Hello, I just finished the game on turn 236 and last 30 turns battles were not pleasant at all.

I had about 17 fleets orbiting enemy system along with 3 other races who had each about 10-20 fleets orbiting the same system, we were fighting one against other like a hell lol, but my problem was that every fight against the harmony was retreat, retreat, retreat and again retreat! jesus I was crazy not because of enemy retreat but every next turn harmony get back to the system with retreated fleets and the retreat spamming begins again oO'

harmony had about 20 fleets so I had to deal with retreats 20 times per turn so I couldn't destroy their ships since they run away and came back and so on and so forth.



I tried every possible solution during a fight like, different targeting modes and different cards, that helped a little but since I destroyed 1-2 their ships per turn so I weaken them up turn by turn, but to finish them completely you would need about 40 turns...



I don't know man, but this has to be fixed some way because retreat spamming drives you up the wall like nothing else in the game

alright here is some help, sheredyn have a faction affinity to not allow enemies to retreat, this probably won't help you but it is good to know. now, what type of retreat are they using offensive or regular? it makes a difference because you have to counter the retreat card. look at the top of the card they use and see what type it is. then look for the card that counters it by looking for ''counters xxxxx'' at the bottom of every card. playing a countering card will help you do a lot more damage to them although i don't think it will stop retreat altpgether. also retreat also counters a card type so don't use that type if retreating is a problem.

Yes they used both kinds of retreats, offensive and regular, so my first card was always the one that counters tactics, so offensive retreat didn't work for them any more, but still not much more damage was dealt.



I forgot to say in my previous post that on the same system was horatio(ally) and as soon as all fleets retreated, he started invasion, now of course that means I'll never conquer that system (which was in my interest as well because of strategic resources) since you can't attack your ally even if you break the alliance.. and that's why retreat spamming were driving me nut's even more since I couldn't catch up quickly enough to start the invasion..



In short, if AI wish to fight then fight, don't play 'hit and run cowboy' stile.



Sheredyn has great ability to stop enemies from retreating but I would love to have hero ability that stops retreating, at least this could be good enough fix for retreat spamming. Isn't?

1. Post your save if you want some complete suggestions.

2. Use ships with more long range kinetics.

hi thuvian, I would appreciate if you can see my save and suggest some good solutions

I played custom faction which is in attachment. thanks a lot!
Endless empire - Turn 245.zip

I'd say use ships with nothing but long range kinetics, even if they retreat they get destroyed

Your saved game was for turn 245, so there wasn't much I could do at that point.

Some advice:

• No Scout Modules - They do virtually nothing
• No Engine Modules - They do virtually nothing
• No Tonnage Modules - They cost way too much
• More Bombers and Fighters
• 50% of ship dedicated to weapon modules
• Long Range Kinetics are the your weapon of choice.
• Long Range Lasers are your second weapon of choice.
• Long Range Missiles are your third weapon of choice.
• Don't multiclass ships. Have weapon modules ships and siege ships.
• Carrier ships should be a variation of your weapon module ships.
• Siege ships probably don't need any defenses, just pure siege/troops.
• Bombs & Bombers are personal taste, troops are generally better.
• You only need 13 * system defense in siege strength.
• Or troop modules.
• 
  
  

Consider the following for a workhorse ship

• Destroyer Hull (the one with -5% cost)
• Max Long Range Kinetic Modules
• 1 of each of the Defense Modules
  
  

At the tech and industry you had in your save, you can make these for 500 Industry. You can build 6 of these for one of your dreadnaughts. You can also buy them for around $1000 Dust. Don't bother with heroes on these fleets. Just send them in in max fleets using spread fire.

If your AI fleets run away consistently, you are probably sending in fleets that is too strong. With better design you should be able to win with no losses at around same strength level, so you can consider dividing up and then kill. For instance you can easily kill AI fleets with repair+armor DN with no damage at all (Turn 236 sounds late but earlier on definitely).

Another way to prevent it is to ignore strings and send a surprise fleet to systems they are retreating too and lock them down. Or ignore the system they have ships in and attack others, AI typically stack everything in one system making others extremely vulnerable. (turn 236, your ships should be fast enough to travel without strings and also have all wormhole connected?)

thuvian,

Thank you a ton for analyzing my save. Yes turn 245 is really late.. this was a slow paced game and I was going for economic or diplomatic victory as you saw diplomacy failed so I've build up defensive ships and buildings and wait to hit 100% economic.

Really you surprised me when you said no tonnage and no engine modules

But you're right, tonnage module costs much industry and engine mod. takes too much space.

Yes I put scout module on my ship but that was only one ship within a fleet which also had a repair module so that whole fleet benefit from it's detection range and repair mod.,

I'll definitely try out your suggestions in my next game (which I'll start today ) and see how's going on.

I never liked long ranged kinetics probably because then I would have no attack force in melee phase but I'll try that out as well..

Again thank you a lot!

thuvian wrote:


Don't bother with heroes on these fleets

I don't get your point here? I had 5 experienced heroes with huge combat bonuses

anomalacaris wrote:


Another way to prevent it is to ignore strings and send a surprise fleet to systems they are retreating too and lock them down.

Good point, I'll do so next time I face retreats in my game

You'll have 5 times as many fleets using destroyers like that, they don't need heroes to function, plus they usually die when going into battle (but they take the enemy with them, which is what we want).

OK, I've created a fleet with 5 destroyers with LR kinetics and LR missiles only + 1 of each defense mod.

So far that works very well

I came rarely to the melee phase and that's cool, thanks!