Watch TV, Do Nothing wrote:
The Trade & Enterprise doctrine is unusually popular, with two medium powers (Hexacarbide and Agraria) adopting the doctrine and a few new empires perhaps unwisely attempting to follow their lead- unwisely because T&E is a niche doctrine that is easy to enter but difficult to leave and which does not directly benefit military output.
I'll explain my thinking on this a little bit.
The one thing that isn't subject to attrition at all is aes. Losing worlds, losing efficiency, losing space forces, etc. has zero effect on how many aes you have - the only drawback is this T&E is mostly pointless as soon as Mesophon is wiped out (though trading hub capitals are helpful otherwise).
It makes sense as a long, long term strategy.
Project Renegade (Beta) : "The Poor Man's Corporate Command!"
Real programmers count from 0. And sometimes I do, too.
Agraria is actually my Empire, so I recognize the value of aes non-attrition. It worries me to see new players switching into the doctrine though because it's so gimmicky and hard to use. The 100-world limit is pretty crippling in a game of the size and activity level of Betas 1 & 2. Cyclops are nice but buying in groups of 1000 is a drag and of course they can't leave nebulas. And a T&E empire requires a lot of planning to switch doctrines. In lategame Beta 1 aes could be freely had by raiding old hex refineries and that didn't require anyone to be in T&E. I've made a number of suggestions relating to Mesophon in Ministry but i think the doctrines themselves could stand to be fleshed out or scrapped altogether. One way or another the game needs an injection of strategic depth. Wayward is basically playing an optimal strategy right now and that's a little sad in a way, that someone can just run away with the game like that.
Eldritch-class basic jumpships (TL9) – Beta 1 proved that the Eldritch is the ultimate fighting machine. They move really fast and attack really hard and you can store them totally out of reach of retaliation by anything other than another Eldritch fleet when you're AFK (say, on top of your capital or in a nebula pocket). A big fleet of Eldritches is immune to missiles and will destroy most other ship types via sheer massed firepower without taking meaningful losses. The really successful empires were designed as fragile machines to turns most of their labor into Eldritches when not getting eviscerated by fleets of same. Wars between strong empires are hugely destructive since they are won or lost based on who can first-strike the enemy’s critical infrastructure with their giant Eldritch fleet. It’s very difficult to protect every critical planet needed to build a big Eldritch fleet from attacks by a similar fleet. Keep in mind that you will need LOTS of chronimium to build Eldritches. Store them all on your most heavily-defended capital when they're not in use. Keep consolidating them as your jumpyards build them.
Gorgos-class starfrigates (TL9) – Gorgos have 3x the cannon range of most other ships, so they will always inflict serious first-strike casualties while the enemy fleet is trying to get into range. Capital starships like the Gorgos have low attrition, too, which makes them even more efficient in real-world terms and you won't lose them very fast even if your empire falls apart while you're AFK. Importantly, when fighting Eldritches a Gorgos fleet seems to always destroy more labor than it cost to build, no matter the size of the respective fleets involved. This is not the case with most other ship classes, which have bad kill:cost ratios when they fight outnumbered. A fight between Gorgos and Eldritches will always be a victory in this sense even if all the Gorgos get destroyed. However, Gorgos move hideously slowly, so you still need Eldritches to actually wage offensive wars against other active human players. Gorgos are also vulnerable to jumpmissile strikes if you send them into enemy territory guarded by citadels. Build Gorgos on starship yards near your sector capitals, foundations, and hubs (if you use hubs) and constantly send them to reinforce these planets. Against planetary defenses a Gorgos fleet will always win without taking any casualties (even if the Gorgos fleet is tiny!). They are hard to kill, except by other Gorgos. You only need like 1 autofac for every 3 yards or so, unlike Eldritches which need like 3 autofacs one autofac for every yard. Oh yeah- starfrigates are also protected against missiles, although not quite as effectively as jumpships since fleet size is smaller. A big jumpcruiser attack on them would see missiles get through, but that would require that your enemy be building lots of expensive jumpcruisers and not, say, Eldritches to defend said jumpcruisers against YOUR Eldritches.
