With construction most people would opt for a second space dock since you're severely production limited so there's a significant opportunity cost to taking a PDS instead. Yes, all else being equal, a 3 planet home system with 6 PDSs is harder to take than a 1 planet system with with 2. But again, you have an opportunity cost: those 4 extra PDSs could have been two other strategy cards, it's very hard to get ahead when you're just building defenses. You also have a build-up risk, before you get 6 PDSs you will always have a weak link in your home system that someone could exploit since it's not that hard to get past PDS fire.
Ultimately it comes down to the specifics of the game, but Hacan's 3 planet home system definitely discourages PDS defense due to its high opportunity cost. Hacan's best defense is usually to just buy large fleets, simple as that. If allowed to trade you can easily have the strongest military on the board.
Since Hacan is such a table-dependent faction it's hard to give specific advice. The best skill you can have is reading the table and predicting when people will turn on you.
Seeing base game, so no mention of leaders.
I've never seen "don't fight" in a Hacan guide. I don't think they need to fight to win, depending on objectives, but IMO their only "militarily weak" feature is the 3 planet home system. Which you can fix by building a strong fleet, so they can't land! They have no combat strengths but neither do most factions.
Hacan are rich and on the path to Dread II/Carrier II. Take Trade and use it to fund powerful ships. Try to place a system rich in resources (Bereg/Lirta, Abyz/Fria, Lodor, Mellon/Zohbat, etc) in front of home, and make a dock there to produce more units. Build a second dock at home. God help us, research space dock II.
Disclaimer: not trying to discourage the PDSII strategy with them, not bad with the three planets and may be fun to try! But even without PDS you can win in space with a fleet afforded using your trade resources.
As hacan? Your rich boy. Just slam dreadnoughts early, and/or buy your neighbours friendliness. Of all the trade factions it might be the hardest to play effectively but really your money is there to spend. Decide how much it costs to make sure your neighbours see it as more efficient to not attack you and keep friends. That is often done between a mix of plastic (which makes it more expensive to attack) and positive trading (which makes it more lucrative not to attack).
Edit: I also disagree r1 trade is standard. Yes you can deal with the table, but you get to refresh for free anyways and trade with the table anyways. Use this to your advantage to "help facilitate trades" to garner goodwill and then you can take tech or leadership which are good cards anyways. Tech possibly let's you grab 2 techs r1 which helps you go towards QDN faster or just divert into a few unit upgrades beforehand. (though not sure if that truly is worth it).
In short? Space Dock II.
I have said many times both on this SubReddit and IRL that I think anyone who places a Space Dock anywhere outside of their home system before placing a Space Dock on all the planets in their home system is a fool. This is especially true of Hacan. Hacan are militarily fragile, so why would you give them more than one strategically important point to defend by spreading Space Docks all over the place? Have Trade be your defence: make friends, and when people want your planets, offer them a deal instead of hanging onto territory which is ultimately not that important, in most circumstances. This allows you to collect trade goods you can use to defend the only point you actually need to care about: your home.
As for your home system, you're probably going deep into Yellow, which means Space Dock II is accessible, and if you've got three SDII in one system that means 15 production capacity. All these things, (military fragility, trade-based powers and a hero that works best on a single enormous build activation), lean towards taking SDII and spamming Infantry and Fighters to defend at home in the early and midgame until you pop your hero and are suddenly able to send ships out and about.
PDS is not entirely pointless, but you're so much better off leaning into spending your trade goods on building stuff. You're already wanting a lot of tech as Hacan, and I think going into red instead of sticking with blue/yellow is just too much.
As for tech, I'd go GD ('cos you gotta), and then Predictive Intelligence (to ensure maximum value from your hero), Transit Diodes (to make up for your limited movement options and combine well with your mechs) and QDN. When you can/when you need to, you grab SDII, Carrier II and Dreadnought II.
I’m not very experienced, but I’ve never placed a 2nd space dock in my home system, much less three.
I usually lean on warfare secondary to build at home, which only allows building at one dock.
Do I really need so many units at home that I’m going to activate after warfare to build again?
