In an effort to make this forum a bit livelier, I thought maybe I would jot down some thoughts on the various TI3 units and compare notes with other players. This is all my opionions of course, based on various play experience. Not included here are ground forces, space docks, pds, or carriers. I find these units all to be very straightforward, or (in the case of carriers) covered by other entries.

Fighters: Lets start small. Fighters are often toted as one of the greatest ti3 units, and I won't necessarily smudge their badge of honor here. They're great, allowing you maximum hits for minimal fleet supply. Thanks to a lot of 'stackable' damage boosts when combining techs, action cards, and race abilities, these little guys have the potential to hit pretty darn hard too. Fighters have only a few drawbacks, the main one being transport space. Fighters have to share a ride with Ground Forces. If you want to take a planet over that has enemy ground forces on it, it means less space for your fighters. The second major problem with fighters is production. This varies greatly depending on number of players, but I find with less players you often have resources in enough abundance that you can easily max out your docks capacity for building fighters and still have enough resources to wish you could build more.

Destroyers: I've often heard these called a weak unit, but I tend to like them. In general, I think I like them better than cruisers, in fact. Defense-wise, they are the same as a cruiser, and in terms of cost the Destroyer is obviously cheaper. The destroyer falls behind then only in terms of offensive power. While its true that cruisers will hit a full 20% more than a destroyer, the destroyer anti-fighter barrage can make up for that. Since fighters are so awesome, chances are good that the enemy fleet will contain them, lets assume that is the case for this example. Each Destroyer (unupgaded) has 2 shots, each with a 20% chance to hit, overall roughly a 30% chance to hit a fighter per destroyer. This increase in firepower in the first round IMO makes up for the decrease in firepower in subsequent rounds. After the anti-fighter barrage, your destroyers can easily be used as cannon fodder, whereas in order for your Cruisers to really benifit from their increased firepower, they need to stay alive a bit longer.

Cruisers: If you were reading the previous entry, you may have come to the conclusion that I don't especially like cruisers. But this is only half true. As far as economically priced combat ships are concerned, its true that I prefer Destroyers. But the cruisers have big tactical advantages of their own. They can get in the way rather nicely, but their main draw is Stasis Capsules. This tech makes the cruiser worth building, IMO. Especially where races such as the L1z1x are concerned who are slow to get XRD transporters, stasis capsules + Cruisers give you an early fast ship that is capable of taking over lots of neuteral planets, which is exactly what the L1z1x need early. Stasis capsules on Cruisers can also help trasnport extra ground forces into a tough battle ahead, allowing more space on your carriers for Fighters. Late game, the Cruiser with stasis capsules still shines in terms of disruption, able to take over undefended planets and deny your opponents valuble resources. You can have lots of fun with cruisers when using action cards, specifically "In the Silence of Space" or "Flank Speed". The rarer card "minelayers" is always great fun too.

Dreadnaughts: Another unit I hear called weak, which I dont think it deserves at all. Sure, they're a tad on the expensive side, but they have sustain damage and bombardment, which prove their worth time and time again. Ok, so the other problem is their speed. This is sometimes a bit difficult to get around, but it can be done. It's probably the case that you won't make it to Type4 drives for the lions share of the game, but not to worry. The key to dreadnaughts is to build them in a place that's already in the front lines. A dreanaught built in your home system does you little good, but a dreadnaught built right next to Mecatol Rex can be supremely helpful, as it's already within striking distance of the most important planet in the game.

War Suns: As I prepare to dodge some tomatoes, I'll say that in general, I don't like war suns. If you thought Dreadnaughts were expensive, these are more than twice the price. Yes, they are the biggest, baddest ship around. They've got a host of special rules, transport ability and there isn't anything better at destroying ground forces. Still, having to tech up to be allowed the privilege of building them alone is a setback. Did I mention the extremely prohibitive resource cost? Beyond that, if you dont want your war sun hunted down and demolished, you've got to put it in the middle of a big fleet, which costs even more resources. Fighters/Ground forces are a must, so even after you've got war sun tech, you're looking at a couple turns until your fleet is good enough so that you can use them securely. Ouch. Beyond that, even their Sustain Damage is less than useful, because nobody in their right mind would dare risk a hit on a War Sun in case somebody has a Direct Hit lying around. That said, the Sardaak Nor seem to make good use of War Suns (I don't have the expansion, So I'm not mentioning the other race that I know is good with them). The Sardaak Nor have their tech started in the right direction to get War Suns at least as quick as anybody else, and thier War Suns hit on a 2+, on d10s!. Toss in a morale boost and you dont even have to roll the dice. Now that's entertainment.

