The end of races as we know it: so who really won?

[Ultimate Newbie]

After 3.5 rounds with the four races that Petru and Theamion created for R6, we find ourselves at the dawn of a new era of Planetarion, where the future of races is uncertain. I am interested to know how you think the races faired throughout this time, where they were strong, where they were weak, and what could have made them stronger.

In R6, I stated with Cathaar, and since I have always been comparing my fleet to what I would have had if I was a Cath. The Cathaar were, easily, my favourite race, with Black Widows in particular being my favourite ship since R3, though I also liked the Tarantula (even if the Roach was more efficient – old habits die hard mate ).

What I thought the Cathaar race really needed was a FR that targeted FI, with roughly the same efficiency as the BW. Ie, the BW would fire on FR/DE and the other Frigate would fire on FI/CO. Since the beginning, the Cathaar have had serious problems with FI – in R6 the scorpion was a lost cause, taking the ETA up a whole hour for some inefficient EMP anti-fi cover. In r7 this was rectified to an extent by the inclusion of the Beetle, as now the Cathaar had an effective anti-FI weapon (and I still remember the bitching that so many people had about it! lol), but still imo, it didn’t fit into the Cathaar’s fleet. They really needed a FI freezer in a FR or even a DE class. Short of this, the Cathaar fleet was excellent – problems targeting Battleships is highly over-rated imo.

In R7, I played as a Zikonian (I really wanted to go Cath, but I had decided to go random as I strongly felt that Private galaxies were ruining the game. Needless to say I was slaughtered, but that’s another story ). Not having a pod of their own, the Zikonians were slightly handicapped, especially if they wanted to use anything but FR, but in R9 in particular they had excellent stealing ships (such as Marauder and the Rogue) that were backed up by capable killers (Cutters and Clippers). When I was playing with Ziks in R7 I felt that the Clipper was slightly underpowered (especially as it had 2 guns removed since the previous round), but it did well regardless. What I felt the Zikonians lacked the most, however, was initiative. They would always get hit really hard before they could fire a shot. I remember being really frustrated by a number of targets, who had really crap fleets, who did far too much damage to me because they fired first. For a comparison, if I was a cath I could have attacked without loss. Any unit that killed either FR DE or FI that had something resembling an init would have been really useful for this race, imo.

In R8, I decided to go Xan. Thinking back on it now I cant remember why, but ever since the R3 ghost I had always loved the cloaked units. I remember being sick and tired of the Zikonian’s poor init, and remembering R6 when I couldn’t touch people with PDS, I decided to go for a compromise. I did relatively well, but I'm just not the type of player who has the right mindset (nor the time) to play as a Xan. Particularly as Xan offensive strategy required massed Vsh and Pulsars to scare away a defender(s), and if they didn’t flee then you’d have to recall. This simply wasn’t an option for me as I am at school from 00:00 until 09:00 (if you haven’t guessed, I'm an aussie), and so even finding an attack to launch on was difficult. Still, with around 40% of my fleet in Pulsars, I got the satisfaction of being Terran and Zikonian free all round. (one cath visied me, but he had more beetles than I had ships so it really was a bit of a lost cause there ). I soon learnt to fjear other Xans though :\. I think, particularly this round, the Xans needed a FR that fired on FI. This would enable them to use their more armoured FR fleet instead of the pissweak FI/CO fleet. If there was even a half decent anti-FI frigate in the Xandathrii’s armoury, its likely I would have gone Xan every round. Still, playing as a Xan was an experience that was forged in blood, and it was quite fun (until I had my fleet eliminated by Vsh one afternoon :\).

In R9, I had a Terran planet that I stared reasonably late into the round. I simply wanted to have played every race in the 4 rounds, and I hadn’t played as a Terran previously as they were simply uninspiring. I managed to get a bit of a DE and CR fleet happening, though I was killed off pretty quick and it wasn’t very fun, thus I left my planet to oblivion. Of all the races, I think the Terrans needed the least amount of improvement, as they covered all the major classes (FI – DE) exceptionally well, particularly with Pegasi. Their Demeters (not Dementers!! ) fit in perfectly with a highly capable anti-FI Destroyer, with excellent initiative. The Peg/Dem combo was simply the best of all the races, imo at the very least. What might have been useful would have been a Syren-like CO, so Terrans could defend with something other than Harpies, though this was their only flaw ( a lack of universal defence). I wasn’t a fan of Terrans because they were so boring and predictable. That’s not to say they weren’t capable and a powerful race, but still.