Armored Infantry (TL5) – I'm pretty certain these are the most efficient way to turn labor into infantry. It's not a bad idea to use transports to consolidate them onto your capitals every few days. Smart players attack individual infantry academies with transport fleets that contain overwhelmingly larger numbers of infantry (consolidated from multiple of their own academies). Overwhelming attacks will result in infantry quickly surrendering and the enemy actually gaining infantry. This is probably an oversight on the designer's part, but don't let yourself fall victim to this type of attack.
Imperial Guards (TL5) – Big empires MUST use the Law and Order doctrine and L&O capitals can only build defenses or Imperial Guards. Build Imperial guards. They aren't great fighters, but if you dump some of them (and no other infantry types) on the planets you capture, rebels can't win civil wars. Handy!
Reliant (TL6) and Warphant (TL9) transports – carry equal numbers of troops. Don’t mix transport types in an invasion- use all Reliants or all Warphants, keep them all in the same fleet, and usually you don't want move the transports to the planet until enemy defenses are destroyed. Warphants are significantly more expensive but are 50% faster; they also land faster which can be important if your enemy is actively moving jumpfleets around while you're attacking them. It's convenient to build your own transports, but after the early game it's sometimes be more efficient to not build any yourself, and just buy them from Mesophon or capture them from other players when you need them.
Helion and Vanguard explorers - Vanguards are not really a combat unit but they are cheap to build and are neccessary for mapping the galaxy in the early game. Helions are by far the fastest unit in the game and are as strong as a Stinger but cheaper (they do lack missile defense, though). Some players like to use them offensively, and why not- they don't require any components, so you can field a really huge number of them. This tactic may actually be effective against Starfrigates but I'm not really sure.
CONDITIONALLY USEFUL UNITS
Stinger-class basic jumpships (TL6) and Adamant-class jumpcruisers (TL7) – in the early game when you are trying to expand quickly and don't have that sweet chronimium locked down. Adamants are better against AI planets with lots of HEL cannons and autocannons. If you price everything out an Adamant costs about as much as an Eldritch to build but is way worse in almost every respect, so try to switch to building Eldritches as soon as your planets can handle it.
Minotaur-class gunships (TL8) – Minotaur fleets use much less chronimium than Eldritches and seem stronger on a labor-spent/labor destroyed basis, but they lack jumpships' protection against missiles and they are so slow that it takes a long time to assemble a gunship fleet together from multiple yards and send it against the enemy. You'll rarely if ever be able to attack a jumpfleet with a gunship fleet; jumpfleets can be moved away from attacking gunships and stored on fortified planets like capitals; and gunship attrition is too high to defend planets long-term against jumpship attack (Gorgos are better for this because of their lower attrition and first-strike capability). From their stats, Minotaurs look like they should perform better against Eldritches than they actually do most of the time, IMO.
Defiance-class starfrigates (TL6) – Gorgos' poor country cousin. The only ship with range>10 that doesn't require advanced resources. Long range means they get first strikes against all jumpship and gunship types and outrange cannon-type defenses. They are a less cost-effective use of labor than Gorgos, but they are a little easier to build early on and/or in spots where you don’t have enough planets to run a chronimium economy.
Jumpmissiles (TL7) – Protect your key planets with citadels if you are worried about an enemy with a strong starship fleet. They can destroy multiple weak units with a single hit, but seem to be most efficient on a labor/destruction basis when fired against starships, especially moving fleets- if a fleet is stationary and gets hit by jumpmissiles, the missile protection of jumpships or starfrigates will shoot the missiles down. How do you guard citadels against jumpships, though? Well, you can use gunships (high attrition), lots of starfrigates (expensive), armored infantry/exotroops (attrition, have to tediously keep dropping them off), or cannon-type defenses (building defenses means building fewer jumpmissiles).
HEL cannons (T4), plasma towers (TL8), hypersonic missiles (TL6)- mostly in the early game. Hypersonics have double the range of most ships and can even cause problems for small jumpship fleets. If you have a planet with spare labor (e.g. a hub or foundation) you might as well dump some of it into defenses. Really big late-game empires can amass Eldritch fleets that are so large they will steamroller even the strongest planetary defenses without taking significant casualties; defenses become mostly obsolete in the late game.