Ok, well I guess that's all I have to say about that. Hope you enjoyed my unit overview, if things go well enough maybe I'll start posting other random tactical theads that people can share thier ti3 knowledge on.

-awp832

Good overview of the ships' capabilities. I don't disagree with anything you've said, although I think I tend to use more Cruisers than you. Then again, no one in my group has gone really hardcore on fighters yet...

With regards to the Muaat (the expansion race that uses War Suns), I don't think your assessment is really changed by playing them. A lot of people might be fooled into playing like it's different, but I think that hurts them in the end. It's been said before, but the Muaat starting with a War Sun is more often a detriment than a benefit, as it makes them a fairly big target early on. The general inclination to get War Sun tech to erase the starting penalties doesn't help them much either.

I have fallen out of love with cruisers.

They used to be my unit of choice - fast, decent firepower, not too expensive, possibility of carrying GFs and laying mines; man, these guys have everything! Well, yeah... - but now I see them more of a jack of all trades, master of none.

My main problem with them is that for 2 resources and a fleet supply, they only hit on 7. It's the fleet supply that's the real killer here - a few 2 resources each round can certainly be spared, but in terms of actual fighting, using up a few fleet supply on a mediocre ships doesn't strike my fancy. I could have a carrier and a few fighters, a dreadnought, or a warsun in the place of a cruiser. One shot on a 7? I'll pass, thanks...

Now I'm leaning towards : if you want cheap decent ships, get destroyers (they have AFB to make up for less firepower). If you want good ships, get something else.

possumman said:

My main problem with them is that for 2 resources and a fleet supply, they only hit on 7. It's the fleet supply that's the real killer here - a few 2 resources each round can certainly be spared, but in terms of actual fighting, using up a few fleet supply on a mediocre ships doesn't strike my fancy. I could have a carrier and a few fighters, a dreadnought, or a warsun in the place of a cruiser. One shot on a 7? I'll pass, thanks...

While the 7 thing is accurate to a point, Keep in mind, 6 of the 14 races start with Hylar V assault lasers, and most players will end up getting Hylar V very early in the game (because it's a useful tech in and of itself, but also because it's a prerequisite of the whole red tech tree). The difference Hylar V gives from 7 to 6 can be a big deal - it makes Cruisers hit statistically 50% of the time. Dreadnoughts hit one only one better at that point, and are slower.

It all depends on what you are trying to get out of your fleet. Cruisers shouldn't be the automatic go-to ship, but if you want relatively fast, decent fighting, cheap ships to carry your troops around, Cruisers fit the bill. Carriers rely too much on other ships, Dreadnoughts are too slow (and expensive), and Destroyers are good at taking hits, but lousy at shooting (even with Hylar V).

Each ship has it's purpose and function. I've become fond of the common variant to Dreadnoughts to give them 2 dice while undamaged, and they are much more interesting that way. But overall, I think the ships as written work fairly well. Each has a purpose, and each has a weakness.

I get what you're saying Sigma - and to be fair, I quite like cruisers in the early game. They have the fast/decent that you need. It's more the late game when I have my problems; CCs (and thus fleet supply) are in a very tight flow, and so to be sacrificing one of them for a shot on 7 isn't a very good investment. Hylar V can definitely help - but to be honest, it's one of those techs that I regularly don't get round to buying. Once I've invested in Antimass and XRD I'm pretty much teched-out, but maybe that's just a weakness in my play.

You say 6 of the 14 races start with Hylar V (which is obviously true), but in my mind there are 2 "exceptions" - Jol Nar and the N'orr. Jol Nar because forget cruisers, it's the warsun you're going for, then a few fighters with cybernetics. All your other ships and about as pants as each other, so it doesn't really matter which you build. N'orr, because with them, I actually love cruisers. Hit on 5, give them High Alert and they're devastating.

