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Finally a breakthrough on Advent on cruel AIs in Strategy Sins Forums

Thanks to all who gave me sound advice on my help request thread (Darvin3, GoaFan77) and Greg30007 (who posted on similar threads from other authors in the past). Warning! Long wall of text incoming. Apologies ahead of time. --------------------------------------------------- I had an interesting match last night playing as Advent vs 3 cruel AIs (one TEC, one Advent, one Vasari) on a random medium map. At first I thought I was screwed since the map was such tha

Reply to why does the AI hate on my disciples? in Strategy Sins Forums

It is ironic since if I lapse a little bit while watching the battle my own ships almost always prioritize the enemy flak when taking neutral planets. So then I curse and shift click my full order and then go back to my other empire multi-tasking.

Reply to ANy tips for cruel AIs as Advent? in Strategy Sins Forums

@Darvin3: Yeah I kept trying to rush colonize with a progenitor in one direction and a colony ship going in the other. I think this got me overextended and then I would get in a drag down fight at one border while the other AI(s) hit me on the other. In multi-player I always go Halcyon first x2 or a Halcyon + Progenitor (unless a Kortul is pissing me off and the 2nd is a radiance). It might be better to not reach for that one extra world and hunker down sooner. It is just frus

ANy tips for cruel AIs as Advent? in Strategy Sins Forums

Any tips on how to beat cruel AIs as an Advent player? I can beat cruel AIs as Vasari but I am stumped with Advent. Let me summarize where my question is coming from. I usually play medium maps vs. 3 AIs, no teams, no diplomatic victory with large fleets. With Vasari I rush to colonize with a Skirantra carrier and use a migrator to cap asteroids via the turret loophole in parallel. I try to control one or more 'checkpoint' worlds, skipping the pocket ice and volcanos I can tak

Reply to Vasari Combat Strategy in Strategy Sins Forums

When I play Advent, Subverters and Overseers are the first thing to die. When I play Vasari I live (and rarely die) with Subverters and Overseers, but be prepared to micro.

Reply to Stalemate Breaking in Strategy Sins Forums

Yeah when I crunched the numbers for medium maps, the upper extractor bonuses seemed underwhelming. Yes they would pay off in like 45 mins, but I always felt like I could funnel that into larger fleets or overclocking my trade network to get to victory faster. Granted this wasn't always the case (meaning I didn't win as fast I had hoped) but it is what I 'thought' at the time.

Reply to I think I research too much in Strategy Sins Forums

Thanks for the advice guys I will give Kosturas a shot next time I am a pocket Vasari.

Reply to Stalemate Breaking in Strategy Sins Forums

"I'm assuming you've researched metal extraction rates" Are the upgrades to metal / crystal extraction rates really worth it in most games? Seems like some of those 5% upgrades won't pay off for like 2k-3k seconds which is a long time imo. Just curious since I usually trade port spam and use the black market egregiously just like Darvin3 pointed out.

Reply to Help with starting out/build orders? in Strategy Sins Forums

I would add if you go with a carrier at first, depending on the map you might want to actually build two colony frigates. The reason is one can be used to immediately poach a likely nearby asteroid using the colonize-defense platform-kill krosov tactic. However, antimatter is a concern when it comes to colony frigates. If you have to retreat and jump to go to the other direction where your carrier killed a neutral fleet (or 2) then you might have to wait a long while to colonize t

Reply to I think I research too much in Strategy Sins Forums

@Greg30007: Thanks for the info. I never conceived of using Kosturas on such a mass scale (though I doubt I will get a chance to in MP any time soon). I knew of their phase lane ability as I alluded to above regarding their devastating ability to snipe HWs and such. My comments on RA in regards to MP were largely theoretical since I only obtained it once (in a 3v3 but I wiped out the remaining two enemies with it after my two allies bit the dust). Some of its ut

Reply to Dealing with Vasari Kortul first in Strategy Sins Forums

Yeah I had noticed that when playing as Advent though I really liked their aesthetics, I was struggling early in MP games. AI games are not relevant since you can always survive long enough and exploit combats around your own starbases and repair bays / defenses to buy yourself enough time to get a large fleet up and then Advent shine. I found though in MP games my only 'strat' was to effectively get lucky with a disciple counter rush and then hope I can get to guardians and destras otherwise

Reply to I think I research too much in Strategy Sins Forums

"Otherwise, you can usually match most of these "game-enders" just by fielding a bigger fleet." Agreed, but if the opponent has RA you will have a hard time having the bigger fleet in my experience. My calculations show a person with RA is getting a little less than 2.2x the logistics points / credit spent (I am including the 4.5 : 1 metal / crystal to credit conversion), and if the player has multiple phase stabilizers (which is likely) they can fi

