As I like to play very large maps against my friends and the hard AI I have been really noticing the very poor power of the Advent 'superweapon' when compared to the other races. As a quick review of the effects of the superweapons:
TEC: Novalith Cannon Primary Effect: 3500 planet damage Secondary Effect: Cannot re-colonize Tetrary Effect: Population cap reduced for a long period of time
Vasari: Kastura Cannon Primary Effect: Disable orbital structures for 3 minutes Secondary Effect: Disable ships for 15 seconds Tetrary Effect: The planet acts as if there is a phase gate at the location for a short time
Advent: Deliverance Engine Primary Effect: Powerful culture spread from the planet causing a loss of about 20% allegiance Secondary Effect: Shield mitigation increased due to to required culture research Tetrary Effect: None
As you can see, the TEC get to hide within their defenses while destroying the universe (I like the alerts you get when they use their weapon, btw ) and the Vasari can make a deadly deep strike into your territory while your buildings are frozen. The Advent can merely have a little better defense for an attack and, perhaps, take out a planet in many hits if there are no enemy culture centers. What I would like to suggest is a set of possible tetrary effects that could be applied at the planet. In order from the most to least powerful are:
1. Ship Domination - Some random frigates and cruisers at the target planet are converted to be loyal to the Advent. No more than can be received through a level 1 Vasari Dark Armada though for balance sake.
2. Culture Domination - Enemy culture broadcast centers are corrupted to spreading the Advents beliefs and change ownership. This should be limited to 1 or 2 at the location per shot and would make the allegiance loss more than temporary.
3. Culture Destruction - Enemy culture broadcast centers are destroyed slowing the recovery from the Advent culture. Again it should be limited to 1 or 2 at the location per shot and would make the allegieance loss have a larger impact.
4. Culture Addition - A Temple of Communion is built at the planet to spread your word (using the planet owners resources, if available ).To be honest I would like it to do a mix of the top 3 depending on what is at the planet and a random roll of the dice (ie 1 brodcast center converted, 1 destroyed, but only 1 scout converted).
Compared to the game ending power of the other two superweapons I think any one of these effects would only bring the Advent cannon closer to the power of the other two and would in no way surpass them.
Thanks for reading
very nice ideas, 1st sugggested tertiary effect is great
2 3 and 4 though could all be blended into one effect. i.e. enemy broadcast centers become yours and will project your culture at a much higher rate than normal (idn, like 500% whatever your researched rate is?) for a short amount of time. lastly, the planet and any defenses there will still be under enemy control, so, if they have a broadcast center surrounded by turrets, a starbase and heaps of SC, then the broadcast center will be destroyed anyway. and if there are no defenses at the planet then the boradcast center will need to be destroyed by a fleet to stop the culture spread.
one little flaw, though, what happens if there are no broadcast centers at the planet you want to attack? i guess you could say the force of the 'blast' could inspire the crew of a construction frigate to build one that is then yours and transmits your culture, but i dont know.
and, even though i dont play as advent, i think it should be level 2 Returning Armada, just because i think you can jump an entire fleet in after a kostura cannon strike so...
anyway, well done, nice ideas
You forget with deliverence engine there is a damage boost of 25% to your ships (could be 20%, but i think it's 25) at the target planet. That is pretty pimp.
and useless unless you have ships nearby or in system to attack with. both other cannons have some sort a good reason to use them. i.e. novalith withholds a planet from your enemy for a while, and kostura not only paves the way by acting like a phase stabiliser after impact, but also lays out the welcome mat for an invading fleet by 'stunning' ships and structures in system. both cannons are effective against any planet anywhere, whereas with the engine, you would (could?) only, logically, use it on a planet next to one you control, or one you are already fighting in, because otherwise there is no way to get ships in a position to attack.
The Novalith is the worst superweapon in the game. The new Kotsura with the phase node making is the most useful, with the Deliverance only slightly behind.
Why?
- If you nuke an enemy colony with a novalith, you still have to go colonize it or he'll just get it back.
- At the stages of the game where the Novalith comes into play, you need 2 to destroy any upgraded non-asteroid.
- At those same stages, the majority of income is from trade, not planet income, so losing said one colony isn't going to hurt.
- The only planet worth nuking is the homeworld for the bonuses (including allegiance, no homeworld = 35% max allegiance everywhere).
- But even though you'll know where the homeworld is from early scouting, the player can easily move it before or after, and good luck sneaking scouts in constantly to try and find the second one.
- You still have to be able to destroy the enemy fleet, and all the defenses around the nuked planet remain intact. Which means, to colonize it you'd still need to be able to defeat its defenders. And if you could do that, you don't need the Novalith anyway.
On the other hand, both the Kotsura and the Engine help you destroy the enemy fleet/defenders, at which point you become able to take any colony you wish.
- Kotsura allows you to jump anywhere, and disables orbital buildings for 3 minutes, ships/starbases for ~15 (I think?) seconds and damages slightly. Main thing is the jump anywhere and 3 minute disable on stacked repair bays and such.
- Deliverance Engine takes away enemy culture bonus (no +12% damage for Vasari from culture, oops) and gives you yours (+6% mitigation, which is roughly ~15% damage resistance), and as Astax mentioned a 25% damage bonus for 3 minutes.
