Final stats of round 26
 

Since UN asked for a new thread and I was partially responsible for creating the stats I thought I'd offer some thoughts.

Personally I like the way zik has turned out. It's a little bit different, rather weak offensively for sure, but this can be compensated for by well timed steals via hidden prod, stockpiling or normal ass defence. Your main weaknesses, fr/de fleets, can be compensated for by massing corsairs. Some stolen scorpions or fireblades are your only really good alternative to this. Ziks will be doing a lot of roiding via holes in other people's fleets i reckon, the targetting/inits means there's not much you'll be able to blind launch on (although teamups will be big) but things like de weak xans etc you'll be able to roid well enough.

Moving onto terrans I reckon most will probably face a choice of either concentrating on the fr fleet or the bs fleet. It'll be difficult to keep up a good fleet in both as the main advantage of terran, even more so than in past rounds, is their heavy armour. Co and fi/co incs will be a big problem. You'll probably have to decide on either nixes or centaurs but the armour and salvage bonuses should start adding up after a while. It's possible to just go pure harpies/frigates and do okay so I wouldn't be too surprised to see a few planets like that. Equally you're basically ignoring some of the inbuilt strengths of terran what with faking and such so I definitely wouldn't be a fan.

Xan seem to be very popular (which will suck a bit for some as xan->xan is a world of pain). I imagine a lot of this is the co or fi/co fleet which hits, to various extents, everyone bar zik (which the de fleet fills in for). Some landings will be tough to talk yourself into though versus possible fake def and such and I imagine some will go badly wrong. Weak versus cath cr and terran bs unless you invest heavily in peacekeepers, cr/bs teamups will especially hurt.

I rather like cath, I'd actually consider going cath. In general (and I know nobody sees this unless you can automatically read emp guns/resistance or look at the efficiencies) emp is a bit stronger than last round. The co and cr fleets are good offensively, both can be improved by adding fi or bs in certain circumstances. The scorpion obviously keeps off de incs and the non-attack fleets ships are designed to flak up with each other for defensive purposes (etd will have to freeze all your co before getting to your spiders for example). Notably you won't have to build medium factories which should improve a cath's ability to prod out of incs, always a big factor.

Finally etd. I thought cloak/emp was cool too, tzu was just mainly looking for something to give etd an identity as opposed to a mongrel. The fr fleet is, obviously, pretty rocking but there's a lot of ways to defend against it in-ally versus only emp. Cr and cr/bs might actually end up doing well on caths and ziks (it may be a cloaked fleet but it's got nigh on terran armour) but I imagine more people will concentrate on the fr fleet which should end up roiding xan very well. Weak enough versus co but it's not like investing heavily in defenders will weaken your fleet. Cr might be a bit of a problem but there are better things for cr fleets to do out there so I'd be surprised if it was a serious one.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

cant understand why people would pick xan even with the stats for this rd , on paper they seem good but they seem to be a suicide race and with so many in the universe there will be a lot of xan v xan which is too messy to even discuss

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

Xanda is, per definition, a suicide-race. Hit fast, hit hard, and hope nobody sticks around to find out if you can back up only the clattering of the battleaxes.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

with so many that play solely for xp, i'd expect more people switching to xan before ticks start.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

I've only looked at this for a little bit but it seems there are very few terrans around. I've been playing with the calc a bit and terrans doesn't look so bad in attacks. Seems to be good for landing on cath especially. The centaur seems to work better then I thought against co incs. I think it could be hard to land for just about anyone this round but terrans at least have a little bit of scare factor. Is terran that bad this round, or is it just the thought of a low eta attack fleet that makes people go cat/xan?

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

First off, you're wrong, there are more terran than cathaar planets in the universe.

