The Fascists are a race with smaller ships that include cloakers, but lots of advantages. They are capable of early strikes on neighbours using cloakers, and should be played very aggressively (especially after the ship limit is reached). While none of their advantages are economic, there are a few tricks that can give them a boost. They are capable of taking out any race in the game, and do not particularly fear any race. However, like all races, they do better with an ally.
Strengths:
- 15:1 ground attack, 5:1 ground defense
- Pillage planet special mission
- Planets cannot attack your ships
- Glory Device ships
- turning Amorphs into supplies
- damaging enemies
- protection vs. enemy cloakers
- 2X Fast beam recharge (if enabled in host settings)
- Cloaking ships (medium warships)
Weaknesses:
- No carrier worth mentioning
- No economic advantages (except self-Pillage and Amorph farming, below)
- No terraformer ship
Good Ships:
Little Pest: Build these and tow them for burning off fighters from carriers and starbases. Their cost is actually comparable to the 12 fighters they will destroy. A Pest withh Tech 1 everything = 68 MC, 14 Dur, 43 Tri, 45 Moly; and 12 fighters = 60 MC (supplies), 0 Dur, 36 Tri, 24 Moly. Yes, the Pest is more expensive, but if it saves you a Vicky, it’s more than worth it. Another use for towed Pests with X-rays is to enable a well-equipped warship to capture freighters (send the Pest first in combat order).
D7 Coldpain: the staple of your cloaking fleet. This ship is your scout, your ground assault, and generally the workhorse for most of your cloaker tactics. It has a great range, and enough cargo for Ground Assaults or minelaying. However, as warships go, it’s rather weak. I recommend arming it with X-rays and Mark4’s, then upgrading to Disruptors and Mark 4’s, and then finally Disruptors and Mark 7’s. Use other warships for mine-sweeping.
Ill-Wind Battlecruiser: this heavy ship is best used as a mine-sweeper and mine-layer, with its 10 beam slots, 260 cargo, and large fuel tank. If you put good beams and torps on this ship, do not use it for combat! Use Vicky’s instead
D3 Thorn: While this ship has more torp tubes than your other medium warships, it has a lot less mass. It makes a good static defender against other medium warships for its cost, and it cloaks. Unfortunately, it has low cargo space and a small fuel tank, so it’s generally less useful than a D7. When used as static defense, it is cheaper than a Deth Specula, with the same number of tubes.
Deth Specula: Because this cloaking ship has both beams and torp launchers, it is a great ship for early strikes against neighbouring players. You DO have to pair them with D7’s, for refueling, but they are great ships to kill early starbases. Other than that, they can be used as upgraded D3’s for static defense.
D19b Nefarious: your early Glory Device ship. Does 20% damage to your own ships. Replace with Saber when tech level allows.
Saber Class Frigate: a better Glory Device ship. Does 10% damage to your own ships. Not much more expensive than D19b, and worth the small premium.
Victorious Class Battleship (Vicky): this ship is actually the weakest Battleship in the game, but also one of the cheapest. Build these in numbers.
Self-Pillage
If you find a planet that you don’t particularly want to develop, either because the native race’s government is terrible or the planet is covered in Amorphous natives, you can drop 7 or 27 clans and pillage the planet for money and supplies.
Why 7 clans? If you are farming amorphs, they will eat 5 clans minimum per turn, and probably a few more (host dependent) if you made them angry, and you need to have enough left over so you can pillage.
Why 27 clans? Because Pillage will kill 20 clans of colonists, and 20% more. Amorphs will eat at least 5 clans, and with rounding, you will likely need a few more if you want to maintain possession of the planet.
Glory Devices
Glory Devices are built into the d19b Nefarious, and Saber Class ships. You can detonate their Glory Devices in two ways, both using friendly codes. The “pop” friendly code triggers the ship to explode at the end of its movement, whereas the “trg” (think “trigger”) causes the ship to explode if it is the same point in space as an enemy cloaking ship, either before or after movement. Each “hit” from a Glory Device is equivalent to a hit from a mine. Your own ships will take only 20% damage (using a d19b Nefarious) or 10% damage (Saber), and have a chance to repair this damage before combat if your ships are carrying supplies. Several of these ships can spell doom for your enemy, and severely hurt their planets when they explode. Because you are the one destroying the ship, you also gain the Priority Build Points for the loss of the ship!
If you are working with an ally, the ally should maintain control of the Glory Device ships, so that his ships won’t take the full mine-hit damage. Regardless of who owns the ships, you will only take the reduced damage.