Cyclops-class starfrigates (TL9) – use them like Gorgos for defending key worlds in nebulas. These can also be bought from Mesophon for extortionate sums. Not as labor-to-killin' cost effective as Gorgos to build. The ONLY ship in nebulas with a longer cannon range than Eldritches. Do not require chronimium, which means more chronimium to build Eldritches. They are much faster than Gorgos so you can go on the offensive with them, especially against AI planets and in dark nebulas where player enemies might not see them coming. A funny trick is to suddenly buy an enormous number of them from a Mesophon planet and sic them on the nearest nebular sector capital or other weak point; sell captured ramjet parts to Mesophon to buy even more Cyclopses. Other players will get wise to this pretty quick though.
Undine-class jumpcruisers (TL10). One way to dodge the graviton launcher bug is to build a small number of these at each of your TL10 jumpyards. They are not as efficient as Eldritches in 99% of combat situations though. May be more effective against Gorgos than Eldritches in some cases, but this needs more testing. They have to be built at TL10 worlds, which have complex penalties associated with them above and beyond those of TL9 planets that can build Eldritches (TL-associated labor bonuses and consumer goods demand penalties are a can of worms that I'm reluctant to open quite yet).
BAD UNITS
Sirius-class gunships (TL5) – Their cannon range is half that of the Eldritch so they get eaten alive by them. Also slow. May be briefly useful in the early game to defend against aggressive players who use Stingers or Helions.
Hammerhead-class nebular gunships (TL5) – A gunship that fires missiles. Stats are actually identical to the Undine but it's slower, cheaper, and can't leave nebulas. Useless against Stingers, Eldritches and Cyclops. May be situationally useful in the early game. You are better off buying or building Cyclopses if you can.
Cerberus-class nebular gunships (TL8) – like the Minotaur but seem to be generally less effective against Eldritches despite being individually stronger. This is because they are more labor-intensive to build - smaller fleet size means they are more likely to not be able to inflict meaningful casualties against a giant jumpfleet before being destroyed.
Exotroops (TL7) – Not as efficient to build as armored infantry and require more dedicated planets. Don’t require as many transports, though. Exotroops are unusually good against basic infantry but basic infantry are lousy anyway.
Basic infantry (TL1) – less efficient to build than armored infantry even though they don’t require any resources to build.
Autocannons (TL5) - They only seem to attack one enemy wing at a time, while an unlimited number of wings can attack them all at once.
TRASH UNITS
All Starcruisers- Victory, Megathere, Behemoth, Typhon – TOTALLY USELESS. Trust me on this one. They're really expensive and can't fight jumpships or starfrigates at all.
Manta-class nebular starfrigates (TL6)- a starfrigate with no range advantage against jumpships or gunships. USELESS.
Battlestations – starcruisers that can’t even move; also require heavy missile launchers, a resource built at starship autofacs. Those autofacs could be building Hellfire Cannons for more Gorgos.
GDMs, armored constellations - offer close to no protection against jumpship attacks, which are 99% of the attacks you can expect other players to launch against you.
Empires in the Trade & Enterprise doctrine can sell resources out of hubs to Mesophon worlds using these trade routes. The player can specify how much of any resource will be sold each watch. Mesophon buys many but not all resources and the trade route does not require the player to move resources in transports to sell them. However, Mesophon only sells transports and capital ramjets.
Would someone mind telling me the ingame time units? I know: watch=1 minute, period=1 hour, cycle=day(is that 12 or 24 hours?) I would like to know how much time passes in universe for each unit. I think a watch is either a day or a week.
Walloping wrote:Would someone mind telling me the ingame time units? I know: watch=1 minute, period=1 hour, cycle=day(is that 12 or 24 hours?) I would like to know how much time passes in universe for each unit. I think a watch is either a day or a week.
I think it's abstracted a little bit and that there is no clear real-world comparison.
