Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Telling you would make it too easy. Figure it out :p

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Are you really that bored?

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

People Generally


Don't Tell Their Strategy

Pre-Round......




(which is why you joining an ally might be good! You could learn a few tricks. Just saying..)

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Shouldn't this be in Strategic Discussions, at any rate?

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

I think it is a perfectly legitimate question, please don't harass the original poster just because you cant be asked to discuss the question at hand.

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

very helpful post ....
why xxxxing bother posting

you dont have to tell everyone your specific strategy but could speculate on a few strategies.

nicely put.

Is there any specific race / fleet type that is taking an interest?

Personally I like the good race with the ability to fake
But I also like the bad race ability with cov ops. (with demo or social gov for max stealth and excellent recovery)
So im still deciding. (subject to gal strategy aswell)

Good race does have the ability to fake frig as cr easily (Where inc scans arent possible)... were you looking to go for value via refineries or were you looking to go distorter heavy to prevent you being readily scanned?
(baring in mind it can take a few days for scanners to get Adv unit scans.
and with shorter tick time trying to get a scan on a distorter heavy planet could be tricky for cluster def.)

Also if you are in a private gal is there a specific gal strategy you were interested in? you couldnt rule out an all good gal for example to make it hard for attackers to guess intergal defense fleets / ship numbers.

but makes that gal vunerable to frig incs in the first few days until Belsnickel (cr class anti frig) can be built.

If you are after a tick plan please dont hesitate to ask :)

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Basically, most people refuse to type there opinions in public until someone respected (who is well known to be able to read the stats) has posted there opinion. So they can agree with basically what they've typed and not sound foolish or get flamed for being wrong. The only exception to this, is when someone always plays X race and they argue that X race is weak against Y and so X needs to be buffed (They dont care if its right or not, they just want there race to be as powerful as possible).

but here's my opinions anyway, although im pretty crap at reading stats, im usually lucky as to pick the right race even if its for the wrong reasons. Like ETD last round as i wanted to be emp fi/co.

I think first off, its important to note that with 30minute ticks.. It may not be a big issue for ETA's from Fi/Co, to FR/DE or FR/DE to CR/BS as it is in previous rounds.

For clusters to get defence, its 30mins, 60mins and 90mins for each class type and for galaxy is 3hours 30mins, 4hours, 4hours 30mins. So now the gap is reduced from 2hours between Fi/Co and CR/BS to just 1hour. While Fi/Co is obviously still slightly stronger when looked at from ETA's, its nerfed to the point where it's more down to ships available rather than time.

Without even looking at the numbers, i'd eliminate going Cath BS straght away. Ziks have a faster ship with a smaller ETA and caths would need to split build all 3 ships. Coupled with the fact that some Xans may be going CR as well, its easy for other races to build counter ships quiet fast which fit into there normal roiding fleet (so have the flak for them).

Xan FR looks to be pretty strong. Able to target Cath Co (and any Zik Co roided fleet who manages to get co pods), Zik DE and Xan CR within its roided class. The bonus is that they are also able to roid any other Xan at the beginning of the round who hasnt researched CR/BS hulls (which again, shows that we might be getting more CR this round than we usually get).

Xan CR looks to be abit stronger than Xan FR and could probably roid any Xan FR player from the beginning of the round, as most Xan FR players wont be building anti CR as there main ship. The main downfall of Xan CR though is that any Xan player can build Santa's which will stop cause any Xan CR player to think twice about landing on them. It doesnt really matter how outnumbered your santa's are, they still will inflict damage for minimal losses. So if Xan CR is well used this round, expect most galaxys/cluster alliances to ask there Xan players to build some Santa's.

Ziks seem to be the same as usual, need to cap to become powerful. With so few numbers though, it seems that Ziks will find it hard to cap a good fleet. The only real advantage is that it only takes 6hours to land now, so may be able to land while people are asleep but people should be setting there fleets to run and hide. They are certainly the race to go, if you've got a friend who cant be bothered with this miniround and will be your shipfarm. Get some Cath Co pods early and you're setting yourself up for a nice round.

