What to do against Virgo class battlestar

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2286 days, 10 hours, 35 minutes ago

mig the merciless

What to do against Virgo class battlestar

I am a new player who though I was doing well. I just had 2 virgo class battlestars walk thru 4 of my T-rex's AND take my base (homeworld) !!

What the hell am I supposed to do to stop that?!?!

Everytime I lay mines, they are gone the next turn (swept I am assuming)

I had tech 7 torps on 2 of the T-REX's. Any help would be appreciated....That just plain sucks, dont know what else I could have done to protect my homeworld.

2286 days, 9 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

Vs Colonies, laying mines is a huge waste of time. They get special bonuses to cleaning them up. If you're trying to stop battlestars with lizards, your best option might be combo fleets. A pair of T-rexes followed up by a Madonzilla for each one in the wolfpack. Generally speaking, you need carriers to kill carriers. Lacking that, you need to out-build them. Your t-rexes cost alot less than his battlestars do to make. You need to play up your special abilities, in your case that means cloaking ships with ground attack troops. You can kill his colonists at a 30:1 ratio. The Lizard class cruiser is perfect for this. I haven't played them very sucessfully yet myself, but that's my impression. Anyone else out there want to chime in?

2286 days, 9 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

The Virgo is light enough that you can use either 2 T-rex + Mandonzilla, 1 T-rex + 2 Madonzillas or even 3 T-rexs. Against heavier carriers (Gorbie,Golem, Biocide), you'd need a more substantial fleet with the majority being made up of madonzillas.

You want to avoid fleet vs fleet combat if possible. This is because the last ship to fight one virgo will do very badly if it immediately goes into a new fight. You want it to be repaired and have full shields (so that the beams and torp tubes are charged).

You can try avoid fleet comabt by trying to tow a single virgo off to a bunch of your waiting T-rexs and Mandonzillas. This is important because if you're fighting one Virgo, you can potentially trade 1 T-rex for 1 Virgo (very good trade) or else 2 T-rexs for 1 Virgo (still alright). As I mentioned above large fleet combat suits him more than you (fighter bays don't start combat uncharged if the shields are damaged), so your trading ability goes down if there are several virgos.

If you are not either disrupting his supply lines within his territory, or else disrupting his fleets by towing ships out to yours, you should expect to lose.

2286 days, 8 hours, 4 minutes ago

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

If you are at your homeworld, and he has virgos coming in, it is over. As the lizards, the enemy must be defending against you, not attacking you.

At the ship limit you should have 120 ships. You should have LCCS deep in his space. He should have no freighters alive, no starbases with under 5000 clans, and his few remaining virgos you gang up and kill.

If he has an undisturbed economy, even half as many ships as you, and the ship limit is reached, then you are dead. Plain and simple.

Try again next game.

2286 days, 4 hours, 41 minutes ago

ville kauppinen

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

Sounds like lesson learned.

Read the racial advantages, strategy guides etc - Donovans is a good place to start. http://www.donovansvgap.com/

2286 days, 4 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

Well, if he got your HW, you can still take some LCC with clans and settle down somewhere else. And since you have a lot of Reptiles in orbit of your planets with clans (don't you) and a lot of LCCs then you can also start a guerilla war. Whenever the Colony takes your planet you take it back by putting your clan down. It will take some time before his LSDF arrive with more clans and if so you tow them away. So your guerilla war will really hamper him. At the same time you might get at his freighter routes in his territory. But be aware that his cobols can also lay mines...so keep on mine sweeping, too.

Bests!

2286 days, 3 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

Finishing off the Lizards is like playing Whack-A-Mole. Every time you take on of their planets they ground assault from a cloaked LCC.

As Furey said, the Lizard's biggest advantage is their economic production and their ability to disrupt the enemy economy. It is all about the economy.

2286 days, 1 hours, 34 minutes ago

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

a mk8 t-rex with bad beams as a sacrifice, and a madonnzila with 100 fighters should do the virgo. since he is coming in he has to go to your planets, right?
stay cloaked with a reptile or lcc (can also be a cheapo version), and tow the virgos out one by one, meeting up with you battle pairs. the madonn will be haevily damaged after the fight, so you'll need support ships that evacuate the madonn to repair it.
the sacrificial t-rex can have bad engines too and be towed by the madonn btw.
maybe that:
http://www.planetsmagazine.com/?p=508
and especially that:
http://www.planetsmagazine.com/?p=13
might help the madonnzila survive the battles better.
it's about really small percentages vs virgos, that's also why you need mk8.

the key is to choose the battles when you want, and to take out those virgo classes one by one.

when it comes to star bases the best is to guard the base with a torper. a mk7 lcc will take the virgo shields pretty far down, causing it to start the battle vs the base with discharged beams. this way he will loose one virgo per base. like with the battle pairs you can use lcc + sb as a combo to destroy the virgos.

the minefields can't be handled differently but by building heavy beam t-rex's just for sweeping. unfortunately.

all in all i can recommend to stay in the game and to fight as creatively and unpredictably as you can - you will learn so much from this stress situation,
it will enhance your gameplay for future games more than a game that goes well. keep it up!

2286 days, 0 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

Considering the pbp war, it is also good for torp races to try use fully equipped SB's as the first line of defence against carrier races. Then a cloaked battleship lie in wait to collect pbp of the damaged Virgo, by towing it away and kill it. This of course demands a good handle on the economics, and some time for preparing the SB's.