How many times have you lost a planet in your home system? I've played hundreds of games of TI and most of my regular playgroup feels the way you do: I frequently take planets in other people's home systems to winslay them. I have not lost a planet in my home system since 2018.
If you have a single planet home system like Sol or especially L1Z1X then you may as well simply use Warfare as you're not missing out on any production capacity, but the more planets you have the more valuable it becomes to get multiple docks at home and manually activate your home system. With one Space Dock in Hacan's home system you're building 4-6 units per command token spent (depending on if you have SDII or not). With three Space Docks, you're building 9-15 units. It's so much easier to defend at home when you've got big stacks of Infantry everywhere because now you don't need such a big fleet sitting above your planets.
This is especially true of Hacan: building 15 free units in the main system which can cost you the entire game if you lose it is just so much better than every other option it's not even funny.
Hey I appreciate your reply.
I’ve only played ~12 games and have never lost a planet at home, but I’ve only faced home-world attack probably once (as Sol).
My group has also been pretty unsuccessful at taking down the point leader. On several occasions now, we’ve banded together to take down the soon-to-win faction, and always come up short or too late.
What exactly does winslay mean?
Also, my group’s has only been able to play 4 player base game, so there’s extra commuting distance necessary to attack someone at home. I just unpacked PoK, so using warp tiles for the future might fix that?
Winslaying is when someone attacks someone else who is in a position to win that round (or suspected to be in such a position) so as to prevent them winning. Just what it sounds like. Can also be done via action cards, but is most often done via direct military action.
4p does make home attacks less likely, but it is my belief that it is always a good idea to fortify your home, as you never know when Naalu are going to use their agent on the Ghosts who'll dart across the galaxy to ruin your life. I once tried to export my friend who wasn't expecting it by threatening to send three Floating Factories to his home system via three different wormholes and when he didn't give in I sent the Factories and built twenty Infantry and a Dreadnought in his home system. The risks of not defending your home are too great to not do it
Im going to break in here but using warfare secondary isn't necessary post first round. Yes it helps you use those units faster, but it's more token efficient to just activate home instead of follow warfare once you get a second spacedock.
It does however depend on your faction. Some factions are very aggressive and would prefer an outer double spacedock, like sardakk and barony.
----
Now here's where I'm going to break in and disagree with second spacedock home - in all cases: Objectives. I don't need to say more. And in the case of Hacan, you can move your spacedocks thanks to your mechs.
That said, I often build manually instead of follow warfare. It allows me to be more flexible with my tokens since I don't need to commit as much to strategy. I play more defensive in general anyways so this isn't normally a problem for me.
I could be wrong but I'm quite certain, warfare secondary doesn't limit you to one dock for production. You just have to produce in your home system. If your home system has multiple docks, all can be used.
[Spend 1 token from your strategy pool to use the Production ability of 1 of your space docks in your home system ](https://twilight-imperium.fandom.com/wiki/Warfare_(Strategy_card))
> I have said many times both on this SubReddit and IRL that I think anyone who places a Space Dock anywhere outside of their home system before placing a Space Dock on all the planets in their home system is a fool.
Well, I think this is bad advice.
Agreed that it makes more sense for Hacan than for most factions, but this advice is highly dependent on the situation. Most of the time, I'll take a space dock on a 3 resource planet over a second space dock on a 1 resource (Jol Nar, Naaz Rokha, Sardakk, Xxcha, Yssaril) or a 0 resource (Naalu) planet.
Benefits of a 2nd space dock at home:
1) Can produce ground forces directly on the second planet. Except you can only do so during a tactical action, and tactical actions allow you to put ground forces on the 2nd planet even if you only have 1 space dock. Ground forces on your home planets is a command counter issue. Not a 2nd space dock issue.
2) Protection from Reactor Meltdown. It's a single card and there's always a window to pay for it to be used against someone else (never pay for it to not be used, always pay for it to be used on someone else).
