Birth of the Federation

Got bored and decided to play a new game of BotF with Cardassians. I only put it on Average difficulty since I find that Cardassians suck (normally I win easily on Hard with any other race.) Of course I can't get the corner (I never get the corner with Cardassians) but oh well. I sent a lone Transport ship early to take the Bandi, since I figure Cardassians are supposed to conquer. I can't be too fast with anything (since Cardassians are terminally broke) but I tried to manage as best I could.

Who do I meet first? Klingons. Of course. Then Romulans. At least the Romulans signed a treaty, Klingons wouldn't sign anything. They made a demand, first one I accepted reluctantly - had to scrap my only scout ship to pay for it (and endure a 1-turn credit deficit also) but it was worth it. Later, another demand, this time for 1580. I'm Cardassian - I'm freaking BROKE. I was getting close to making a fleet, so I figured I had time to refuse. MISTAKE! Maybe 10 turns later:



15 Klingon ships. I have ZERO fleet. I don't even have an outpost yet, I was just in the process of churning out transports and destroyers when the Klingons show up with 15 ships. How the hell can they make 15 warships on Average in 88 turns? Whatever.

So, I really don't care about Arcturus - it has 225 max pop but I just colonized it. Dulisian - same deal but smaller (140.) I can probably build an outpost on Deneb, since I'll have 2 transport ships there in 1 turn, but that might not even take out one ship from their fleet. Only Cardassia really has any production, I can churn out destroyers every 5 turns, or transports every 4 turns. Yeah, it's not looking too good. I might lose, on AVERAGE difficulty.

Man I hate Cardassians. (In this game.)

hmmm...

Well, bad luck you meeting the klingons so early in the game...as for your present perdicament, i'd engage their fleet and take out/ran their tt's so they can't invade your siytem to buy yourself some time, failing that and you are going to lose your system, go into the system screen the turn before and scrap EVERYTHING. They'll have conquered your colony but they'll have the headache of having to buy farms and industry to get it back and running again before dealing with morale

As for building quickly. they've either cheated (likely) researched several levels of construction already (posible but then they'd have to buy the upgrades to continue ship buliding) or they've fought a couple of small wars and got their morale sky high (very likely as they're klingons and morale affects industry output)

You can win as the cardies, but you need luck on your side.
A couple of favorable minors that you can make members rather than subjugate (higher morale and if you leave them to expand a bit before becomming members and they can use their higher insustry level to bulid your fleet for you. AND if they've got a good opinion of you already you don't need to spend too much money/ship scrapping to make them members)

The other Empires staying out of your way for 100 turns or so (I've often been lucky with this with an irregular galaxy) With then leaving you alone you can put asll your energy into winning over the local minors rather than ship building. Remeber once you have a couple of powerful minors they'll soon bulid you a big fleet.

And if you're starting at tech 1, lob everything into construction research, get yourself up to level 3 before you research anything else. You'll then be able to build ships quickly and upgrade your other bulidings quicker as and when you get upgrades.

Yep it was a T1 game. Looking again at their fleet, I think it might actually be 6 scouts, 8 destroyers and a Transport. I can't be sure though, I can never remember the pictures. Cardies are so poor that it's hard to do anything. I should have just paid the Klingons though, even though I'd have been in debt forever. I could have scrapped my transports I guess, to pay for it. As for buying minors -- again, Cardies have no money. That seems too hard when I can barely afford to buy the essentials.

Anyway, I think I can pull this game out, I'll make an outpost on Deneb to buy time, then another on Cardassia with the remaining transport, and just build some destroyers and probably fight off the storm. Other option is scrapping the transports and going with all destroyers, I could be more offensive that way, but destroyers die easily. I'm just worried about my morale going in the toilet if they take 3 undefended systems.

As for going for Construction 3 right away... I guess that's an option. I don't think it would have made a world of difference though. I went for Construction 2, then all the other 2's, and Construction 3 as the first 3. The other 2's were pretty quick really, and I didn't even spend time upgrading to T3 production, just T2.

Pay the Klingons if you have no fleet. That's the real lesson.

Update: Tried a new game (old one is still waiting there though... heh). Same deal, Cardassians, Average, figured I'd modify my strategy. This time I was closer to the corner, thankfully. And of course -- Klingons AGAIN! They didn't even bother with demands this time! They just started building outposts straight into my space and sending in destroyers everywhere. When they finally made a demand, I was so !~@#$ed I just wanted them dead, refused and kept building my fleet. Luckily I had decided to hang out in the corner and build some outposts and destroyers of my own. I narrowly avoided invasion of a large system, Lemma (only one without an outpost), also was lucky that they were stupid and kept sending only 2 destroyers against my outpost I's. Still, they had some ships roaming behind my lines:



My destroyers next to Rubicun had just blown up their outpost there, finally cutting off their range. Earlier (right after I met the Klingons) I had decided to not try to expand into Corban and Tethys, but instead focus on my closer, better systems and making defenses. Definitely smart. Following that screenshot was the destruction of their outpost in Tethys, and then membership of the Edo.

