Suggestions/Questions for online game play.

posted on September 30th, 2010, 2:44 am

I have looked at the guide. Maybe give my way a shot in a game sometime? It won't halt ship production - really.

Literally, all it is, is the time it takes to build a construction ship, and send it to the expansion, and build a ship yard. You will lose maybe 4 minutes. But you will have so many ktingas and brels.

Really, the strategy only takes 10-15 minutes.

You'll be swimming in ships, no worries. Guranteed you can get twenty in like 5-10 min.

You will use all eight miners. In five minutes theyll all be good to go. That is the point.

Take your first two construction ships, and build di/tri. During this time, build a construction ship. After the first station is done, take the first and built construction ship to your expansion. Immediately build two shipyards, and di/tri there. Build up the ktinga, and brel platforms. (Do this with Klingon, really it does work).

In normal resources, it will be tight. By the time you build the two di stations, and two tri stations, and the two shipyards, and the brel/ktinga platform... yeah, you ll be low. But the stations will resupply you quickly.

Then build ktinga and brel one at time. youll get your first four ships very quickly. Then four more. Then four more.

I dont see your opponent attacking your home base at all. They will hit your expansion around the time you get 4-8 ships. (Like scouts will get there, but they wont do anything, lol especially since Klingon construction ships can fire.

But, next time you are klingon, I want you to try this for me Boggz. No research stations. Just what I said. (You will have to know the map, so that you can quickly get the construction ships to the expansion.

The Very First Map works perfect. 20k by 20k.

I dont see how this would cost you a game... its a solid start. If you dont feel like doing it online, get the feel for it against the Ai.

haha, I would show you in a game right now if I could. 

Oh, and yeah, sorry bout the long messages... but I dunno, yeah, tonight was a free night finally.

posted on September 30th, 2010, 3:57 am

You will lose maybe 4 minutes. But you will have so many ktingas and brels. Really, the strategy only takes 10-15 minutes.

  Aha ....

  Yeah ... in online gaming time that's FOREVER.  I think the fastest sphere possible right now is 6 minutes with no hope if you lose it, or a 7 minute sphere + a decent economy.


  I can have a strong Klingon strike force in far below 10-15 minutes .  It's just not practical.

I dont see your opponent attacking your home base at all. They will hit your expansion around the time you get 4-8 ships.

  Well I don't mean to sound rude, but you DID mention how you've never played online.  They WILL be attacking your homebase or whatever looks juiciest.

But, next time you are klingon, I want you to try this for me Boggz. No research stations. Just what I said.

  Again, I don't mean to be rude, but I don't have to try it to know that it just won't work in multiplayer .  Boggz iz a pretty good Klingon player I feel confident in saying that this will just not work against a decent opponent.

The Very First Map works perfect. 20k by 20k.

  Yeah and the reason people don't play that map often is because it's so big .  It invites tech rushes and Fed-turtling.

posted on September 30th, 2010, 5:50 am

godsvoice, i think you really need to get online to see just how badly these strategies will work against human players.  I mean, i'm considered a pretty poor player compared to many, but I would happily go up against your strategy.

One strategy that would kill what you are suggesting is the Fed warp-in rush.  I forget what the fastest time to get SFC up, i think its something like 6-7 mins.  They may even get a Monsoon or Intrepid or two out as well by this point.  That's at least 3 good ships smashing your base apart while you are still getting your strat going.

Anyway, its great to hear new ideas, keep them coming, just try and keep your posts shorter.

posted on September 30th, 2010, 6:03 am

Or all the B'rels/KBQ I'd send at your plodding miners.

  Or the Rhienns/Leahvals that would show up unopposed .

posted on September 30th, 2010, 10:46 am

lol. fair enough.

Then forget it for online play. But against AI it works great. I really didn't think that there would be that much difference between online and AI timing... although it is understandable. I'll just drop it till I can get online to see. 

I'm not worried about Federation warp ins. I've never lost against Federation AI, normal or hard using this strat. Against merciless I use double resources, and they also don't give me any problems. Only problem with Romulans is they can cloak and decide to go right passed your expansion to your home base.

I never actually timed it. But my things weren't spot on. If a sphere takes 6 min... it's no worry, I'll have ships by then to greet it. I'm pretty sure everything I've got by then is up and running. Sorry, 10-15 minutes I've got my fleet and am attacking AI computer. AI builds its expansion, etc. By then, I have 20ish ships, destroy its expansion, and go for their home base.

Nevermind, I will watch more online games. AI strat is obviously different than human.

But, ultimately, 20 by 20, thats large??? lol... oh Thats like the smallest map I can play on. So maybe this wouldnt work at all.

So, online its really that small? like 8 by 15 or something? ... interesting.

posted on September 30th, 2010, 11:21 am

AI strat is obviously different than human.

