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.