Both of these give you an edge against the main threat: the enemy fleet. Once that's gone, you have free reign to take any colony.
but when you use the deliverance engine on a planet and neutralize it you can just keep firing it till you neutralize all the planets around the target, this works realy well against the enemy homeworld because it also wrecks thier economy because of the tax and resources lost to them lossing allegiance and thier homeworld together making it easier for your fleet to wipe out the enemy fleet and keep it dead
Why would you lose your homeworld? Just put a starbase with Auxilary Government. And upgrade tradeports also, just so you get some nice $$$
hmm i thought that Auxilary Government only worked for bombardment il have to test it
Don't forget that with a Deliverance engine you will very swiftly see the enemy planets and their surroundings. If you have 2-3 of them you will easily gain the visual on the entire solar system.
Novalith cannons in larger numbers are really annoying and the vasari have their ultimate phase gate.
On paper the Deliverence specs are nice. But it only helps if you attack an enemy planet. And if you attack you should have the superior fleet anyway.
Free vision is the tertiary effect. It lets you see where enemy fleets are, where the weak points are at, and allows you to best plan your attacks.
I'm seeing alot of people talking about the super weapons being used by themselves.
I think the super weapon, for any race, is meant to be used in conjunction with a fleet. I don't think any of them are meant to take out a planet by themselves.
TEC - Hit the enemy planet just before your fleet arrives so you don't have to spend as much time bombing the planet with you caps. You can even hit the planet with the Novalith while your fleet is isn the grav well because it won't damage your ships.
Vasari - Deep strike with a small fleet to distract the enemy's main fleet so you can take other border worlds. Or use it on a planet that has extra tactical slots so those are negated when all the buildings are disabled (played a multi-player game once where the enemy had an extra 8 or so tactical slots. He filled them with 4 repair platforms. I never could take that system as TEC)
Advent - While not as 'cool sounding' as the others, receiving a damage bonus and a bonus shield mitigation can be a huge advantage for evenly matched fleets. Especially when the enemy fleet loses their advanteges as well.
I think we get caught up in thinking there is one ship or one weapon that will win the game, I know I look for that one 'winning' unit when I first started playing. While this may be true for many other RTS and 4x games I've played, I think Sins, and Entrenchment even more, does a very good job of making a player use a variety of tactics and units to win.
Annatar has it right. The novalith is the worse super weapon. It so needs a reworking. It needs to have some kind of way to help your fleets just like the Deliverence and Kotsura.
That's like shooting yourself in the foot, though. The Novalith decreases the max population on the planet for a long time after the shot (it's probably in the neighborhood of 10 miuntes, I don't have the data with me here). So if you use it to save a minute on bombardment, you'll just have a colony with 0 population. Not to mention you'll spend more time waiting for the planet to become colonizeable than you would with conventional bombing.
The Novalith is pretty poor to use to save bombardment time, because of these two things..
Ah. I didn't realize there was that long of an effect on the Novalith.
Still, I think my point remains. The super weapons aren't game winners in and of themselves. They must be used with an attacking fleet to be effective in the long term.
Personally, i don't see any situation where i needed superweapons. I did build a few but it was when i didn't know how to play this game.Now, i know that you have to keep your enemy busy and just build defenses to slow down them until you bring reinforcements. It is all about the offense, so i prefer spend my money in ships and weapon upgrade than in 8 civic labs and thousands credits in researching culture. I just research the culture center to get a 10% bonus in allegiance.
If a game last long enough to allow me getting these weapons, it means i made a strategic mistake.
If you played games where superweapons proved efficient and profitable compared to upgrading your fleet, i would love to hear about them.
The other person has entrenched himself heavily in his position?
Can the novalith destroy a planet with the Starbase Government upgrade?
No, the planet can't be lost. The population will be reduced to 0 and the max population will get a penalty with each shot (it stacks), but the player will keep control of it so he'll still be able to build around it and whatnot.
The thing that stands out to me is unlike Kostura, Deliverance has loads of prerequisites so it takes forever to get. Sure Novalith does too, but IMO it's worth it at least pre-Entrenchment because it's awesome at hitting the enemy's flanks and tying up resources to deal with bombardment far behind the front lines. Maybe a good balance would be easing up on the prereqs a bit.
Unless Entrenchment changed this value, the Deliverance provides a 15% bonus to damage output (this goes for anything from strike craft to capital ships), not 25% as previously stated.
it changed it. all superweapons did(pretty sure novalith's pop cap reduction wasn't there before.)
ok i tested culture on a planet with a starbase with Auxilary Government and once the alligence hit zero the planet went neutral so the deliverence engine can neutralize a planet with Auxilary Government meaning its not so useless after all
Yuck. There goes the whole reason to use the Novalith cannon. If you can't wreck the planetary upgrades, how can it be a superweapon?
do you often find yourself with enough resources to build a starbase in every single gravity well you own?
even if you do, its alot easier/quicker to destroy a starbase than bomb a planet (imo, though it does depend on the circumstances) BUT, it definitly is quicker than having to do both.
Interesting.
I suppose the next question is, Bug or Feature?
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