RE: Overwhelmed by minor regime less than 5 turns into the game

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RE: Overwhelmed by minor regime less than 5 turns into ... - 6/16/2020 2:25:51 AM

Jdane

Posts: 456
Joined: 6/5/2020
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Ah, ah, Laiders, your passion for the game is amazing.
I noticed luck and luckily were leitmotives in your report, but it does not detract anything from the fact you've been giving sound advice, at least in my opinion.
Looking forward to your next experiment.
(And this inspires me a suggestion.)

(in reply to 76mm)

Post #: 31

RE: Overwhelmed by minor regime less than 5 turns into ... - 6/16/2020 1:40:48 PM

AttuWatcher

Posts: 489
Joined: 6/25/2009
From: Hex 181, 36
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Laiders

My point again is it's possible to stabilise most, though not all, situations.

Agreed. The game (on beginner) is not as hard as you guys are making it sound here. While I certainly find the low-tech start challenging, I always choose it and I really enjoy it. I also play on beginner.

I suppose it could be argued that beginner should usually allow for somewhat safer and slower starts, but again I really don't think it's that hard.

The start of the game is quite fun really, never a dull moment. It's later on when you have tense cold wars with Majors and you are second-guessing your tactics and strategy and how well it will line up in a big military exchange that the game gets scary, IMO.

I think the amount of experience you have with 4x games is also quite important. If a lot of people here are coming from a heavy traditional wargaming background this game will likely not be very easy, even to just survive on beginner, until you've had considerable practice and spent considerable time reading the manual, watching Das's videos etc.

The most important general keys to surviving a tough start are resource management, (get your income streams and stockpile those resources ASAP) and making sure that you expand very carefully, don't get overextended and don't venture too far from your home area unless absolutely necessary. Also get a Command Bunker Level II ASAP once you've stabilized your early resources.

I've recently started paying a lot more attention to entrenchment and readiness values and that has also made a very noticeable impact.

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(in reply to Laiders)

Post #: 32

RE: Overwhelmed by minor regime less than 5 turns into ... - 6/16/2020 2:04:52 PM

BlackRain

Posts: 55
Joined: 1/2/2011
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It heavily depends on the start though. I am playing a game now where I was in a fight with a minor and the minor was causing me serious problems, I was able to hold the line outside my one city for a while but I couldn't push them back. It wasn't until my research guy finished the research for the light tank that I finally was able to push them back. Light tanks with howitzers won the war for me, otherwise I would have been screwed. This is a slow (epic) research game. I like research to go slow.

(in reply to AttuWatcher)

Post #: 33

RE: Overwhelmed by minor regime less than 5 turns into ... - 6/16/2020 2:17:29 PM

Jdane

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Joined: 6/5/2020
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It definitely take from this discussion that the types of minor regimes present on a planet work in effect as an additional difficulty level, i.e. raiders and slavers are much more likely to swarm you from the start, even on beginner, if you happen to have them as neighbours, than farmers or scavengers. (Although I've yet to see a scavenger culture minor regime.)

(in reply to BlackRain)

Post #: 34

RE: Overwhelmed by minor regime less than 5 turns into ... - 6/16/2020 2:39:06 PM

Don_Oda

Posts: 20
Joined: 9/4/2009
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Had the same experience from the OP
I am playing on beginner level and with only militia at start.
one comment here made me realize what the problem was�.
Started a game with 1 army and that makes a huge difference � can handle raiders now..... thanks!

(in reply to Jdane)

Post #: 35

RE: Overwhelmed by minor regime less than 5 turns into ... - 6/16/2020 2:41:40 PM

BlackRain

Posts: 55
Joined: 1/2/2011
Status: offline

My concern is, are the AI Majors having the same issues? Because I feel like they don't get bothered much by minors. I hope that is not the case. I would hate if it was only a challenge for the player

< Message edited by BlackRain -- 6/16/2020 2:44:57 PM >

(in reply to Don_Oda)

Post #: 36

RE: Overwhelmed by minor regime less than 5 turns into ... - 6/16/2020 3:33:22 PM

Naselus

Posts: 73
Joined: 6/12/2020
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quote:

ORIGINAL: BlackRain

My concern is, are the AI Majors having the same issues? Because I feel like they don't get bothered much by minors. I hope that is not the case. I would hate if it was only a challenge for the player

Some are. I've encountered AI majors which are basically under seige by a minor culture and so have extremely gimped expansion. On the other hand, the free roads and logi bonuses for the majors do allow them to concentrate more on their military early on, which helps a lot.

