Twelve Colonies Comments Thread

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

The rather shocking Stave counter-attack proved quite ill-conceived. Is this a NPR behavior likely to be corrected before 2.0 release, or more or less WAI? Seems rather suicidal, as long as the attacking race leaves a reserve behind, but could also be considered a high risk/reward move as there is the chance to ambush the logistics train of an assaulting fleet. Didn't work in this case, but I would also note that the Stave are strategically outclassed anyways as they have severe technological and economic deficits by now.

I'd wager the AI was attempting to retreat rather than counter-attack, having decided the attacking fighter force was too much to handle. I'm not sure how such behavior could be corrected (if indeed it's actually "wrong" - despite the outcome in this case being objectively wrong from the AI's perspective!) without causing other problems - AI's pressing hopeless attacks rather than strategically retreating, as one example.

If I didn't have heavily-armed motherships and mostly 100% crews, that battle might have gone very differently. I don't think it is necessarily a terrible tactic when confronted by a large enemy force - it just turned out to be terrible in that situation. I think the underlying issues may be that the AI places too much weight on speed when assessing the threat level of its opponents, which is exaggerated when facing fighters, plus it doesn't decrease threat assessment in the immediate aftermath of a transit. On that basis, it  took the option to 'retreat' through the jump point. I'll make some adjustments in that area.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

No comments yet? Wow, some people don't know how to have fun...

Introductory paragraph highlights one of the big downsides of carrier fleets. While fighter swarms can be powerful and, as shown, tactically more efficient than missiles, and of course strategically very sound, the ability to press an offensive against a tough defense is very limited without... cooperation from the opponent. Of course, you've got a shockingly "cooperative" NPR, as we read, and also battlestars with integral armament which can execute a WP assault reasonably well on their own, at least long enough to launch the fighters.

In November, the Twelve Colonies launched the first Odysseus class Survey Cruiser, a new ship type intended for long-duration survey missions. [...] Production of the Odysseus class would gradually free up the four survey-configured Valkyrie II class Battlestars for combat assignments.

I'm curious Steve - is this move being done largely because of the need for Valkyries on the front lines, or because you've found survey parasites to be more trouble than they're worth? I recently tried using survey parasites in a campaign which I abandoned fairly quickly, mostly because survey operations were a pain in the butt as there's no way to automate the process of recalling parasites, moving to a new system, and issuing the exact same standing orders another half-dozen times.

The rather shocking Stave counter-attack proved quite ill-conceived. Is this a NPR behavior likely to be corrected before 2.0 release, or more or less WAI? Seems rather suicidal, as long as the attacking race leaves a reserve behind, but could also be considered a high risk/reward move as there is the chance to ambush the logistics train of an assaulting fleet. Didn't work in this case, but I would also note that the Stave are strategically outclassed anyways as they have severe technological and economic deficits by now.

I didn't actually know NPRs knew how to use terraformers, so that was a learning experience for me!

Once within a few million kilometres, Colonial active sensors detected a ground forces signature of 458,900 tons, indicating somewhere between two and three million tons of fortified ground forces. A huge program of increasing Colonial ground forces would be required before any assault could be launched.

Hurry up, I wanna see the first-ever Steve attacking an alien homeworld in an AAR. Not only because I expect it will lead to a lot of ideas to improve ground combat, no, I have interest in the ground attack for its own sake too... 

A bit surprised to see the Stave shipyards destroyed. I suppose it makes sense here, since the Colonial Union doesn't need a lot of shipyards to build Battlestars at the rate their economy allows, but still it is a lot of yards to let go to waste (I can't remember if the conversion factor is 20x or 50x, but that 78,000 ton signature is either 1,560,000 or 3,900,000 tons of slipway space, right?).

Across known space, one jump beyond the survey base in Electra, the survey cruiser Odysseus transited a jump point in the Odessos system and discovered Hydra, a red dwarf system with a single Venusian world. On the far side of Hydra from the entry jump point was a strange, never-before-encountered, phenomenon; a swirling, dark purple vortex with a diameter of ten million kilometres. It appeared be a rift that penetrated both normal space and the Aether. As soon as news of the discovery arrived at Earth, a tug was dispatched with an Outpost sensor station that would monitor the rift.

On July 8th 2316, one month after the discovery of the mysterious rift in the Hydra system, a similar rift was discovered in Sphinx, four transits from the Sparta colony via Orpheus, Rho Leporis and Delphi.

Things are about to get really exciting around here... 

A great update, Steve. Overall a lot of excitement and action, but we've reached the point in the game where the action is all along major threads instead of the disjointed chaos of early game. The galaxy is taking shape quite nicely and I anticipate some interesting strategic challenges ahead for the Twelve Colonies.

The survey cruisers are to free up the Valkyries from long-ranged exploration. I'm actually still building some survey parasites, but they are being based at colonies now instead of Battlestars. The Raptors are shorter-ranged so they are 'filling in' rather than going further into deep space.

The destruction of the shipyards was so I could get away with stationing a relatively small force to monitor the Stave until I could assemble a real invasion force. Even if I left them intact, it would be many years before I could launch an assault that would capture them.

I've covered the 'counter-attack in the post above.

[nuclearslurpee]

If I didn't have heavily-armed motherships and mostly 100% crews, that battle might have gone very differently. I don't think it is necessarily a terrible tactic when confronted by a large enemy force - it just turned out to be terrible in that situation. I think the underlying issues may be that the AI places too much weight on speed when assessing the threat level of its opponents, which is exaggerated when facing fighters, plus it doesn't decrease threat assessment in the immediate aftermath of a transit. On that basis, it  took the option to 'retreat' through the jump point. I'll make some adjustments in that area.

I certainly think it cold be a tactic with merits. Granted, as a human player I would probably not make a blind jump without better intelligence of some sort, but given some idea what to expect it is potentially a good way to make an ambush happen or raid the enemy to flip the tables.

One thing that does sometimes confuse me with the AI though is the definition of "retreat" is often in the opposite direction from their base or colony. Seems a bit odd although in this case I suppose the Stave had another up-to-15 heavy cruisers to defend their home world, so it would work out if they weren't just plain overmatched.

In any case always glad to see AI improvements, 2.0 is shaping up to be one of the best updates yet for single-player campaigns!

[HighAdmiral]

I was really enjoying this, does the carrier QOL update mean this story is over?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I was really enjoying this, does the carrier QOL update mean this story is over?

Yes, this AAR is done now. I've recently started another test campaign for the more recent changes and I'll publish updates from that at some point.