Hi I am only on turn 60 in my rep. campaign so no deathstacks yet. Will report on my experience also when I get to the end-game :)

I just wanted to say that while you do have deathstacks in both EAW expanded mods FOTR and TR (I believe it is just unavoidable not to as it is impossible to instruct the AI to stop building i.e. just give up) I fully agree that they can be handled in those mods without much nuisance.

E.g. in my two very recent FOTR campaigns 1.5-2k AI deathstacks were common, in TR some AI (yes looking at you hapes!) usually had 2-3k deathstacks in the endgame.

However they can be "easily" managed even with some fun as those mods do the following (just some examples could write more) :

1) After the initial incoming wave has been defeated, reinforcments often spawn way back so basically there will be a constant trickle of only a few ships reaching your battle line at same time which can be more easily dealt with.

- In AOTR/AOTCW, reinforcments often spawn ON you or just infront of the battle line leading to unavoidable losses/damage and the need for constant retreats as you describe

2) No fog of war. I.e. HV gun can decimate or slow down alot of the incoming enemy ships

- In AOTR/AOTCW, yes you can still use the HV gun in the fog (tedious but possible) but not so effectively as you don't know what you are targeting

3) Stronger bombers. When I defend a station against a deathstack in e.g. FOTR I often get 30 or so bombers and those feel alot stronger in FOTR/TR and will kill off the worst threats or at least their shields before they reach you leading to lower damage on your ships and manageable battle without need for retreating.

- In AOTR/AOTCW, bombers feel alot weaker all around perhaps because you only get so few of them in ship's compliment

4) It is possible splitting enemy fleets in an easier way. If you are attacking you can (no fog of war!) spawn anywhere basically with several ships which means cutting the incoming threat in manageable pieces. Plus you will not lose the lure ships as FOTR/TR have e.g. acclamators that can hyperspace away from battle.

- In AOTR/AOTCW, it is not so easy to lure/split enemy fleets as described above

5) Possibility to replace damaged ships in very prolonged battles against deathstacks by hyperspacing them away and replace them with fresh ones. I.e you don't *always* have to retreat your whole fleet to attack the deathstack again.

- In AOTR/AOTCW, single sips can not be hyperspaced away


6) More easy/faster to replace losses from attacking deathstacks in those mods while AI often cannot do same as it just does not have the popcap at the end game stage

- In AOTR/AOTCW, it is much more difficult to replace losses (cost/buld time)

7) More powerful stations, e.g. in FOTR when a 2k popcap fleet with say 30 bulwarks and 50 providences attack the combined valor station + golan station + HV gun + defense fleet will just kill them off pretty enjoyably while normally only losing only a few corvettes.

- In AOTR/AOTCW, a big deathstack say 3-4x your full fleet would most likely stomp any planetary defense even if you have a full 220 popcap fleet defending so taking care of a deathstack this way is not really possible, also means that investing very heavily in space defense is not very efficient sadly, more efficient to hold on ground where you CAN have an unbreakable force that even has only 10 popcap and no maintenance cost every cycle!
Or by having a "firebrigade" force retaking lost worlds that often can be done with no loss.

8) Easier to repair fighters/bombers in FOTR/TR and even in AOTR. There are many, many units that do this in FOTR/TR and even the larger stations repair fighters. So if properly managed they will be there throughout the entire deathstack fight and no need to retreat due to a lack of small craft.

- Running out of small craft in very prolonged deathstack battles is sadly a thing in AOTCW as units that do repair fighters are scarce (my peltas only seem to repair corvetts and up) plus you cannot replace acclamators by hyperspacing the depleted ones away. No matter how well you micro your small craft this will happen.
And this will in many cases force you to retreat as your AA-corvettes will also be targeted by the AI in AOTCW as being the weaker ships and also be lost unless you are willing to have maany of them and lose maaany.
The huge unopposed enemy fighter blob this results in with AOTCW will kill your capitals next unless you retreat.