At some level I think a cycle (which is definitely 24 hours, by the way), represents an earth year in-universe. The original game was titled "Anacreon: Reconstruction 4021" and in that game I'm pretty sure 4021 meant 4021 AD. The game clock in the current Anacreon starts at cycle 4021, but stuff happens in the game that I don't think could happen credibly on that time scale, like a planet's population going from 100 million people to several billion in one cycle. A lot of space 4x games have similar issues.
Thanks. I'm the Telarine Combine in beta 2. I made some mistakes, like conquering a bunch of planets and realizing that there was no way I could get every one of them the resources they would need to be efficient. I also tried poking the web of trade routes connecting to my infantry academy, causing mass starvation and eventually spawning a rebellion that had continued for ingame years, finally ending in the planet's secession from the Combine.
No problem. Your empire is doing very well for a new player. I wrote a gameplay guide and FAQ at https://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=6578 that's pretty thorough but it's kind of a lot to read so let me know if you have specific questions. I assumed that Telaris was a return of the defeated player who ran the Sanzu empire but I guess the planets just have similar names because your capital is in their old territory so some of your planets are Sanzu's old planets.
Just from looking at your empire right now: it's never a bad idea to raise any planet to TL 6 using a fusion project or a foundation trade route (click to specify desired TL, destroy any tech projects on the supplied planet to free up labor) and then to build whatever habitat structure is available (they have different names on different planet types). TL6 planets naturally produce a lot more resources than TL5 and the habitat structures expand population and labor even more (the habitat structures takes a few hours o build before your population starts increasing- the highest level habitat structures, arcologies, take a few days).
Also you will have to switch to the Law & Order doctrine pretty soon, which will be kind of a bummer in terms of short-term ship production because your sector capitals will stop producing ships. Once you have more than 100 worlds in any doctrine other than Law & Order you will eventually see sector capitals spontaneously secede without civil wars, which is really nasty.
I've read a lot of the guides and available information. I'm only building Eldritches. Is the production increase from the fusion TL worth the effort to adjust all the space tech planets? I've taken a few of the planets of yours that were scattered throughout what is now my territory. The way a bunch of sector caps were spread around was weird enough that I assumed the "Autocracy of Order" was some sort of ai thing like the Mesophon. I then learned of the war of extermination that was waged by you against a forgotten empire in my area and around. So, no hard feelings, right? Please don't crush me, Mr. Several huge clusters and tens of millions of ships.
I think it's abstracted a little bit and that there is no clear real-world comparison.
In the Anacreon quick start guide, it specifies the equivalent in-game times.
1 watch = 6 hours
1 period = 15 days
1 cycle = 1 year
Is the production increase from the fusion TL worth the effort to adjust all the space tech planets?
Increasing all worlds to at least fusion is recommended. I think the higher the tech level, the greater the production. I have a hexacarbide foundry of TL6 which produces 822 per watch, but another one that is TL8, produces 1327.
I know that at bio-tech level and higher planets start demanding luxuries, but does the production increase out weigh the lowered population pool and greater luxury demand for each level after bio-tech? (The luxury demand does increase with each TL after bio-tech, right?) Is a quantum planet better than a bio-tech? Is a TL10?
Thanks for all the stats and analysis Watch TV. It's been great to see all the discussion, even if Pokemon Go has taken all of the free time I need to post excessively long rants about Muh Spess Emprr up until today. Your guides make me want to make a dedicated Advanced Economic guide and break down all the whole meshnet/trade cluster thing.
Just to clear up a few things about the Sanzu Eradication, basically what happened was that after the first time they bit off more than they could chew we concluded a treaty along the lines of "if the Autocracy sees you South of the Great Nebula again it will be the last time anybody sees you". Then they had eyes bigger than their stomach again and rolled up into my main Eldritch cluster. It was a bit more organised the second time, they took over a chunk of worlds and designated some citadels and launched at least a few small salvos. It wasn't even close, bold beachheading op though it was, and I kept my side of the deal. The Autocracy always honors it's treaties.