Players are very much at their most disadvantaged point in the first ten turns or so, when your IP is extremely low, BP are hard to come by, your population regularly defect to the free folk and your tech level offers no advantages over minors. Having to waste 2-3 whole turns of production building roads or a truck stop when the AI majors can take that IP and push it into a mid-size infantry platoon makes a huge difference on turn 5. By turn 50, not so much.

(in reply to BlackRain)

Post #: 37

RE: Overwhelmed by minor regime less than 5 turns into ... - 6/16/2020 3:35:07 PM

Don_Oda

Posts: 20
Joined: 9/4/2009
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quote:

ORIGINAL: BlackRain

My concern is, are the AI Majors having the same issues? Because I feel like they don't get bothered much by minors. I hope that is not the case. I would hate if it was only a challenge for the player

yes (at least from my perception), in the same game I am playing now (1st time with an army) I am watching how raiders are fighting against another party. Just waiting for the right moment to profit from it ...

(in reply to BlackRain)

Post #: 38

RE: Overwhelmed by minor regime less than 5 turns into ... - 6/16/2020 4:35:59 PM

PMCN

Posts: 625
Joined: 9/8/2000
From: Germany
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Just to comment:

First game: I was at about turn 40-60 or so and was expanding when I ran into some slavers...well I had a good mix of units there and was sorta trying to block them off when all of a sudden they rapidly expanded in my direction without any war declaration taking out my territory. This was impossible for me to block since they were mostly motorized units doing this and I didn't have enough of my own. The result was the brigade group got surrounded and cut off...at this point I declared war attempting to breakt them out. What followed was about 20 units pouring out of the nothingness and surrounding my city cutting off all my troops from supply so even my other 3 groups of troops were killed shortly there-after. Luckily my city had a fair number of troops but even after killing 20,000 slaver infantry and then using my milita, armour, artillery and buggies to engage their formations I am still facing some 27 or so units surrounding my city. I am down to 1000 troops in my reserve pool. I said...ooohkay...try again time.

Second game: turn 3 a mass of slaver units pour out of the nothing-ness and wipe me out. Game over.

Third game: well this one looks to be going better but somewhere around turn 150 I get my first view of the other major...they have 17 infantry brigades. Now admittedly I had a rebellion, and then I made it worse by playing the rebellion card (I stupidly thought it was what I was supposed to do)...and I only finally got power plant and had a bloody food issue I still don't understand but solved it by throwing credits at traders so likely for the time period I'm likely way behind where I should be...but I have 3 infantry brigades plus a bunch of independent battalions and militia and am aiming to take over my 3rd city...but clearly I'm on the poor side here...

So yes slavers are powerful early game. In all cases I started only with militia and what makes them even more powerful is their relatively large number of mobile units. Basically they surround your forces faster than you can respond. And early game improvised tanks, buggies, and motorcycle troops are very powerful due to their mobility. Given then showed up at turn 3...there is nothing you as a player can do about it and they show up with large numbers of units they are easily able to surround your city which kills your army not in your city. Plus they have no supply lines so they attacked in the first game out of an area where I was at the limit of my supply chain.

Also militia does not upgrade...in the 3rd game when militia started showing up in my second city they were completely modern but my original militia units had neither received reinforcement or had upgraded their gear.

Also the other problem I have seen now in 2 games is energy. Powerplant or solar plants are critical but if you don't get them randomly picked (in no game have I seen solar plants) you are stuck at a point where you can't really build anything anymore as you have no power to run it. Also fuel is utterly vital yet so far I think I only once found any outside of in ruins via salvage. Without that then powerplant is useless (unless you can run it at 25% output or something which I think is possible). Also even though in one game I'd developed medium tanks I could not deploy them due to a lack of fuel.

There are certainly a few issues which at least for a beginner is hard to sort out... I also found that while the manual has some very clear illustrations of supply I found in game it hard to figure out which buttons to push to get these clear views. The same issue showed up with trying to place supply dumps and truck stations.

Basically for the beginner player there is a steep learning curve...slavers certainly don't help.

(in reply to 76mm)

Post #: 39

RE: Overwhelmed by minor regime less than 5 turns into ... - 6/16/2020 7:25:03 PM

Naselus

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You only had 3 infantry brigades and some independent units by turn 150..?

