIENT ONES, WHEN IT IS THY RIGHT TO BE GARUNTEED NO COUNTERATTACK
if the person you are going after has no fleet within a few jumps of an important planet OR of anyplace where you are supposed to defending with that fleet then go after weaker inner planets (all the better for vasari, since you can detect incoming fleets with ease). Sometimes the best way to dish out medicine to your enemy is through a suppository, and the great things about cap ships is that they can deal with being shot at while passing through, where frigates might sustain heavy damage.
10. MICROMANAGE THY FLEETS
choose choose choose choose choose WHO you attack, if you are going against a particularly high level cap ship that you can beat, but would take a while to do, go after his escort of frigates first, he's less likely to retreat due to frigate damage, they deal more damage AND you can garuntee they wont come back to bite you if you deal them 1500 damage. also: staying out of attack range, kiting and hanging around "hold ground" in defenses is must. especially in early-mid game where fleets may be a group of 2-3 with an escort of frigs. this comes in ESPECIALLY helpful when you pull of "assassinations" against enemy capital ships, sometimes its possible to chase a capital through several grav wells only to hit it with a low level strike force to wipe it out immediately, this is especially effective, again, early mid game where there are small fleets wandering around neutral territory trying to make the quickest route to their fleet or to a vital planet, assassinations practically deserve their own section. you know what? screw it
10. TAKE THE LIFE OF THINE ENEMY WHEN IT CAN SAVE THE LIFE OF YOUR OWN
if you see a level 5 ship wander past one of your planets into what you KNOW is uncontested neutral territory, and you have a small strike force of some frigs and a couple low level caps (which sounds rare, but it really REALLY isnt) hit that bitch, take his capital. this can be incredibally effective any time during the game, but especially mid-early game where the first cap ship is a relatively high level and your enemy is smug in trampsing it around. killing it can get you 1 cap ship down, make attacks easier and allow you to take the neutral territory he was going after. oh, and that means one less level 6 capital to deal with in the future. as a side note, know when you are vulnerable to this and ALWAYS strive to avoid such situations (unless, if you are a particularly evil genius and you can turn that ambush back on your enemy, taking both of his caps and eliminating his frigs)
and finally, so that this doesnt become too religious
11. THOU SHALT CHOOSE WISELY WHEN TO SACRAFICE THY SHIPS
sometimes it simply makes sense to lose that cap to kill your enemy's, sometimes you know you cannot make it out alive and doing as much damage as possible is the better option, sometimes you can assassinate a ship, but doing so risks losing your own. suck it up, sometimes you need to sacrafice a queen to take a pawn. just dont do it for a trivial reason, gain something of importance in the process
*bow* and so concludes my basic sum up to CAPITAL SHIP DEPENDANT fleet strategy. critique is appreciated, but know that nasty rebuttles will be delt with swift and angry insults and, of course, divine correctitude (mine, not yours, as you will obviously be wrong)
Details of the BetaAlpha/Ron V Schod battle
this is as close as I can remember, so I'm not garunteeing accuracy, all I know for certain is that I ended the battle with 1 capital ship lost against the 5 combined capital ship casualties of Ron and BetaAlpha, so I'll do my best to keep this right
Context: 2v2 map, Ron&BetaAlpha against Myself and Atar (cannot remember his name right, but its close to that) on a middle-random map, nebulas riddled the area between me and Atar, so we each expanded right into enemy territory, for me there was a small bridge of an asteroid, desert, then asteroid again leading right up to BA's territory, right outside one volc planet (connected almost directly to Ron) and to a second terran planet of BA's, connected almost directly to BA's homeworld. I had just attained the asteroid that bridged both the volc and the terran and had built 2 missile platforms, at this point I had IIRC two ships, a vaz carrier and a vaz battlecruiser against BA's Vaz carrier, evacuator and (oh, I cannot remember correctly dammit!) I think it was a battle cruiser as well, his ships were (IIRC) levels 2, 3 and 4, mine were 4 and 3, we commenced in battle, of which I annihilated the 6 frigates he had at the cost of 4 of my 5 frigs, I immediately thereafter retreated, allowed him to take the asteroid and bomb it, I awaited the arrival of my third ship (missile battleship, level 3) and proceeded to attack him, at this point I had a couple frigs against some of his reinforcements and his three capital ships, we commenced in battle, shortly thereafter ron jumped in, I had annihilated one of BA's ships and had lost one of my own, I proceeded to retreat as my level 5 now battlecruiser had sustained heavy damage, he retreated with a sum total of 147 health, I of course retreated to my cluster (you guessed it!) of healing platforms in my "once removed" planet and duked out against his ships, at this point one of his ships was nearly gone, it began retreating into my territory, of which I of course annihilated it on its way out, my battlecruiser in its faceoff with another cap, had almost killed taht one, which of course died as I followed it out of the grav well into the asteroid taht was contested this entire time, at this point I had replaced my carrier and proceeded to attack Ron's Kol, of course killing it, BA jumped in another two ships, which I beat down in short order due in part to the healing platform I had placed down in the asteroid
ok, there was some point along these lines in which BA took my planet, bombed it, captured it for himself, retreated back to the terran, I reclaimed it and took one of his caps somehow during this time... I should look over the replay BUT: through succesful usage of proper retreating, focus fire, frigates and of course those TRUSTY repair platforms I succeed with a near-spartan-ish kill/death ratio of 5.