So yes 6 of 14 start with it, but the way I see it only 4 of 12 start with it, so not really that many...

How about Mentak cruisers? Their race ability with cruisers seems to be very interesting, but I'll be honest... Mentak is probably my worst race, I just haven't figured out what I should be doing with them yet.

awp832 said:

I like normal cruisers early game, and I love Mentak cruisers early game. Those pre-combat shots can really swing those small scale early clashes (the classic carrier + 2 fighters vs carrier + cruiser), and being able to research Stasis Capsules straight away means you can go raiding with relative efficiency.

However, this is very much an early game play - late game, they're only marginally better than normal cruisers (remember, you only get up to 2 pre-combat shots, so on average it's only 1 hit).

It's nice to see a "general" strategy guide to ships. Since the game has been out a while, it's been a long time since I've seen something like this. My kudos to the original poster. I have a response to two of the ships:

You say you have heard Destroyers labeled as weak... well, I would LOVE to play against the guys who think that! I see that you like them, but I would like to emphasize just how good Destroyers are. They are mathematically superior to Cruisers in the any shorter-length battle that includes opposing fighters, for half the price. Add Automated Defense Turrets from the expansion, and you're really cooking! They are one of the counters to the otherwise-overpowered Fighter (which really got beaten with a nerf bat in the expansion, rightfully so). If you don't have all 8 of your destroyers out, you should think about building more destroyers. 'nuff said.

I'm sorry to say I don't agree about Dreadnoughts. They're absolutely terrible out-of-the-box. You should rarely if ever build them except in a certain circumstances. For instance, you might consider a DN if you run out of other ships to build, you have a Secret Objective that requires them, or you have way more resources (and less production/fleet supply) than you can spend otherwise. Other than that, they are slow and inaccurate for the amount of money you have to fork out. There is a reason that a large number of players on the twilight imperium wiki like to use the 2-dice dread house rule. In short, it allows undamaged Dreads to fire two shots apiece in Space Combat. They lose this ability if they have sustained damage. Try it, you'll like it!

Otherwise, I would agree with most of the things in the writeup. Nice job!

Mike_Evans, I'm curious as to what your fleets include. Destroyers, obviously. I'm guessing carriers, but due to production caps I find carriers (though effective!) a bit hard to maintain. No dreads, no war suns, cruisers? Your fleets seem very light to me, with most of your ships hitting only occasionally. I'm curious to know if you manage to take on heavier fleets with sucess...

How many players do you play with? Perhaps this might change your opinion of Dreadnaughts. With fewer players, resources are more readily available, and so I think maybe you would see the dreadnaught price tag as not quite so prohibitive. I usually play with 3 players, so perhaps this has colored my opinion.

I've heard of this house rule before... but currently I honestly think Dreads are powerful enough not to really need it.

I won't try and put words in Mike's mouth, but I should point out he has been around in the TI3 realm since TI3 came out, and has played in many games - ie, a lot of time for his opinion of Dreadnoughts and Destroyers to be founded on experience

I'm a rules-as-written kind of guy, but I have come to really like the 2-dice Dreadnought rule, and try not to play it any other way when I can help it.

As for the power of a Dreadnought, think of this - A dreadnought costs 5 resources, and hits on a 5+. One hit about 60% of the time. 5 Destroyers can absorb 5 hits (as opposed to two), and (with Hylar V) deal at least one hit almost 100% of the time, and have a good chance of at least 2 hits. The same cost, Destroyers can win almost every time. Destroyers are faster, also.

Granted, Dreadnoughts have their advantages, too: Bombardment and being able to carry troops. Cruisers can carry troops, too, though; and for 4 resources, you have 2 ships that are ALMOST as good as Dreadnoughts (hitting on a 6+ instead of 5+), and can carry twice as much.

I can live with out-of-the-box dreadnoughts, but with the added house rule, they become more worth the money you pay for them, enough to make them worth buying.

I'm a rules as written guy too, but dreadnoughts in my play group receive a very slight house rule(the only one we use), they hit on 4+ instead of 5+. We find that sufficient enough to justify buying them, but they should never be the bulk of your fleet.