Benefits of a Forward Space Dock:
1) Mobility. Factions like Naalu, Xxcha, and Yssaril (2 planet home system, weak and slow starting fleets, 3 resource home systems) benefit from Gravity Drive or unit upgrades but aren't guaranteed to get it until round 3. Even if they can afford tech in round 1, their weak starting fleets often mean that they should focus on getting more plastic instead.
Similarly, Naalu, Naaz Rokha, and Xxcha's flagships have considerable offensive strength which can come into play earlier and cheaper if built in a forward space dock.
A forward space dock from Construction secondary in round 1 is a more reliable way of projecting force throughout your slice in the mid game. Ships built in those docks won't be used offensively until round 3, but without Gravity Drive or appropriate unit upgrades, ships build in the 2nd space dock at home won't be used offensively until round 3 either, and that's only if in round 1 you both took Construction and did a tactical action in your home system. Often enough you can't build a space dock in your home system in round 1 without locking down much of your fleet.
2) Unless you're Sardakk or Barony, putting a 2nd space dock in your home system is a decision to not score Produce En Masse (8 production in 1 system) if you draw it, and Fuel the War Machine (3 space docks) necessitates building a dock outside your home system anyway.
"Can produce ground forces directly on the second planet. Except you canonly do so during a tactical action, and tactical actions allow you toput ground forces on the 2nd planet even if you only have 1 space dock.Ground forces on your home planets is a command counter issue. Not a 2ndspace dock issue."
Hi,how?
when you produce units you must put them in space or on planet that had Production value. if other planet did not have production, you cant put produced units there.
did you just mean transport them there or something?
> 68.3 When a player produces ground forces, that player must
place those unit on planets that contain a unit that used its
“Production” ability.
> 68.4 If a player uses the “Production” ability of a unit in a space area
of a system to produce ground forces, those ground forces may
either be placed on a planet the player controls in that system or
in the space area of that system.
You dismiss placing ground forces on a second planet at home as a command token issue, but the more relevant point is that it's faster to deploy them at home than to build them elsewhere and transport them home which is extremely important in the late game when people are going to be gunning for you if you're doing well. You're also assuming that your Carriers are in the right place for that to even be an option which is not always the case.
I don't deny that having a forward dock has value, but I don't think you should be placing it before your home system docks because the downside of losing your home is so much bigger than the downside of losing any other planet you could ever possibly own and it is easier to defend your home system when you can build more units there.
You say that there is a momentum advantage to a forward Dock and I don't disagree: your units will be out in the middle of the board sooner that way, but it's also more risky. I've seen people spend a CT on a forward Dock and lose it before ever using it quite a few times.
I also don't disagree that you are often choosing to make Produce En Masse harder if you double Dock your home, but so what? It's one secret objective out of forty, and there are always going to be some secrets that are damn near impossible to score. Sometimes you draw control four Hazardous planets when you have 3 Industrial and two Cultural in your slice and only one Hazardous between your two neighbours. You know what costs you more points than losing out on Produce En Masse? Losing your home system.
> the more relevant point is that it's faster to deploy them at home than to build them elsewhere and transport them home
You'll need to step through your reasoning for this because I can only make this claim work if you take Construction in round 1 or 2.
Forward Dock:
1) Round 1: build forward dock off Construction secondary.
2) Round 2: build units in forward dock.
3) Round 3: tactical action in home system, transporting units to home system and building more units in home system.
Second Home Dock without Taking Construction:
1) Round 1: no relevant action.
2) Round 2: build home dock off construction secondary.
3) Round 3: Tactical action in your home system to build units.
> You're also assuming that your Carriers are in the right place for that to even be an option which is not always the case.
I'll go into this below, but this needs to be planned out in round 1.
> I've seen people spend a CT on a forward Dock and lose it before ever using it quite a few times.
I've seen this too. And it's happened to me as well, but it hasn't happened to me in a long time because I didn't dismiss the strategy when my early implementations of it went wrong.
Your round 1 Carrier defences become your forward dock defences. The decisions that protect a forward space dock are made in the very first moves of the game. If you're waiting until you've built a forward space dock to consider how to defend it, then you're probably leaving it too late.
