Dominion too Powerful

posted on July 8th, 2013, 7:08 pm

My biggest issue with this game is the Dominion. Regardless of which difficulty setting the Dominion produce ships and stations faster than other races on the same settings. I routinely give up the game due to Dominion ship swarming. Whe they do this no amount of humat player ships, stations, or turrets will stop them. This does not occur when playing against other races on the same settings. The only hope is Starfleet quantum torpedo turrets...rows and rows of them to the point you can't built ships. You basically have a Dominion AI that is playing with unlimited resources producing ships as fast as the yards can build them which is faster than a human player can even with unlimited resources. Klingon, Romulan, and Federation AIs are nowhere near as powerful on same settings. Even the Borg are powerless against them. The Borg are quite possible the weakest race on AI. I realize the game is free and appreciate it but I wouldn't be concerned about any of this if I didn't like the game. Even when I program AI allies at Relentless they don't build ships and swarm like the Dominion does on Hard.

posted on July 8th, 2013, 7:21 pm

Firstly, welcome to the forum.

i'm sorry but you're not going to be happy with this answer:

in short, it's known the dominion ai is more powerful. the ai (for any race) doesn't buy supply, it gets given huge amounts of supply automatically every second. enough supply that it will never ever use it all. essentially the ai doesn't use the supply resource.

this makes the dominion stronger because their ships are balanced to cost a lot of supply and less dil/tri. so the dominion will be able to afford huge spammy fleets.

afaik the current priority of the devs is still to continue working on multiplayer. they haven't abandoned the single player ai, but it's far down their list of things to do, so it won't get done soon.

best advice, play online, it's much more fun when each ship is so valuable.

if you want to stick with single player, set the dominion to an easier difficulty. there's no real skill in being able to win a war of attrition with the hardest ai, it's not something you should feel forced to do.

posted on July 8th, 2013, 8:14 pm

I was just sounding off. I actually love the game. I have defeated the dominion on all difficulty levels. Never as anything other than federation with the male avatar. Normal AI settings are too easy but their seems to be a huge leap when jumping to Hard or Relentless. I had been trying to figure out strategies to beat the dominion using Romulans or Klingons. The turrets for these respective races are too weak and costly. In other mods of Armada 2 I would capture construction ships and become the races of the people I was fighting against as well but that is not allowed in this mod. You can capture ships but can't build the enemy's ships or stations. I had to rethink my strategy when that option was no longer available. I usually dominate when playing other human players in LAN games which is why ramping up my AI games. I get interrupted by my family so many times while playing the game I figured I would get killed by having to step away from my computer so often. In LAn games we all agree to take a break. So I honestly haven't tried online yet. I will give it a shot.

posted on July 8th, 2013, 8:27 pm

Normal AI settings are too easy but their seems to be a huge leap when jumping to Hard or Relentless.

i recommend playing around with the sliders in pre game setup to try discover an ai that you enjoy the most.

In other mods of Armada 2 I would capture construction ships and become the races of the people I was fighting against as well but that is not allowed in this mod. You can capture ships but can't build the enemy's ships or stations. I had to rethink my strategy when that option was no longer available.

yeah that's often a point of contention. i personally think it's better this way. imagine being a romulan general, and you have your troops capture an enemy constructor, and then you tell all your forces to start building enemy technology because it's better than your own. yeah that's insulting the star empire. even assuming it is possible to build another race's stuff, (which it isn't, but that's an entirely different can of worms) who would want to?

i wouldn't object to making this an option in pregame setup: an option to let people use enemy constructors to build their stuff.

posted on July 8th, 2013, 10:16 pm

while you cannot build other races ships, if you capture another players construction ship as the same race as you but the other avatar to you, then you can build that other avatars ships,
the only faction this doesnt work completely with is the feds however as you cannot research the other chassis levels (on less you capture their science stations that they have done the research on (i think))

posted on July 9th, 2013, 4:05 am

You're completely right .