Of all the races, I liked the Cathaar the most. Their efficiency in particular, as well as their nice FI/CO/FR and CR/BA combos as well as some interesting mixes of both resulted in a race that was adaptable and interesting – simply more fun (even if you couldn’t kill the PDS!). Its interesting to note that the Cathaar and the Xandathrii lacked capable Frigates against FI – if these races had those units then they would have been significantly more potent. The Zikonian’s lack of init and a pod class/type of their own have really hamstrung them throughout the rounds. But the Terrans were largely unchanging, always powerful and sported excellent and capable ships.

[Embroglio]

I want your babies.

[The_Fish]

R6 I cant remember which was best
R7 I think it was the most even with Terrans having a slight advantage as many were unprepared tor DE pods.
R8 Xan ofc
R9 quite even, I'd say Zik has a slight advantage this round, at least the people who play cleverly.

[Damon]

Imo this round terrans where best.
Followed by whatever you like.
Cath zik and xan all have there good and bad things.
But i think xan is last.
It real hard to roid these days for xans in my gal (and we are a topgal).

[Evil_Fear]

R6 as a cath was very nice, but since the introduction of CO/DE?CR pods, Caths have allot more problems defending there roids. As previously all you needed was 20k bw's to effectively stop the roiding with the exception of xand maybe as those FI just hurt.

R7 as a terran was a solid choice, Like UN said, strong and heavy hitters with pegs as probably the best ship in the whole game, with Demeters(Uni-pods back then) as a natural brother. Terrans have only a few strats.

1 attack with pegs/dem/wyverns(maybe), bash n roid.
2 attack with FR against for example a cath without much bw's(rare case at best)
3 attack with DE+wyvern and send 1 scare and 1 roid fleet.

That's about it.

R8 as a xand was very nice. always able to send defense to galm8s alliance m8s and really a strong race. The scare and roid masters.

R9 Terran again, though I wished now that I was ziks(trying something new), terran is a strong race no doubt about it, but sometimes I wished I had a few buccs to bash those ziks with pirates or caths with guardians. as terran is weak vs CR/BS attacks, unless you build allot of dragons, but that hurts the roiding fleet. Chims alone won't defend against pirates/guardians.


Overall a Xand player won R8 and prob R9 aswell, R7 was zik and I think R6 was terran but I can't remember anymore, SO I'd say Xand as most victorious race.

[mens]

r6 cathaar
r7 dunno, Terran maybe?
r8 xan
r9 Terran

overall I'd say Terran.

[dabult]

Imo the best race cant be decided through rounds with private gals, it comes down to the strongest/least complex roid-fleet when its private, as the winners grow faster and faster etc. Am guessing that's why Terran is considered 'best' by many.

Terran might be over all best due to its simplicity to play...Cath wont stand a chance to get any votes in a random round for instance..Xand are close to sharing the top spot with Terran, with Zik being last, obviously due to SUCKY init.



But after all it still comes down to how you want to play..i had a lot of fun with being zik this round, was more fun to hunt ships than roids tbh...just sucked to hard in the end with their poor init when i ended up on the 'wrong side', and hence got über-bashed

[Knight Theamion]

i can't remember r6 stats .. there were sooo much 'interim stats'... anyway i was always a terran fan since i designed most of it, esp the pegasus, with its eta

[Domin]

heres my list of "best" races of the rounds.

Round 6: Cathaar (i think 6 of the top 10 players was cathaar)
Round 7: Terran (i don't remeber why but i just liked them) :P
Round 8: Xan (No doubt here they owned all but i liked zik good)
Round 9: hmm (im not sure more balanced in my eyes)

i played terran,cathaar and zik.

Terran: The terran DE roid fleet is alot of fun and it kills good too.
Cathaar: Very good but i hate not be able to kill (that was i played em r6)
Zik: Clearly the most fun race to play in my eyes.

In my eyes cathaar is the best race even if it doesn't fit in a random univers and in round 8 cathaars faced 3 other good ways to be roided. In my eyes theyr "own" roid fleet is extremley hard to roid with.

[MrPubes]

I played only Terran and Zik.
I don't like the idea of Xans who only attack to scare away attackers. That's just....unfair is the right word i think.
People don't have real chances to defend against (ok, OB was another thing), you don't have to build up your fleet smartly, you don't have to calc a lot, etc. See my point?
Cath are a nice race with a hell of a good roiding fleet, but i just was too much feared of the nightly incomings.