Ter 22%
Cath 20%

Secondly, I think it'd be foolish to draw conclusions from a 3pp difference:

Ter 22%
Xan 25%

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

Ah.. Sorry. Seems to have evened out quite a bit.. :)

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

indeed it is but with xp a factor ppl will crash horrendsly for that score boost and with 25% picking xan so far the likelyhood of xan v xan is higher

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

I disagree on a number of points.
I agree that you cannot launch blind on targets, but that has seldomly been the case with Ziks. Teamups will be great, especially with Etd against Xan. You can give the Etd the scare factor he needs to keep out defence. Furthermore this will give you the Anti-De you need when Xan are caught at home or are too late to run: Shadows can make a great addition to your Buccaneers and Brigands.

I think you made a pretty good assesment of Terrans.

I don't like cathaar, but I've explained that elsewhere already.

I think people voted with their feet against Etd. It's not very good against Co. Will be weak against Fr untill they get Cr. After that Terran and Xan fr/de can still get through. There will be no anti-Cr when the first Cathaar get their Cr and an Etd will remain weak for that afterwards.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

Just on that note I was wondering if you can clarify your position. I saw that you stated that you believe cathaar emp ships are weaker than before. Given that they are, objectively, more efficient, in the order of approximately 8% or so I'd say, what exactly do you mean by emp ships being weaker?

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

I haven't looked at the statistics, but it just doesn't look good. There is no emp ship that targets fighters or Cr. Emp efficiency might be better, but at 60% it isn't. You will have to run your fleet when someone attacks you.
Furthermore there are no untargetted emp ships like before: Vipers and Scorpions were not targetted by the fleets they fired at. That was a great advantage.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

Now, you see where you might have gone wrong there? Do you also realize how rude and annoying it is to have people who haven't even bothered to do the maths themselves come tell you that they know better than you, and that you did a bad job? And then, you people want me to respect your opinions and answer your questions/objections?

I must most respectfully inform you, Gerbie, that I believe that you do your own cause an injustice, sir. One that you might consider revising before commenting in a potentially negative way to the result of my most arduous work and the culmination of my best efforts.


Edited by UN for happiness.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

I lolled.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

yeah me too, who needs to look at stats anyway

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

Love you sovvy <3 :)

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

I like etd quite a lot. If I was playing this round properly I'd go for them, and I'd build arrowhead/recluse/defender/broadsword/fireblade. Heavy on the defender & recluse, a lil lighter on everything else.

Sure, there'll be some things I can't deal with, but most fleets would have a hard time hitting me and the broadsword/arrow are useful defships.

Frigs feed off xands all round long although ingal pirates would be annoying. The possibility of hidden arrowhead will make in-ally def challenging.

Cruisers can be endlessly faked & can hit any race in the game, provided they leave holes in their fleets (eg xands that go primarily peacekeeper).

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

I can only say that retal attacks is gonna be the best defense this round. But I'm up for that.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

Really? I've been told that defence is too easy this round :(


Admittedly by an ND HC though!

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

Doubt that def will be easy this round.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

There's plenty of ships that can be used to make defence easy, it's just that most of them are in attack fleets. I think ease of defence depends on your inc.

FI/CO fleets are going to be v hard to stop. The available ships for ally def are as follows:
Phoenix: Near worthless, most terrans will buy centaurs instead
Spider: Semi-attack ship
Beetle: attack ship
Phantom: Semi-attack ship
Cutlass: May be ignored in favour of massed brigs. Stunned & shot first
Arrowhead: Semi-attack ship

The amount of anti CO is probably going to be severely restricted. Ingal defence from grounded att-fleets will be required a lot of times (Brig, recluse etc)


CR/BS should be an easier proposition to defend against, however. There should be a lot of bombers sitting around doing nothing, and they can be faked endlessly. Some ziks will also build marauder, whilst CO-centric caths may completely ignore roach and just build a load of tarantula to defend with.

