Tactic 05a: Fleet composition

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    • Tactic 05a: Fleet composition

      Fleet composition

      A balanced fleet is one of the cornerstones for any successful fleeter, especially mid game and late game, but it also plays a role in early game of course. The first thing you need to understand is that there is no general perfect fleetratio. What your fleet should look like depends mainly on how you´re planning to use it, i.e. if you mostly attack other fleets, raid or crack turtles. Or like most successful fleeters, all of the above. It also somewhat depends on what community you´re playing on and of course in which "stage" the universe is in.

      The first part of the guide will explain the different stages of a universe from a fleeters point of view and how the fleet should be adapted to changes in these different stages. The time periods in which it is divided is not to be taken literally since these may differ a lot between different communities and universes, they´re just there to illustrate roughly in which time period these things occur. In the second part there will be a more in-depth explanation of the different ships, the pros and cons and how they work alone as well as in combination with each other.


      Start of the universe (0-3 weeks)
      The very first days of a universe the only kind of fleet you will be building are SCs and maybe a couple of LFs to get through those 2 RLs that most people have early on. As the game progresses the fleet builds vary a lot between different players and universes and it´s very hard to say what kind of fleet should be built because it depends very much on the opposition. Generally though, SCs, LCs (because they are faster than SCs before impulse lvl 5) and either HFs or cruisers will be all you need the first couple of weeks. Some people like to build HFs because they work well against all kinds of defenses except those who contain gauss and plasma, however from mid game and on there really is no use for them (explained in "The importance of fodder") so building them early game may not be a good idea. Since mines have such a fast pay-back time early on, you shouldn´t have a large percentage of your points in fleet by this period in time.


      Early game (3 weeks - 4 months)
      When you see a lot of gauss popping up on your farms it´s time to build some BS'. They will normally be your main raiding ship until people start building a bunch of plasmas. When you reach a couple of hundred BS´, LFs start to be profitable to build, still mainly not for defenses but for fleet crashes. This might also be the time to start building some BCs if you're hunting fleets a lot. Since most players around this time have mainly BS' and cruisers, BCs are extremely effective. However if you're mainly raiding up until now it's probably a good idea to put the LFs and BCs on hold and keep building BS´ for the time being.

      Once your BS' have become your main raiding ship you should probably stop building more HFs if you decided not to do so earlier, because at a later stage in the game they're not really effective. It's really hard at this point in time to say what ratios of different ships to use because your ratio could and probably will shift drastically over just a couple of days. You just need to analyze the easiest way of getting as much res as possible from raiding and crashing and build the ships that will allow you to do that in the shortest amount of time possible.

      Mid game (4 months - 1 year)
      This is about the point in time when your fleet ratio really start to matter a lot, there are many different builds and a lot of them are "right", it all depends on what you're using the fleet for and how your opposition looks. If you haven't built any sizeable fodder fleet up until now, it's about time to do so. How much fodder you should have also depends on how the rest of your fleet looks, but to effectively act as fodder you will need at least 5 times more LFs than BS´ and as the game goes on that ratio should generally increase to about 10:1(or more).

      After a couple of months plasmas are starting to show up on your farms and when a lot of them start to become non-profitable you will need destroyers with or without bombers to get through with profit. However the bombers are extremely slow until you get hyper engine lvl 8, so the bombers shouldn't really be used until they have the same speed as the destroyers. But either way, you should normally hang on to the BS as main raid ship as long as you can because you're going to need a bunch of destroyers to match them against defenses. Destroyers are of course not only used against defenses but because they are so slow, especially in the beginning, doing p&s against fleets is not going to be easy. The alternative is to build LFs instead, because they are way faster and works well against the same kind of ships (and mostly defense too).

      The fleets that are seen now are probably going to consist mainly of BS, BC, Cruiser and LF. A lot of players however underestimates the need of cruisers and LFs and that is exactly why you shouldn´t. How many cruisers you should have depends a lot on how much fodder your average opponent has, but normally it should be at least 1:1 ratio vs BS´. This ratio should generally increase also as time passes so that when one year has passed the ratio should probably be closer to 2 or 3:1. This is not in any way a general rule that applies in every uni, you should calculate what will give you the best results against your average opponent and build accordingly.

      In mid game even if you´re in the top 10 you will often face fleets that are pretty close to the size of your own and if those fleets have too little fodder or not enough cruisers, your fodder will rip them apart (explained in “The importance of fodder”). However even if your opponent has a fairly balanced fleet, the best weapon against it is also a balanced fleet.

      After about a year
      At this point in time the defenses start to contain a lot of plasmas so the BS start to lose its effectiveness against defenses and the cure for this is destroyers + bombers. Although neither of them is crucial to a balanced fleet, they can really help out a lot. The bomber of course is only used for defenses but the destroyer is a pretty well rounded ship (however slow), that can be very effective against fleets as well as defenses.

      There are really no recommended ratios for these ships, although in mid game you should probably not have more than 0.5:1 destroyer vs. BS and the bomber usually a bit lower than that. If you decide to build them that is. About the same point in time as the destroyer start to become profitable as raidship, so does the LF, assuming that you have a bunch of them.

      Late game (1 year+)
      After about a year the universe slowly starts dying and the activity in general drops significantly. This means that you have to adapt to the fewer targets that are available. You can´t expect to do 3-4 raiding rounds every day at this point, at least not with a nice profit each round. This decrease in players generally means that easy resources is a lot harder to come by and fleeters are forced to attack turtles to a much greater extent than before. When going after turtles in the late game the fleet of choice is normally destroyers (with or without bombers) or large LF fleets. Many players prefer LFs for a lot of reasons (which are explained below) but destroyers are not a bad choice either.

      Which of these two combinations you have available to you has a lot to do with how your fleet is used the rest of the time, if you prefer speed attacks you will probably have a lot of LFs for instance.

      In late game large rip-fleets also start to appear and the destroyer is by far the best choice against these, even though you can get profit without them. If you prefer to use destroyers over LFs that doesn´t mean that you should have no fodder at all though, it just means that your fodder ratio will be slightly lower. The same doesn´t really go for destroyers, although having no destroyers at all late game is not recommended. Against fleets with no rips, you can do without destroyers, but against rips you generally want at least some destroyers to weaken the shields.