--

Summary: Difference in philosophy I guess. Happy that not all mods share the same vision. I do personally like AOTR/AOTCW better.

If it was ONE thing of the above I would wish for in AOTR/AOTCW to handle deathstacks better is 1) i.e. to stop AI reinforcements to appear in/at/behind your battle line but spawn them further away as done in FOTR/TR. And/or 8).

I actually like this part of AotR, precisely because FotR/TR don't have it, or at least cruel admiral takes a while to truly come online as well. It actually makes it more challenging.

The reality of any EAW game / mod is that as soon as you have your own first death stack, you've basically won the game if you want to win it right there and then. As long as you have superior numbers / fleet to the enemy, they'll always retreat instead of fighting you when autoresolving, so even their systems with large dockyards / defenses are easily taken and you can fight their accumulated fleet in a system with 'small' defenses. You can more or less win an expert campaign with mostly your starting land units and building fleet in the first 20-30 weeks, if you have the patience to fight out every land battle at least.

The way the AotR AI is passive initially and then ramps up the aggression with death stacks is pretty fun in my book. The fact that it 'skips' worlds with no starbase and only land defenses to attack other worlds, and uses raid units, is pretty cool too. It forces you to actually plan out defensive chokepoints a bit more than you usually would. Realistically you don't need more than 3-4 worlds with strong space defenses and associated fleet; the CIS especially has an easy time in this regard imo, as a lucrehulk defense ring + munificients +captor/providence + ideally a lucrehulk is more or less enough to defeat whatever the Republic can throw at you if you fight at the defense ring, as once you defeat their initial 220 pop group they'll just be sending one ship at a time at you.

On turn 71 now, republic, expert from start, started on 1.04. I have about 75% of the map (CIS has the upper right corner only) with 37k income and can't really say I met a doomstack yet.

Biggest threat was a stack with two lucrehulks and some providences/munis, no losses on my part taking that down. Some other fleets I wiped off the map had 5-6 providences and some munis - also no big threat / doomstack in my book.

On the map I see one CIS stack mission-locked at Hypori with 157 popcap and one at Jabim with 140 popcap. Could well be that they include lots on ground troops, have yet to scout them using jedi spies. No biggie also, I have 4 fleets with almost same size. They also have lots of small stacks everywhere they like to send... everywhere.

So far 4 command venators, 2 advanced acclamators, one corvette plus one hero (also venator usually) will take down anything I met so far easily if using your strikecraft/bombers aggressively to target shields while staying in a good battle formation and lure them to you.

I do but rarely lose a venator but I have so many at this stage....

Could well be that since I always attack with one stack (with troop stack following) the AI is off balance. It is not super aggressive but nor am I, as I said I mostly attack using one stack and guard with the rest, otherwise game is much too easy. Also since I built up Rhen Var and Mon Cala and some chokepoints (Kashyyk, Lantilles, Ciutric IV) they might be stacking up to try to take those. Well good luck I say to the AI.

I had the same issue in AOTR, basically expert is too easy with this playstyle :(

Mod needs cruel AI implemented !

Finally in week 87 I got attacked by something big ! Have been standing still basically as I have most of the map, waiting for the AI to build up.

Killed 9 of their 34 providences, all heroes and some other stuff and had to withdraw as my fighters were depleted.

On reflection this is handled better in FOTR where healing fighters is provided by lots of options, i.e. no tactical retreat necessary that early.

Only 1 or 2 corvettes lost. Will attack them when the HV gun is ready ;) Boom!

Fun times :)

https://steamproxy-script.pipiskins.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3409345689

I'm playing republic. Week 46, and I have 60 Venators.

You should have your own massive fleet, bruh. Focus on economy early game. Build up your ship yards, and don't advance tech too fast.

Originally posted by Hypnosis:

I'm playing republic. Week 46, and I have 60 Venators.