Reply to Dealing with Vasari Kortul first in Strategy Sins Forums

Just to affirm what Darvin3 is talking about with illuminators: I don't know much about the history if the patches given that I have only played since Diplomacy came out, but I have found the early game of the Advent to be very limited. You can either go carrier cap + disciple spam or rush to illuminators. But the illum rush seems underwhelming. 10 Illuminatos will not get it done. But often by the time you have 10 illuminators the Vasari opponent has 20+ assailants. I recently flippe

Reply to I think I research too much in Strategy Sins Forums

I agree with Darvin3. Structures and prototypes are essential. Low level terran pop upgrades (skip other planet types unless you have a crazy map). One level of phase lane detection later on won't kill you (but always remember to be scouting). Wormhole only if it is strategically useful (depends on map). First level hull refinements. Phase jump inhibitors. Starbase constructors (e.g. Raloz for TEC). But there are also some race-specific / ship specific upgrades t

Reply to Attacking Stacks Question in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Yeah the empire tree 'bouncing' can be tough to deal with when fighting large fleet battles. I make sure to unpin virtually everything but even then it can be tough. I'll try some more with micro. I practiced on a saved 'endgame' fight as Advent vs. Vasari AI on unfair / medium map with large fleets. I found no matter how I tried with stacking, even though I always won the battle ultimately, I always lost close to 400 logistics points of ships (3 caps + oodles of destras + 7-8 guardia

Reply to Attacking Stacks Question in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Just curious do most me people play stacked or unstacked? Or is this more a matter of whether multiplayer or single player. Just curious.

Reply to Attacking Stacks Question in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Ok thanks for the confirmation Ryat. Looks like I might have to go with the unstacked and use the shift queueing for attacks with ctrl groups. While stacking seems convenient at first glance having to babysit the target stacks is rough when you play with large fleets option and have 10+ capital ships to manage not to mention support ship abilities. I also wish there was some way to hotkey bombers and fighters.

Reply to Attacking Stacks Question in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Hmm I might be wrong but it appears that the assigned units attack one unit in each stack and once the target is destroyed they go back to standard AI. Can anyone else confirm?

Attacking Stacks Question in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Sorry if this is a noob question, but if I choose part of my fleet and right-click an enemy stack in the empire tree, will my ships simply all focus-fire on one ship in the stack and then default to standard attack AI or will they attempt to engage that stack queuing up one after another ship in the target stack until either the stack si dead or I issue new orders? If the former is true, then how do people get around this? Do they un-stack in the empire window and shift-click to queue

Reply to What do you want to see in 2.0? in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

How about a button that allows me to de-activate the auto-upgrade / auto-terraform options for all planets at once. Sometimes I build specific buildings in a sequence but then discovering a new tech mucks it all up. Besides it is a royal pain to adjust the behavior per planet when you have 150 planets on a gigantic galaxy. Just my two cents.

Reply to choppy sound and terrible "lag" after late-game end of turns in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]Creative's drivers haven't been of the best quality of late, so that wouldn't be surprising.[/quote] Ok fair enough. So any thoughts? Or am I and all the other Creative Labs sound card owners stuck with this? Note I get the same behavior whether I use the most recent sound drivers or the previous version (like 1 year old or so). Also this only occurs with ToA not DL / DA. I also don't remember this happening when I first got ToA but who knows maybe I didn't pla

Reply to choppy sound and terrible "lag" after late-game end of turns in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Thanks for the input but the games I am playing are not even close to my memory limits (i.e. 900MB used vs 3GB RAM available). I also still get the same behavior with clearing everything non-essential out of my system tray. At this point I am pretty sure it is a sound card issue with SB X-Fi cards. In fact I found that even in earlier turns on say a gigantic map there is a perceptible "blip" or short interval of time where the animations "stutter" though the music plays fine. Later on t

Reply to choppy sound and terrible "lag" after late-game end of turns in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Changing the HW acceleration via dxdiag doesn't help either. Only remedy atm is to disable all sound devices altogether in Device Manager. That can'r be intended behavior.

Reply to choppy sound and terrible "lag" after late-game end of turns in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Sigh doesn't seem to be my audio codecs. The ones I have are all the standard ones that come with Windows XP SP2 (except lhacm.acm which is used by Ventrilo chat and I doubt that is the issue). Note I had the same issues with my previous set of sound drivers as well as the current most up-to-date ones. No clue. Definitely seems like something odd is amiss.

Reply to choppy sound and terrible "lag" after late-game end of turns in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Turns out it happens with my on-board sound as well (RealTek Audio on my ABIT motherboard). Like I said the only thing that works is to disable both my SB card and my on-board sound in Device Manager. Wonder if it is an issue with the audio codecs. Any thoughts?