      In late game if you´ve been around since the beginning of the uni you are going to be a lot bigger than many of your opponents and that means to crash their fleets you would normally have to send only a fraction of your fleet. This is where the BCs come into play. When you are far superior to your opponent sending only BCs often works out to be the most profitable choice. This doesn´t mean that you should only build BCs late game (or any other ship for that matter), it´s just something to keep in mind. Many players usually have BCs at about a 1:1 ratio vs. BS´ from midgame and on but it has a lot to do with personal preference. The most important thing is that you understand how different ships work alone and together and build a fleet that suits you.


      The importance of fodder

      The most common mistake I see in inexperienced fleeters is that their fleets often almost completely lack fodder. Without understanding how the battles of Ogame work it´s easy to wrongfully assume that: The more powerful ships I have the better my fleet is. Trying not to go too deep into the workings of the battle system I`ll explain why that assumption is incorrect.

      Every ship, regardless of its weapon power, can only shoot down one ship per shot (round), i.e. it doesn´t matter if a rip hits a light fighter or a destroyer, only one ship is lost. This is not the whole truth though, you also have to consider rapid fire. Since the ships choose their target completely random in the battle it´s much more likely that your fodder will take a hit than any other ship (assuming that you have a sufficient fodder ratio). So the fodder is used to protect your stronger ships in the fleet, but also to prevent your opponents rapid fire against the heavier ships.

      However light fighters sole purpose is not to act as fodder, it´s also one of the absolute best raiding ships, it´s cheap to fly, gets relatively low losses against a typical defense, you lose res to a ratio of 3:1 metal:crystal, but most importantly it protects your small cargos which considerably increases the speed of the attack compared to using large cargos. A “typical defense” means a defense that consists mainly of RL/LL and plasma. Most times you would profit more attacking that kind of defense with a large light fighter fleet than you would with for example bomber+destroyer. Maybe not always in pure losses, but in deuterium cost of the attack. Note that the LF as a raiding ship start to become profitable around the time most defenses start to contain a bunch of plasmas.

      Why haven´t I mentioned the heavy fighter, isn´t that also considered fodder? Well yes, the HF can be used as fodder, but it´s too expensive to replace the LF and when it comes to protecting the LF, SCs does a way better job. So the heavy fighter can be used as fodder but it´s not the optimal choice. And the optimal choice is what we´re looking for right?

      So if they´re not used as fodder what are they used for? In early game when most defenses mainly consist of RLs, LLs, HLs and ICs they are by far the best raiding ship because they take small losses against these kind of defenses as well as protects SCs in the same way as LFs (which significantly speeds up attacks after impulse 5 have been researched). However the problem with HFs is that after these defenses are gone and gauss and plasmas are plentyful, you will practically have no use for them. So if you´re planning to use them as an early game raiding ship keep in mind that these shouldn´t really be built in huge numbers since they very, very rarely are the most effective choice in any situation later on.

      Light fighter
      Disadvantages: Fairly slow
      Advantages: Cheap, good all-round ship
      How and when to use them: Battleship + light fighters works very well against for example battlecruisers and destroyers. If you don´t have a lot of destroyers it also works well against rips assuming light fighters are placed in ACS slot 2 with a bunch of heavy ships in slot 1 to take out the shields. When attacking fleets, LFs should generally only be used if you´re taking heavy losses by just using the heavy ships or if you want the attack to go faster than bringing destroyers.
      Good against: BCs and destroyers as well as RLs, LLs and plasma
      Bad against: Cruisers, HLs and ICs

      Heavy fighter
      Disadvantages: Fairly expensive both to build and fly. Is very rarely the best choice to send against anything, on its own or in combination with other ships.
      Advantages: Fairly fast
      How and when to use them: LFs+HFs or just HFs on their own can work pretty well against certain kinds of defenses, generally when there´s a lot of HLs and/or ICs
      Good against: Does fairly well ship vs. ship against all ships except BCs and rips. Does very well against; RLs, LLs, HLs and ICs
      Bad against: BCs, gauss and plasma



      The heavier ships

      The cruiser is also a ship that inexperienced players build way too few of. It´s the only ship aside from ds that have rapid fire against LFs and is therefore extremely important to have against fodder heavy fleets, but also a huge help against certain types of defenses. Some players claims that the cruiser is the best raiding ship, however if there´s gauss or plasmas present, the cruiser as a lone raid ship is most often a way worse choice than many other fleet combos. And if there are no gauss or plasma the HF for instance is in fact the better choice. The amount of cruisers you should have at one point in the game could differ a lot depending on how much fodder your average opponent is using, but 1:1 ratio vs. BS is generally the absolute minimum in mid game and in late game it´s not uncommon that about 3:1 is optimal.

      Cruiser
      Disadvantages: Not very durable, often takes heavy losses without the protection of fodder
      Advantages: Extremely fast, Cheap
      How and when to use them: The cruiser is a ship that very rarely does very good on its own and pretty much need the protection of fodder to work well in battle. The cruiser is mainly used against heavy defenses and large fleets (relative to your own) with fodder
      Good against: LFs and RLs. Does pretty well against: LLs, HLs and ICs.
      Bad against: Battlecruiser, Battleship, Gauss and Plasma


      The battleship is sort of the basic ship of the fleet, it costs 3:1 (metal:crystal), it has relatively high attack strength and is fairly durable. It´s probably the most popular ship to build for newcomers and is very often overrepresented in the fleet partly because of the favorable cost ratio. Even though the battleship is an important part of the fleet it shouldn´t constitute a too big of a part of the fleet. Early game and to some extent also mid game it´s a reasonably good raiding ship, but it´s also common to use it mainly in combination with battlecruisers for fast attacks against smaller fleets. Since the battleship completely lacks rapid fire it´s often very ineffective on its own. It´s normally used in combination with other ships to either take down battlecruisers or destroyers but also as a type of fodder against certain fleet combos. In full-fleet attacks it´s well protected by the fodder and is a cheap way of dealing massive damage to the other fleets heavy ships.

      Battleship
      Disadvantages: No rapid fire
      Advantages: Very fast, cheap, fairly durable
      How and when to use them: Since the BS has a pretty high attack strength but no rapid fire whatsoever it generally works best in combination with other ships that have rapid fire, like the BC for instance. If you have a much larger fleet than your opponent the BS+BC combo works very well and is also very fast. The BS is also very good in combination with LFs against BCs and destroyers. It generally does very well against early game defenses (before plasmas)
      Good against: Bombers and gauss.
      Bad against: LFs, BCs and plasmas


      There are those who claim that the battlecruiser is expensive to build and that it´s extremely overrated, which is true to a certain extent. Sure it´s expensive to build, both in metal:crystal ratio and in deuterium, but on the other hand it uses virtually no deuterium to fly and it´s also one of the fastest ships in the game. Since inexperienced fleeters, as was mentioned earlier, often build way too little fodder, the BC is as opposed to the battleship many times a good ship to send off on its own on account of its rapid fire against multiple ships. However you need to be aware that the BC on its own does very poorly against fodder heavy fleets and destroyers as well as plasma.