oh, note: I've played against ron and BetaAlpha on several occasions, neither of them are bad at sins, in fact I would rate them under Multi, but just barely so.
DISCLAIMER:
I do not garuntee that my tactics are foolproof nor will continue to be massively succesful pending and post release, however these tactics have served myself well and repeatedly turn up victories despite terrible odds (sometimes, as in this case, in the order of 2:1) (they had many more frigs than me, maybe 15:5 frigs)
also: Multi will probably come in with some sort of "you lost so bad" remark because of my last battle, t'is true, but I would certainly attribute it more to the combined skill of Multi Ron and BetaAlpha, all particularly skilled players (with respect to the current makeup of the beta'ers), and their aggressive attitude than to any failure of my own.
well here it is:
THE COMMANDMENTS OF
CAPITAL SHIP FLEET BATTLES:
1. THOU SHALT NEVER USE THIS AGAINST FLOODS OF FRIGATES
god I cannot stress this enough, if your enemy is pulling a frig swarm, change your fleet makeup, do it NOW not later, and do it VERY QUICKLY. capital ships despite their great fortitude and strength, cannot stand up to groups of frigates. if you learn NOTHING else from me, learn this
2. THOU SHALT PRESERVETH WHO THOUTHT CAN
retreat is a very very important skill to learn, leaving at 2000 hp from near the planet will probably end up with you down one extra capital and your enemy with a free lunch, they can pick you off while you leave, taking your precious ship and getting almost free xp. few ships can shoot backwards in retreat, and those that can have a meagre backwards array. if you decide not to go all in to a battle, always always always always always do it before your shields fail, unless you are near the edges of the grav well, as then you might have some extra time
3. THOU SHALT PLACE PLENTY OF REPAIR STATIONS, BOTH AT YOUR FRONTIER AND ONCE REMOVED FRONTIER PLANETS
you dont know how incredibally useful some repair stations can be, even at half antimatter they can do a rediculous amount of repair, getting several together in a cluster can keep any ship alive in a 1v1 against another cap, and certainly survive to take down two if it has to. placing them at the "one out" can allow you to recycle your ships very quickly, allowing what you have retreated to re-enter the battle within 30 seconds to a minute
4. KNOW WHEN THOU IST OUTMATCHED, KNOW WHEN THINE PREY IS LOST
sometimes you simply should not enter the battle, sometimes you should simply let the level 5 cap ship at 500 health flee (although VERY rarely) sometimes you should just retreat and leave that terran planet for the attacker. I can imagine your reactions of horror "My god! who is this madman" etc. etc, but one thing any strategist of any form of warfare has to realize is when he can do more damage by retreating than by taking, in other words learn how to prioritize. Take for instance this example, you've been delt heavy losses, your enemy's cap ship is 1/4 way across the well from any of your firepower, at 200 health and almost done with the charge phase of its hyperspace into a well fortified gravity well with a bunch of repair stations. oh yeah, and its level 8. so what do you do? well under any typical circumstance the answer is: do nothing, you dont have a ship fast enough to catch it, unless your enemy is a complete dult (is letting it sit around) or has listened to moi (is sitting inside a cluster of repair stations) unless he is a complete dolt, it would be pointless and reckless for you to initiate an extensive offense, wait for the next time you engage in battle. yes, he probably will be level 10 or close next time you are in a fair fight, but frankly even if you did attack you wont accomplish anything but sustain losses. that is, unless you either are a) Vasari with a marauder capship
Vasari with both techs of gravitational cancellation against someone who doesnt c) TEC with an ionshot akkan that you are CERTAIN you can get within range in time. otherwise its a futile waste. now this rule also goes for planetary attacks, if you are going to sustain extreme damage without a garunteed victory, its not worth it, if you can sustain damage and garuntee victory, consider it, if you are going to sustain little to no damage, yet cannot garuntee victory, do it, and if you can take almost no damage and still garuntee, uh, you shouldnt need me to tell you the answer. Finally, and the lesson most people never seem to learn: sometimes giving ground is the simplest, easiest and best way to gain ground. whether you have just cleared a planet and are faced with the ass-sucking truth that you wont be able to defend it, or if you have to give up a well fortified planet to wait for reinforcements, the rule is the same: do NOT risk losing cap ships that you cannot replace (generally level 3+) unless there is some tangible chance of victory, otherwise letting your enemy take it, deal with the infrastructure buying, and then jumping in to own his ass is the best option (with reinforcements of course)5. THOU SHALT NEVER ENGAGE IN THE FOLLY OF NO FRIGATES
