Battleship vs. Death Knight

Yeah, I'm wondering about that too. Battleships are cheaper and seem to blow stuff up just as good, unless there's some advantage I'm missing here.

It doesn't take many military upgrade techs to make a Death Knight a formidable foe against a Battleship. Unless you're strapped for cash, you're better off building the Death Knight.

Some people are willing to pay a lot for a slight qualitative edge. Not a bad choice in a combat system where a three point difference between attack power and the defender's strength could mean a near total walkover for the higher side. (If hit points are similar, of course.) In a high military resource/tech bonus game with no imminent emergencies requiring lots of ships fast, a Deathknight is worth it. In a low bonus game, or one where you are really outnumbered and need ships fast, the faster battleship build time is a better road until the later ships better than deathknight and battleship come along.

In my experience, the Death Knight is always much more powerful than a battleship, and is often a match for a dreadnaught, depending on what kind of bonuses the other races have. The Death Knight quite a powerful ship at that point in the game.

The AI seem to confirm the opinion that the Death Knight is a better ship than the battleship - they almost alway build it rather than the battleship. They usually attack me with tons of corvettes and Death Knights.

I don't like the DK maintenance - I'm noticed that maso AIs tend to start researching REALLY slowing once they start cranking out Death Knights.... so I like when they build them.

I love AMMs and I've never seen the AI use them....

I, like Cypher, usually go right to Dreads and AMM's leapfrogging the Death Knights. The Dreads are both more powerful, and cheaper. The Way I research, Dreads are only about 2 tech's away from BS tech anyway. And if I'm in a pinch, the Battleships are the ones I go for. DK's usually won't get finished before I get Dreads and can build the AMM's anyway. Once DN tech hits, the AMM becomes my mainstay thereafter. A few capital ships to back em up are all that's required. Boku savings on maintenance that way. And the 900 or so attack you can get an amm up too with bonuses really can wreak havock. I've taken out whole excaliber fleets with em.... It's so nice to see these overconfident Aliens wade right into my space with their excalibers,overlords, and avatars, watch them crush the lil ole Corvettes I put out as bait to get em in range, then watch the amm's cut em to pieces.

AMMs are my favorite, too, but a Death Knight in a starbase-boosted system can hold the line until you finish the Dreadnought tech. Personally, on Masochistic, I am *always* at least 1 full ship tech behind (battleship tech achieved *after* I've been attacked by Dreads).

I just encountered an AI AMM in my last game (#21), used to blow up my new avatar. Could be because it is the first time I actually had a powerful AI whittled down...

I have never taken out an Overlord with an AMM, but Avatars are my favorite prey!

My last game (crippling large abundant), i skipped form scout to Deathknight, had 2 fully upgraded mitiilaty resources and the game was over, never lost a death knight. In previous games on similar settings i had built battleships and would on occasion lose some after several battles. I have never played long enough to get to avatars, overlords, or exacaliburs. I have built AMMs before but never needed them, but that low maintainence does look awfully attractive.

You never got to Dreads or higher on Crippling? The first time I played Crippling, on Tiny, I got to Overlords before I was able to kill everyone!

It usually takes more than one amm unless you have some military starbases plus the upgrade techs. But the 2-3 amm's it takes to take out one overlord cost tons less in both building and maintenence than that one overlord when you consider you can build an amm on each of 3 planets and have them finisned before one planet can get one overlord finished. I usually get my overlords and excalibers from plundered production on a planet takeover. Other than that, I don't build them. The only drawback is the speed of the amm's is slower and its range isn't as far. But getting the +2 speed wonder and +1 speed at the beginning makes up for that. Like I said, you just leave a few corvettes as bait in front of them and there you go.