      The ratio of the BC vs other ships is not really something that considerably affects if your fleet is balanced or not. It does have a significant RF against cruisers and BS´ but that will barely be noticable in fullfleet attacks against a fleet that has a "right" amount of fodder. However, late mid game and late game you will not be sending a lot of fullfleet attacks. You´d normally attack fleets that are much smaller than your own and that is when the BC is at its best.

      Battlecruiser
      Disadvantages: Expensive
      Advantages: Very fast, rapid fire against numerous ships, very low fuel consumption
      How and when to use them: As mentioned earlier, with a superior fleet to your opponent it´s good in combo with BS. If you´re attacking a fleet (other than rip-fleet) the BC should generally be part of any combination you send because of its rapid fire. If you have a far superior fleet, sending BCs on their own often yields the highest profit fleet vs. fleet
      Good against: SC, LC, HF, Cruiser, BS
      Bad against: LF, destroyer and plasmas


      Bombers and destroyers are in fact the only combat ships (aside from heavy fighter) that are not crucial to have in your fleet, it simply depends on what your priorities are. If semi-inactive miner/turtles are one of your favorite targets they´re usually a good idea to have, but if you´re mainly living off of other players´ fleets it may be a good idea to prioritize other ships. This is mostly due to the increased speed of your attack if you don´t have bombers or destroyers. One of the exceptions are if you´re attacking a rip-fleet, then having destroyers would lower your losses significantly because of the rips´ relatively low rapid fire against it. BS´+LFs in ACS slot 2 works pretty good too though. The heavier ships are placed in front of LFs for instance, to avoid the “bouncing-effect” (see “firing order”).

      There´s really no ratio to be recommended here either, other than that you normally shouldn´t be building a massive amount of destroyers or bombers until late game. This generally means one or two years into the game, depending on the universe.

      Destroyer
      Disadvantages: Expensive, slow, high fuel consumtpion
      Advantages: Very durable, high attack strength
      How and when to use them: Bomber + destroyer work well against pretty much any defense. Destroyers generally work well on their own too against a defense unless there is too much RLs for instance. If you don’t have enough destroyers when attacking a rip-fleet, adding LFs to the fleet works well.
      Good against: BCs, rips, gauss and plasmas
      Bad against: Any kind of fodder, both ships and defense (with the exception of LLs). Also bad against BS.

      Bomber
      Disadvantages: slow, high fuel consumption
      Advantages: Fairly durable, very good against defense on account of its rapid fire
      How and when to use them: As mentioned above, destroyer + bomber.
      Good against: All defense except plasma
      Bad against: All Combat ships except BC, also bad against plasma.


      Most players use rips solely for fleetsave. Because of its low speed you can go on a 7h+ harvest mission towards your own debris field, thus saving a huge amount of deuterium compared to fleetsaving against any other debris field in the system. Rips are also popular to raid turtles with in greater numbers. The problem with the rip as a raidship is that it´s very, very slow. This will lead to a lot of missed raids, but more importantly it gives other players a very long time to plan to get you on the way back from your target (see blind phalanx). Miners/turtles using rips in this way often have enough defense to make it unprofitable for pretty much any fleet to attack the rips on the planet, eliminating the risk of blind phalanx/phalanx. However the advantages of rips are that they´re extremely durable and will normally tear the defense down with no-loss even if the battle is a draw. They are also of course a very good defensive ship. You just have to weigh the pros and cons and decide whether it´s worth investing a large amount of resources on a rip-fleet.

      Deathstar
      Disadvantage: Extremely slow
      Advantages: Extremely durable, extremely high attack strength (will “one-shot” all defense and ships except rips), rapid fire against most defense and ships
      How and when to use them: Unlike other ships the rips almost exclusively works best on their own, the only exception is if you´re getting a lot of losses by attacking with rips alone. Rips are generally used to get a no-loss against a turtle that you can´t get profit on with regular ships and also as defense by turtles.
      Good against: Pretty much everything
      Bad against: Not really anything aside from other rips


      Civil ships

      How many large cargo ships you should have in the fleet solely depend on how much resources you normally keep around. Small cargos though are mainly used for raids and followups and should generally be at least 1.5:1 ratio vs. battleships. As mentioned in the beginning, small cargos are also a good fodder late game, assuming that your opponents have fairly balanced fleets. Small cargos role as fodder is to prevent the cruisers rapid fire against LFs. If you want to use small cargos as fodder you could effectively do so at a ratio as high as 3:4 vs. light fighter. It´s however more realistic to aim for 1:4 to 1:2. The amount of recyclers you should have depends a lot on how easily you could get recycling help when doing a solo hit, but recommended is to have at least 1:1 vs. battleship (generally a bit more).


      Conclusion


      Having a balanced fleet is always important to a fleeter, however a balanced fleet could mean a lot of things. What you should keep in mind while building your fleet is that your own fleet should be able to face every possible fleet combo, i.e. effectively prevent the other fleets rapid fire and at the same time do some damage to it. The recommendations in the guide are the general consensus of experienced fleeters but that doesn´t mean that everyone share these opinions as a "correct" fleet ratio is somewhat subjective. But what´s really important is that you understand how the different ships work together in attacks and how you get as much profit as possible from attacking your target.
    • Najics just summarized most of what I´ve said about LFs, I have nothing to add or object to

      Najics: HFs aren´t completely useless, they are often the best choice against a defense that contain almost exclusively RLs, LLs, HLs and ICs. However the problem is that those defenses aren´t really seen later in the game, even in midgame they´re pretty rare. So after those defenses are gone you´re left standing there with a bunch of ships that you have no use for. Sure, you can use them, but they´re never going to be the best choice to send if it´s profit you´re after. HFs aren´t really useless against fleets either, it´s just that LFs are a lot better for the same amount of res.

      2nd point: I like your tiers, seems like a reasonable way of dividing the different time periods in ogame and we should probably try to add them to the guide.

