Help: Cruiser Spam & Culture win (2 Questions)

1.

it's kinda race  dependant what is the best counter, vasari's flak is very good with aoe, tec has flakburst on the kol cap etc

chek out the wiki

http://www.soasewiki.com/index.php/Strategies_%26_Tactics

2.

unless you play advent culture win is not really an option. Even as advent it will take a VERY long tome

100% alligience = 100% income-> 50% alligience = 50% income

By cruisers I'm guessing you mean carriers?  Right now the only viable counter to carrier spam is to spam them too.   Just make sure you have the advantage in fighter squads.

Culture can be used to win a game, but it takes a LONG time.  Cultural influence on an enemy planet will inevitably lead the planet to go neutral (you want enemy plant allegiance to go to 0%).  So if you have enough of a cultural advantage on an enemy you can in theory make all their planets neutral thereby pretty much winning the game.

Im getting rushed by heavy cruisers (not fighter/bomber carriers)

It was about 3 hours of LRM and frigates attacking me... which i was doing fine with... then suddenly they sent a HUGE (60+) fleet of heavy cruisers and some of their 'repair' cruisers...

So they are kicking my ass... thankfully, i saved about 10-20 minutes before this happened

After 3 hours, you should have maxed the tech tree and have some heavies to counter them with.

Heavy Cruisers (HC) are the top direct-fire ships in the game, so you aren't really going to be able to counter them with lower-tech ships unless you have alot lot more of them.  Like alot...

Against a fleet of heavy cruisers with repair I would probably build a bunch of carriers/bombers.  Send your carriers running around the gravwell to kite the heavies and focus your bombers on the Hoshis (repair) first, then the HC.  Any other ships you have should focus on other ship types and flee if drawing aggro from heavies...You can also focus on building your own HC, but you might not have time to get a comparable number in 10-20 minutes...

Culture can be quite useful if you don't want to attack an enemy directly, especially in longer games...I've seen this both singleplayer and online.

Thanks for the info...

I was able to build a decent defence fleet in the 10-15 minutes before their attack.    I also noticed a HUGE difference between fighting close to the planet (near the repair bays & turrents) opposed to attacking near the outer sphere of the planet....   Once i had enough repair bays they retreated...

That gave me enough time to complete a mission for another AI, which got me a cease fire.. buying me enough time to repair and rebuild....   I took the fight to them and i've cut them off from their home planets...  

I really dont know how you could play this game without the phase stabilers (vasarii) which let me phase jump anywhere

Cant wait to continue the campaign

If you are playing with "open" teams against AI you better have to complete at least 1-2 missions per AI, since if you dont or let your "likeness" reach again 0% they'll often all gang up against you.

If you dont bother with missions and dont want to be ganged up: lock teams at start, so AI will fight each other (and still fight you too for neighbouring AIs)

A counter to heavy cruisers are the carriers. If the AI have nothing but HCs, crank out a bunch of carriers with bombers and support cruisers to go with them.

Ex: Drone Host w/ Guardians, Carrier with Hoshiko, etc.

If you've got a capital that's got bonus to strike craft effectiveness, all the more power to you.

Also, trying to max out the tech tree is a BAD idea. You'd loose if you try to do that, so don't EVER try maxing out your research as the first thing. What will win the game for you, is research only the minimal amount of things you need to win the game. That is culture, ships you're using (and/or appropriate counters), and upgrades that'll go with those. Spend every other bit of resource and cash into increasing your fleet.