You got it.  Things that work against the AI just don't work against humans.  And vice versa to some extent as well because the AI cheats resources so bad it can still pump ships even when you have killed off most (if not all) of his mining.

Also, against the AI you can play defensively because the AI is stoopid.  Playing defensively against a decent human opponent is just another way of committing suicide, just takes a little longer, with perhaps the exception of Feds as Mayson who can play a bit more defensively than other avatars/races.

posted on September 30th, 2010, 4:35 pm

But, ultimately, 20 by 20, thats large??? lol... oh Thats like the smallest map I can play on. So maybe this wouldnt work at all.

So, online its really that small? like 8 by 15 or something? ... interesting.

Well you said you watch a lot of online games.  Star Traffic, Champagne Supernova, Nebula Stream, and other smaller 2 v 2's are the main choice for online team games right now.  Smaller is better because, the larger you get, the higher the tech race goes.  If you're playing the AI that's great because you have more time (hence the 10-15 minutes) to set up while they start spitting out ships.

  Against humans it just encourages them to turret up, tech up, and by the time your first raiding party reaches their side, they've got far more than you can hope to get past. 

12 x 12 up to 14 x 14 is standard for 1 v 1 and 14 x 14  up to 16 x 16 or so is standard for 2 v 2 .  Anything more than that and it generally leads to a tech race.

posted on September 30th, 2010, 6:12 pm

Thanks.

I will see what it is like playing on those maps. The map size admittedly is pretty important to this way of playing.

Yes, when I watched... well it varied honestly. Some obviously were smaller. But this is also for team games. 1 v 1, is small map, but wasnt focused on that. For team games, when maps are larger... I thought this would be good. When I watched online games, I more studied the pattern of construction. What gets done in what  order, where. For instance, federation, build refineries, shipyards immediately. Get stations up to build starfleet command. Warp in. Built raiding party. Expand. - I was curious about expanding first thing, build two refineries at home, and right after a shipyard at an expansion. Then resume. Get another shipyard, and two more refineries at the expansion. Build a small fleet. Then do research. In any case, I'll have to try stuff out on smaller maps... but on larger maps it should work well. 

Yes, AI ship construction isn't the smartest. They always send ships continuously in fleets of 1-3, then increases to 5-8, then up and up. But this works against that. You start off tight, but quickly out number them. Their small waves dont work against your big force. Like risk board game sort of. 

Dont really send raids. I scout to find where the home base is. By the time I get 15 ships or so built, I destroy the expansion of the AI. Unfortunately AIs are predictable in where they expand, and target your expansion more often than home base.

K, so maybe this would work better for those who like playing against the AI.

I don't really understand why you guys play on smaller maps. You say, turret up, tech up, etc... but so what? All you want to do with first couple raids is take out expansion (not even necessarily destroy, it just take out some miners, or the refinery, or shipyard). Its just a raid. The first ones will fail. But you just want to weaken them. They cant turret up and tech up to the point where they stop expanding. If you are able to get two three more expansions because they sit at home building turrets and researching... this would be costly for them. You'd quickly outnumber them.

Anyways, I'll wait til I can get online to test this out. But I'll have to adjust to smaller maps... Doesnt seem realistic. Space is huge, why would my enemy be so close?

lol but in another way its great, because its something new... lol Ive never played on anything smaller then maybe 18 by 18 or something. I settled on 20 by 20. There will be challenges I'm sure.

Well, maybe this can just continue for anyone who likes to play AI. Also, I have to get back to playing one on one with AI, and maybe start using borg in the mix more. But for Klingons, the strat is a dream. Federation its slow, but it works. You waste time building first chasis and the research station for it, or else you are limited to sabers. But Klingons, can build those shipyards and send floods of ktingas and brels quick. dont need research stations at all. can even build the battle yard right off.

posted on September 30th, 2010, 6:50 pm

Just to clarify as I'm a bit confused - do you mean K'tingas (ie what you get when you jettison the cargo hold from a freighter) or K'beajQ (the one that's buildable from the Field Yard)?

posted on September 30th, 2010, 6:55 pm

Talking about building yards and not needing research, I'd guess he meant the K'beajQ. It looks similar enough to excuse the mistake.

posted on September 30th, 2010, 6:59 pm

Yeah I wasn't nitpicking or anything, I was just genuinely confused as to which he meant 

posted on September 30th, 2010, 8:20 pm

>I don't really understand why you guys play on smaller maps. You say, turret up, tech up, etc... but so what?