You have significatly underestimated the value of destroyers, they are the most efficient ship thanks to the heavy nerfing that fighters recieved in the expansion.

what nerfing is this? I don't have the expansion...

The Destroyers got a new technology called "Automated Defense Turrets". It gives them an extra die to their Anti-Fighter Barrage rolls, as well as giving them an extra +2 to the AFB rolls also. Since you have to have Hylar V Assault Lasers to get it, it nets in a +3 for each - meaning that you get 3 dice that hit on 6+ against fighters. Bring in 3 or 4 Destroyers, and you get a ton of shots, and will destroy a fighter for about half the rolls.

That, and there's an Action Card called "Friendly Fire" which causes you to lose fighters if you have more fighters than other ships during a battle.

Just introducing one of those would have been enough of a nerf. Both of them means that fighters are MUCH less powerful in the expansion.

I disagree. There are only 4 Friendly Fire cards in the deck, and since they only apply if you have more fighters than other ships, they by themselves are only sometimes useful. I think the ADT is the more significant change, with Friendly Fire just being another, minor change. I don't think the combination of both nuke Fighters to uselessness, but rather just make them the cheap cannonfodder they are meant to be.

I didn't say they are useless. I still use them quite a bit in SE games. I just think adding both freindly fire and ADT was heavy handed.

Friendly fire often means that races like the Saar and the Letnev have to rely on a sabotage in order to leverage their racial bonus.

Sigma nailed it. He also pointed out my history and experience with this game, so I won't repeat him. AWP, you probably don't recognize me as an old-timer because I spend most of my time these days at ti3wiki.org (which you should visit at your earliest opportunity... come play some Play-By-E-Mail games!) And I highly recommend that you pick up the expansion for Twilight as soon as possible. It's worth every cent.

BTW, if you're playing vanilla twilight (<shudder> maybe even with the 2 point Imperial Strategy Card... the horror) you shouldn't be having any trouble with fighter production capacity. Find a two planet system, plunk down two docks. Using Bereg/Lirta as an example, you easily produce 11 units in that system alone, in a single turn. 22 if you use the secondary ability of the Imperial Card. 33 if you also use Warfare to double build. Add Sarween in there, and 12 of those fighters are free of charge. The remaining ones cost the same as two Dreadnoughts. (!) The problem becomes less about finding the production, but rather that you only get 4 carriers (+2 WSuns) to fit all of your stuff! Trust me, production capacities should never be an issue once you know how to set up your infrastructure. It is harder if you play using the expansion SC's, which is (indirectly) another fighter nerf.

In Vanilla Twilight, fighters are king. Use Cruisers as their back up if you don't have War Suns. Hitting on a 6 is one shy of a Dread, and the Cruisers are less than half the cost and move 2. The lack of sustain damage doesn't matter as your fighters are going to be taking the hits anyway.

This changes entirely with the expansion, but since you don't have it yet, try this build strategy with your buddies in your next game and watch their faces as you annihilate their Dreadnoughts.

Everything else aside, I'm not sure I understand the points being made about people having played this game for a long time. That doesn't mean you're right, or that your opinions have more merit than anyone else's. At best it means your opinions are more likely to be logical, but that's something that can be judged objectively irrespective of who is making the argument.

So go ahead and try my advice and see for yourself that my opinions are good, at least in regards to ship selection in Twilight Imperium.

If you read the thread carefully, you'll see that the original poster appeared to believe that I may not have had very much experience with the game. And I quote, "How many players do you play with? Perhaps this might change your opinion of Dreadnaughts." Sigma just pointed out that I do have plenty of experience. That's all.

Also, I must agree with blarknob a bit that ALL of the fighter nerfs may have gone a little overboard. Before, it felt like Dreadnoughts couldn't take a shot without getting smacked with a Direct Hit. Now I feel like you can't see a fighter battle without a Friendly Fire. Maybe it has to do with the fact that there are four of each type of card in the deck. Not only that, but killing half a guy's fighters in a single go, when that was the bulk of his fighting force, can have even more of an impact on a battle than losing a Dreadnought prematurely.

