Posted by: Vlado87
« on: September 03, 2018, 05:39:05 PM »Thanks on guides!
Wow! That is everything I was hoping for and more.
Thank you so much!!! Going to give that a run for sure when I finish my EoTH run.
*Snip*
I do have a question or two regarding NR.
You do have some very good detailed info on the era changes for their ship roster. But for this faction there isn't much advice posted on how to handle their starting position debacle in Art of War and similar scenarios, except for acknowledging that it's a thing.
I'm very big on having consolidated territory and funneling my chokepoints. So GM, PA, and EoTH are all good fits for me but I've yet to manage a single NR campaign properly.
The best I've managed is putting a small token fleet on Bakura, I let the EA conquer Moorja so I can use Nantz's fleet to steal Eiattu 6 from them in the meantime, thereby linking Sullust up. Meanwhile up north I send Ackbar to claim 2 corporate sector worlds and then turtle up there (Bonadan on land, Ession in space). Thankfully this seems to be enough pressure to give Zinj cold feet early game. The problem is even with mines on those 2 corporate sector planets, my income is still too modest to better balance my fleets or create a third major fleet to assign the task of conquering Hutt Space to link Bothawui to Mon Cal. The result is most of my heroes are stuck twiddling their thumbs at Mon Cal while Nantz is stuck repelling occasional EA counterattacks. The EA seems to run a 50/50 split of attention between me and trying to steal Thyferra from IR, which isn't too bad except whenever I grab the fleet space over Vondarc or Sanrafsix, Delvadarus usually brings his personal Praetor into play. Which I struggle with him since as you said, there aren't really any Era 1 Kill fleet options, and even if there were I don't have the budget to churn out MC80 Home One Types anyhow. This makes linking Nantz's sector with Fondor or Bothawui a pipe dream for me as most of my forces are stuck on defense. :/
NR, soon or...?
Oh absolutely, I was merely pointing out a discrepancy. I played Orinda this evening, and ended up with mostly tectors... but the NR didn't really attack me, so they weren't really tested. I think that by era 5 the IR is simply too outclassed to do anything but outnumber the NR if it wants to win. Their one good capital has no fighters, which means you have to spend precious fleet points on independent fighters.
I must admit I'm wondering if the ISD II could get a slight buff. Just to make it a better support capital in later eras. Squadrons are canonically fixed... maybe armour ? Maybe a point reduction to 5 (more automation)? Even that doesn't seem like much, and it would be overpowered for earlier eras.
Hmmmm. It should probably be left as it is. Too many professional AAA game companies obsess with everything being "balanced" to the detriment of lore and flavour.
They do its just not enough of an incentive to build them over the Tectors. Tectors, Praetors and SSDs re your era 5 work horses with maybe some Venators. I like Preybirds but if you want a lot of them you need to build them manually.I just don't build that many ISD IIs as the Empire. mostly because of the Tector.
Apologies, but I think the ISD II gets the Preybird in era 5. At least mine do.
You can build I-7 Howlrunners (junk) and Preybirds (excellent), your ISD IIs also upgrade to carrying a single Howlrunner although ISD IIs are well obsolete.
Also, do you have thoughts about some of the ground unit rosters? I'm always curious to see how people fight on the ground.
When playing as the Empire, I like to use either a wall of stormtroopers and AT-STs backed up by SPMA-Ts and AT-ATs to slooowly grind across the map, or use a mix of XR-85s and 2M tanks to zip speedily along and bypass resistance to wreck generators and factories.
When playing as the Pentastar Alignment, my strategy is a lot more uniform - two A9 fortresses, some Pentastar Enforcers to capture stuff, LAAT gunships and Saber tanks to scout ahead and clear infantry, and AT-APs and Hailfires behind the A9s to do the heavy lifting when it comes to blowing stuff up.
I've generally found AT-TEs to be completely useless.
I also like your assessments of the factions, generally I think you're spot on and there's definitely some useful tips in there (like how Acclamators are great for the PA because they get V19s and actually have fighter reserves to deploy, I didn't know either of these things and had been ignoring them!)