Vasari: how to kill a player with an equal fleet over time ?

If you can't win by brute force, you do have many other options.  One very simple approach is to attack somewhere else.  The enemy fleet can't be everywhere at once, and certainly can't spam defenses everywhere.  Try probing him at another location and if it works start pumping units there.  Maybe open multiple fronts to keep him on his toes.

When attacking, you don't need to fight in the range of repair platforms or starbases.  You can move off to the far side of the planet and sit there.  You can simple bomb the planet from there or pepper them with strike craft.  You don't need to engage them where they're at their strongest.  You could also sit back and build a starbase to lock down the enemy gravity well and then drive them out once it completes.

Siege frigates are risky to use.  If you're attacking undefended planets, they're good enough, but if there are any defenders nearby these units are simply out of the question; too easy to kill.  However, you can use capital ships to the same effect.  The Vulkoras Desolator is a great pick for this purpose.  If specced appropriately, it does nearly as much damage as an equivalent cost of siege frigates (at level 1!) and is many orders more difficult to kill.  If you want to bombard in battle, the Vulkoras is your unit of choice.

You could also play the long-term and build up your economy while keeping their's in check.  This is very difficult to do and usually requires playing smart with a smaller fleet.  If you can maintain a 50% larger economy for ten minutes, you should have no problem crushing your opponents.

As for units to bring in, the good ones are carriers, flaks, and support cruisers.  The Overseer is great for keeping capital ships and starbases alive, while the Subverter is one of the most devious tools you can employ.  Vasari are privileged in that their assailant, sentinel, fighters, and bombers all share the same damage upgrade (the awesome phase missile), and these four units together make one of the most balanced fleets possible.  There's virtually no reason to go with a heavy-cruiser based fleet as a result.

For capital ships, the Skirantra is your best bet, but long-term you may want to consider the Vulkoras and the Kortul.  Jarrasul and Antorak aren't bad, just overshadowed by the other options.

If you absolutely MUST go through this chokepoint these are your most effective options:

1.)  Mass bombers and do hit and run raids.  You have to destroy the Phase Jump Inhibitors first so you can retreat ships as necessary.  Destroy some stuff pulling out damaged ships to be repaired and finally retreat and repair.  If you do it right, you should be taking much less casualties while causing damage to your opponent and eventually your fleet will be significantly larger allowing you to eventually crush him.

2.) Secure an edge of the gravity well with your fleet and build a starbase which you keep alive using Skirantra repair cloud as well as Overeers.  Once the starbase is built you upgrade it as necessary and use it to slowly clear out the enemy gravwell.

3.) If the game drags out long enough, you can build a Kostura cannon and hit the enemy planet with it before your attack shutting down all his defensive structures (except starbases) and causing some initial damage to all the enemy ships.  This tactic can also support tactics 1 & 2 making them easier to pull off.  If you have the planets and resources, and can build 5-6 Kosturas, and if you fire them all at one time.  This will destroy just about everything in the gravwell except a starbase and capital ships.

thx for answers.

i realy like overseers, the problem is, that i have my problem before i had enough labs to build them. I dont have problem later when i have a good mixed fleet. I have the problem in the small window, where my fleet meets the enemy the first time at his planets and i have to decide what next. Often i only can go through this one way on 2vs2 maps.

as i understand right, i will try to get to carriers ealier. And i will give the Vukoras a test as a starting capital.

Its so hard that i get tradeports at Tier 4 ....

thx.. for advice again.

see you on the battlefield.

ps. Darvin3: whtas your ingame name and timezone. See u at the forums alot, but never on ironclad

I'm "Darvin" online.

For the past few months I haven't been playing online very much, and since I got a job I haven't had much time for it anyways.  Right now I'm splitting my meager gaming time between Starcraft 2, the Dawn of Fantasy Beta, and the balance tweaking mod for Sins.

I think it is reasonable to believe that if the defense of said planet is really so powerful, that it must be VERY important, yes? So, you must first capture all the planets around his (if you can), then put mines, phase inhibitors, repair platforms, etc. on these planets, so if he ever wants to use this really important planet, he has to go through you first. Send small strike fleets in to take out his structures (start with those phase inhibitors), and then send the fleet back for repairs. Also send Scouts to to see what he's building so you know what he intends to do. Eventually, he will decide that the only way to use his planet effectively would be to erradicate the forces around his planet, so he will build up a big fleet (or several smaller fleets) to attack the planets around his. When his attack fleet(s) are damaged enough to become problematic for him, send an attack fleet in through his weakest point, and rip his planet to shreds. By the time he pulls back his fleet(s) to defeat yours, his planet will be half dead, and so will his ships.