Cool,I am going to play maso next, and i plan on having some fun with those AMMs if i can make it that far.

ha i used AMM's in my cakewalk game only used 2 or 3 and mainly for planet attacks on the AI i was at war with but i did have a thought about build a bunch of em and having a AMM party at the expense of the AI of course

Just remember. To get that far, I recommend some bribes. Don't fret if you're behind on Tech. I never get ahead on tech till Evolution control. Bribes will have to do ya till you build up that military. Otherwise, you're in for a short game. Exchange as much tech with the minors as you can. The Alexians will give you cash. I consider them a bank. But they are also the most vulnerable to culture. The Kwalsians will give you some cash to a lesser extent. And if an event minor pops up mid game, you can totally abuse them for cash. And don't worry bout the aliens getting early wonders, The only one I really go for is the +2 speed.

there is another difference between bs and dk: the capitol ship movie only plays for bs.

In my current game the i-league have built DK's im afriad as i have no capitol ships to counter them yet. a Minor race attacked me and took out my ranger that i got but only after it distroyed almost all of there ships.

The AI on maso uses AMM all the time against me. Its a royal pain in the ars, the drengin in particular do this. They build over 100 AMM, which pumps their military rating sky high. Then the launch them into all corners of the galaxy, where i cant find them without specifically looking for them.

When it comes time to invade their planets, they will never gift planets to me in a peace treaty because of their AMM hiding all over the place. I have to send at least 15 excalibers around just looking for their stupid missles so i can get some planets in a peace treaty, and it makes my game 3-4 hours longer (about double the time it takes to play them). I hate the drengin......

lol thats what i was doing in my game had alot of AMM's on auto attack or search and distroy i should say i think AMM's right now would be the most useful weapon if you where primarly defensive i had AMM's with attack ratings of 240-267

Death knight are a lot better than battleships. I don't quite see why they aren't a tech in themselves. A tech between battleship tech and dreadnought tech.

I remember reading a post by frogboy a few months ago stating that dn would have their own tech.

Captain Jack, well i am proud to say that i one at Maso level. My first game i expanded all over like i usually do and had my planets start flipping away. Started over and had 3 resources in the same sector as Earth, but thanks to logistics, i had constructors just sittingon them until i could raise enough cash, by then i was at war with 4 AIs for no apparrent reason. Last game took your advice and bribed my way through most of the dangers, and in the end game had to resort to flipping and terror stars as the last 2 AIs had huge planetary defeses that were to problematic to invade.

Anyways, wanted to say thanks for the suggestions, happy gaming.

I have tried Maso again at a huge map (instead of samll), it is more diffuclt i believe. If have a good start with lots of planets to colonize, i get militarily behind early and get attcked by everyone and get sqashed-game over. If i start off sucluded, i can last quite a bit longer, however, there comes a time when AI can't be appeased with bribes and/or i run out of stuff to bribe them with. I am currently in a game where this happened, the Yor had a terrible start and i knocked them out. However the Dregin has a great start and owns the entire middle of the board, and where fighting all the minors and the the torians and the alterians simultaneaously, while i scooped up the abdoned resources (econmy and influences). I thought things where going great, was builing everything up and getting a nice military going, when the Torians surrendeder to me and the Dregen who had been "neutral" towards me declared war on me saying they "had better take care of me before i took care of them" or some nonsense. All but one of my trade routes went to them. Anyway, With them being so spread out, i figured i could hurt them bad, so i took ther 2nd best system, and was going after there starbases, whe the Damn arceans decide to attack me and killed all my starbases in one turn, they unfortunalety have a fully resourced miltarty red cone thing on the other side of the map which allows there dang frigates to kill my death knights. My only hope now is the lone frigate the the torians were builidng, that i finished, which is located in the middle of the dregin empire, can make its way thorugh enemy territory to the Arecean military starbase and hopefully kill it. The fate of humanity rides with that crew--I think i will name it the Enterprise A.

My point is, i hate the AIs ganging up on me for no reason, and i have don't have enought techs or money or trade goods to buy peace with.

I figure that if i keep my militry in the top 2 i won't get attacked, but that is really hard to do. The way i one the first game i am realizing is that a miltary reasource was near my home planet which i mined heavliy.
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