      3rd point: It´s been a year or two since I last calculated with probes as fodder but I know it works, I just don´t remember against what kind of def. I would think that it works best against defs that doesn´t have a lot of RLs and LLs though. Anyway, the reason I didn´t put that in the guide is because most players already have a metal surplus and don´t really feel like spending 50M cry on probes, also the loss you take from the probes is in pure cry too. I´ve never actually seen anyone used this in battle, but in theory it works, it´s just very expensive :S

      I´m not sure what your 4th point is, but I guess I agree :whistling:
    • Technically, the crystal loss from a probe is the same as the crystal loss from a lf, plus you don't lose any metal. And yes, they probably won't work against fodder heavy defense, but in theory they should work against low-foddered plasmas even better than lfs.. Again, it was just something i heard, and i'm not sure if it really works.. On tuesday when i have more time i'll try to do some sims and see what that gives me.

      My 4th point meant that we can't expect everyone to have the same fleet composition as the one we think it's the best, so the fact that you "see a lot of such fleet at this or that time in the game" doesn't mean that they are the perfect and most cost effective combination you will find.
    • Well I see You all had an interesting weekend :P

      First of all marshen your combat example …

      If u take any ship for price of these battlecruisers it would crush this defender. It’s like attacking 2000 battleships with 200 deathstars – it doesn’t mean anything.
      Look at the price of both fleets, and then make a battle. Take a calc:

      battlecruiser – 30k metal, 40k crystal and 15k deuterium – in metal (2 : 1,5 : 1) it gives:

      30+53,33+30=113,33k metal

      LF – 3k metal, 1k crystal – in metal (2 : 1,5 :1) it gives:

      3+1,33=4,33k metal

      So 1 battlecruiser in price is like 113,33 : 4,33 = over 26 LF

      Now take 20000 battlecruisers vs 520 000 LF.
      And oh shit – where are my BC’s.

      I don't say You should build only LF but it shows some relations. Like - it is very likely you won't ever make a battle with 0 losses in LF, with battlecruisers it is very likely You do. But LF will save your fleet from losses in deuterium when attacking defense or more balanced fleets.

      Najics – I like your tiers too because it’s simple to imagine some kind of fleet for some situations since u have a fleet listed.

      Attacking with probes – it was very popular in times when probes had some capacity and it was called a “speed raiding”. These times are gone, people have probes to make a top 1 in a fleet even without other ships and usually don’t use it for attacking. Very rarely probes are used as a fodder, against defense – losses in crystal would be huge. It’s more like a fun build.

      And now my personal fleet ratio:

      First of all please consider that some proportions change with time so it’s highly possible that our fleet will evaluate in something different.
      Proportion is not a permanent thing – it can’t be because we find our fleets useless. And what we build depends on our enemies and targets.
      My fleet proportion is somehow bound with my universe and I tried to adapt it to new threats and conditions. That’s why I didn’t have destroyers at the beginning or I didn’t use so many cruisers. It’s just how I see this now.

      And that’s why my small description or guide is divided into two sections.

      Section 1 : LF – Cruiser – Battleship – Destroyer – Recycler 9 – 3 – 1 – 1 – 2

      You should build fleet in these proportions until You have sth like that:

      Light fighter - 135 000 (9)
      Cruiser - 45 000 (3)
      Battleship - 15 000 (1)
      Destroyer - 15 000 (1)
      Bomber - 5 000 (no more)
      Battlecruiser - 5 000 (no more)
      Deathstar - 30 (depends)
      Recycler - 30 000 (2)

      Large Cargo - 20 000 (including those on other moons) - depends on targets
      Small Cargo - depends on targets

      Yes it's big but it's about reaching some point when You can switch between section 1 and 2 of this guide. And this a fleet which You should have before changing your proportions.

      I know that some people won’t be satisfied with this kind of fleet but I made it for a reason. It’s great for:

      - crushing turtles – destroyers are great for this purpose supported by bombers but bomber not as a primary weapon.
      LF reduces losses in deuterium and fights well too.
      Cruisers make havoc between rocket launchers and are good even without LF for some medium bunkers.
      And You won’t have to wait ten hours for your deathstars …

      Truly I hate defense and there are always people who build fleet and keep it behind thousands of plasma and don’t even log because they think they are safe. I just don’t like it – fleet is for flying, not for standing behind defense for years.

      - destroying battlecruisers – because most of people have many battlecruisers which are fast, reliable and use less deuterium than other ships. So if all people have it, build a counter fleet which would stop them.
      Destroyers – a great weapon against BC, uses more deuterium and slower but a great and powerful ship.

      15000 destroyers kill 39000 battlecruisers with a profit.

      LF – destroys every fleet made of BC and sweet no losses in deuterium, what can be better.
      BS – still a very good ship when behind LF, old type fleets made from LF+BS are effective even today. And LF + BS is better than LF + BC.
      Cruiser - no it’s not a joke. Fleet made from LF and cruisers destroys fleet of battlecruisers easily.

      If there are fleets build in the same way build something different - there are good ships and better ships, good players and better players.

      - destroying deathstars – deathstar is a very powerful ship, can survive battle with no losses and make huge amount of damage vs everything. In late game You will have to face many miners and other players using it – mainly for crushing turtles.
      Against deathstars, battlecruisers make big losses, so do battleships. But I prefer using battleships with destroyers against bigger DS fleets.
      Destroyers – main weapon against deathstars, better in price and faster. Make destroying DS profitable.
      Battleships – for this purpose BS it’s not better than destroyer but as a support it’s still great and reduces losses in deuterium.

      It’s annoying to have a big fleet and watch returning deathstars and all You can do is waving goodbye.

      These are main reasons for having fleet like that. It’s also good vs balanced fleets.

      Destroyers can bring down whole fleet made from different types of ships including deathstars. If You face a bigger fleet and want to spare some time You send LF, cruisers and BS and your small BC fleet.
      If You have more time – for example fleet returning after destroying moon You can send destroyers as well.

      Why only 5000 BC – well I’m not a fan of this ship, which in my opinion made BS a second-class ship. People have too many battlecruisers and not enough fodder or other ships and that’s why my proportion looks like that. To show
      them they are wrong and to feel this pain ;)

      Of course BC is good for some purposes like raiding and so 5000 plus small cargoes is enough to reach that goal.