Terrans are a really good race, their roiding fleet needs alot of ships to be stopped. Pegs/Wyvern _is_ nasty, no matter how predictable they are.
I would rate the terran attacking fleet as the best one.


Ziks were just fun to play!
A Marauder fleet was just fun. Just attack 5-6 times and you got Chimeras, Broadswords, BW.
Backed up by Cutters against FI/CO this was great.
They got a decent FI Fleet to defend their alliance mates, too.
Clippers own, Rogues scare away Terran (hey, why should he have my loooooooved pegs? No, i won't attack :P) and ManOWars just score by their great name.
CR were useless.

Perhaps i remember Zik so well because i played in an absolutely Top Gal in r8.
Greetings to Thomas4, who i still see here in the forums from time to time.
It was the round i played least active (school ) but still it was much fun.

But the best race for the game itself (so the best race for Allies) are Xan.
Fake Def fleets, fake Attack fleets, FI defense against everything.
Seriously, if i would lead a big allie i would force all my members to go Xans. The more do, the better.

[HRS]

I only played Cathaar and Zik in normal rounds.

Cathaar was very good in round 6, only thing you had to stun were frigates. But i think they lost most of their advantages in round 7, you had to stun more pod-classes and the mantis was gone (round 6 mantis was great against BS).

In round 7 i played zik, i guess terran was the best race in that round, that's why i stole some pegs and demeters and made a nice clipper/marauder/pegasus/demeter/buccaneer/"any other destroyer i accidently stole" fleet that worked pretty well

Round 8 i played cathaar again, but since i made a really bad start and my gal was no fun i didn't really play, just covered targets for my wing and all that:P

If you look to effectiveness and so i think cathaar was the best race, but i guess terran was the best race to "win" overall.

[Lord_Thunderball]

Imho Xan owned R6... I had a lot of fun with it.. The start was really good, eventually 3 Terran had to take my Xan fleet, which i loved so much.. But i never wanted another race...

During WC Speedround i used Xan again.. Cause i'm a statsjunky and my gal was really good, i could attack blind with my fleet.. Being first at day 1, as only Xan in top10. It was great, but only works in offensive style of play... I had great back-up, so could play it that way. I ended as 9th or so..

Don't think Xan was best, but for me it was

R7 i wen terran, didn't play that round to serious, only remembered that it didn't matter who you attacked, or you had to much defense, or the enemy run.. Never had fun battle's.. Terran i found nothing special, so not my favo

R8, going random, made choise easy for me.. Xan again, less inc, more suprising effect..

I love Xan, will always play xan!!

[-QS-]

R6 cath
R7 terran/xan
R8 xan
R9 ziko/terran

[[GAP]Obiwan]

For me cathaar, the PA version of Sub-zero

[Iceaxe]

For those curious, these are the top1 players and there races in r6-8

r6: Sliekas (Cath)
r7: Kileman (Zik)
r8: Servuz (Xan)

Even though r9 isn't over the current #1 planet will most likely finish #1 and he is Xan.

Personally I was cath in r6 and did very good until my gal and alliance were raped. I think cath was the best race this round because they had the best frigate which was the only class of pod.

In r7 I was xan but I don't think they were the best that round. I finished very well with them but I think terran had the best roiding fleet. Unfortunately fleet farming was legal so it was easier for a zik to take the top 1 spot then a terran.

r8 xan was the best race because it was random and without a gal to back you up (for most) speed from alliance mates is essential and if your attack fleet is fast it has a very good chance of going through. (Additionally, Overburn eta 5 def fleets anyone?) I didn't play this round.

r9 I think terran was the best again due to there magnificent roiding fleet of pegs/wyverns. This is the best attacking fleet in the game imo and there are a lot of very big terrans (even though the #1 planet will probably be xan). I went terran this round.

[Gerbie]

I'm not sure about the current #1. They had the #1 gal position as well. But now some of them are in vacation mode. Some are getting roided on a regular basis. It's not decided yet.

I think this round has no clear winning race either (good job for the ones that made the stats).
Zik is not it. A significant part of the ziks that do well have cheated. It's really hard to get roids as a zik without too much losses.
I think most xans have a hard time keeping off caths. Especially since we now have mil scans. And terrans. It's pretty difficult to raid an active gal as a xan.
Cath only works as long as you are in a good gal.
I think terran is best overal this round. Though if they catch their opponents with their pants down, they lose ships as well.

[Iceaxe]

The only planets in 40:9 getting roided are those that aren't eclipse/tot. It would take some nasty backstabbing to have 40:9:10 not win the round.