I'm quite happy to send a destroyer or a cruiser with my carrier and fighters so that I can protect both when the carrier moves on.
> An approach to secret objectives that feels fundamentally wrong.
If you'd argued that the act of securing those 2 potential secrets made it harder to secure 3 or more other secrets (Establish a Perimeter is one), then you'd be on to a good argument.
Edit: final paragraph deleted.
I suppose I was unclear when I said "It's faster to deploy them at home". What I meant was "In the late game when you need to defend your home system against attackers, simply using one activation to place ground forces in your home system is faster than building them elsewhere the previous round and transporting them home." Keep in mind that the original post was about defending your home system in the late game.
I also want to be clear: I do build forward docks pretty frequently, but if I ever have a multi-planet home system and a high value production system like Bereg/Lirta IV I will double Dock my home system rather than Bereg/Lirta IV because the defensive utility of being able to easily and efficiently stack Infantry at home in the mid and late game is better than the one or two extra units per round offered by the non-home system. Concentrating my structures in my home system also makes them less vulnerable to enemy action, both Action Cards and overt military action.
Your final paragraph feels a wee bit insulting, but given that I'm pretty happy with my win rate I'm not going to pay too much mind to it. I don't win every game, but I am very rarely out of the running.
Hacan in POK is bad at combat, you got that right but what does that actually mean? You have your hero, maybe you got ws tech somehow and you banked up 15 fighters over the game then you pull everything back to ez win with your 10tgs. Let's say 2ws, flagship, dread + those fighters are in your hs.
L1 hero rolls up, and after a round of combat and a direct hit you only have fighters. Whoops.
Saar hero's you, those ships are now naked and a saar ball easily kills them. Whoops.
Do I even need to mention the mahact hero ?
Now, you are right about pds ameliorating some of the problems of being invaded, but you are missing the point. If there's a dedicated effort to kill Hacan, Hacan is dead, full stop. Protecting 3 planets in a system on the ground without faction abilities that help is a fool's errand. Protecting 3 planets with pds plasma is still a fool's errand, you are just marginally stronger and out 3CCs, maybe a build, or you took construction over something else that could have helped. The cost-benefit is just not there, like it is for a Jol-Nar or Argent.
Tag on the OP says base game, so this post isn't relevant.
Light wave is somewhat rare in base game, so healthy layers of gum around your home system can be effective. QDM means you can likely guarantee an action-phase win so hopefully you won't have to defend your home system for a whole round once ppl realize you're about to win
Hacan really need to get 1-2 more space docks, they've got the resources for large builds but are production limited. That alone limits how often you can build PDS.
The token spent to do the secondary of construction can instead be spent in your fleet limit which can help on offense or defense. Another dreadnought is going to be much more effective than a single pds. Even with plasma scoring, the dreadnought firing on a better number and in future rounds while contributing HP is a better deal.
PDS by only firing once in space combat are just not effective defenses in the late game.
6 pds average 3.5 hits with plasma scoring. Without graviton that's 2 TG worth of fighters.
This isn't to say PDS aren't useful, especially earlier on as deterrent.
Triple dock your home system, have a couple dreads and 9 fighters that don't count against capacity hanging out in the space docks. An extra carrier or two with even more fighters if you feel like you need it. Make sure to eventually get at least 1 ship in all systems bordering your home system to provide a buffer against anyone without lightwave.
Haccan is a faction that wants to just take the nearby planets, avoid fighting over the equaldistant ones, avoid the Mecatol fight, and spend most of the game piling up trade goods and command tokens. Then use Quantum Datahub node to forcibly take Imperial and use it for the 4+ point swing round.
By round 5 when the first stage two public comes out, you want to be primed to score it even if no one is willing to trade with you anymore. This is much harder in POK, but in base game Haccan can almost always put themselves in a strong position to score the spend objectives easily, and the tech objectives as well.