The AI Dominion are crazy-stoopid-hard

Thankfully, I think you'll find that playing against a HUMAN dominion player to be much more rewarding as they will suffer the chokepoint of Dominion supply that the AI does not. FleetOps is balanced for 1v1 multiplayer and to the best possible 2v2 / 3v3+ that can be done. Playing the AI is a great way to get used to how certain ships fair against certain others, but sadly the AI tosses all the rules of economy right out the window because it is simply not smart enough to compete with Humans otherwise.

Kinda nice to know we're too smart for it, eh? =D

posted on July 9th, 2013, 10:18 am

Kinda nice to know we're too smart for it, eh? =D

nice in a "yay i just won the special olympics" way. it doesn't take much to outsmart an ai that follows the zapp brannigan school of tactics.

posted on July 9th, 2013, 6:31 pm

The AI, Dominion or otherwise tends not to rebuild in the same place. They will build elsewhere, but not usually in the same place. I've had success in attacking shipyards and construction ships constantly to limit their ships but you have to start as soon as you have a fleet of ships or its too late. I've found cloaked Defiants to be good at this. You have to have a Romulan Ally and build them through the joint shipyard. I have the tendency to stack the deck like taking on 2 dominion. I like to make the game as hard as possible but also winnable so I am constantly playing with settings and difficulty levels and allies. I have also found when taking on the dominion it is important to protect your allies as well. They can make a good distraction for the dominion AIs while trying to build your own fleet. Once your allies are gone all focus is on you.

posted on July 9th, 2013, 6:31 pm

The Cardassian race is somehow allied with the Dominions ?

Right now I'm working on a Cardassian Mod and I'm almost overwhelmed by the Borgs. What can I do when The Dominions are coming to attack me ? :-) Make more ships or power-up with stronger shields ? :-)

The Dominions are coming from another galaxy, so it's somehow logical that they have other rules and laws :-)

posted on July 9th, 2013, 6:51 pm

Not sure which mod you are working with since the cardassians or not in FleetOps but all I can say is turrets, turrets, and more turrets...preferably torpedo. Sometimes its just cheaper to build another starbase than turrets but mor eof both usually helps.

posted on July 9th, 2013, 7:41 pm

it doesn't take much to outsmart an ai that follows the zapp brannigan school of tactics.

send wave after wave of my own men to their deaths..

and the rest of the dominos will fall down like a pack of cards.. check mate..

posted on July 9th, 2013, 10:26 pm

For me the way to fight the AI was rushing - especially useful against Dominion, since their Bugs are pretty weak. but of course this works only against one AI, if you fight several you have to do sth. else or be even faster.
Personally I find the Romulan AI much more frustrating due to the Serkas vessels, which are unused in mp due to their costs, but since the AI doesn't care about economy they throw out Serkas' and bomb the whole space -.-

posted on July 9th, 2013, 11:25 pm

I agree . YEA . Romulan are hell as merciles ai.

only strategy that work for me is vorcha spam . then i vin "most" times.
as fed i use very forward yard for early harasment with warpins. ai do not cyckle ships very efectively...
and i didnt try other races against romulan...

posted on July 10th, 2013, 3:45 am

Personally I find the Romulan AI much more frustrating due to the Serkas vessels, which are unused in mp due to their costs, but since the AI doesn't care about economy they throw out Serkas' and bomb the whole space -.-

Serkas -- one of two ships that warrant special targeting priority from me, as they do way above their offence rating against stationary targets (1-on-1, a Serkas can kill a Defiant if neither move). Norexans are the other, due to their speed and massive burst damage once they have the special.

Tavaras look big and scary, but as there are never very many of them it's easy enough to cripple their guns and drive them away with Remores and Defiants.

posted on July 10th, 2013, 3:40 pm

About Serkas: Never stay still and their damage diminish a lot and never run from them instead chase them and focus your fire on them, that's all! Serkas are very "delicate" and can't survive your chasing.

About the Dominion, I have found that attacking their mining at early game disrupt the AI a little and stop their spamming for a while, which is weird because the AI don't use resources but maybe it messes with their build order or something like that.