Well.. the reason I don't record those is because it's boring for the first 10-15 minutes while no combat is happening.

posted on September 30th, 2010, 8:46 pm

yeah, big maps are boring.

waiting for your fleet to hobble over to the enemy is really boring.

and tech races/turtling are very boring.

feds are good at it, with strong turrets at all periods of the game.

posted on September 30th, 2010, 9:07 pm

oh yeah sorry, I didnt even notice. yeah, KbeajQ. it does look similar, whats the change? Is it actually a different ship design?

K, so, I finished playing three games on small map. Only done Klingon versus feds.

I think there is a bit of confusion. ... my time estimates may have been more off than I thought. I was playing everything on larger maps... so expansion and everything takes longer there. In the small map, I was quite surprised, ... the expansion is literally right beside my base almost. I played on the map windsofwar. I think (seemed faster).

I still built a third construction though, but actually sent all three to the expansion, right after the given two built their respective refineries. At the expansion... you get there so much sooner... and you go right at building a shipyard. The second construction ship builds a dilithium. The third builds another field yard. The second finishes and builds a trilithium refinery. During all this, building eight miners to stock up the first two refineries, then when you get to the last four, send them right to the expansion and get 12 miners/four stations quick.

K, so this takes up all of you initial resources, and slightly more.. but its fine, you get it from the resources you collect in the meantime. 

I also sent my scout to enemy base. When every station and all is built, and you start building *KbeajQ (gonna have to get use to that name), the AI hard had already built four sabers and had the scout. So you are outnumbered at this point. (in the first game against normal AI, it was a slaughter,  I built both brel and kbeajQ  and stormed them so quickly.. they hadnt gottin to any akiras, warpins were to outnumbered for it to matter).

Um so anyways, first game against hard AI.. lol I lost. But my problem was in that I built only two field yards, and gave them each a brel and Kbeajq platform. When the AI came, it was relatively even for a while, but my brels got messed up, and eventually it was to much. by kbeajqs werent being built quick enough to counter the AI.

So in the second game vs AI hard,  I built three field yards, but only gave them Kbeajq platform. After every station is built, you are low on resources, but you get it back soon enough to build a couple Kbeajq by the time the first sabers come and you can fend em off easily.

By the time they started to send in monsoons, and intrepids, and a couple of akiras (haha, huge jump from AI normal to hard, they were really getting ships out much faster), I had about 12-15 kbeajqs waiting. It was a stand off for about 5 - 10 min maybe the lesser. (Just kept building KbeajqS). But Kbeajqs win it, the sabers and newtons just dont pack a big enough punch. Destroy the two or three akiras right away, there were maybe a few monsoons, and few intrepids. But overall, I think I  had the stronger force,though numbers were roughly even.

At some point I build a battle yard, and get the um ... Sang? class. (oh yeah, in the above... I also get my starbase to build the Qawduj, a coupel at least). So I never attack the AI in the first 15-20 min even. But fight off everything they send, the Kbeajqs, Qawdugs, and sangs hold out... and then sent them to their expansion when I had about 20 ships strong, and a few to leave behind in case they went for my base.

Overall, it still worked on small map... but yeah, really had to rush to the expansion and get all the stations built and get right to building the Kbeajqs. So only major problem I saw, was that AI did have about 4 sabers, for a while when I only and one or two Kbeajqs. But realistically, 4 sabers... dont see how they could take out my entire expansion in any way. May have lost a few miners.. but by the time they did whatever damage they could do, I would have had Kbeajqs. (I don't think sabers could take out stations that quickly... so I dunno, how big a problem is four sabers?) By the time any monsoons or intrepids come on the board, I have 5-6 ready and built ships to counter.

haha, I'm hopeful but  understand AI and humans are different. but I did beat the computer on the small map... so I think it could still work.

and, for yandonman, understandable for not recording matches that are laid out that long, but I still like your videos. I watched a bunch of the three vs three, and 2 vs 2, mostly. (But in the small maps games... games over before cruisers or battleships can really be built, isnt it? .. i ddnt like that in the games I just played. My vorchas and qawdujs with kbeajqs won it) ... but ... if you did record a longer game, I would still watch. I think those are much more fun. true... there is more building, and its harder... but wouldnt that be what it would be like?

i am sorry for these being so long though... hopefully its not to bad. i will try getting them shorter.

posted on September 30th, 2010, 9:15 pm

haha oh! I actually built a third expansion as well. After you get three field yards with kbeajq platforms, and all four refineries up, in order to build the battle yard and afford the bigger ships, I sent the third construction ship I built out to a dilithium moon a tthe bottom of the map in the corner. Wait a few minutes first, but dilithium will be low. In the first expansion, I just sent two miners from the trilithium moon to the third expansion, I had a huge trilithium surplus *wasnt researching... So in the end, you have three dilithium moons going, for a battle yard, and three kbeajqs platform, and the starbase qawduj.