frigates frigates frigates, you need them. I will be the first to admit I'm not the best with this rule, but they are there to deal a great deal of extra damage. if your enemy is concerned soley with fighting off your capital ships, and he cannot do it in a matter of seconds, then frigates will be your fulcrum with which you can leverage his ass to the moon, or his next planet, if you prefer.
6. THOU SHALT CHOOSE THE FEW BUT STRONG OVER THE MANY AND WEAK
this hasnt been a turning point in too many battles (except 1 or 2 against multi and emp) but it should be apparent that 1 moderately microed level 3 cap ship can deal with three level 1s "en masse" with ease, it wont win in a head on battle, but if you engage and pick correctly how you attack it will win through micromanagement. this becomes especially noticeable when you have 3 level 3s against numerous level 1s, the lvl 1s can barely swat at the level 3s while they get torn through. This strategy means buying new levels, as well as the very important TECHNOLOGIES that support them. this shouldnt be an issue, as a cap-er you've got quite a few military research stations up already, and have not focused solely on getting more caps, right? as a tac-on to this (a very important tac-on, listen to this part dammit!) if you can force your enemy to TRICKLE in with small ammounts of forces rather than FLOOD (by kiting or planetary defenses, or even splitting your fleet in two) you stand a much better chance of taking them down than by dealing with group-en-group attacks.
7. THOU SHALT FIGHT WITHIN THY PLANETARY DEFENSES
when on defense, I mean, this is just so completely DUH. unless your enemy is trying to bypass that planet and/or some other unavoidable reason for which you have to leave your cluster of HEALING STRUCTURES (hint, hint) you should let the enemy come to you, even multi and emp will admit that they can tip the balance by a ton, if they deny this utterly undeniable truth I'll simply post the replay that shows them getting torn up like construction paper during artsy-time in elementary school. trust me, defenses defenses defenses. and if you can FORCE them into your defenses using the phase inhibitor, all the better (which will be right smack dab in the center of your HEALING CLUSTER! right?)
8. THOU SHALT BOMB RATHER THAN LIE IN WITH THY NEIGHBOR'S TURRETS
obvious, one of the benefits of cap ships is that they can bomb very quickly, and also attack defensive structures without flipping out groups of one ship for another, so when your enemy has clustered all of his defenses in one area, go around and hit the planet instead
9. THOU SHALT HIT IMPORTANT PLANETS OVER CONVENIENT ONES, WHEN IT IS THY RIGHT TO BE GARUNTEED NO COUNTERATTACK
if the person you are going after has no fleet within a few jumps of an important planet OR of anyplace where you are supposed to defending with that fleet then go after weaker inner planets (all the better for vasari, since you can detect incoming fleets with ease). Sometimes the best way to dish out medicine to your enemy is through a suppository, and the great things about cap ships is that they can deal with being shot at while passing through, where frigates might sustain heavy damage.
10. MICROMANAGE THY FLEETS
choose choose choose choose choose WHO you attack, if you are going against a particularly high level cap ship that you can beat, but would take a while to do, go after his escort of frigates first, he's less likely to retreat due to frigate damage, they deal more damage AND you can garuntee they wont come back to bite you if you deal them 1500 damage. also: staying out of attack range, kiting and hanging around "hold ground" in defenses is must. especially in early-mid game where fleets may be a group of 2-3 with an escort of frigs. this comes in ESPECIALLY helpful when you pull of "assassinations" against enemy capital ships, sometimes its possible to chase a capital through several grav wells only to hit it with a low level strike force to wipe it out immediately, this is especially effective, again, early mid game where there are small fleets wandering around neutral territory trying to make the quickest route to their fleet or to a vital planet, assassinations practically deserve their own section. you know what? screw it
10.