      And why 5000 bombers – because if You go for some big defense destroyer is a better ship, after reaching 5000 bombers it’s more profitable to invest in destroyers. After many testing hours on different targets I can say it’s true.
      Of course You will need bomber as a support ship for destroyers but in most cases no more than this.
      Bomber is good vs early defense and somehow vs BC but not used for it. Destroyer is more flexible in use.

      Why 15 000 destroyers - for destroying over 250 deathstars, most defenses, 39 000 battlecruisers and even whole fleets.

      As You see I have my own proportion which looks like:

      LF – Cruiser – Battleship – Destroyer – Recycler 9 – 3 – 1 – 1 – 2

      It means that every cruiser is supported by 3 LF’s and this is our main weapon vs many balanced fleets because You won’t find anything better.

      Amount of large and small cargoes is more universe dependable.
      But if You have 9 moons I think You need 1000 large cargoes on every moon (20-25kk deuterium) and 12000 in main fleet – for storing your goods or for attacking because small cargoes make bigger losses when You send it with destroyers.
      Later on You can build how many You want and You need.

      Recycler is a “must have” in every fleet. Many players - including me … have not enough recyclers and suffer every time they have to seek for someone who is online or wake your friend who can help You to clean yourgod damn debris field.

      So don’t be stupid and have enough recyclers to clean it all alone.

      Now the second part of my guide – so what’s next?

      Good. We have a quite balanced fleet which can face many difficulties and kill all turtles in our neighbourhood as well as people trying to kill them without our permission.

      Should we use this proportion to build bigger fleet like that? Nope.

      Now it just depends what will happen next. The best fleet in my opinion is made of LF + cruisers in proportion 3:1.

      There are not many fleets which can do anything against it. Of course if You build more cruisers and less LF it might work but we don’t have pure cruisers and LF but some other ships as well.
      This kind of fleet won’t be useful when attacking deathstars but that’s why You have your destroyers and optional battleships.

      So when You have a fleet from section 1 I would suggest to leave destroyers, bombers, battleships and battlecruisers and build LF and cruisers only.
      Of course recyclers and cargoes too.

      It’s a really great and fast fleet which will destroy everything on its path and it’s not so expensive because of 3 : 1 proportion for this fleet and a bit of deuterium for cruisers.

      Of course if You want to get someone who has many many deathstars and want to do it alone You can invest further in destroyers or battleships - You can do anything You want. It's just my advice for someone like You searching for some way to go.

      I’m sure I didn’t describe every aspect of this fleet so if You have questions just ask. It's a version 0,000...1. I've just written it so feel free to ask ;)

      I don’t say it’s better or worse than any other type of fleet – it’s just different but has many advantages which I hope You see.
    • I agree with most of what you say Horizon and my own fleet doesn´t look that different from yours, aside from the fact that I practically switched the destroyers for LFs. And the reason for that is exactly the same as yours, they´re great against defenses and BCs (and destroyers as well ;)) When attacking rips I just use BS + destroyers + LF instead of a lot of destroyers, yes in that instance more destroyers is better but that´s pretty much the only situation that it is.

      My fleet has been molded for my own uni so this wouldn´t exactly be the ratio I´d always use

      Small cargo: 30.000
      Large cargo: 6.000(?)
      Light fighter: 300.000
      Heavy fighter: 35.000
      Cruiser: 30.000
      Battleship: 12.000
      Bomber: 2.500
      Destroyer: 3.000
      Deathstar: 200
      Battlecruiser: 15.000

      I don´t really use the bombers and destroyers anymore since I cut through most turtles with LFs instead or rips if they´re semi-inactive. Normally I´d have more cruisers and more SCs to protect the LFs, but in my uni it doesn´t really help me atm. And the HFs I would switch with pretty much anything if I could, built them before I did some serious calculating with them :sleeping:
    • I have finally gotten my finger out of my *** and written the tiers that was requested. Keep in mind that they´re not going to be the entire guide but more of an addition to the exixting one. I´m going to make some changes to the original but I´d like to hear what you have to say about this text first, if you feel that something is missing, please let me know.


      Early game (0-3 weeks)

      The very first days of a uni the only kind of fleet you will be building are SCs and maybe a couple of LFs to get through those 2 RLs that most people have early on. As the game progresses the fleet builds vary a lot between different players and unis and it´s very hard to say what kind of fleet should be built because it depends very much on the opposition. Generally though, SCs, LCs (because they are faster than SCs before impulse lvl 5) and maybe a couple of cruisers will be all you need the first couple of weeks. Since mines have such a fast pay-back time early on, you shouldn´t have a large percentage of your points in fleet.


      Early game (3 weeks - ~ 4 months)

      When you see a lot of gauss popping up on your farms it´s time to build some BSs, they will normally be your main raiding ship until people start building a bunch of plasmas. When you reach a couple of hundred BSs, LFs start to be profitable to build, still mainly not for defenses but for fleet crashes. This might also be the time to start building some BCs if you´re hunting fleets a lot. Since most players around this time have mainly BSs and cruisers, BCs are extremely effective. However if you´re mainly raiding up until now it´s probably a good idea to put the LFs and BCs on hold and keep building BSs for the time being. After a couple of months plasmas are starting to show up on your farms and when a lot of them start to become non-profitable you will need destroyers with or without bombers to get through with profit. However the bombers are extremely slow until you get hyper engine lvl 8, so in my opinion bombers shouldn´t really be used until they have the same speed as the destroyers. But either way, you should normally hang on to the BS as main raid ship as long as you can because you´re going to need a bunch of destroyers to match them against defenses. Destroyers are of course not only used against defenses but because they are so slow, especially in the beginning, doing p&s against fleets is not going to be easy. So what I normally do is to build LFs instead, because they are way faster and works well against the same kind of ships (and mostly defense too). Some people like to build HFs as well because they work well against all kinds of defenses except those who contain gauss and plasma, however from mid game and on I don´t see any use for them (which will be explained later on) so building them early game may not be a good idea.

