Hey,



I've not played Endless space for some time since fighters/bombers were introduced as I found at the time it wasn't fun to play through the bugs with invasion, or finding out what on earth fighters/bombers actually did and how. (Quite some time ago)



Just gotten back into the game and I have a very big problem with my game at the moment I want to discuss/vent frustration over.



Situation:

I made a race that had cheap ships that had high damage output and Hissho Affinity in order to churn out cheap high damage ships. (Militarists 3, Deadly Weapons 3, Dust Recyclers 2, Big Fleets 2, Eternal War)

Saboteur abilities in my two combat leaders.

High levels of lasers on fleets. (as I have no faith in kinetics and missiles can, from my memory, be easily stopped)

8 Arm Spiral Galaxy.



Problem:

It's gotten to turn 117 and all my fleets have been stuck permanently around the same solar system for the last 25 turns in the middle of this spiral galaxy. My two combat leaders are level 20 and 22 and the problem is that at some point one enemy race decided to blockade a system with over 8 or so fleets of 2000-3000 strength. This race, like mine, is in Eternal War and it happens that this 8 spiral arm galaxy has a horrible bottleneck in it at that system.

We have 4 races with over 12,000 combined ship firepower in fleets (not including invading ship fleets with pure invasion power) just sitting there turn after turn attacking each other pointlessly.



Each AI fleet uses Offensive Retreat when a fight happens which means they leave the fight almost without harm but cannot leave the system. My fleet of 3500 and 4000 cannot leave the system due to the AI constant blockade meaning as far as I can see this will continue until the end of time as the AI player cannot leave the system and I cannot kill more than one or two ships due to the fact Offensive Retreat makes it impossible to wipe out a fleet.



Eventually one of the AI will get some sort of tactical/technical advantage over my fleets and I will start to properly lose ships (hard to do with two leaders who help repair and defend fleets) but I can just start doing Offensive Retreat too.



At first I laughed at this situation thinking my leaders and ships would thrive considering my war like race nature and experience gained but now i'm bored stiff. I chose a racial trait that gives me gold on killing CP and both my leaders give gold on killing CP. This means the one or two ships I manage to kill from the enemy the fleets of 12+ ships (2 ships killed multiplied by between 7-10 fleets, again multiplied by 4/5 races) means almost infinite money to which I can't spend. I cannot spend this money as my existing fleets cannot move to capture and my new fleets get into similar situations elsewhere in the galaxy or decide the shortest route to somewhere (even with cross galaxy travel) happens to be that bottleneck. My tech isn't fast enough to keep up with spending and as I only have 7 systems I cannot mass produce enough fleets to make taking out the 2 out of 10 in a fleet worthwhile.



In short, the game has turned into a science war because no one can do anything but hack at each other pointlessly in the middle with no gains made.



Even if all but one of the races leaves, the race that now owns the bottleneck system won't 'retreat' as they've set up defending it, so they'll use Offensive Retreat but stay in the system under the defend stance where hostile fleets cannot move.



Suggestions:

- Find some sort of technology or maybe ship upgrade that can avoid blockades. Make it expensive or something similar otherwise I can see myself getting really bored of the same old stuff every turn.

- Actually provide some sort of block for Offensive Retreat that isn't a racial trait (I think the Sheredyn Affinity prevents retreat).

- Introduce some sort of fast missile, lower in damage but able to hit the enemy in the first turn. This is because due to this problem every race seems to have gone mass lasers or kinetics because missiles won't get there before the fleet retreats. I see the damage potential for missiles to end this stalemate with actually killing their fleets but cannot bring myself to tech up to it due to knowing they won't hit as they'll Offensive Retreat.

- Introduce a building you can put on a planet that damages blockading ships over time. Not by much, but enough to make stalemates like this impossible or highly damaging.

- Introduce a building that reduces the stats of the enemy fleets in orbit, giving you a higher advantage in a normally fair fight.

- Introduce the ability to force a fleet not to use a star lane in order to avoid the bottleneck. (A select box that says "avoid using star lanes" or "avoid using wormholes")

- I should make a new game and don't use a spiral galaxy.

- I should make a new race with the Sheredyn Affinity just to stop this groundhog day of days.



There would eventually be a point where I would win simply because I would use the money to make so many fleets that I could kill them off by simply attacking them 40 times in the same turn. Do you know how boring it would be to make/buy 40 fleets using 7 systems that would actually win a fight and not be destroyed in turn by the AI? Not to mention technology eventually out-stripping half the fleet by the time you produce it due to the time it takes.



Seriously, what the hell.

Well, offensive retreat is a counterable card of the "tactics" variety.

Just use "weapon overclock", "offensive retreat", "target locked" or "ultimate defense" battle actions to counter it, then he'll have to stay and take a beating.

Right, well that can possibly solve the Offensive Retreat option but not the normal retreat option which is "unblockable", maybe an interdictor ships/module. Problem with that too is also having to get a leader who gives one of those battle cards. Considering my current leaders are 20 and 22 it's almost too late to build differently. Exp requirements being so high and all.

1. Please post your save. I'd like to see what a little ship redesign could do.

2. Nosferatiel's Card Suggestions are not leader specific except for Ultimate Defense (IIRC), so you can use them.

3. Missiles are rather tragically useless.

4. Use Long Range Kinetics.

I posted a thread yesterday with the exact same problem, I should have read this thread first! I'm glad to learn of the counter to Offensive Retreat, thanks Nos. Hopefully we'll see a Retreat counter or Interdictor ship module to prevent these types of occurances.



I'm optimistic, it seems the devs really listen to the community and participate in the forum discussions. I've also noticed an incredible level of maturity in the players here compared to other game forums. I hate seeing the temper tantrums and trolling in the forums of some of the games I've played, when I'm just there seeking answers. Cheers to AS and its community!

That is just one of the many reasons I play Sheredyn, at least that way you have a guaranteed fleet-kill per battle engaged ratio.



If you play another race and fight against AI the only way to "trap" this fleet spam is to look out for a planet the AI is quite eager to attack/defend for whatever reason. Just set up a very strong fleet there (maybe even strong enough the AI wont attack it) and block the AIs fleets. You might loose a Hero that way for you also shall not attack but for me it feels like making other fronts easier.