Lots of Questions after a week of play

from Sins Forums

It's been an interesting week. I've played several games against the AI (1v1) and (2v2, 3v3, 2v2v2v2 with friends).

It's interesting, we've had some cake-walks but then we get some games where each AI just spams major fleets, like 4 caps, 20 Guardians, 30 Drones, 30 Disciples (I'm used to playing Advent, these are the equivalents for each race).

We don't turtle, we're constantly pushing, taking over planets and then all of a sudden, these huge fleets come out.

I don't get how the AI is able to get that big of a fleet. I'm scrapping barely able to put out 2-3 frigates / cruisers every few minutes. One of my friends seems to do pretty good on the money front, easily getting 2-3x more than me, but he doesn't really know what he's doing and can't tell me how the money is rolling in.

In one case, early, early game, I took out the AI's level 1 cap ship and I'm not kidding, like 5 min later there was another one (counting travel time, so he was building it within 1-2 min at least). I don't get how he was able to fund 3,000 for another cap at that early in the game. The only thing I can think of is the AI really doesn't spend a lot on research.

So, here are my Q's:

1. How can I watch a replay of one of our games? How? I see no games when I go into MP "Load game" or "watch game"...nothing comes up.

2. Can I watch a replay from the perspective of another player? How? If possible, how do I watch / see when/where they do their research?

3. What are the dials to get more $$ (I've upgraded my home planets to max health and have trade ports at all my planets). I basically average 15-25/sec total income across all my planets / trade. This isn't enough to really do anything (maybe a ship a minute).

4. Should you have trade ports at every planet or just the fringes?

5. It appears that spam (sheer numbers) beats any kind of fleet comp. In one AI game where I was getting crushed, I restarted from a save point, built 40 Delta Crusaders, 20 Drones and I had 4 cap ships and had shields / armor / plasmas / you name all maxed out on research tree and got anilihated against this absurd fleet from the AI. So I gather that spam is better than researching?

6. Is there a way when I double click on a planet for that planet to show up in the tree on the left? I'm tired of clicking on a planet, selecting ships to focus on an enemy and the tree moving so I have to scroll to find the ship to attack. When I'm on a planet, I want that planet to be on the top and I don't want it to move (everything is pinned by default)

7. Is there a way to see everything queued up in research besides going into the tech tree and looking for all the '1's ??

8. Is there any way to change the targetting priority of ships? In some cases, the cap ships are less of a worry that the hordes of small ships and I'd like to target the frigates / cruisers and leave the cap ships alone. This way I can pop in to a planet and actually destroy something before having to retreat and gaining some xp in the process.

9. Are there any tricks to coming into a system and being able to retreat without having the ships do this ridiculous circle back to the phase lanes? I lose way too many ships because of this. It takes them like 2 min to position themselves to exit. What are tricks to avoid this?

Well, that's enough for now. I'm hoping a few of you out there can help out. I really think watching replays can show a lot, as long as I can deduce fromt the replays what people are actually doing.

16,279 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
im gonna take a crack at some of these...

1. sorry dont know
2. should be able to but again not sure
3. dont upgrade ur fleet too quickly cus that really kills ur income. u should upgrade gradually as u expand. also the black market can be a great source of income  ;) 
4. i like to have trade ports everywhere but they do make easy targets for pirate raids so be sure they r defended
5. i think a well balanced fleet should be able to beat reasonable spam(not like 2000 to 1) but 3 caps, 20 frigates, 15 cruisers, lets say, should be able to beat 60 frigates)
6. dont understand what u mean here
7. hold ur mouse pointer over the research button and in the infocard on the right it shows a list of queued techs
8. i wish i knew
9. well besides scouting first to see what ur up against there is no way to minimize damage from a quick retreat. oh and put ur ships on "dont jump together" or whatever that is called when u want to retreat.

hehe thats my attempt. i hope it helps u :)
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
3. Upgrade all planets to the maximum, higher allegiance and lots of trade ports.

4. You get a bonus for the longer the line of continuous trade ports. So the more the better.

5. This isn't true IMHO, although many threads on it.

7. Hover your mouse over the research icon at the top of the main screen. Shows a nice long list of whats up and comming (if anything is of course). Try the same with other icons for similar effects.

Can't help with the others right now!
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
A note on combating those large AI fleets... I almost always concentrate fire on their capital ships first. I find that way more often than not the enemy fleet will turn tail and run once you've destroyed a majority or all of their capital ships... almost like a poorly trained army running away once you've killed off all its officers. Occasionally I'm so overmatched that the support ships remain even after I've taken out their cap ships, but overall it seems to be a pretty effective way of scaring off enemy fleets.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Out of curiosity so I know ballpark, with say 1 home planet + 2 asteroids + 1 more planet (either ice / volcanic), what is the expected income when you've maxed out all of these?

(I don't typically build broadcast centers till later and think that may be contributing to my low $$)

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
1. In 'Watch', are you clicking on the 'choose save type' button at the bottom to see the auto-recorded games? It should save an auto-record whenever you quit a game.

2. Yes, there are buttons in the top-right when watching a replay.

3. The basic ways to make money are to make sure to fully upgrade the population development on all worlds as soon as possible, build a lot of trade centres (one per planet ensures that you'll have the longest route possible, then just build more anywhere if you want more cash), selling resources to the black market (if you have more metal and/or crystal than you can afford the credits to use, sell some), grabbing any relevant economic techs (especially the extractor rate ones - the sooner you get them, the more good they do you), and not upgrading your fleet capacity unless you need to.

That said, 25Cr/sec after fleet upkeep isn't a bad income, in my view.

4. As above, one per planet is the easiest way to ensure that you have the longest route and a decent income from trade. As far as I know, position only matters for the trade centres that actually form the longest route - others can go anywhere, and will earn the same amount.

5. Massively outnumbering the opposition helps in pretty much any form of battle. ;)

That said, the fleet you describe building wasn't particularly balanced, either. Drone Cruisers are best kept in a separate fleet, with perhaps some flak frigates as bodyguards. Park them on the edge of a gravity well, away from the fighting, and jump them out if the enemy attacks them.

Likewise, Crusaders need support to do their best work. Back them up with some Guardians and Subjugators to keep them alive longer and disable their opponents, don't forget a good bunch of upgraded Disciples to keep your Cap ships topped up with antimatter, and a few flaks to keep the strike craft at bay never hurts.

A well-composed fleet or two (I tend to use multiple smaller fleets together, as I find it easier to micro them in tough battles and they give me more strategic flexibility) can beat larger, less self-supporting fleets without too much trouble, especially with some sensible microing of position, Cap ship abilities and the like.

If the other guy's got ten times as many ships, though, you're probably in trouble no matter what. ;)

6. Not sure - I don't seem to have the same trouble with the Empire tree that you describe, but I'm not sure why. Sorry.

7. Mouse-over the Research button without clicking it.

8. You mean other than just selecting the targets manually (remember you can use shift to queue up a sequence of attacks)? Erm, I don't think so.

9. Erm, make sure you don't jump into systems with more ships than you can handle? ;) Sending a scout (or just a lone frigate of any type if no scouts are handy) into an enemy system before jumping the main fleet in can save you from unpleasant surprises.