As to Mesophon, I would be dedicating my entire OP economy to selling them @#$! if you could:
1. Buy useful ships.
2. Buy more than 1000 at a time.
Number 2 is the worst for me. I think it's 4 actions to buy 1000 ships from them, 8 actions per 1000 ships if you count moving them to a world you control, clicking on them again when they arrive, clicking transfer and clicking the arrow/using arrow keys to actually transfer them. For comparison, if I consolidate from my fully supplied TL10 jumpyards I can get like 20,000-60,000 Eldritch (daily rate, 300,000-600,000 on a weekly consolidtaion) for 2 actions. Since the functional "playing with the big kids" size for any fleet other than Gorgos is 1 million, that's about 8,000 actions to get a fleet of 1 million, discounting the attrition and finger pain while performing your 8k actions.
About me playing the "optimal strategy", this is only true on the economic side of things. There are a few top tier playstyles (in the sense of viable strats backed by the most efficient use of worlds possible) and I'm using a very middle of the road one, 50/50 Gorgos/Eldritch, 50/50 Gorgos/Warphant on the side. There are way more options. You could go all in on Eldritch or Helions, all in Gorgos or 50/50 Mech Infantry/Warphants. Although the last one is silly but I still want to try it one day. Or do the whole non-chronimium thing.
Walloping, it's always nice to see a new player getting into things. As other have said, your doing pretty well for a noob. Please keep asking questions here, people are always happy to help.
Just to reassure you, the Autocracy of Order won't pursue harsh military actions against the Telarin Combine for taking the isolated worlds left over from the Sanzu Eradication. Polling among Autocracy citizens indicates that there is an overwhelming approval for the Telarinites dancing on the graves of our troublesome former foes.
As to the whole tech level thing, Watch TV is right again, Fusion is you best option for the kind of economy you are running. You are using what we (well, I do at least) call a meshnet trade network. To the Autocracy of Order, this makes you a primitive barbarian, barely a half-step above a nebula-dweller. But the Autocracy is racist like that. Essentially, there are two ways of extracting power from the worlds you control in Anacreon (ignoring the "take as many worlds as you can with the ships from your 1 cap and do nothing with them" ploy), the meshnet and the trade cluster (with varying degrees of overlap between them).
On the one hand you have the meshnet, the basic tactic most people use and never really grow out of. It can, in theory, be almost as efficient as the trade cluster (there were some big empires that made it work in beta I) but it takes way more effort to reach that level of production. It's a simple idea. You hook up worlds to your first capital, to give the resource it needs. You add more worlds, maybe more caps for convenience, maybe moving into dedicated jumpyards/infantry academies/whatever and also hook up more worlds to provide what they need. Maybe start learning about foundations. Doesn't matter. No matter how much you fine tune it, you will always have waste. Worlds making to much stuff, worlds not making enough. It adds up.
You can still throw your weight around in the galaxy using this economic model, most people use it and you will be able to build large fleets, especially once you understand habitat structures/Law&Order doctrine/foundations. But you will be outclassed in production by people using trade clusters.
Trade clusters work by having a trade hub and foundation next to each other and importing/exporting with maximum efficiency. You need luxuries for your TL10 production worlds, so you raise you consumer goods autofacs to TL8 which gives the best ratio of luxuries produced, as a TL10 CGA world need more luxuries so they can export less even with the higher production. You can raise your CGAs to TL 8 in a meshnet, but then you need to start using archives to avoid having 5-15% of a world's production spent on tech improvements and if you are using archives you may as well learn how hubs work and make clusters.
For most planets, to build all habitat structures and get max output, you need to reach level 8. To build the most powerful units you need some level 9 and 10 planets.
As a very very very general rule, all planets should be at level 7 or 8, except for your foundations and advanced shipyards, which will be at 9 or 10. Others have written in depth guides which you should seek out.
Here is a table showing habitat structures and TL for planet types:
("Habitat" here means whether they are encountered in the different nebula types and/or in open space)
Ocean, Earth-Like and Underground worlds support the highest max population with all hab structures built. They also produce more labor at the same population and TL than other world types because they do not have to dedicate any labor to building survival goods ("S. Goods") at their hab structure. Desert and Empyreal worlds also have this benefit but do not support hab structures of any kind. Earth-like Ocean, and Desert worlds get % bonuses to producing organic food; Earth-like have the largest bonus.
Please don't crush me, Mr. Several huge clusters and tens of millions of ships.