Fortunately there are 4 such fleets to justify the availability of so much def, but on the other hand the number of these att-fleets may be limited as the quicker attack fleets are generally more attractive.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

I think you have underestimated the work I have put into assessing the strength of emp ships. I did not calculate a statistic to compare overall efficiency, because it's hard to come up with a reliable comparison based on statistics.
I have no idea what you mean with your 8% stronger. I can think of a number of methods for characterizing the strength of emp ships.
I calculated emp efficiencies for all emp ships. These numbers alone don’t say much. For one thing you also have to look at emp resistance (which I also calculated efficiencies for). And then specifically emp resistance of the ships you expect to encounter. The emp resistance of corsairs for instance is pretty bad. But it doesn’t even target me. Neither does the Wyvern which has a pretty good emp efficiency for a Bs. And how do you incorporate in such a number the fact that some ships target 2 classes while others have a third? Or that some classes are not targetted as T1.

Either you came up with a brilliant method of calculating emp ship strength or your 8% is not a significant outcome.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

I looked at the efficiency of every single emp ship in the universe versus every other ship (using the stats analysis page) and compared them to last round (the strengths there were still saved in munin). Overall, 8% better or so.


Edit: It was easter holidays okay, i had nothing else to do :(

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

The Beetle Targets Fi as a secondary target
The Tarantula and Mantis both Target CR again as a secondary Target.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

That's what he meant, no emp ship targeting those as T1... but as there is no FI pod, the lack of anti FI T1 is rather an advantage. For anti CR, the attack fleets (cath or ETD) would also target the cath anti CR as T2 only, unless ETD bring their BS along, but then Cath do have anti BS as T1... add that both Ter and Xan don't have any CR (those 2 races account for nearly half the universe), again no emp anti CR as T1 doesn't look like a bad thing.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

Makhil, your observations are correct, your conclusion is too optimistic. As a Cathaar you stun your enemies, while those enemies KILL you. Either you stun 100% or you run. Staying home to see part of your fleet get killed is (generally) useless.
There is no fi pod. But Xan will send Phantoms along to kill your ships if you keep them home if he lands. If you stay home he doesn’t get roids, but will kill your Spiders and maybe some corvettes as well. He’ll land because he expects you to run. If you don’t then he’ll try again next time since you will have less fi/co left.
Against the Cr the fact that you are ineffective in stunning them means that they can steal roids. And if you keep your ships home to stun part of his fleet, you lose ships in the process, while still losing roids.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

It's called defence. When you get it you stay. When you don't you run. Whether you're emp or not is irrelevant in this respect.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

I have to say after picking Cath randomly without looking at stats yesterday and finally getting a chance to go over them today i was pleasantly surprised by them.

CO + tarants + a few scorps is really all i have any intention of building. 3 ships that target everything and make up an attack fleet is not to be sniffed at. The normal cath stun disadvantage is offset by concentration of resources in only a few ships and they have fair eff's to go with it. Cr incs will probably be the biggest concern, but then also arguably the easiest to cover as well, the tarant is still 100%/125% effective vs cat cr and even better on the pods.

As far as running/getting def goes, if someone launches on you then 9 times out of ten you will need defence or you end up running whatever your race is, and with decent efficiency (which they seem to have) then i dont see it being especially unbalanced.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

It's more the issue of how often people will launch on you...


Comment on the stats:
All of the attack fleets are viable (a good thing), but in almost all cases the lower-eta fleet is preferable. Given that there aren't many pure defships that're effective at stopping the quicker fleets, but a few pure defships that can stop the slower ones, I expect the universe will be dominated by frigs & below. Can't tell whether it'll be an issue or not; but if so it's easily fixable by messing with the stats. We'll see...

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

That's not really got anything to do with this set of stats in specific though, more with the race identity in general.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

Yeah. I think it could be improved by zero loss killships (like the scorpion). I don't think the BW contributes much in this regard. Hopefully Tzu/JBG's stats have done it, but if not I'd suggest trying another zero loss ship instead.

If this doesn't work, no-one else comes up with an idea, and cath are considered a liability, eliminating them is an option!