      Mid game (4 months - 1 year)

      This is about the point in time when your fleet ratio really start to matter a lot, there are many different builds and a lot of them are "right", it all depends on what you´re using the fleet for and how your opposition looks. If you haven´t built any sizeable fodder fleet up until now, it´s about time to do so. How much fodder you should have also depends on how the rest of your fleet looks, but to effectively act as fodder I´d say that you need at least 5 times more LFs than BSs and as the game goes on that ratio should generally increase to about 10:1. The fleets that are seen now are probably going to consist mainly of BS, BC, Cruiser and LF. A lot of players however underestimates the need of cruisers and LFs and that is exactly why you shouldn´t. How many cruisers you should have depends a lot on how much fodder your average opponent has, but I would say at least 1:1 ratio vs. BSs. This ratio should generally increase also as time passes so that when 1 year have passed the ratio should probably be closer to 2 or 3:1. This is not in any way a general rule that applies in every uni, you should calculate what will give you the best results against your average opponent and build accordingly. In mid game even if you´re in the top 10 you will often face fleets that are pretty close to the size of your own and if those fleets have too little fodder or not enough cruisers, your fodder will rip them apart (explained in “the importance of fodder”). However even if your opponent has a fairly balanced fleet, the best weapon against it is also a balanced fleet.

      In this point in time the defenses start to contain a lot of plasmas so the BS start to lose its effectiveness against defenses and the cure for this is destroyers + bombers. Although neither of them is crucial to a balanced fleet, they can really help out a lot. The bomber of course is only used for defenses but the destroyer is a pretty well rounded ship (however slow), that can be very effective against fleets as well as defenses. There are really no recommended ratios for these ships, although in midgame you should probably not have more than 0.5:1 destroyer vs. BS and the bomber usually a bit lower than that, if you decide to build them that is. In the later stages of mid game however, the LF start to be very profitable as a raiding ship, assuming that you have a bunch of them.

      Late game (1 year+)
      After about a year the uni start dying and the activity in general has dropped significantly. This means that you have to adapt to the fewer targets that are available, you can´t expect to do 3-4 raiding rounds every day at this point, at least not with a nice profit every round. This decrease in players generally forces fleeters to go after for example turtles to a much greater extent than before, because the easy res is just not there anymore. When going after turtles late game the fleet of choice is normally destroyers (with or without bombers) or large LF fleets. Personally I prefer LFs for a lot of reasons (which are explained below) but destroyers is not a bad choice either. Which of these two combinations you have available to you has a lot to do with how your fleet is used the rest of the time, if you prefer speed attacks you will probably have a lot of LFs for instance. In late game large rip-fleets also start to appear and the destroyer is by far the best choice against them, even though you do make a profit without them. If you prefer to use destroyers over LFs that doesn´t mean that you should have no fodder though, it just means that your fodder ratio will be slightly lower. The same doesn´t really go for destroyers although having no destroyers at all late game is not recommended. Against fleets with no rips, you can do without destroyers, but against rips you generally want at least some destroyers to weaken the shields.

      In late game if you´ve been around since the beginning of the uni you are going to be a lot bigger than many of your opponents and that means to crash their fleets you would normally have to send only a fraction of your fleet, this is where the BCs come into play. When you are far superior to your opponent sending only BCs often works out to be the most profitable choice. This doesn´t mean that you should only build BCs late game (or any other ship for that matter), it´s just something to keep in mind. I usually have BCs at about a 1:1 ratio vs. BSs from midgame and on but it has a lot to do with personal preference. The most important thing is that you understand how different ships work alone and together and build a fleet that suits you.
    • About the early game:
      HFs tend to be the most effective of the three ships available for building here (lf/hf/cr). Cruisers are good as well, but when you get impulse 5, the hf start to become the more profitable choice. A lf heavy fleet early on (that is, 20 lfs or more) is wasted ress because cruisers come out really fast, and your lfs suck against them. Cruisers, while costing a lot in deut (if you are fleeting, very important early game, mostly because of the comp. tech costs), are the obvious choice for raiding along with large cargoes. They are strong, pack a heavy punch and have rf against rl and lf, both of which are often enough encountered while raiding early on. HF are cheaper on the deut part, more costly at the crystal part though (assuming we use 3hf=1cr), don't have any rapid fire, but they are a good fodder for your SC once you get impulse 5 and start using them in raids. In addition to this, when the bs/cr fleets start showing up early/midgame, you have a decent fodder that can't be cut through (BC fleets usually come later on).
      As far as the early game goes, crashing wont give out a big percentage of your profit, since fleets are very small, and you still need to tech up to recyclers (some people choose to leave them out until they get bs even), so most of your focus is on raiding. That's why, the goals early game are impulse 5, a comp. tech as high as you can get, and a small combat fleet to crack through those mini turtles (50rl types). The only thing to keep in mind in this stage is NOT TO BUILD TOO MUCH LFS, if any at all, and i can't stress this enough. The first crashes that bring profit usually consist of higher ranked people wiping out the lf fleets of weaker players. A few at the start to break through initial defences are ok, but after that (once you get hf) they are useless (until mid-game that is). My personal choice is to skip lf alltogether and head straight for HFs, and not build cr until i have at least 50-100 HF with 50ish SC (and imp. 5 of course). Other tactics are to skip the hf (or build as little of them as possible) and head straight for cruisers earlier. This gives advantage over the rl-defended planets, and, while flown with LC, much better results on raids. However, a mass hf+sc fleet is waay more profitable than a cr+lc one. I've tried them both, and the HF one gives you the speed advantage that will allow you to make another extra wave or two of raids a day. (and no, i'm not just saying this because i am a HF lover :) )

      That is about the early early game. I have a lot more to say about the rest, mostly the timing differentiations in the tiers.

      about early game (2nd)
      plasmas won't show up that fast. at least not enough plasmas on enough players to make farming with bs alone unprofitable.
      destroyers in this time period is plain silly, you'd never be able to build a significant amount of them, and the deut cost for both building them and flying them would slow you down a LOT.

      about the midgame
      bs are still the most effective ship in raiding in the time period you specified. a destroyer-bomber combo is too slow and costs a lot of fuel to fly, and a mass-lf strike is rarely profitable because player don't keep that many ress behind their defences yet.


      about the late game
      unis don't die out at 1 year.. it takes about 2-3 until you can say that a uni is dying. This can ofc vary between communities, specific universes etc. , but i still think 1 year is waay to early.
    • Najics: About the early game, that is pretty much exactly what I wrote, in less detail though. "A couple of LFs" means just that, about 4-5 to get through the 2 RLs that pretty much everyone builds at the start of the uni. I agree, LFs is not good early game, and I said so in the text. I`m not sure what else to say about it, we have the exact same point of view on this.

      You´re probably right about the plasmas before 4 months into the game and maybe it should be moved to the next tier. I didn´t say to build destroyers though, I said not to, for the exact same reason you had.