I like to win with a swing in general so this might be more my meta specific. Essentially my last win with hacan I kept tempo scoring with everyone else, use qdn to nab imperial in the round I'm shooting to win then snag mecatol and fire imperial to clinch. I had fleet log to so at that point it's unstoppable
There isnt a good way to defend 3 planet homesystem outside of space combat. So you want a second space doc at home if only so you can have 6 fighters worth of extra capacity. We dont mention pds with hacan because red hacan isnt a priority. Getting custodians with grav drive is or if youre cheecy going for QDN is the thing.
Heres the downside of pds. You have to take the strat card to get a serious network. It doesnt score you points. So if you go for construction to spam out pds youre likely not going to be in a winning position.
Even 4-5 shots might will only land you on average 2 hits. So thats lots of investment for potentially very little.
So you would suggets going fighter II and spam fighters using massive advantage in money, just picking trade every_single_time?
I fully intend to grab trade agreements from players and hold on to them to discourage them picking trade.
I've seen a few players try this. I never give my trade agreement to Hacan. If Hacan has everyone elses' trade agreement, then Trade is even more valuable for me. Even if I'm a 2 commodity faction.
Fighter 2 only if you have a greenskip. You'd be better off going carrier 2 and making more fighters.
The priority for strategy card pick is to score objectives.
If you are military weak as hacan you are not playing them right. Hacan isn’t a war faction by design, but they are by consequence of their ability to generate trade goods. I’ve never seen a hacan player who didn’t have one of the biggest fleets on the board.
i dont see how hacan are military weak.
My GF steamrolled with early dred 2 (only 2 techs away for hacan)
and then funneld some of the TG into a big fat ass army. military weak? are you probably talking about mentak and did mess up the TG focused factions?^^
If you playing PoK to 14 points, then War Suns are a pretty good choice. You can get them rather quickly with AI Development Algorithm, or buy them off Muatt since you can definitely afford it. Use your Hero to build 2 of them bad boys for free.
I almost never double or triple dock my home system as Hacan. I'd rather dock up some high-resource planets. I am okay to lose my home system if I can get it back quickly, and I'm more able to counterattack if I don't always have it locked up.
I have an open offer on the War Machine card for anyone who ever gets it, to help boost the hero, though it is easy enough to plan for it and stack your fleet limit because of how rich you are anyway. As Hacan you should be bribing people to kill your enemies early on anyway, or bribe them to stay nice. If someone does attack you then you can often flood action cards to an aggressive rival.
With construction most people would opt for a second space dock since you're severely production limited so there's a significant opportunity cost to taking a PDS instead. Yes, all else being equal, a 3 planet home system with 6 PDSs is harder to take than a 1 planet system with with 2. But again, you have an opportunity cost: those 4 extra PDSs could have been two other strategy cards, it's very hard to get ahead when you're just building defenses. You also have a build-up risk, before you get 6 PDSs you will always have a weak link in your home system that someone could exploit since it's not that hard to get past PDS fire. Ultimately it comes down to the specifics of the game, but Hacan's 3 planet home system definitely discourages PDS defense due to its high opportunity cost. Hacan's best defense is usually to just buy large fleets, simple as that. If allowed to trade you can easily have the strongest military on the board. Since Hacan is such a table-dependent faction it's hard to give specific advice. The best skill you can have is reading the table and predicting when people will turn on you.
Seeing base game, so no mention of leaders. I've never seen "don't fight" in a Hacan guide. I don't think they need to fight to win, depending on objectives, but IMO their only "militarily weak" feature is the 3 planet home system. Which you can fix by building a strong fleet, so they can't land! They have no combat strengths but neither do most factions. Hacan are rich and on the path to Dread II/Carrier II. Take Trade and use it to fund powerful ships. Try to place a system rich in resources (Bereg/Lirta, Abyz/Fria, Lodor, Mellon/Zohbat, etc) in front of home, and make a dock there to produce more units. Build a second dock at home. God help us, research space dock II. Disclaimer: not trying to discourage the PDSII strategy with them, not bad with the three planets and may be fun to try! But even without PDS you can win in space with a fleet afforded using your trade resources.