In general, you want to carry supplies on your ships, so that you can use a glory device and immediately repair your ships for the upcoming combat. Keep in mind that your opponents may do the same, and when fighting larger ships, you will need more than 1 Glory Device to overcome any self-repair your opponents may do!
Here’s a good reference article on some of the little details involving the use of Glory Devices.
Fascists and Glory Device use (by MJS on planets.nu):
You have to use enough glory devices and/or mine hits to get down to 4 fighter bays to make a difference – 4 hits on a Virgo, 6 on all other carriers. It is the fighter bays that determine whether you take out 2 Vickies or 3 Vickies. Glory Device use against the Lizards (first 50% damage doesn’t count) and Feds (always maximum + 3 fighter bays) make it much harder to get the required decrease in fighter bay count.
When running sims, there seems to be an assumption that big carriers fly solo. Two (2) Gorbies or one(1) Gorbie + Star Base will kill 3 Vickies with the loss of a Gorbie. The Fascists lose 3 ship slots and gain 10 pbp’s. The Empire loses 1 ship slot and gains 15 pbp’s. Victory for the Empire.
1 Vickie & 1 Gorbie = 1 dead Vickie
2 Vickies & 1 Gorbie = 2 dead Vickies
3 Vickies & 2 Gorbies = 3 dead Vickies & 1 dead Gorbie
4 Vickies & 2 Gorbies = 4 dead Vickies & 1 dead Gorbie
5 Vickies & 2 Gorbies = 5 dead Vickies & 1 dead Gorbie
6 Vickies & 3 Gorbies = 6 dead Vickies & 2 dead Gorbies
All Fascist defeats.
The ONLY advantage of 2X beams is against medium carriers, i.e., star bases. However, this is a HUGE advantage when there are 300+ star bases after turn 100. Just ask the players in Capricorn. EMork [the current Emperor] better have a comfy throne because that game still has at least 2 years left…
A player who wins with 2X beams and SSG will have won w/o them 90% of the time as far as ship battles are concerned.
As the Fascist in ship battles you have to,”Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee,” and, “Get there the firstest with the mostest.”
Game Settings
“Standard” vs. “Classic”
There is a large difference to the Fascists between “Standard” games, where the 2X Beams, or Double Beams advantage is enabled, and the “Classic” games, where this advantage is not given to the Fascists. This advantage, which was added for race-balancing, makes Fascists a LOT better against fighter races, and also against starbases. I personally suggest that anyone who is new to the Fascists should join only “Standard” games where this advantage is enabled, and then move to “Classic” games when you want a bigger challenge.
Tactics
Like many cloaking races with lighter ships, the Fascists should use the typical cloaker tactics to choose their battles. Combining these with Glory Devices can make for even better combat trades.
Fuelless Ground Assault
Taking advantage of the Fascists’ advantage that planets cannot attack Fascist ships, and their superior ground assault, you can send a cloaked D7 and an LDSF with clans towards an enemy planet, such that the LDSF arrives out of fuel. Because the planet cannot NUK the freighter, and ships cannot attack a fuelless ship, the LDSF will be unharmed. Next turn, you transfer fuel from the D7 to the LDSF, drop the clans for a Ground Assault, and then move away from the planet. While your LDSF is likely to get intercepted and destroyed, if your scouting information was correct, you should take over the planet, and at worst, the enemy’s ships will have to attack their own planet to get it back! Obviously, this tactic and the sacrifice of an LDSF is best done against a planet with a starbase…
Fascist Early Starbases – Tips by MJS
“MJS68508” is an experienced Planets player who posts on Planets.Nu, and is heavily involved in that community. He wrote the following in a forum post:
Build Starbases on each of the 2 adjacent planets of your homeworld (HW) with minerals from your HW. With 2X beams, you don’t need to fight early. You can develop your economy and stockpile a ton of Priority Build Points (PBPs). With your cloakers and starbases defending, attacking you is difficult. And a mk4 Ill Wind takes care of everyone’s medium ships. Other races need to build SB’s to carve out a territory early. Fascists prefer peace to build up a solid economy. Then you can expand since others’ SB’s are easy pickings for you (with 2X beams).
Combat
Here are some gems I pulled from the Planets.Nu forums, written by MJS:
“Never send a large carrier into battle with less than 200 fighters unless you are trying to get it destroyed.”
200 fighters should be on every major carrier before it goes off to battle because you never known what battles you will have to fight. You cannot plan on a single battle. The enemy seldom cooperates.
Siggi says:
The Fascists just are not well equipped for ship-to-ship battles.
They need to control the battlefield , tow ships out and take them one at a time. Giving ground and luring enemies in etc.
Double beams and SSG´s are neat tools but don’t win battles on their own.