I have never calculated it costwise, but I guess it is quite an inefficient kill from an MC point of view, but from the pbp point of view it can turn the game to your favour. No pbp, no new carriers coming against you ...

2285 days, 19 hours, 53 minutes ago

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

Mig,

Wow! You have just been subjected to some high powered lizard knowledge. Write it down in the dirt of your blasted home world and DO NOT forget it.

Tom

2285 days, 12 hours, 32 minutes ago

mig the merciless

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

yeah, lots of info. I played this last one all wrong. Lots to learn. Thanks for the links all. I saved them in my favs for further review.

2284 days, 22 hours, 15 minutes ago

emork the lizard king

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

Many, many good hints for the merciless.

Some more:
* Speaking generally, carriers have to be faught with carriers and your best carrier by far is a base. But note that after the ship limit it's all about PBP (http://www.donovansvgap.com/help/buildships.htm) and bases can not earn PBP, only ships can.
* m8-LCC + fully defended base win against a Virgo with more than 80%. m7 is only slightly worse. The next Virgo will destroy the base for sure but bases can be rebuilt. Well, in your case, the homeworld is a big loss of clans of course.
* Let an appoaching Virgo fight your fully defended base and wait with your cloaker in orbit. If the Virgo is heavily damaged or low on fighters after the battle then tow it to a Mandozilla. Trading a base for 7 PBP is a great success.
* Use the best battle simulator (http://www.phost.de/~stefan/pcc2.html) to find out at what shield/damage status you have fight a Virgo with a Rex/Mando/Mando, Rex/Mando, LCC/Mando or a single Mando. Against undamaged Virgos with full shield Rex/Mando/Mando is the best counter-combo because IN AVERAGE it has the best PBP-result.
* Get a Bio, Gorbie, Rush or Golem early by alliance or trading. m7/m8-LCC + Lizard big carrier always win against a Virgo and you make +3 PBP.

2284 days, 21 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

Mig you played massively into his hands, as a committed Colonies player I can tell you that we love it when you go toe-toe with us and lay lots of minefields, its just a waste of your resources, you have to hit us where it hurts.

Get behind our lines, the only ship-to-ship fights you want are ones against the Gemini's Cobols and freighters.

Emork plays the queue and the PBP very well, all the very best players do, even if you don't play it well you need to be aware of the basics to limit your disadvantage.

2284 days, 2 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

And of course: Always put surrender as primary order on your SB, and put FC lfm (carrier enemy races) or mkt (torp enemy races). Everyone will fall for this trick at least once (I did anyway :-)).

In my only finished game to date I had a colonies opponent who did it with two Virgos in a row, at the same SB! Turned the game completely. I could pick his Virgos one by one after that. A Resolute as sacrificial lamb and tower of the Virgo, and then watching the Virgo vs. Virgo fight - a win if I remember with 90% odds in my favour.

2284 days, 2 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

Although, if you set the fc as "lfm" or "mkt", all his ships are going to sail through any minefields set by that planet. And then you're assuming he hasn't set PE, in which case he'll kill the starbase anyway.

Not that big of a problem against the Colonies, since you aren't likely to have minefields anyway, but against anyone else, it could backfire badly...

2283 days, 20 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

Another something I did not see mentioned is fuel denial. Big carriers, especially two or more, take a lot of fuel to move. With Colonies they will have Cobols for refueling - so intercept those and destroy them. Ensure that all planets they arrive to are low on fuel and soon those carriers will be big toys in space that are harmless.

2218 days, 12 hours, 9 minutes ago

paranoid android

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

To my experience the towing away of a Virgo for easy kill after it has destroyed a SB does not work. At least I have the habit to stack my carriers with supplies so they repair them selves after a battle. Whats more usually there is even more supplies laying around on the planet...

2204 days, 15 hours, 28 minutes ago

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

You can hit it with a smaller ship first with a lot of beams to take down its fighters even 2 ships better. (Friendly code 1) then hit it with some torps any ship that will last long enough to get a couple hits in to weaken the shields. (Friendly cade 2) Then hit it with your big hitter. (Friendly code 3) Have a great battle.

2204 days, 2 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

I'm assuming you're already told that - lizard has only one combat ship, and it's called t-rex+madonnzila. When fighting against heavy carriers, t-rexes do not need descent beams - tech 1 will do. Also, most t-rexes do not need descent engines as well, as they are to be towed by mads - that way they are cheap to build in packs. Still, you'll need (25--50)% of t-rexes equipped with transwarps - for whacking lesser ships etc, but, most important, for breaking through minefields. In this case, a t-rex with transwarps tows mad - being towed, mad won't hit a mine, and t-rex must have like 50--60 torps and the rest should be stuffed with supplies to fix the ship if it hit a mine or two, so it would be fully operational in combat even the same turn. Of course, such a setup is not for a long walk, but only for short sprint through enemy mines.

2203 days, 13 hours, 53 minutes ago

RE: What to do against Virgo class battlestar

Some great advice here. I usually leave a Mod or a T-Rex at home base, but an LCC with tech 7’s makes a lot of sense as well. There is a guide out there that says it’s not easy being green, I’d have to agree with that --- but with some of the tips posted here you will have an easier time. Trading for a good carrier would be ideal.