TAKE THE LIFE OF THINE ENEMY WHEN IT CAN SAVE THE LIFE OF YOUR OWNif you see a level 5 ship wander past one of your planets into what you KNOW is uncontested neutral territory, and you have a small strike force of some frigs and a couple low level caps (which sounds rare, but it really REALLY isnt) hit that bitch, take his capital. this can be incredibally effective any time during the game, but especially mid-early game where the first cap ship is a relatively high level and your enemy is smug in trampsing it around. killing it can get you 1 cap ship down, make attacks easier and allow you to take the neutral territory he was going after. oh, and that means one less level 6 capital to deal with in the future. as a side note, know when you are vulnerable to this and ALWAYS strive to avoid such situations (unless, if you are a particularly evil genius and you can turn that ambush back on your enemy, taking both of his caps and eliminating his frigs)
and finally, so that this doesnt become too religious
11. THOU SHALT CHOOSE WISELY WHEN TO SACRAFICE THY SHIPS
sometimes it simply makes sense to lose that cap to kill your enemy's, sometimes you know you cannot make it out alive and doing as much damage as possible is the better option, sometimes you can assassinate a ship, but doing so risks losing your own. suck it up, sometimes you need to sacrafice a queen to take a pawn. just dont do it for a trivial reason, gain something of importance in the process
*bow* and so concludes my basic sum up to CAPITAL SHIP DEPENDANT fleet strategy. critique is appreciated, but know that nasty rebuttles will be delt with swift and angry insults and, of course, divine correctitude (mine, not yours, as you will obviously be wrong)
Details of the BetaAlpha/Ron V Schod battle
this is as close as I can remember, so I'm not garunteeing accuracy, all I know for certain is that I ended the battle with 1 capital ship lost against the 5 combined capital ship casualties of Ron and BetaAlpha, so I'll do my best to keep this right
Context: 2v2 map, Ron&BetaAlpha against Myself and Atar (cannot remember his name right, but its close to that) on a middle-random map, nebulas riddled the area between me and Atar, so we each expanded right into enemy territory, for me there was a small bridge of an asteroid, desert, then asteroid again leading right up to BA's territory, right outside one volc planet (connected almost directly to Ron) and to a second terran planet of BA's, connected almost directly to BA's homeworld. I had just attained the asteroid that bridged both the volc and the terran and had built 2 missile platforms, at this point I had IIRC two ships, a vaz carrier and a vaz battlecruiser against BA's Vaz carrier, evacuator and (oh, I cannot remember correctly dammit!) I think it was a battle cruiser as well, his ships were (IIRC) levels 2, 3 and 4, mine were 4 and 3, we commenced in battle, of which I annihilated the 6 frigates he had at the cost of 4 of my 5 frigs, I immediately thereafter retreated, allowed him to take the asteroid and bomb it, I awaited the arrival of my third ship (missile battleship, level 3) and proceeded to attack him, at this point I had a couple frigs against some of his reinforcements and his three capital ships, we commenced in battle, shortly thereafter ron jumped in, I had annihilated one of BA's ships and had lost one of my own, I proceeded to retreat as my level 5 now battlecruiser had sustained heavy damage, he retreated with a sum total of 147 health, I of course retreated to my cluster (you guessed it!) of healing platforms in my "once removed" planet and duked out against his ships, at this point one of his ships was nearly gone, it began retreating into my territory, of which I of course annihilated it on its way out, my battlecruiser in its faceoff with another cap, had almost killed taht one, which of course died as I followed it out of the grav well into the asteroid taht was contested this entire time, at this point I had replaced my carrier and proceeded to attack Ron's Kol, of course killing it, BA jumped in another two ships, which I beat down in short order due in part to the healing platform I had placed down in the asteroid
ok, there was some point along these lines in which BA took my planet, bombed it, captured it for himself, retreated back to the terran, I reclaimed it and took one of his caps somehow during this time... I should look over the replay BUT: through succesful usage of proper retreating, focus fire, frigates and of course those TRUSTY repair platforms I succeed with a near-spartan-ish kill/death ratio of 5.