Cath Co seems powerful enough. They need to build 3 ships in order to attack and defend themselves from most attacks but there downfall may be that they will struggle to cover themselves from most attacks as the universe will certainly have quiet afew CR players (maybe some BS players), so they will need to invest in enough Snowmans as well which will inherently cause there offensive fleet to be more underpowered. They are a nice race to go, if you're in an organised private galaxy, with at least one Xan BS player who can you rely on for some santa's to cover your hole. I like the look of caths but i just dont think they're strong enough to last the round especially without a dedicated alliance helping you win as we'll have limited defence this round and certainly not enough alligience to our cluster alliances to dedicate resources/ships to stopping a cath from getting roided all round (or it could just be, that im going random, so i'd die if misrebly if i went cath).

Overall, i'd say that Xan is certainly the race to go for the majority of players, especially as it seems a low number of people are playing this round which potentially means there will be a lack of scanners. I'd personally recommend going Xan FR at the beginning, then getting CR/BS hulls and decided weither its worth switching to a CR fleet (depending on how the rest of the universe went). Xan FR faked as CR is a perfectly viable tactic this round. Although, you can certainly rush CR for the first night and do just as fine.

As for roids, this is one of the few rounds i'd also recommend only init'ing to 300. With a low turnout of planets signed up, those who go over this limit.. are almost certainly going to get incomings on the first night. While in normal rounds, you can usually get away with it due to alot of people doing the same thing.

Edit: I'd also like to add, that maybe this round.. going Distorter heavy is a viable tactic.

Edit2: As for governments.. Demo seems like the most likely government to take this round, considering most players will need to get CR/BS pretty fast (especially if your Xan) and with the lack of scanners around, you'll want scans as quickly as possible.

Edit3: Seems Zik Co pod has been added since i last checked, Zik are better than i originally thought but Zik is always the race that people tend to go if they like Zik regardless of the stats (unless they're stupidly bad).

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

8 man gal, 6 xans, 2 caths. Go CR, let the cats whore those BS and a few CR's.

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Good Responses that should give everyone pause to think....

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

With a heavy Xan CR gal, you're more than likely immune to Xan CR attacks with a nice surplus of santa's. Then again, if everyone goes this tactic, you're going to struggle to land on everyone elses gal who has an overflow of santa's. Its nice than Xan CR is clearly the best way to go but Xan CR cant land on other Xan CR players without losses, so it balances itself out.

Now ive bothered to run afew calcs, in an Xan heavy universe.. im struggling to find a fleet composition where you can land on Xans without major losses. Xan FR's are going to have Rudolph's as there main ship and Xan CR's are going to have santa's and in terms of value.. they're both evenly matched on losses (except the defender has minimal losses due to salvage).

Im starting to dislike these stats ALOT, as they arnt offensive stats which ST's should be. Its highly likely that this will be a round where you require a teamup in order to even have a chance of landing (and even then, you're going to be taking losses). With so few people playing, this is going to cause major problems and make the round increasingly boring with afew organised players racing ahead of everyone else. I'd predict that this mini-round is over before christmas.

In an Xan dominated universe, with everygal having multiple Xans... I dont see how Xans are going to land solo on active gals. Even with another xan teamup, they're still going to take losses. It doesnt really matter if you go Xan FR or Xan CR for this to happen. Its strange that Xans are by far the best choice but they're going to be highly annoying to play if the universe is Xan dominante.

