Home » Primary Racial Traits » AR » Some (hard-learned) tips on playing AR
| Some (hard-learned) tips on playing AR |
Thu, 19 August 2010 06:01  |
|
 iztok |
 | Commander |
Messages: 1206
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
|
Facts
- AR survivs or dies on early minerals.
- Testbeds differ badly from the real game with competent opponents.
Consequences
- Testbed will give you significantly better performance, because in it you don't need to build lots of scouts to keep tabs on your neighbours, scout catchers to deny info to them, skirmishers, armed orbitals...
- If you happen to have choosen Advanced Remote Mining, bulid some Potato Bugs on rich planets. Despite they're weak miners, three of them can double mineral production on that planet, and they'll pay back for them in 3-5 turns. The rest of their mining turns, until you'll be able to build there better miners, are pure mineral gain. It will also take way longer to reach a better buildable miner, than you're used to achieve in your testbeds: the maxi-robo-miner isn't buildable at Docks.
- If you've started without ARM, consider building some Space Stations over rich planets to build there robo-maxi-miners. In real game it will take significantly longer than in testbeds, to reach Ultra Station to start building robo-supers from them.
- Don't save too much on minerals. If opponent's colonies are close, you simply must have there ships to check what they have in orbit, or else you're risking losing your colony(es) to a surprise attack from there. It doesn't need to be a suicidal chaff for checking. The old scout-catching DD (speed 1.5) on a disengage orders does a surprisingly good job at that.
- Use slots for orbitals wise. Two are already taken by a Starter Colony and a starting SB. Don't ever be caught without at least one free slot for emergency upgrades. Any upgrade taking more than 2 turns is also risky - you can't delete the design to free a slot, if it exist or is in a build queue somewhere. This is especially true for yellow / red colonies with their low resources output. Better lose one such colony, than one or more established planets. You may even consider not upgrading the Starter Colony there at all, until planet turns green, defending with ships only.
- Guard your HW. For a long time it will be the only planet, capable of building heavier remote miners. But other than that, when you stopped exporting pop from it, and built enough heavy remotes, is the importance of the HW on the level of any other big breeder. Only after you have mined other planets below MC-30, and have a decent amount of remotes to organize mineral fountain, gains the HW its value back.
- Ask for a bann on the "kill-SB" battle order. Remember, in an early- or mid-game battle, if your opponent destroys your orbital and you manage to destroy his fleet, is your opponent short one flet, but you're short one planet (== resources, minerals, repair, refuel, scan). Have that happen enough time, and you're out of the game.
- Beta torps on a DDs are (because of their range of 4) a nasty weapon against an un-armored orbital, at least until weap-10. Before weap-10 you'll have to put an armor and Beta torps on your orbitals, and use "fast" beamer DDs to destroy attacking Beta DDs. Beta torps will also work great vs. early-game shielded FF skirmishers.
- Diplomacy helps greatly. In a game without communication is an AR (and any other weak empire) at a distinct disadvantage: you can't even yell "Beware of Monster!", despite it's taking you appart at that very moment.
So much knowledge I collected through my (bad) experience in this all-AR game. I hope it will help someone playing that difficult PRT better.
BR, Iztok
[Updated on: Sat, 21 August 2010 13:36] Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
|
Current Time: Sun May 05 17:28:26 EDT 2024
|
Members
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