I do wonder if we're over-expanding early on. Territory is not actually that useful for the most part - it stresses your supply infrastructure, it creates admin strain, it spreads your armies out, and a lot of the time even if you acquire resources from it you may not actually need them and so are just pumping stuff onto the world market, driving prices down.

Grabbing Freefolk villages is useful til you can depopulate them, some of the hex features can be helpful in some circumstances, and some terrain is useful for strategic purposes... but much of the rest of the time, especially early on, you probably don't actually want or need to own anything more than 6-8 hexes away from one of your cities. A lot of the time, we're holding an area the size of China with a total population of less than a million people, and 99% of that territory is actually detrimental.

(in reply to PMCN)

Post #: 40

RE: Overwhelmed by minor regime less than 5 turns into ... - 6/16/2020 8:21:41 PM

PMCN

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From: Germany
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Well I had 3 infantry brigades, 10 or so independent battalions (6 of which were attached to the 3 infantry brigades) and militia units of various sizes (approximately 6 regiments and 6 battalions). I had also fought a civil war, then played the civil war card (stupid on my part) during it which made it worse and then had run into a situation where so far as I could tell I had enough food but my units were in bad supply so that took me like 10 turns to figure out what was causing things. So I wasn't building any more units during that time...then I was waiting on development of powerplant...and then once I had the tech I was stuck with the time to build it.

I was only recruiting 500 men per turn though I increased that after I took a look at the 17 regiments the AI major had. I was astonished at the horde of regiments I saw. Though I thought qualitatively my troops were better. I'm fairly sure my light tanks would win against theirs and my AT guns would slaughter them. My issue was mainly oil as I needed to expand my industrial base and that required power and power required oil...plus I needed to get more motorized and mechanized troops into the field...why on earth can you make motorized artillery and not motorized AT I can't fathom...and that required oil.

Most likely it wasn't 150 turns...but I had just taken my second city and had a reinforced infantry regiment going after the 3rd one. At least in this game I was not surrounded by slavering slavers inside of 10 turns...

(in reply to Naselus)

Post #: 41

RE: Overwhelmed by minor regime less than 5 turns into ... - 6/16/2020 8:22:28 PM

76mm

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From: Washington, DC
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Naselus
You only had 3 infantry brigades and some independent units by turn 150..?

Yup...I only had two cities, and i was in first place! It was a really cool planet�at least half empty, covered in forests and mountains, and crawling with hostile creatures. I started with militia, and fighting ff the giant crabs was brutal�for the first fifty turns or so!

Finally i bumped into two other major poweres, one on each side, and they both DoW�d me. I wasdoing ok until my supply network collased....

(in reply to Naselus)

Post #: 42

RE: Overwhelmed by minor regime less than 5 turns into ... - 6/17/2020 9:06:20 AM

seiSetill

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Joined: 6/8/2020
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quote:

ORIGINAL: 76mm

Just started a new game at the beginner level in which my neighbors are slavers. They have no cities or resources in their territory, yet their army is bigger than mine, and they have tanks at the very beginning of the game. To top things off, a two hundred man slaver battalion has held off my 3000 man regiment for several turns in a row, inflicting heavy losses.

While I'm wrestling with the slavers, who have absolutely nothing worth conquering, my other neighbors are now encroaching from two other directions.

In my opinion the slavers need to be nerfed, because this isn't fun at all.

Yeah the slavers can be difficult to defend against if you aren't prepared, especially early. And you're right, there is little to gain from beating them except...defending against them.

I've used a "please all except the one I can deal with" strategy, and it has solved that early push problem. When they asked me to buy slaves, saying yes increases relationship. Keep saying yes until your relations are high enough to play "propose peace" from the minor strategems. That will stop them from constantly pushing into your territory, and makes them easier to manage.

I found that whatever penalty you get in the regime profile or happiness, far outweighs a <10 turn war with slavers. I will keep them happy all game as I conquer other regimes that can actually add to my empire.

(in reply to 76mm)

Post #: 43

RE: Overwhelmed by minor regime less than 5 turns into ... - 6/17/2020 10:27:38 AM

budd

Posts: 2972
Joined: 7/4/2009
From: Tacoma
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That's quite expensive and I rarely had the money to adopt that strategy,even if I wanted to.

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*I'm in the Wargamer middle ground*
I don't buy all the wargames I want, I just buy more than I need.

(in reply to seiSetill)

Post #: 44