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Has anyone had large battles? I mean like 20+ ships on either side, with similar tech and stuff, long lasting and devastating for both fleets kind of battles.

My most spectacular battles have been against planetary defenses and pirates(imagine that[:'(]), but generally the AI fleets and mine avoid each other and conquer the planets one by one. Or in some cases only small numbers of ships engage my main fleet and are dealt with quickly.... OR the AI attacks my smaller fleets and bases and they win faster than I can read the attack message.

Any insight on that?

I believe it has been coded that way so the AI don't waste it's fleets in meaningless fights. Wars usually don't last long in DW so it's a rush to deal damage and capture worlds. The AI will sacrifice ships to delay you, but won't commit a whole armadas unless it's confident it can steamroll you locally. Besides, it's rare that we have only one front to worry about, the same is true for the AI.

Well, that's how i think it works from the games i played.

I think also that the AI prefers to attempt to cripple your economy by taking colonies and of course your homeworld if it can. I don't think the AI has ever sent a large fleet to attack my fleet where I might have the advantage. It seems only sensible. Like Foraven says, they will only attack if they have the superior firepower.

I often intercept an enemy fleet with mine, but that can take some time and draw your forces away from areas that need protected. It does create some nice battles though.

I've had a few large engagements, but like Igard said, usually when I go fleet hunting. Once or twice, a large fleet attacked a well-defended spaceport, and the resulting battle lasted quite a long time, as I brought in one fleet after another to help fight them off. It was a lot of fun. [:D]

Anyone got a picture of one such huge battle? How do you organize your fleets? In my latest game, I found out that giving a fleet an HQ and putting it on auto makes it patrol the systems surrounding its respective HQ. Do you keep capturing fleets and assault fleets separate? OR do you put troop compartments on the biggest ships and thus make a combo? What do you use most? capital ships, cruisers, destroyers etc, or something balanced?


Anyway, Another question: What's your longest war? I mean, did you ever find a war hard and long? What about conquest, did any of you bother to conquer an enemy empire that had 100-300 colonies? I know I gave up after the first 10-20[8|][8|][8|]. As for hard wars, I found my first one ever after buying the game, a very hard and almost destructive war for my empire, my infrastructure was just too vulnerable(every station lost put a dent into the economy). I was lucky enough to get a truce after losing a key colony and conquering some minor ones. Fortunately, I managed to regroup my fleet and reorganize the economy and eventually win.

Cheers

For conquest, I take advantage of what I think is a weakness in the game. I build troop transports. Shielded like battleships, able to turn on a dime and outrun most escorts. No weapons; I've found that armed transports don't stay where I want them to, instead tracking down pirates and such. Anyway, these transports each take at least 8 army units, and I'll build anywhere between one and two dozen of them, organized into one or two fleets. When the time comes, I load them up (keeping the flagship in one place so the others will return), then send them out, one each to a different colony, sometimes two. Rare are the planetary defenses that can take down one of these transports before it delivers its troops. After that, if they survive (they usually do), they run back to wherever the flagship is (which I make sure to send back to a well-defended colony), and I sit back and wait. I'll build battle fleets to attack mining stations and, if I can track them down, enemy fleets. What helps with this strategy is having an agent in deep cover, so I know how many units are defending each colony.

Battle fleets are usually made up of capital ships only... There is no real reason to have anything but the biggest and baddest ships going after the enemy. Cruisers, destroyers and frigates make up system defense fleets, of which I try to have one (2-5 ships, depending on the value of nearby colonies) for every three systems or so. My warships never have troop compartments, but it might be useful... I've yet to experiment.

The whole thing is a little too easy, in any case. Troops dumped on some alien planet lightyears from the nearest form of support shouldn't stand a chance against a well-supplied, entrenched defending force. But it works, so I go with it. Maybe it works because I don't play with the larger galaxy settings. At some point, in almost every strategy game, there comes a point where you've won the game, but you haven't yet satisfied the victory conditions. Then follows the dreary process of conquering, say, every enemy colony (my first game had 100% colony possession as victory condition... Big mistake.), or at least quite a few. You already know the other guys can't do a thing to hurt you anymore, there's no way you're going to lose... But it isn't over yet. The bigger the galaxy, in my experience, the longer this boring process takes. Either that, or you just start a new game. That's usually me.

I agree with WriterNotViking - dumping your legions and running away is a bit of an exploit - I game this by not building dreadnaught troop ships - restricting myself to the style of troop ship used by the AIs.

However, the AI does use similar strategies - landing troops and running away when it can. I guess those landing troops are prety self-sufficient!

And to the original poster - yes, I do have large fleet engagements - but the AI is pretty smart - if it is attacking and overmatched it will flee, but if defending an important location they will resist strongly until you land troops.

See my AAR - Hive. Attacking the nasty kitty homeworld had more than 40 ships in engagements around 4 different planets in their home system going on simultaneously. Tactically the AI acquitted itself pretty well and if they'd had better torpedo tech on their orbital defense platforms my troop ships might not have faired so well.

I read your AAR and I'm really enjoying it so far, you describe the Sluuken way very well. That's what I meant in my original post, playing the game as it should be, with giant empires spanning across the galaxy with huge fleets battling.

Anyway, I also meant this: fighting long wars with the AI, lots of battles lots of conflicts and actually getting beaten.
Did anyone ever try a game with equal empire size(large) and tech as the ai and slow research and stuff and fight out for years? Did anyone lose a game vs AI, without too much game start handicap? I read a few AAR in that sense

Cheers