      I´m not sure I agree with you on the mid game though, after almost a year there should be several hundred people over 1M points (on .org unis at least), or am I wrong? Anyway, miners that have several hundred thousand points usually will have a bunch of plasmas, maybe not always to make it completely unprofitable to attack with BS, but at least to make it a lot more profitable with destroyers.

      I don´t know what you consider a dying uni, when I say dying uni I mean a uni that has under 1500 players, maybe I´m wrong but I think most unis would be around that after a year
    • good pasting

      only a few minor bads
      - "in my opinion" i found such a phrase there. i would change this to "it may" or something like this
      - cruisers: ive seen many player skipping the research of this ship type because of expeditions. they startet with expeditions and with the massive amount of resources the got there the researched from HF to BS and in the meantime most got 1-3 destroyers from expeditions. but this strategy might only work with a bit of luck (was this what najics said?)
      - late game: ogame is eight years old? i would guess that there are nearly 100 universes older than 3 years. i dont really see late game starting after one year
    • Well I agree with Azgaroth and Najics about late game stage because universes older than 3 years evolved in a different way and in different conditions. There was still huge popularity of the game.

      3 years old universe was still full of life and one good player who left had a huge impact on the game.
      Now 3 years old new universe would be like a desert because after less than 2 years we have amount of players which was seen on old universes after 4 years.

      3 or 4 years ago there was no need to merge universes, population decreased but not so quickly like today and the number of players was bigger for a longer time. First universes started full or with 10-12 thousand players. After a year or two there was still above 6-8 thousand players. Now even with a huge interest we have 8 thousand players and after a year maybe - 2-3 thousand, decreasing very quickly to a level of 1500 after 2 years.

      What I mean to say is that late game on those old universes really started after 2-3 years but now late game is sth different and really starts after one year.
      There is no time for sth what we called a mid game. That's why everything goes faster so late game does too. The number of users has an impact on progress of the game, players and decisions which have to be made faster than on old universes.
      For example in older universes after two years deathstars and destroyers were rarely seen. Now it's a common thing after a year.

      So if we want ot write a guide we have to be consequent in how it looks today.
      And it's quite possible that after merging we would have to write this guide again.
    • As horizon says, unis die out a lot faster nowadays, how old the oldest unis are doesn´t really matter. What matters in the guide is different strategys during different time periods and after about a year the game mechanics aren´t really going to change that much
    • Maybe we should the tiering from time periods to universe activity.. I really have no idea how to do this without the tutorial sounding extremely vague, so i'm very open to suggestions. My general idea is something like this:

      When you start noticing (ammount of farms/ammount of easy profit planets/etc) decline, start focusing your fleet more on (this or that kind of ship)... Not the perfect solution i'm sure, but it's all i've got so far.. Only applicable for mid-late game though, the early game is still the same, new unis get a lot of players and activity all the time, the big difference begins to show somewhere in the midgame.
    • I don´t think it really matters if mid game starts 2 months later or goes on 6 months longer than what it says in the tiers, as long as you get the general idea of how to adapt to the rest of your uni during different stages
    • I didn't read everything above, just the initial post and first few comments, so I may be repeating some things.... or not.....

      In my uni, there isn't a single fleeter with a lot of cruisers (as far as I know, I have the most with 45k). This means that having a very LF heavy fleet makes it extremely difficult to profit from it. There are several fleets around that have 100K+ LF (I have 350K). One fleet in particular that was just perm banned (the guy had 9 accounts!!) had 500K LF and even though it only had about 30% of the number of heavies of the big accounts, it wasn't profitable unless it was hit in two waves (this is a non ACS uni). Wave 1 takes massive losses but takes out the fodder, wave 2, massive profits and then split the profits after paying out the losses (which may or may not run into pushing issues if not done such that the higher ranked person recycles most of the DF). Anyway...... LF as fodder is very powerful, both as an attacker and a defender.

      Cruisers are a must in a uni that's heavy with LF for the reasons above.

      BCs were great when the uni was younger, but I find they virtually worthless now. The only time I pull them out is if someone accidentally leaves a fleet on a moon with little defense.

      Bombers.... in an older uni you need them for turtles, but with the size of the turtles, you simply need too many. That's the only thing I find them useful for, so I'd rather put the resources into other ships. I keep 1000 of them and that's it.

      BS. Hate them. They IMO are absolutely worthless other than for moonshots. They are way too easy to take out with BCs and too expensive for fodder.

      Dessies. King of the older uni. Good for everything. They are fuel pigs, and deut is hard to come by in an old, dead uni, but if you hoard your fuel and are careful about your attacks, dessies rule the roost. The majority of my attacks are MASSIVE amounts of dessies, and if there are defenses, throw in the 1000 bombers and an appropriate amount of LF fodder. Granted I don't fly far with them, I try to limit my attacks to consuming no more than 10kk deut unless I'm really sure.

      Then of course recyclers. Need lots of those. I have 30,000 and don't have enough, but that's where the alliance comes in. Use their recyclers to your advantage rather than waste resources on building 100,000 of the things.
    • I agree about the LFs and cruisers and it´s already written in the guide so not much more to say about that.

      BCs generally aren´t worthless in older unis, but in non-ACS unis the game mechanics are slightly different, people tend to build a bit more defense than in ACS unis and that´s not exactly favourable for BCs.

      About the BS. That they are easily taken out by BCs is not really interesting in deciding whether they should be used or not since noone in their right mind send only BS in fleet crashes (aside from early game) In a fullfleet attack for instance, the BSs are protected from the BCs RF by your LFs and is generally better to have than for example more BCs. In fact BSs is one of the more important ships to have in a fullfleet attack since they deal alot of damage to the heavier ships and are capable of "one-shot"-ing the cruisers

      I don´t agree at all that destroyers are "good for everything" in older unis (or younger for that matter). Against most defenses (defenses that doesn´t have a lot of HLs or ICs relative to the def) the LF does just as good as the destroyer, often times better. Against fleets you need a far superior fleet to send only destroyers (since they lack RF against most ships), and in that case you could just as easily send BCs for instance, at a much lower cost and a lot faster attack speed. Against fleets protected by def the destroyers does well provided that you are far superior to your opponent, with emphasis on far superior. As soon as you have to send along other ships to get a higher profit, the destroyers could very easily be replaced with BSs for instance, since the point of the destroyers (to get very low losses) has been lost once you send other ships as well.

      As I´ve said before, how you build your fleet has a lot to do with personal preference (and the uni you´re playing in) and I´m not saying that your fleet-build is wrong and mine is right. I´m just giving a different perspective of things.