So im going to change my plans and go Cath instead. Going Cath Co is basically suicide this round as everyone else will be going Xan FR/CR and so it will be incredibly hard to hold onto roids. My justification for this is, its going to be a crap round, so i want some fun at the start before the round effectively ends. Cath CR seems a good plan for this and just spam build snowman with a tiny bit of anti FR/DE to minimise losses if Xans manage to find other classes for defence. I'll be able to land solo and Xans CR players will want to avoid hitting me as i'll basically fully emp them.

but for everyone else, Xan is the best race to go, for you and your galaxy. with so little defence available this round, faking defence fleets is highly buffed and a galaxy with lots of Xans will have almost 3x the defence fleets available than other gals. Just expect to get annoyed when its only the Xan fortresses left and you struggle to hit each other.

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

I agree with most of what Light says. Especially the part about that the round is going to be boring.

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

yeah, thats why i was suggesting 2 caths in a xan cr gal and the removal of the donation limit (more than 500k each 200 ticks)

then you can build up big xans who hold on to the roids, while the caths only make ships that make sure you can land on other xans.

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Ah crap have i signed up for another shitfest round , is signing up enough do i have to log in as well

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Rudolph being init5 they're just useless. You need them only vs xan cr def and they will die if there is. Having them as main ship is the best way to ruin your round, a crash being inevitable.

For the CR vs Santa it's the usual chicken game between xans. Except this time salvage makes it viable for defenders to lose their fleet. So it's really up to the attacker to pick big enough targets to max the roid and xp. Xan CR attacking small xans is just not worth it.

Xans will dictate the round, not only because they can easily land on zik and cath, but because with their def fake capacity, landing on a target def by xan will always be a gamble.

I fear ships donations early to the ziks, that's the only way they stand a chance and I don't think PA Team will bother checking.

Caths is probably the worst race to play in attack, with the zik ghost they just can't land BS

Only legal chance for zik/cath is to team up with CO fleets

Anyway the early round should see the hammering of the random gals, then it will become interesting.

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

hahahahahahaha

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

I would like to point out that pretty race, dubbed cath has BS pods and not CR (correct at time of posting)

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Santa's init has been changed, so will look over the stats again tonight as its a pretty big shift. Means Xan CR can now roid the universe.

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

They always 'check', they just never find anything 'suspicious'.

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Except other Xans whos chose CR? :cool:

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Xan CR can roid Xan CR with this init change...

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

This set of stats is ****ing tragic.

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

In that case it's just as well that no one is taking this "round" seriously. :rolleyes:

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Dunno if xan are lookin as strong as every one expected, certainly Zik seems pretty strong at the moment.Surprised by the amount of Fi in the uni is this just nubs building it or a direct respense to all the co flying around?

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Its mainly due to Xans buying ships to hit other Xans. It means its hard to cover Co or DE incs, as people have bought ships to combat them. Overtime though, Xan dominated gals should get stronger and stronger, they just need to build up value.

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

forcing zik and cath to build anti FI is not a nub choice.

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Being Zik or Cath is, though. :(

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

It seems from looking around that the races ended up being quite balanced after all

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Nope, Xan CR > *

Top 10 planets will all be Xan by the end of the round.

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Maybe, but there is some bloody big co fleets out there atm too. Plus with this mass teamup ruining i dont think xan cr can keep there roids long enough to win

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

big mass teamup ruining?
So the people who are ruining are not xan CR then? since the ruiners will surely keep their roids?

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

no the ruiners i have seen have big huge co fleets but i meant in general not the selected ppl in the 'i love to ruin' club. Ofc some xan cr ppl will keep there roids but can be kept in check by these massive co teamups

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

can't say I've stopped playing when the alliance thing started...

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

really? I somehow doubt the big xans will be roided by these ruiners.
lets see!

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

:\ ok.... Looks like your mum is here to take you home wishy ;)

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Current top 20

8 Xan
5 Zik
7 Cath


Not such Xan dominance in the end so, infact Id go so far as to say the stats worked out quite nicely in the end.

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

considering there must be less than 40 active players (most of them part of the same alliance), I wouldn't draw any conclusion.

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Shit round, who cares.

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

the ruiners care enough to ruin it

Re: Best Fleet in Holiday Round ?
 

Stupid ruiners ruin everything.