Need help against Rage Collective !!!

[ZzZ]

Fellow Imperators ...

I am pretty new to SE_IV and now in my second game I have to face the Rage Collective as my neighbor (and enemy). They already attacked several of my ships and are blocking two of my homeworlds at the moment.

I read something about the tactics when fighting against the Rage (one being not to declare war on them and starting to attack their planets by all means) but to be honest I feel a little bit lost at the moment.

If you have any hints on tatctics and strategies against the Rage Collective, please feel free to post them here.

Thank you very much in advance.

ZzZ

[dogscoff]

Haven't actually played against the rage yet so I don't know, but ppl here could probably give you better ideas if you described your situation a little more precisely.

What tech levels do you have?
What's your research / intel / resource production?
Do you have any other allies / enemies?
How does the Rage compare to you in terms of fleet size / empire size?

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"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so, Brain, but if they called them sad meals, kids wouldn't buy them.
"

[Taqwus]

Not sure how much this will help, but here's what I noticed in my Last game --

* They go for phased-polaron beams, so you might not worry too much about shields until you get phased variants.

* They built a fairly large number of mines, but never used 'em...

* If you attack one of their worlds, they may employ
- Missile satellites.
- Missile/PD WPs.
- PPB WPs.
- Fighters -- a mix between rocket pods and conventional. (OTOH, I don't remember carriers in their attack Groups).

* They don't seem to go for solar collectors or QR early (e.g. my game Lasted almost 300 turns, in 255 systems, and my race was the only one with 'em) so their fleets have limited range.

* Their larger ships tend to include minesweeping components. If you don't use mines, that space is wasted. OTOH, if you're up against smaller, older ships, mines work well -- I once destroyed a fleet of 15 Rage ships (~LC size) that way. They also use a fair bit of PD, so missiles don't work that well against 'em. PPBs do...

* Their counter-intel isn't always that good. If they're blockading you, CI-ing their ships is a good idea. So is comm mimic to get them into war with somebody else.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[ZzZ]

O.k.

quote:

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Originally posted by dogscoff:
Haven't actually played against the rage yet so I don't know, ...

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... they're evil ... believe me!

quote:

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Originally posted by dogscoff:
... but ppl here could probably give you better ideas if you described your situation a little more precisely.

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I'll do my best. At first here's a general description of the game.

It is a 10 Player Game ... 6 being human players (plus some neutral races). We are in round 7 right now. I made first contact with the Rage in round 3.

My race is a custom made race with 2000 race points (all empires have 2000 RP). It's a Schemer race and I picked the Psychic tech tree as a special feature. I enhanced Attack by 10% and also Intelligence.

quote:

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Originally posted by dogscoff:
What tech levels do you have?

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O.k., right now I have

Ship Construction: 2
Cargo: 1
Propulsion: 1
Satellites: 1
Base Construction: 1
Weapon Platforms: 1
Rock Planet Colonization: 1
Neural Computer Interface: 1

Projectile Weapons: 2
Missile Weapons: 1
Planetary Weapons: 1

Right now I'm researching fighters (but I only have about 16k research points per round available because of the blockade ).

quote:

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Originally posted by dogscoff:
What's your research / intel / resource production?

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Normally I have about 26k research points, no intelligence points (not researched yet) and the following resources 18k minerals, 3k organics and 1.5k radiactives per turn. 50k each in stock.

quote:

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Originally posted by dogscoff:
Do you have any other allies / enemies?

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There is one ally ... I have a trade alliance with this race ... this turn they offered a military alliance which is quite good. On the other hand they don't want to get involved in the conflict with the Rage.

Only enemy: the Rage Collective.

Then there is a neutral player (none A.I. I would guess) ... 1st contact this turn.

quote:

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Originally posted by dogscoff:
How does the Rage compare to you in terms of fleet size / empire size?

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Less planets than me (they only colonize none breathable atmospheres) but better fleet (high attack bonus, lots of frigates (about 5 I would say)). But I am not sure wheter I have seen their whole empire yet.

So ... that's about it.

ZzZ

[ZzZ]

Oh ... I forgot

TDM Mod 1.7X is used in the game ... don't know wheter this is relevant or not.

ZzZ

[Alpha Kodiak]

quote:

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Originally posted by Taqwus:
<snip>
* They built a fairly large number of mines, but never used 'em...
<snip>

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Ack! I wonder if I messed up the ship construction file in the Last revision. Did you notice if they built mine layers. They used to build lots of mines and PLACE them.

As far as a strategy against them, I think their biggest weakness is that they don't tend to ally with anyone and usually wind up in multiple wars. If you can build some alliances then you will eventually have more income than they will. Tactically, it is tough, because they usually employ fairly large fleets and their weapon tech advances pretty fast. (That is the reason some of the supporting techs don't come along as fast.)

Keep posting about how things are going. I can use the feedback to make them even nastier. (Besides, it's kind of like watching your kid grow up.)

[Q]

ZzZ your choice to research fighters seeems very reasonable to me. Especially if you have Version 1.35 of SE IV, where there seems to be a bug that makes fighters extremly hard to hit with conventional weapons!
My next choice would be small mines in the orbit of your colonies, if the rage have not too advanced minesweeping components in their ships.
If you have any attack ships left, try to make a counter attack on their colonies. Even if you loose your ships it will weak them quite a bit, if you are able to destroy some of their planets.
Besides that try to colonize systems away from the Rage. You might even find new allies (I am an optimist: of course you could also find new enemies!)
Good luck!

[This message has been edited by Q (edited 09 May 2001).]

[Taqwus]

I'm not sure if they built minelayers... but I didn't run into any minefields in Rage space. It's possible that they were at war with the Darloks and that the latter had been sweeping Rage fields, but it really wasn't unusual to find stockpiled mines on Rage worlds, w/o ever hitting a minefield in their space. Darlok and EA space OTOH was fairly well mined.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[ZzZ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Alpha Kodiak:
Keep posting about how things are going. I can use the feedback to make them even nastier. (Besides, it's kind of like watching your kid grow up.)

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Hehehe ... I will keep you updated regularly ... ... we'll see how long I'm going to survive ...

BTW ... nice kid ...

[TaeraRepublic]

Makes me want to play against the Rage...

If there is a new Version, where can i find it?

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