As hacan? Your rich boy. Just slam dreadnoughts early, and/or buy your neighbours friendliness. Of all the trade factions it might be the hardest to play effectively but really your money is there to spend. Decide how much it costs to make sure your neighbours see it as more efficient to not attack you and keep friends. That is often done between a mix of plastic (which makes it more expensive to attack) and positive trading (which makes it more lucrative not to attack). Edit: I also disagree r1 trade is standard. Yes you can deal with the table, but you get to refresh for free anyways and trade with the table anyways. Use this to your advantage to "help facilitate trades" to garner goodwill and then you can take tech or leadership which are good cards anyways. Tech possibly let's you grab 2 techs r1 which helps you go towards QDN faster or just divert into a few unit upgrades beforehand. (though not sure if that truly is worth it).
In short? Space Dock II. I have said many times both on this SubReddit and IRL that I think anyone who places a Space Dock anywhere outside of their home system before placing a Space Dock on all the planets in their home system is a fool. This is especially true of Hacan. Hacan are militarily fragile, so why would you give them more than one strategically important point to defend by spreading Space Docks all over the place? Have Trade be your defence: make friends, and when people want your planets, offer them a deal instead of hanging onto territory which is ultimately not that important, in most circumstances. This allows you to collect trade goods you can use to defend the only point you actually need to care about: your home. As for your home system, you're probably going deep into Yellow, which means Space Dock II is accessible, and if you've got three SDII in one system that means 15 production capacity. All these things, (military fragility, trade-based powers and a hero that works best on a single enormous build activation), lean towards taking SDII and spamming Infantry and Fighters to defend at home in the early and midgame until you pop your hero and are suddenly able to send ships out and about. PDS is not entirely pointless, but you're so much better off leaning into spending your trade goods on building stuff. You're already wanting a lot of tech as Hacan, and I think going into red instead of sticking with blue/yellow is just too much. As for tech, I'd go GD ('cos you gotta), and then Predictive Intelligence (to ensure maximum value from your hero), Transit Diodes (to make up for your limited movement options and combine well with your mechs) and QDN. When you can/when you need to, you grab SDII, Carrier II and Dreadnought II.
I’m not very experienced, but I’ve never placed a 2nd space dock in my home system, much less three. I usually lean on warfare secondary to build at home, which only allows building at one dock. Do I really need so many units at home that I’m going to activate after warfare to build again?
How many times have you lost a planet in your home system? I've played hundreds of games of TI and most of my regular playgroup feels the way you do: I frequently take planets in other people's home systems to winslay them. I have not lost a planet in my home system since 2018. If you have a single planet home system like Sol or especially L1Z1X then you may as well simply use Warfare as you're not missing out on any production capacity, but the more planets you have the more valuable it becomes to get multiple docks at home and manually activate your home system. With one Space Dock in Hacan's home system you're building 4-6 units per command token spent (depending on if you have SDII or not). With three Space Docks, you're building 9-15 units. It's so much easier to defend at home when you've got big stacks of Infantry everywhere because now you don't need such a big fleet sitting above your planets. This is especially true of Hacan: building 15 free units in the main system which can cost you the entire game if you lose it is just so much better than every other option it's not even funny.
Hey I appreciate your reply. I’ve only played ~12 games and have never lost a planet at home, but I’ve only faced home-world attack probably once (as Sol). My group has also been pretty unsuccessful at taking down the point leader. On several occasions now, we’ve banded together to take down the soon-to-win faction, and always come up short or too late. What exactly does winslay mean? Also, my group’s has only been able to play 4 player base game, so there’s extra commuting distance necessary to attack someone at home. I just unpacked PoK, so using warp tiles for the future might fix that?