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

I must admit to having failed to study the stats beyond a quick once-over, so I'll take my leave from any in-depth stats analysis discussions. :)

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

That one is easy: a fake xan def will make him recall... why risk his ships when he knows he won't get roids anyway.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

Gate is just jealous because JBG/Sun_Tzu made way better stats then he did!

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

Terran 277(21%) Jenn Aiel OF Rhuidean (3:2:7) 84,734 1
Cathaar 264(20%) Coffee and Cake OF After Midnight (1:6:6) 83,255 3
Xandathrii 340(26%) Confessions OF a Dangerous Mime (5:8:1) 82,415 11
Zikonian 270(20%) Spirits OF The Past (7:6:4) 82,359 12
Eitraides 142(10%) Libertas OF Roman Mythology (12:2:1) 82,504 10

I'd like think those numbers speak quite a bit about how well we managed. The only thing I have to add is that people are idiots for not picking any more ETD :/ Anyway, seems plenty of people are quite ok with how Cath looks, and are willing to play them, which is what it all comes down to.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

I agree. there being few etd may well be partly because there are alot of ppl going cath, I imagine that alot of the ppl who took etd last round switched to cathaar, there is probably a pool of players who like to have some emp and will go for whichever looks better :p

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

I bucked my usual trend and went Etd for the first time.

They look sexy this round :D

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

Attacking with a emp fleet (Cath CO or Etd FR) I chose the fastest., + there are 4 FR/DE attack fleets... anti DE ships are anti FR too (mostly) meaning loads of them in uni.
This round Cath are closer to what were ETD last round.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

ETD got alot of teamup option. Most of them pwning.

As always, teamups is best in the long run. 50% roids = better than 0% :p

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

I found XAN's DE to be extremely nice, so I've gone for a full DE fleet and found a nice ZIK to team up with, so far I must say I've been surprised with the results.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

Currently I think caths are overpowered (sandmans agrees with me with 46 caths in t100) but it is still early round so we'll see how it plays out...

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

If you look at the top caths on value and size you can see that they're slowly dropping off. Hopefully the balance is right!

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

Caths are high up now mainly due to early round xp.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

are you serious? look at the size and value of the caths before you make such assumptions...they have both, xp AND high value

its a pity, but again caths are overpowered, like usual either too shit, or too good (and i always pick them the wrong round it seems :) )

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

think a cath will win the round, but think zik will have most top100 positions.

if 1 block manages to win soon, the caths in that block will do well.
if a long "war" goes on zik will benefit from it, and caths will slowly die.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

also, I d like to point out, that atleast most of the rounds were cath have done well have been rounds without proper wars, and members in alliances not fighting for #1 alliance, either that or round was over b4 it started.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

Wouldn't it be ever so nice if people didn't judge the balance of the stats on 1) the first 400 ticks, and 2) on the top10 planets.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

Caths have to start off strong because they always fall. The midranked caths, then the top ones until all that's left are those in the dominant alliance.

You can see this happening slightly at the minute. Cath are over-represented in the t100 due to xp (ie more top 100 score cath planets than t100 value/size cath planets) and outside of the t100 the number of cath planets drops off sharply. One third of the t500 caths are in the t100, one third 100-200 and the rest are spread over 200-500. It's always a question of early round explosive growth followed by midround decline. It's just a question of getting the balance right. I really don't think anyone's going to fix them overall.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

stats can be judged by top10 planets eor imo.

since you can end top100 with all races no matter how shit the stats are for that race, while u cant end top10 ( easily ) with a shit race...

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

The percieved strength of the respective races is the determining factor in what the top 5% of the players chooses. It's these players that make up the bulk of the top 10 and top 50, and thus these players that decide, before the round has even begun, what race will be overrepresented in the top 10 and top 50.

Re: Final stats of round 26
 

mz has a point here. Everyone and their dog who had a clue went etd in r21 for example. a lot of the time these things are self-reinforcing. Frankly i'd take everything into account, t10, t50, t100, t200, t500 and who went what race. That's a lot of shit for something like stats though.