So, I wish to finally bring my games to a new level and play Me x 3 teams on a Large Single Star Map, Hard AI, Locked Teams.
I don't want to have an AI ally neither wish close a player slot, so one of the teams will have 3 players and the other 2, only 2. I remember seeing a while ago a page on wikia saying that Advent is played poorly by AI compared to TEC and Vasari, because AI doesn't use fully their potential as the other two:
"It's been noted that the AI is terrible at playing Advent, so much so that it's comparable to reducing the difficulty level by one notch. This is because Advent is very dependent on combining its strengths carefully in well-organized fleets, but the AI seldom employs these advantages well, if at all. In Entrenchment, it also tends to delegate far too many carriers to minelayer duty, meaning the Advent AI is chronically short on fighters and bombers, in spite of the fact that a good Advent fleet will always have more strike craft than comparable Vasari or TEC fleets."( https://www.sinsofasolarempire.wikia.com/wiki/Factions#Disadvantages_2 )
That being considered, are Advents the best choice to have a 3 players team and keep things balanced between the AI? Or this doesn't apply to Rebellion anymore?
So, something like this:Team 1 - Me
Team 2 - 2 TEC
Team 3 - 2 Vasari
Team 4 - 3 Advents (1 extra team to compensate for poor AI?)If so, I would also like to ask in your opinion if there's a difference between choosing between Loyal and Rebel Advents (one being better played by AI but not that better so gives them a slight disadvantage yet, because they are 3?)
Thanks in advance for any replies to this post!
Edit: Playing a huge map and Me x 3 x 3 x 3 unfortunately isn't a solution because... well, when I tried, got beaten maybe due to lack of player exp. And even so, if Advents keep being poorly played by AI, one of the teams should have one more player in case I make a fully Advent Team.
I don't know if that necessarily holds true anymore. The Advent titans can give newer players a much tougher time than say the Vasari ones, which need more skilled used of their abilities, and some of their stupid use of resources have been corrected. I wouldn't worry too much about which faction the AI is playing as, yours is far more important.
Thanks for the reply!
I understand your point but with AI fighting AI in this specific case I wouldn't like to see the Advent being easily crushed by TEC or Vasari.
Of course some factions will emerge victorious over others before having to fight me, but may that be because of random chance and not because of poor AI...
In the 1v1 SP games that I have played, I find that the Advent Rebels actually give me the most competition. The AI seems to use the Eradica Titan very well.
Also, the Advent have the strongest defensive structures in the game after they get the research that give structures shields. This effectively triples their durability. It isn't a big deal against a human because a human player will just go around them, but the AI seems to always attack defensive structures. And the Advent AI seems to like to build a good many defensive structures. This gives them a substantial advantage defending in AI vs. AI battles.
With all that said, I would suspect that Advent AI would do at least as well as the other races in the scenario you described.
Thanks for the reply. A newbie question from someone who never played as Advent or Vasari but has read about: You talked about structures shields... What about Vasari's phased missiles?
Basically phase missile research gives those units a chance to bypass shields and most importantly shield mitigation. Since structures by default have no shields or mitigation, to unshielded units phase missiles do nothing, it just gives a chance of treating a shielded target as unshielded. Phase missiles will have a bit easier time dealing with structure shields (and Advent in general with their shield focus), but its still a pretty big boost versus having no shields at all.
They byspass them as normally.The shield is just 750 HP which is not very strong, too.
But: The true power of Shield Bestowal lies in the fact that it adds shield mitigation to the affected structures. That means that a hit that would have done 1000 points of damage (before armor) will now only do arround 300 damage before armor.
That upgrade easily makes the Advent tactical structures the most durable in the game. (with TEC Loyals being a close second).
It can be a good support for an early starbase to. Not only will the bomber wings deal considerable damage, but they 750 HP and 4 HP/sec regeneration can make a low upgraded starbase considerable more durable... possible buying you just the time needed.Add beam turrets with synergy and your enemy will have a hard time dealing with it, until the bomber spamming starts at least.
At the highest upgrade level, Phase Missiles have a 30% chance of bypassing shields. So let's assume you have 10 Phase Missiles that do 10 points of damage each (For the sake of simplicity we will also assume that the target is under fire and its shield mitigation is all the way up to 57% and that the targets armor level is 0). Without the Phase Missile upgrades, these missiles will do 43 points of damage to the targets shields (10 * 10 * (1 - 0.57)).
Now lets add in the Phase Missile upgrades. Of the 10 missiles, 7 still hit the shields, but 3 get past them. In this case 30.1 points of damage is applied to the shields (10 * 7 * (1 - 0.57)) and 30 points of damage is applied to the hull directly (10 * 3 * (1 - 0)). This gives a total of 60.1 points of damage to the target and a damage increase of 39.8%.
The reason fully upgraded Phase Missiles are so dangerous to the Advent is because their ships have more shield points than hull points. From the previous example, the damage to the hull was about equal to the damage to the shields. Very often Advent ships will die with a good portion of their shields left. When you factor in the shield mitigation increase that higher level capital ships get and the shield mitigation increases from culture, the effect is even more pronounced.
I see, thanks for the replies! So basically Advents have a good defense that is not really much affected by phased weapons, only their ships?Keeping that in mind, are they well balanced then, meaning a 3 advent team will probably beat the other 2 tec and 2 vasari teams?(I know that it's all about random chance, but in theory they are not "weaker" played by AI anymore?)
Edit: Another question: A fully upgraded Advent defense is better than the TEC Loyalist one then? Even with double starbases and all the gauss platforms upgrades and armor/hull researches?
In my opinion, they are, although it is close. Meteor Storm and Mass Disorientation are very good starbase abilities. Add in the shielding on structures and you can really build a fortress.
Twin Fortresses is pretty good (I tend to use the second starbase for lots of fighters) as are the Gauss upgrades. The other key defensive tech they have is Militia Armor which significantly increases the durability of all units (ships and structures) when fighting in a gravity well you own.
Yes, it is a close call. On the other hand if you have ever seen what Twin Fortresses with an Ankylon with Inspire and Impair can do... the ammount of firepower flying arround then is just incredible.
Which of them can "survive" longer until your fleet arrives, TEC or Advent? I see my TEC fortress being somewhat easily destroyed even with all the upgrades, etc. I mean, it's good to have 2 Starbases but I would rather have 1 that could survive at least 50% longer...
But I would also like to leave 2 slots, 1 for trade and 1 for Auxiliary Government... which would leave me with only 6 for weapons/armor/hangar. Would an Advent Starbase with that still survive longer than a TEC one with 8 upgrades on armor/weapons/hangar?
I won the game, about 7h... Vasari were easily beaten, TEC survived until the end-game and Advent survived well too (they were the last ones, beaten by me)... Seems the wiki info may be outdated... But Vasari was not poor AI, only poor location.
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