You should have your own massive fleet, bruh. Focus on economy early game. Build up your ship yards, and don't advance tech too fast.

Hi if this is in reply to me then no I don't have any such issues, CIS only holds upper left corner 10% of the map, I have 47k income "don't care anymore", 1700 popcap, and 40+ command venators by now, so I won the game long time ago, just basically fast forwarding to get some good fights.

Some good CIS stacks with up to 600 popcap are now finally appearing making me happy and it is fun to take them down.

However as I mentioned above, sadly taking on huge enemy stacks efficiently in this mod means that you need to attack, retreat, repeat - and this gets tiresome, deploying and positioning same ships in same maps 5x times etc. This I feel FOTR handles better where you can do it in one battle both offensively and defensively. Main reasons are that

a) no way to repair your small craft to make them last throughout a very long battle as in e.g. FOTR

b) enemy reinforcements spawning pretty close and sometime on/behind you while your battle-weary fleet have low shields and health, so there will be losses if staying. In e.g. FOTR they spawn further away and this gives you some time to heal shields and take on these threats with ranged attacks from e.g. strikecraft before they reach you

c) Defensively the bigger stations in e.g. FOTR are much stronger and also heal nearby ships, plus you have point-defense corvettes blocking missiles/bombs, so it is definitely possible/routine for a skilled player to win a defensive station fight **without major losses** in one battle with say a full stack vs. an attacking stack much larger than yours say 1500+ popcap. I just don't see this happening in this mod.

Looking at the comments I understand that all of you think very highly of yourselves for figuring out on how to beat an ancient AI that can barely accomplish anything without infinite money.

The problem with deathstacks is that they pointlessly lengthen a game that is already won.

I am at week 126, the Republic is pretty much finished, they have zero heavy shipyards left and what is left to be done is quite literally to finish them off. The only problem are endless deathstacks that either require a +30 min battle with a potential crash to deal with or having to use hit and run tactics to make it less expensive and less likely to crash. This is best described as a chore that needs to be done before the campaign is actually finished.

There are very good reasons why popular strategy games like Europa Universalis 4 or Hearts of Iron 4 are designed in a manner where you are going to be extremely powerful at endgame, making is painless and easy to wrap up your campaign.

Empire at War mods like Thrawn's Revenge of Fall of the Republic accomplish the same through the shipyard-based early victory mechanic and by giving you highly powerful dreadnoughts and late game ships to use.

Nope. It sounds like you just finally found their main fleets. I do not believe that the AI has unlimited money. Likely they are just spending their reserve.

If you look through the game files the AI actually does not get unlimited money.

Originally posted by Hypnosis:

Nope. It sounds like you just finally found their main fleets. I do not believe that the AI has unlimited money. Likely they are just spending their reserve.

If you look through the game files the AI actually does not get unlimited money.

Have you ever bothered looking at the history section in the game? If you have, you would have noticed that the AI always has hundreds of thousands of credits. This is because it is given an income boost that essentially gives it infinite wealth. This same system is used in almost all strategy games of the time and even modern strategy games often boost the AI's income to offset their incompetence.

Originally posted by Odeboy1:

Originally posted by Hypnosis:

Nope. It sounds like you just finally found their main fleets. I do not believe that the AI has unlimited money. Likely they are just spending their reserve.

If you look through the game files the AI actually does not get unlimited money.

Have you ever bothered looking at the history section in the game? If you have, you would have noticed that the AI always has hundreds of thousands of credits. This is because it is given an income boost that essentially gives it infinite wealth. This same system is used in almost all strategy games of the time and even modern strategy games often boost the AI's income to offset their incompetence.

Yes, I have looked at that screen. I've been playing this game since it came out, and every mod.

You can track their income each turn lol. They don't have unlimited money.

They don't spend their money, and save a lot just so they can recover from a loss.