[Kileman]

Fleet farming wasnt a contributing factor to my R7 win.
It was however significant to those of DTA and M&S.
________
Universal Health Warehouse

[isildurx]

r6= cath(clearly)
r7= terran, thou dem big ship farmers did good with ziks =)
r8= xan(ofc)
r9= pretty even imo, well balanced hard to say whats best.

overall id say cath has been the best of the races.

[spectrum]

Originally posted by Gerbie
I'm not sure about the current #1. They had the #1 gal position as well. But now some of them are in vacation mode. Some are getting roided on a regular basis. It's not decided yet.

I think this round has no clear winning race either (good job for the ones that made the stats).
Zik is not it. A significant part of the ziks that do well have cheated. It's really hard to get roids as a zik without too much losses.
I think most xans have a hard time keeping off caths. Especially since we now have mil scans. And terrans. It's pretty difficult to raid an active gal as a xan.
Cath only works as long as you are in a good gal.
I think terran is best overal this round. Though if they catch their opponents with their pants down, they lose ships as well.

once and for all i want those cheating accusation for ziks doing well to stop !
its just not as simple as rushing for de(terra) or building just fi/co (xan) or even beetle/roach/widow (cat).
but i cant hear it anymore, that every zik doing well (or even a 'significant part' of us) neccesarily has to have cheated.

to me zik is winner of the round, as compared to the ammount of them overall (least picked race) they are overrepresented within the higher ranks. closely followed by terrans.

having a look at #1 player gives a misleading view, as getting there is rarely contributed to picking the r8 race but simply beeing on the winning side.

a scan of the top20 would be more representative.

[Iceaxe]

Originally posted by Kileman
Fleet farming wasnt a contributing factor to my R7 win.
It was however significant to those of DTA and M&S.

I know that which is why I was loath to mention fleet farming, but some of the other top ziks were into agriculture quite heavily so I felt I should mention it.

[thomas4]

Originally posted by Damon
Imo this round terrans where best.
Followed by whatever you like.
Cath zik and xan all have there good and bad things.
But i think xan is last.
It real hard to roid these days for xans in my gal (and we are a topgal).

I would deffinately not put Xan last, me being in an all-Xan gal had no problem whatsoever roiding any targets. We just scared loadsa ppl with all the fakefleets, the Outgoing screen looked insane

[thomas4]

Originally posted by MrPubes
I played only Terran and Zik.
I don't like the idea of Xans who only attack to scare away attackers. That's just....unfair is the right word i think.
People don't have real chances to defend against (ok, OB was another thing), you don't have to build up your fleet smartly, you don't have to calc a lot, etc. See my point?
Cath are a nice race with a hell of a good roiding fleet, but i just was too much feared of the nightly incomings.

Terrans are a really good race, their roiding fleet needs alot of ships to be stopped. Pegs/Wyvern _is_ nasty, no matter how predictable they are.
I would rate the terran attacking fleet as the best one.


Ziks were just fun to play!
A Marauder fleet was just fun. Just attack 5-6 times and you got Chimeras, Broadswords, BW.
Backed up by Cutters against FI/CO this was great.
They got a decent FI Fleet to defend their alliance mates, too.
Clippers own, Rogues scare away Terran (hey, why should he have my loooooooved pegs? No, i won't attack :P) and ManOWars just score by their great name.
CR were useless.

Perhaps i remember Zik so well because i played in an absolutely Top Gal in r8.
Greetings to Thomas4, who i still see here in the forums from time to time.
It was the round i played least active (school ) but still it was much fun.

But the best race for the game itself (so the best race for Allies) are Xan.
Fake Def fleets, fake Attack fleets, FI defense against everything.
Seriously, if i would lead a big allie i would force all my members to go Xans. The more do, the better.

Lo MrPubes You may refer to me as ThomaZ though :P Thomas4 is just a remainder from my r4 nick grmbl....

And I have to disagree with you on sending a scare-fleet only, as there were numerous occasions where I could just calc a nice roidingfleet. The scare-fleets however make it possible to attack up to 3 (supposedly) real targets and letting your targets figure out what your real fleet is heading at

[Mi5]

r6 - cath (i went terran)
r7 - zik (if u allow fleet farming) if not terran. I went zik.
r8 - unanimously xan
r9 - terran (im Zik :/)

il get it right soon...

tho tbh race isnt vital, as long as ur on the wining side it doesnt matter what race you are.