The best way to catch a coward

To draw them out of hiding once and for all.

from Sins Forums

If you are like me, you would rather play against AI or play PvAI matches rather than against other players (although in my case this mostly applies for RTS games)

Anyways, I have found that the hit and run tactics of the AI are rather annoying and tiresome. To remedy this I found a little tactic which I like to call "stepping on their toes" For booming players such as myself (and turtlers) I find this a complete bane.

We all know 99% of the time if you outmatch an AI's fleet by numbers, or tactics they will run away... Personally I hate this, but have found a way to draw them out and make things a whole lot easier.

What you need to do is send your fleets to the closest planet they have near your boarders. Leaving your ships in this area razing structures and whatnot will cause the AI to send in their fleet eventually so you may finally rip them apart. They may run away if you give them a really good pounding but don't chase them. Just continue your assault on the planet. When that it done, you should immideatley colonise it and move your ships to their next colonised planet.

You may loose your recently achieved planet (or one of your rear planets) to their lame "bombardment fleet x50 hit & run" or flanking tactics, but that is OK, you can recolonise it immideatley after or just wait until its safe to recolonise, if you are tired of losing funds to upgrading it and adding defenses.

Anyways, just keep on stepping on their toes, bomb & colonise their planets one after another only spending money on upgrading the pop infastructure to prevent money loss. Remember, to try to keep your fleet in their territory as much as possible. This is what this tactic is all about.

As a personal perfrence if I find a desert planet I will stop there and fortify it and make it a forward outpost for reinforcements, then continue my push. This usually consists of 4x frig factories, 1x capital factory, 1x repair platform, 4-5x hangar bays (bombers), and however many defense turrets you can spam.

On huge 10 player, 102 planet maps, and unlocked teams, this tactic is very hard to do and requires at least 3 huge well put together fleets. It may take a while to keep all those backstabbers at bay, but with skill, help from pirates, and some luck you will turn out on top eventually. I hope this helps those people who play AI and PvAI matches online. :)

14,642 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Wow that one highlighted sentence does not mitigate your block of text.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I know, I used opera it has problems with paragraph spacing. im trying to fix it. so hold on. ;p 
WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
His fleet can run, his planets not so much.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

This is the tactic I use against the AI.
I mean thats the objective really, capture territory.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
His fleet can run, his planets not so much.
End of quote


Yes they can, and they do all the time. Which is why I made this post as a way to draw them out of hiding.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
One thing I like to do to at least cause as much damage as I can to an enemy fleet is jump into their planets in two halves. You use the first half to start the fight and draw their presumably bigger fleet to the very edge of your side of the gravity well. Then the second half (presumably making your total fleet bigger) jumps in, and if they run, they have to run all the way across their own gravity well to their own side; and you can shoot some of them down as they run.

You won't get all of them this way, but when they're running they aren't fighting back and usually all fighters are going in to dock; so you can do a lot of unreturned damage to their fleet.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
What I've also found works is to ignore their outer planets and jump directly for their home planet. The AI usually drops everything and sends all forces to defend it, which means I can wipe out their entire fleet in one decisive battle.

Since the AI fleets usually have horrible composition, a well constructed smaller fleet can win and still leave you enough ships to defend against attacks by other AIs.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah, that's what I died, Jugg. We had a 2v8, and he'd normally jump in first, and then I'd warp in, and most of their capital ships would be so tangled that they couldn't run in time.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
The AI is pretty easy to beat if you focus on destroying their economy. You can usually bluff an AI into doing what you want. Splitting your fleet works really well too.
Just like multiplayer, if you go for the throat, and bomb the home planet and raise science structures it works well.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
There are some pretty good posts, I would like to see a bit more about different approaches others take on dealing with AI players. :)