      P.S. I saw that you wrote that you haven´t read all the comments. I have written an addition to the guide that is in a post on page 2 so I´d like you to read that as well before commenting on missing parts. If you find any that is
    • *pokes*
      edit the first post as well (changelog)

      still not happy with the early game, but i'm maybe getting stuck too much on that, a better definition should be included in the early game guide

      hmm

      *checks for an early game guide in the tutorial list*
    • I have made some minor changes to the "tiers", "the importance of fodder" as well as adding "ship info" that was requested by someone. So please everyone have a look at it before I add anything more, I will also make som changes to "the heavier ships" section, but I probably won´t have time to do that today.

      Also I added some color to make Safira happy ;)
    • so as the guide is finished now its time to fix spelling mistakes... and yes najics there are no discussions left

      ok after i reread the thread i found a couple things that a luser wouldn't understand

      and we should also discuss about the "I"s in this text. nearly all parts (i havent found a part where this may not suit) of your text where you say "I prefer" and "I think" are parts that are generally true. so it might be a better idea to say "most players" or something similar.

      i dont agree on your summary... i think you can of course summarize the article without telling everyone that they may not agree with you. you use only 2 sentences to summarize the article but 3 or 4 more to say that its only your personal opinion... but the article is the opinion of us here and nobody complained about it so therefor i would say its the COMMON opinion... never the less its important to say "it depends on your universe and your playing style" which is enough.


      take the following not as personal criticism! its just to improve the article (mostly spelling mistakes)

      - ',' << there are a lot of commas in this text but english normally doesn't use any of them. maybe a native english speaker should reread this text.
      - '-' << is it common to use the dash to seperate words which are used together? i remember some discussions on this topic (maybe i mix it)
      - use more linebreaks... this will make the text better readable
      - would it be useful to drop 1 sentence about espionage tech? and when to research it?
      - I.e. << what does that mean? in example? this is abbrevated as e.g. in common (site note: wikipedia says that i.e. is id est which means "that is")
      - uni << should be 'universe'. abbrevations in the articles aren't good if the're not explained in it (but ok if this would be linked to an article 'Universe')
      - fleet abbrevations: since they are used a lot this should be explained before the article due to comfort reasons. (we know what it means but think about users who dont know the abbrevations and read a text where each sentence has 3 unknown abbrevations.)
      - res << resources (found this many times)
      - p&s << is this explained anywhere?
      - 'when 1 year have passed' << when one year has passed
      - “the importance of fodder” << written differently on different places (upper/lowercaser)
      - '...BS and the bomber usually a bit lower than that, if you decide to build them that is' << second part of this sentence is wrong
      - vs << does this abbr. need a . after it?
      - 'In this point in time' << 'At this point'
      - 'About the same point in time as the destroyer start to become profitable as raidship, so does the LF, assuming that you have a bunch of them' << 'Also it is now the time when destroyer become profitable as a ?raiding? ship and even LF if you have a lot of them.'
      - 'After about a year the uni start dying slowly and the activity in general has dropped significantly.' << 'After about a year the universe starts dying slowly...'
      - '3-4 raiding rounds every day' << 'three to four raiding rounds ?a? day'
      - 'This decrease in players generally forces fleeters to go after for example turtles to a much greater extent than before, because the easy res is just not there anymore' << 'The decrease in players will generally force fleeters to go after turtles to a much greater extent than before because you won't easily find resources anymore.'
      - 'Personally I prefer LFs for a lot of reasons (which are explained below) but destroyers is not a bad choice either.' << 1. destroyers ARE not a bad choice. 2. i still dislike the first person statement in this kind of articles
      - 'Which of these two combinations you have available to you has a lot to do with how your fleet is used the rest of the time, if you prefer speed attacks you will probably have a lot of LFs for instance.' << one line break before and after this sentence...
      - 'even though you do make a profit without them' << 'even though you may get a profit without them'
      - 'The same doesn´t really go for destroyers although having no destroyers at all late game is not recommended.' << ... all !in/on? the! late game
      - 'In late game if you´ve been around since the beginning of the uni you are going to be a lot bigger than many of your opponents and that means to crash their fleets you would normally have to send only a fraction of your fleet, this is where the BCs come into play. ' << 'In the late game if you've been around since the beginning of the universe you are going to be superior than most of your opponents and that means that you will often crash them with only a part of your fleet and this is the time where battlecruisers come into play.'
      - 'I usually have BCs at about a 1:1 ratio vs. BSs from midgame and on but it has a lot to do with personal preference.' << 'Most players have about a 1:1 ratio between BS' and BCs left from the midgame but this is a point where you can
      - 'that; the more powerful ships' << what does this ; do there?
      - 'Fairly expensive both to build and fly. Is very rarely the best choice to send against anything, on its own or in combination with other ships.' << after you farmed a player to death (which means gauss/plasma are destroyed) HF are the best choice because they destroy shields and use less deut than lf :P najics wrote something similar to this.
      - Cruisers << you may want to skip cruisers until you have a few bs via expeditions (spend the resources for somethin else in early game... agree on late game... you need a lot to break fodder)
      - bc << nice part... *thumps up*
      - 'but if you´re mainly living off of other players fleets' << -off
      - 'front of for instance light fighters to avoid the “bouncing-effect”, see “firing order” ' << -of and a missing . at the end
      - 'a massive amount of destroyers or bombers until late game, 1 or 2 years into the game depending on the uni. ' << i would end the sentence at the , and write "This will be a good strategy after one or two years but it depends on your universe.'
      - deu >> deuterium (btw i havent seen deu as a abbrevation for deuterium... only deut)
      - 'Rips are also popular to raid turtles with in greater numbers, even though mostly miners use them in that way' <<'Deathstars in greater numbers are also popular to raid turtles' using only RIPs is boring. maybe sometimes we want to say deahstars :P and i dont see miners use rips... and even if some do so there are more fleeters that have rips
      - 'Miners using rips in this way often have enough defense to make it unprofitable for pretty much any fleet to attack the rips on the planet, eliminating the risk of blind phalanx.' << miners with rips and DEFENSE arent miners anymore! they are something between fleeter, turtle and miner. change this part in "players using..."
      - 'no-loss' << 'no loss'
      - 'even if the battle is a draw, they' end the sentence and start a new one... small sentences make a text better readable
      - 'As I said in the beginning' << 'As said in the beginning of this guide/article'
      - 'late game' << 'in late game'?