I'm not trying to say anything other than that *number of years played* isn't really relevant to any discussion other than one regarding how long you have played. I know someone who has a decent amount of experience playing TI3 (more than me) and still probably plays worse than if we just made all of his moves based on a die roll. I see this argument commonly enough here, even just as an aside, that it has started to annoy me a little bit.

Could you explain why you're choosing me, in this particular instance, to vent about your pet peeve?

Somebody said some things that implied that they thought I might not have experienced the game enough to know what I was talking about. No biggie, I didn't take offense. Sigma pointed out that I did indeed have some experience, then both of us provided many good arguments for our point of view.

Now it seems like you are the one who is dwelling on experience, not us. So perhaps you could judge my merits based on my contributions to this thread?

I will certainly agree with you that experience is not everything. I know some players who are very new to the game who are much, much better at it than some guys I know who have played for years now. However, in addition to my experience with the game, I also have written quite literally thousands of posts on the subject... some of which other players have taken upon themselves to save, compile, and preserve on the wiki. I would hope that the respect of many online players would lend my opinions a little weight... as would the fact that FFG specifically reserved a spot for me when they sent out invitations to playtest the expansion.

I think that this is what Sigma was trying to get at, in not so many words.

You make a good point about "number of years" not being a factor in itself. In Mike's case, though, the experience he has is coupled with good strategy and play - he wins often, and always (that I've seen) does well in his games. Thus, when you combine the time he's played with the strategy and skills he's picked up, I do think that gives more weight to his argument.

Of course, neither he nor I are saying that Mike is the ultimate supreme god of all things Twilight. Rather, he's just adding his two cents on the original posts analysis, and while his opinion isn't the be all of "you must follow this strategy to win", it does have a certain amount of credibility based on his experience (years + skill).

New players are always needed, not only to inject fresh blood into the community, but often times new players will point out tactics, rules, or whatever, that even longtime veterans may not have considered. That's human nature. Again, that doesn't automatically discredit the veterans, either. In many cases, the GOOD veterans do know what they are talking about.

For instance, when the house rule about 2-dice Dreadnoughts was first proposed, me, although not a noob at all, wanted to stick by my "rules-as-written" stance, and tried to defend Dreadnoughts. However, as I began to play with some of those thoughts in mind, I did begin to realize that Dreadnoughts WERE often a very poor buy - Cruisers could carry things if that's what you want, and can be just as effective in battle (in fact, when you take 2 Cruisers and 1 Destroyer, for the same cost you are getting MORE effectiveness in battle, in just about EVERY aspect). So I decided to give the 2-dice Dreads a try. Almost instantly, I started finding Dreadnoughts to be much more effective and cost-efficient. They didn't become the "uber weapon" unit of the game, but it did make their 5-resource cost much more reasonable. Eventually, I conceded to myself that sometimes, the rules do have flaws. Of course, I recognize that no ruleset is perfect, but it took me actually trying out this house rule to recognize it for myself.

Some veterans like to play with a WILDLY different set of house rules (commonly known as "Shattered Ascension"). I still do not play with those, because as I look at them, the changes are too drastic for me - they seem to change many of the core things I like about the game already. THat doesn't make them wrong, or me wrong, but it just emphasizes that sometimes, a veterans opinion is just an opinion of taste.

So I guess my rambling point is, yes, you can ignore Mike's opinion, and in the long haul, no, they don't mean more than anyone elses, if by playing yourself you find things to work out different for your group. Sometimes opinions are just taste, but sometimes they are based on time and skill. And taking the opinion of a decent good player can be worthwhile to at least consider. There are some NFL quarterbacks who've been in the league as long as Payton Manning who don't do as well. Their opinion may have SOME merit, but if you wanted to talk to a QB whos opinion on how to be a good QB, Manning would probably be someone to listen to - and then tailor his statements to your own personal skillset and goals.

I hope that all makes sense

Mike_Evans said:

While I am not specifically targeting you (rather, all the times I have seen the argument), I believe it is always the right time to point out a fallacious argument.

Yes, except you've YET to comment on any contributions we've actually put forth!

Mike_Evans said:

Oh, well, I would tend to agree with what you have said so far.