Give EoTH a chance! [Suggestions Thread]

[jaxter]

I have played EoTH exclusively, and I have a number of issures that I feel needed to be brought forth.

1) Defencive structures are trash... Well sort of... The 'Hive' is usually the more useful one, the masses of fighters/ bombers it supplies are usually more useful than the Visva platform as fights take place much to far out of range of the Visva's weapons (Which I could give you a scientific reason for it to have higher range if youd like). Also, EoTH can only have a maximum of two stations, whearas everyone else gets 5 platforms (The Golan series) of considerable value, that just so happen to nod disappear if you kill their shipyards and flee, which does in fact kill EoTH defencive platforms, just saying, but If it is Quality over quantity you are looking for at least buff the Visva with some much needed range..

2) Praetors wreck everything we got... Unless Im missing something, in which case let me know, but Praetors have such high range that I cant even see both them and their target on screen at the same time while fully zoomed out, and I can only kill them casualty free if I get to jump mutiple Chafs and Ascendencys on top of them, and thats only for one or two which brings me to another problem, While 9 pop is already a lot, the AI sits there bringing in one after another after another forever and ever, (See this battle report: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=821932329)

3) Shields are the counter... EoTH does strong hardpoint damage, but it is weak againt shields making Executors painful, which is fair enouph, but the sheer spam of MC90/80s pulled by the AI and some other players is murder... I will mention that this is subject to fleet comp but my best shield killers are the Ascendencys and Chafs so I think there is a problem.

4) No space artillery (Or ground to space) (Unless you count Karieks, in which case they need more range)... This was in another thread I posted in with my ideal solution, but Ill say it again here.  Canonically (or old cannon I guess) the EoTH had no ground to space, but I have a few things to mention, first off, Thrawn stole a lot of Empire tech, which could have easily included hypervelocity cannons even if never mentioned. Secondly, you could give the Visva platform more viability by giving it an artillery blast of some sort (Ion maybe?) similarly to the Consortium shipyards in EAWFOC

Thats all I got for now, but I will probably have more later. Thanks for such a great mod though guys!
Edit: Only five Golans not Six according to Grey

[tlmiller]

1.  Visvia is insanely powerful if you lure the enemy in.  You just can't go running away from them, you need to bring them to you.  Also, MOST planets for other factions only get 2 Golans (and many only Golan I's), there's only a few planets that get 4 or 5 (none get 6)

2.  Yes, Praetors can be strong, but IR only gets them in 1 Era, and the PA should be a priority to eliminate since they start beside you and generally start with a weak economy and so are ripe for the picking early on.  If you don't allow them to survive to build Praetors, issue solved.

3.  Executors are painful for EVERYONE, they're supposed to be that powerful.  Like the NR, you should be taking down shields with bombers, which the EoTH fighters & bombers are superior to all but a VERY few IR fighters/bombers.

4.  Yes, I agree that EoTH should get some form of ground based artillery, but I also believe mod team is planning on giving them something.  Not positive, but I think I remember them posting something to that effect at some point.

[GreyStar]

I thought the IR could only get Preators in Era 3.

[jaxter]

1) Yes it is powerful, but your ships in defence spawn so far away that you are loosing ships by the time you fall back. If you could make your fleet spawn closer to the platform at least then that alone would help a lot.

2) I took over the PA about ten weeks in, It was already era two and as it stands in Era 3 the IR keeps pumping out Praetors like clockwork, a regular fleet of their units contains usually three praetors, so something must be bugged because there is no way they had build hundreds of the damn things in the first eight weeks of the campaign...

3) While bombers are indeed the best for tearing down ships as usual, they are incredibly hard to micromanage in EAW, the huge mass of fighters in any major fight make a wall-like layer of tiny ships that you cannot taget anything under, hense the use of a more fire & forget style that you can use when targeting with larger ships. Maybe there is a way to stop selecting fighters by clicking on their models and make it only highlight them by the large square that they always have floating over a squad?

4) Well something needs to happen, lets hope something does happen. Heck at the least I would like to have something other than mines to cover 90% of my territory with..

[Helix345]

to help micromanage your ships try ctrl a. this will select all of your ships and then you can group them how you like by ctrl (insert number here) with the group you want to make. once the group is made press the number you assigned them and it will pull up the group. to select all of a certain type of ship on screen, hold down ctrl and click on a ship. The EotH is really powerful and definitely has the strongest defensive platforms, I killed 3 executors with just 2 visva platforms.

As for the praetor spam, the ai cheats like hell and the mod team can't do much to fix that.

[Pali]

1) Also, EoTH can only have a maximum of two stations, whearas everyone else gets 5 platforms (The Golan series) of considerable value, that just so happen to nod disappear if you kill their shipyards and flee, which does in fact kill EoTH defencive platforms

Killing a shipyard and running also gets rid of any Golans.  They're no different in this aspect.

[Corey]

1) Defencive structures are trash... Well sort of... The 'Hive' is usually the more useful one, the masses of fighters/ bombers it supplies are usually more useful than the Visva platform as fights take place much to far out of range of the Visva's weapons (Which I could give you a scientific reason for it to have higher range if youd like). Also, EoTH can only have a maximum of two stations, whearas everyone else gets 5 platforms (The Golan series) of considerable value, that just so happen to nod disappear if you kill their shipyards and flee, which does in fact kill EoTH defencive platforms, just saying, but If it is Quality over quantity you are looking for at least buff the Visva with some much needed range..