Originally posted by Hypnosis:

Originally posted by Odeboy1:

Have you ever bothered looking at the history section in the game? If you have, you would have noticed that the AI always has hundreds of thousands of credits. This is because it is given an income boost that essentially gives it infinite wealth. This same system is used in almost all strategy games of the time and even modern strategy games often boost the AI's income to offset their incompetence.

Yes, I have looked at that screen. I've been playing this game since it came out, and every mod.

You can track their income each turn lol. They don't have unlimited money.

They don't spend their money, and save a lot just so they can recover from a loss.

The mod's default difficulty is hard, on which according to Awakening of the Rebellion's wiki:

"The AI builds things twice as quickly, and receives twice as much income as it normally would.

This difficulty is recommended for players who have become familiar with the mod and are now looking for a greater challenge."

On expert it is even rampped up more:

"The AI builds things three times as quickly, and receives three times as much income as it normally would.

This difficulty is recommended for experienced players who are very comfortable with the mod, and who are looking for a true challenge against the full power of AotR's notoriously brutal AI."

The AI doesn't have infinite money in the literal sense but in practice they have. They can maintain a constant supply of hundreds of thousands credits even when they build up everything because of their buffs.

This doesn't of course apply if you play this mod or Empire at War on normal, which is the easiest AI difficulty available.

Originally posted by Odeboy1:

Originally posted by Hypnosis:

Yes, I have looked at that screen. I've been playing this game since it came out, and every mod.

You can track their income each turn lol. They don't have unlimited money.

They don't spend their money, and save a lot just so they can recover from a loss.

The mod's default difficulty is hard, on which according to Awakening of the Rebellion's wiki:

"The AI builds things twice as quickly, and receives twice as much income as it normally would.

This difficulty is recommended for players who have become familiar with the mod and are now looking for a greater challenge."

On expert it is even rampped up more:

"The AI builds things three times as quickly, and receives three times as much income as it normally would.

This difficulty is recommended for experienced players who are very comfortable with the mod, and who are looking for a true challenge against the full power of AotR's notoriously brutal AI."

The AI doesn't have infinite money in the literal sense but in practice they have. They can maintain a constant supply of hundreds of thousands credits even when they build up everything because of their buffs.

This doesn't of course apply if you play this mod or Empire at War on normal, which is the easiest AI difficulty available.

Then play on normal. I do because I am more of a simulation player.

Difficulty just gives them bonuses.

Exactly what I said. I am glad you are now catching up to the convo.

Originally posted by Hypnosis:

Originally posted by Odeboy1:

The mod's default difficulty is hard, on which according to Awakening of the Rebellion's wiki:

"The AI builds things twice as quickly, and receives twice as much income as it normally would.

This difficulty is recommended for players who have become familiar with the mod and are now looking for a greater challenge."

On expert it is even rampped up more:

"The AI builds things three times as quickly, and receives three times as much income as it normally would.

This difficulty is recommended for experienced players who are very comfortable with the mod, and who are looking for a true challenge against the full power of AotR's notoriously brutal AI."

The AI doesn't have infinite money in the literal sense but in practice they have. They can maintain a constant supply of hundreds of thousands credits even when they build up everything because of their buffs.

This doesn't of course apply if you play this mod or Empire at War on normal, which is the easiest AI difficulty available.

Then play on normal. I do because I am more of a simulation player.

Difficulty just gives them bonuses.

Exactly what I said. I am glad you are now catching up to the convo.

You never admitted they have bonuses. Your whole participation on this convo can be summarized as you trying to flex for being good at the game on the easiest difficulty

Originally posted by Odeboy1:

Originally posted by Hypnosis:

Then play on normal. I do because I am more of a simulation player.

Difficulty just gives them bonuses.

Exactly what I said. I am glad you are now catching up to the convo.

You never admitted they have bonuses. Your whole participation on this convo can be summarized as you trying to flex for being good at the game on the easiest difficulty :lunar2019laughingpig:

Not really. I was saying that it is easy on normal difficulty.

I also said that higher difficulty gives bonuses.