3 replies to this topic

[RalphRoberts]

I've started playing SOTP again and the first thing I noticed was that the most effective late-game fleet for me is to just make hundreds of Paris-class frigates with a Punic and a few Valiants thrown in.

I was facing a Reclaimer Covenant on the Contact Harvest [UNSC] map.

 

I manage to carve out a decently sized empire and then proceed to do my usual SMAC wall on every border planet. It gets a bit rough and I lose a planet before generators come online but otherwise things go fairly well considering the difficulty level.

 

Fast forward 2 hours and its been a long, bloody war. I have lost several entire fleets to the enemy and finally, in an act of desperation, set every factory I own to rally on an enemy border planet and start them all making Paris-Class frigates. To my surprise, although losses are in the hundreds of frigates, I quickly overrun the planet. I move the rally points up and decimate the next world. Within 20 minutes I've conquered every enemy planet and won the game.

 

Have I been playing UNSC wrong?

 

I've been making fleets consisting of the Infinity, 1 Phoenix, 5 Valiants, 2 Orions, 2 Punics and filling the rest out with Autumns. Frigates are usually 10-30 Stalwarts, 10 Charons, and the rest are Halberd Destroyers. Fighter:Bomber ratio is 3:2 on fleets, 10:4 on Anchor Stations.

 

Those fleets, while inflicting damage, get utterly anhilated by the AI CCS blobs. Whereas my frigate spam was hugely successful and cost relatively little to maintain.

 

Are Paris frigates the most cost-effective unit, or have I been doing something horribly wrong in terms of Capital Ship choices?

 

This is with all techs researched and using that magic teleport the Infinity gets to keep it alive through engagements.

 

 

 

[SternuS]

There could be a myriad of factors influencing this outcome, but generally they could all be reduced to one single point: it wasn't you playing the UNSC badly, it was the AI being the lazy version of itself, that is being utterly inactive, sometimes waiting for the Titan to be built rather than expanding, sometimes it just doesn't do much unless being poked at, etc. etc.

 

If a reclaimer AI had to work as it should, you probably wouldn't have had time to put your SMAC walls on your borders. If the AI behaves like it sometimes does, then yes, probably even a Paris spam would be sufficient to destroy it.

 

This being said, an UNSC player is strongly favoured in the late game, so do not be surprised if the more the game lasts, the easier it gets.

[RalphRoberts]

Thanks for the input SternuS. I guess I'll continue playing some games as UNSC on Reclaimer and see if the AI is more effective in the future.

 

On Fleet Composition. Are there any things I should be aware of, in terms of what not to build, when primarily playing against covenant AI? Am I making too many autumns, should I throw in more carriers instead of massive amounts of Halberds, etc?

 

Also, is the Marathon worth building late-game? It seems to be inferior to the Autumn as a main-line capital ship.

[PLPM]

Last time.

 

I did not have much frigates. It was just a main composition of Orions and Marathons. 

 

Marathons are not just **** cheap, they also don´t use much population. I think I was able to do two roflstomp fleets before hitting the population cap and bottoming out, or 4 "meh" fleets;

 

4 Orions, 1 Thermopilae (stuck with the old name), 1 Valiant, 4 marathons (or three and a phoenix) could handle the low stuff. 

Although that composition got rekt by CASs and company... that´s when I just joined two fleets and had some roflstomp time.