I've never had these kinds of early game problems with aggression, and now I realize it's because Klingons are pitted against Cardassians in this game. Cardassians really have tons of disadvantages. If I think back to the dozens of games I have played, and the galaxy was dominated by me and 1 other empire, I can't think of one single time when the other empire was Cardassian. Federation often has the largest empire, often it's the Klingons, once in a while the Ferengi or Romulans. But I've NEVER seen Cardassians be the big force in the galaxy. I really can't think of a single time! They're usually the galaxy's whipping boys. And since Fed or Klingons dominate most often, Cardies have it even worse - those are their main enemies!

I contend that playing as Cardassians is equivalent to at least 1 higher level of difficulty.

TurboC wrote: I contend that playing as Cardassians is equivalent to at least 1 higher level of difficulty.

In Vanilla, I'd concurr, unless you get left alone for atleast the first 100 turns. After that though everyone else had better look out.

Also, the probable reason the Klingons are showing no reluctance picking on you is because you haven't built a fleet, and you therefore have a very low military strength score. Try building nine scouts in the first nine turns next game just as a deterant.

Badbru wrote:
Also, the probable reason the Klingons are showing no reluctance picking on you is because you haven't built a fleet, and you therefore have a very low military strength score.

Agreed. I've also been noticing recently a correlation between military strength and weather the other empires start intelling you or not.

Ok, Cardies will hit you regardless, but i've noticed recently the Klingons and even the Federation will try intelling you in peace time if you're really weak.

yeh defo agree with badbru, spend the first 20 turns focusing fully on getting a fleet, then sprawl invade as many minors as you can !

conquering many planets and tons of lil morale victories is the way to go with cardassian!

Well, 20 turns doesn't get much of a fleet starting with T1.

I know being weak makes you get attacked, but believe me, it's worse when the Klingons naturally hate you. As Fed or Romulan you can often get by longer with Klingons on your doorstep. Maybe because elsewhere they have some Cardassians to beat up.

in my mind, the cards are balanced worse - compared to all the other majors. it's hard to play them and really a challenge. In some 100 sp-games I saw them loose more than just often against other A.I. (not only through me )

But I noticed something absolutely unusal for 2 or 3 times! they were winning against other A.I! LOL - not really much for the overall ammount of games, I played.

in mp it's different. there you really have to fear 'em if you have an good opponent who knows how to play 'em right. therefor it's good to know their stats, like all the other ones from the other majors, too.

but in SP I have to agree, Cardassians really suck!

I agree also the Cardassians just plain suck! LOL

Cardassians are gods when you know how to use them...

They have a rough start in lower tech games but if you ram, and you have the right number of ships, you can take out a fleet twice your size!

trevtones wrote:Cardassians are gods when you know how to use them...

They have a rough start in lower tech games but if you ram, and you have the right number of ships, you can take out a fleet twice your size!

It hard to have the right number of ships early on if you are always broke lol

thats right

but they have the best production. So you can get tt's faster, scrap them and get some money through this
than they don't have big drawbacks. Maybe in the early game but later not. One thing I disklike are their low-speed-ships but as balance they got their freaking intel

the a.i. is usually to dumb to use it right, but a human player isn't to underestimate. Rather the opposite! Beware!

KrazeeXXL wrote: thats right

but they have the best production. So you can get tt's faster, scrap them and get some money through this
than they don't have big drawbacks. Maybe in the early game but later not. One thing I disklike are their low-speed-ships but as balance they got their freaking intel

the a.i. is usually to dumb to use it right, but a human player isn't to underestimate. Rather the opposite! Beware!

You make some good points Ill try using them that way next time i play and rethink my position on their suck factor lol

good luck have fun.

btw I guess the most important suck-factor is their menu style *rotflmao*

If you try to use the cardies as if they're the federation you're gonna get wasted!!!

You have to be sneaky and conniving with them. Dont waste money on minor races just subjugate them. Build all attack cruisers and ram their hulls down your enemies throat!!!

I've gone into battles against klingon battle cruisers a 2 to 1 underdog and won the battle by ramming.

I do agree though that they have the most challenging start in lower tech games. On the other hand they're probably one of the best teams on higher tech levels.