Breaking Stalemates

posted on January 3rd, 2011, 2:30 pm

Yesterday, I was in a 1v1 as Federation Mayson.  Against a Dominion opponent.  I went with the early Excelsior II strategy and the Dominion player went with a B-8 and V-13 spam.  We exchanged fire and destroyed each-others ships for several minutes with no one seeming to gain a tactical advantage.  I destroyed his mining, he destroyed my mining, we both rebuilt the mining.  He destroyed some of my ships, I destroyed some of his ships, we both rebuilt the destroyed ships.

After a while, since no one seemed to be actually winning, and I was running short on time, I finally had to leave.  This is what the relative power looked like.  It held steady at about 50/50 throughout the entire game.

What could I have done differently to turn the tide to someones favor?

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posted on January 3rd, 2011, 2:46 pm

Maybe better micro or tactics. Considering your opponent would keep building the same ships, Intrepids might be your favoured ships or a large armada of Sabers.

posted on January 3rd, 2011, 2:50 pm

What could I have done differently to turn the tide to someones favor?

surrender, that would turn it to your opponent's favour

did he go b8 spam then straight to v13 spam? thats pretty fast. i would have spammed monsoons early on. you would have had massive numbers advantage, especially after he hit the b8 cap, then mix in with intrep and warpins to handle the v13s. which will be in smaller numbers than your fed fleet.

put an eraudi yard at your second expansion and make some varied ships from it to seal the deal.

posted on January 3rd, 2011, 4:09 pm

surrender, that would turn it to your opponent's favour

That thought did cross my mind, but I saw no point in surrendering.  Since my opponent did not do anything that was decisive.  I was on the Dual map with the single dilithium moon in the center.  I secured that resource with a Eraudi Yard and if I'm not mistaking, since I already had a sizeable fleet, he would have to destroy that yard before gaining a decisive edge.  That yard was never destroyed.  Well, I guess he would have eventually won since I couldn't tech up or expand due to enormous resource constraints.

At first, I was using Monsoons, but after a while, I started using Intrepids.  I had been building Excelsior IIs the whole time.  I guess that the early Excelsior II strategy doesn't work well on 1v1 matches.

posted on January 3rd, 2011, 4:34 pm

early excel 2 is a slow strat, it takes a while to get up and running, it works in 1v1 but is better in team games.

the dominion race is good at getting numbers out quickly, even with fast b8.

the best fed strat in a 1v1 is usually a double yard spam. mons in this case would have been awesome.

posted on January 3rd, 2011, 4:39 pm

I'd say you shold have teched up, or double yard spammed akiras w/special. With the special and good micro, you can very easily have a fleet that literally lasts forever, unless the numbers of ships on the board were absolutely ridiculous. In which case you should toggle defense patterns the moment a ship starts taking fire. OR you can tech to sovs. With enough sovs with special, you can one shot many ships with overload. However, that take a ridiculous amount of sovs (~40).

posted on January 3rd, 2011, 4:46 pm

early excel 2 is a slow strat, it takes a while to get up and running, it works in 1v1 but is better in team games.

So I found out.  Next time, I'll double yard Monsoons and try for Akira's.

posted on January 3rd, 2011, 4:55 pm

if your enemy goes for the exact same strat again, dont go for akiras, since intreps take reduced damage from v13s. if he mixes his fleet up, then mix your's too.

[Tryptic]

posted on January 15th, 2011, 12:43 am

Last edited by Tryptic on January 15th, 2011, 12:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

When it comes to battleship spam, E2 vs V13 is just about the biggest conflagration you can get.  The fight would have come down to specials: his HSA vs your various special ships.

First off, I'm assuming you had TONS of extra tritanium since that's what usually happens with massed E2.  a handful of specialist ships doing their thing can really help out:

3-4 Norways use plasma coil.  Enemy fighters dead.
2-3 Canaverals use sensor blackout.  3-5 battleships worth of enemy firepower gone.
2-3 Remores use point defense.  Don't know how much this helps but it's a lot.
E2's use guided quantum torps.  Damage vs battleships.

I know that sounds like a lot, but in reality it's only about 6-8 clicks.  Keep your support in a separate group and position them well, once they fire their special you don't care if they die.  All you need to do is turn the tide, and once it's turned you bully his fleet all the way back to his starbase.  That's what Excelsior II's...Excel at.

Edit: also 2-3 novas using fleet supply.  As you can see, the Fed battleship strategy is all about force multipliers and dividers.