On some maps the defender position may be moved closer to the bases, however you can usually get back to them pretty easily if you have the defensive stations. The Visvia's range is already pretty high, and it's incredibly powerful. We're going to change some of its targeting mechanics with 2.2, however that won't involve increaing its base firepower... Thousands of damage to the entire enemy fleet from across the map is not a good idea. With two Visvia and two Brask stations, the only time you have access to fewer options than other factions is on planets where  you can have 5 total slots, in which case you get access to one fewer since you only have two types. The Empire of the Hand is getting two new types of defensive platform, however, so that's not going to be an issue.

Overall the Empire of the Hand is probably the strongest faction in the mod in 2.1, so while there will be a lot of balance (and other) changes for them, most of them will be in the direction of making certaina spects weaker.

that just so happen to nod disappear if you kill their shipyards and flee, which does in fact kill EoTH defencive platforms, just saying,

That's how the game has space stations and special structures programmed; it actually works the exact same for everyone.

4) No space artillery (Or ground to space) (Unless you count Karieks, in which case they need more range)... This was in another thread I posted in with my ideal solution, but Ill say it again here.  Canonically (or old cannon I guess) the EoTH had no ground to space, but I have a few things to mention, first off, Thrawn stole a lot of Empire tech, which could have easily included hypervelocity cannons even if never mentioned. Secondly, you could give the Visva platform more viability by giving it an artillery blast of some sort (Ion maybe?) similarly to the Consortium shipyards in EAWFOC

Nobody has space artillery, and nobody said canonically they had no ground to space weaponry. Canonically the EotH was barely ever spoken about, so aside from general information and the Clawcraft/Ciss SD, we really don't know what they had. They were filtered some stuff from the Empire (Thrawn didn't steal it), however we are most likely giving them the planetary megamaser we gave them in Ascendancy as opposed to having a 73rd faction with an HV Gun, which wouldn't be any fun.

[SentrY]

If dealing with praetors is your main issue than make it a priority to park outside of Byss or Parkir Minor and wait for era 3 then murder the living **** out of palatine, the PA isn't really a threat since they can't get anywhere with the Ir and Nr chipping them away right off the bat.

[the_trots]

If dealing with praetors is your main issue than make it a priority to park outside of Byss or Parkir Minor and wait for era 3 then murder the living **** out of palatine, the PA isn't really a threat since they can't get anywhere with the Ir and Nr chipping them away right off the bat.

In my experience the PA completely dominates the other 2 factions.  The PA ai just wipes them out, heros and all, and takes over most of the planets I do not hold. 

I have an easier time against SSD's than than Praetor fleets.  I will look for a large GC that does not have the PA.

[Pali]

That happens a lot less if you take out Jerec and Kaine early on - without two SSDs, the PA won't expand nearly as effectively.

[Director Krennic]

About to win art of war admiral rank with them. Just play smart and take the disadvantage as a challenge.

[Director Krennic]

If dealing with praetors is your main issue than make it a priority to park outside of Byss or Parkir Minor and wait for era 3 then murder the living **** out of palatine, the PA isn't really a threat since they can't get anywhere with the Ir and Nr chipping them away right off the bat.

In my art of war game I got the NR to kill Palpatine lol

[JMDurron]

In my opinion, EotH isn't disadvantaged compared to the other factions, it just happens to be by far the most different in terms of best tactics/strategy, so applying methods from the NR/IR to the EotH isn't going to work very well. 

To be fair, this opinion is based on just playing my first game as EotH (Empires at War - so stuck in Era 1 tech!), but I've already noticed two huge advantages that the EotH has. 

1) The Chaf's ability to enhance power to weapons does not appear to drain its shields in the same way that all other factions' equivalent frigates' ability does (in Era 1, anyway).  It's one small "chunk" of shield strength, for lack of a better term, whereas the VSD/Dread drain their shields entirely or almost entirely.  Combine that fact with the ability to "stack" frigates like the Chaf along the Z-Axis with the capital ships and a large number of space heroes, and the EotH has a big edge in any non-SSD Era 1 battles.

2) Phalanx Commandos are absolutely awesome, with their ability to conquer lightly-defended planets on their own.  The ability to sneak onto any enemy's planet with a known hyper lane is deadly in two particular situations.  The first is early in the game, before the AI builds turbolaser towers or ground production sites that have infantry-killing garrisons.  The second is against the PA, with their extremely weak anti-infantry early unit mix.  Jerec is the only guaranteed counter to the commandos with his lightning attack, but I've taken 8 of the PA's planets without ever fighting a space battle against them, using only 5-unit stacks of Phalanx Commandos.  This method is also almost hilariously easy to use against the Yevetha, but that's a scenario-specific quirk due to their lack of ground unit production.    Throw in the 100 credit cost and the fact that you start with the ability to build them on all of your planets, and you've got a devastating blitzkrieg tactic to start things off. 

This is just in Era 1, so the complete lack of airpower on the ground or any super-level ships to build (Phalanx being the closest produce-able one) is a shock to my system after playing through every GC as the IR after doing so as the NR, but the power of the EotH is considerable once you shift your thinking to better leverage their strengths.  My first attempt at a conventional ground attack against a well-defended IR planet was essentially a disaster from a casualty standpoint, although I ended up taking the planet anyway.  Neither my NR airpower doctrine nor my IR "smash through them with armor" doctrine lent themselves well to the EotH ground force I had built, but that's just indicative of me needing to adapt my thinking more.