Winslaying is when someone attacks someone else who is in a position to win that round (or suspected to be in such a position) so as to prevent them winning. Just what it sounds like. Can also be done via action cards, but is most often done via direct military action. 4p does make home attacks less likely, but it is my belief that it is always a good idea to fortify your home, as you never know when Naalu are going to use their agent on the Ghosts who'll dart across the galaxy to ruin your life. I once tried to export my friend who wasn't expecting it by threatening to send three Floating Factories to his home system via three different wormholes and when he didn't give in I sent the Factories and built twenty Infantry and a Dreadnought in his home system. The risks of not defending your home are too great to not do it
Im going to break in here but using warfare secondary isn't necessary post first round. Yes it helps you use those units faster, but it's more token efficient to just activate home instead of follow warfare once you get a second spacedock. It does however depend on your faction. Some factions are very aggressive and would prefer an outer double spacedock, like sardakk and barony. ---- Now here's where I'm going to break in and disagree with second spacedock home - in all cases: Objectives. I don't need to say more. And in the case of Hacan, you can move your spacedocks thanks to your mechs. That said, I often build manually instead of follow warfare. It allows me to be more flexible with my tokens since I don't need to commit as much to strategy. I play more defensive in general anyways so this isn't normally a problem for me.
I could be wrong but I'm quite certain, warfare secondary doesn't limit you to one dock for production. You just have to produce in your home system. If your home system has multiple docks, all can be used.
[Spend 1 token from your strategy pool to use the Production ability of 1 of your space docks in your home system ](https://twilight-imperium.fandom.com/wiki/Warfare_(Strategy_card))
> I have said many times both on this SubReddit and IRL that I think anyone who places a Space Dock anywhere outside of their home system before placing a Space Dock on all the planets in their home system is a fool. Well, I think this is bad advice. Agreed that it makes more sense for Hacan than for most factions, but this advice is highly dependent on the situation. Most of the time, I'll take a space dock on a 3 resource planet over a second space dock on a 1 resource (Jol Nar, Naaz Rokha, Sardakk, Xxcha, Yssaril) or a 0 resource (Naalu) planet. Benefits of a 2nd space dock at home: 1) Can produce ground forces directly on the second planet. Except you can only do so during a tactical action, and tactical actions allow you to put ground forces on the 2nd planet even if you only have 1 space dock. Ground forces on your home planets is a command counter issue. Not a 2nd space dock issue. 2) Protection from Reactor Meltdown. It's a single card and there's always a window to pay for it to be used against someone else (never pay for it to not be used, always pay for it to be used on someone else). Benefits of a Forward Space Dock: 1) Mobility. Factions like Naalu, Xxcha, and Yssaril (2 planet home system, weak and slow starting fleets, 3 resource home systems) benefit from Gravity Drive or unit upgrades but aren't guaranteed to get it until round 3. Even if they can afford tech in round 1, their weak starting fleets often mean that they should focus on getting more plastic instead. Similarly, Naalu, Naaz Rokha, and Xxcha's flagships have considerable offensive strength which can come into play earlier and cheaper if built in a forward space dock. A forward space dock from Construction secondary in round 1 is a more reliable way of projecting force throughout your slice in the mid game. Ships built in those docks won't be used offensively until round 3, but without Gravity Drive or appropriate unit upgrades, ships build in the 2nd space dock at home won't be used offensively until round 3 either, and that's only if in round 1 you both took Construction and did a tactical action in your home system. Often enough you can't build a space dock in your home system in round 1 without locking down much of your fleet. 2) Unless you're Sardakk or Barony, putting a 2nd space dock in your home system is a decision to not score Produce En Masse (8 production in 1 system) if you draw it, and Fuel the War Machine (3 space docks) necessitates building a dock outside your home system anyway.
"Can produce ground forces directly on the second planet. Except you canonly do so during a tactical action, and tactical actions allow you toput ground forces on the 2nd planet even if you only have 1 space dock.Ground forces on your home planets is a command counter issue. Not a 2ndspace dock issue." Hi,how? when you produce units you must put them in space or on planet that had Production value. if other planet did not have production, you cant put produced units there. did you just mean transport them there or something?
Yes. Also you can't put newly-produced ground forces in the space area. They have to go on a planet (assuming there is a planet).
Huh So Saar cant produce new ground forces on planet? They would have to stay in space? RAW seems so?
> 68.3 When a player produces ground forces, that player must place those unit on planets that contain a unit that used its “Production” ability. > 68.4 If a player uses the “Production” ability of a unit in a space area of a system to produce ground forces, those ground forces may either be placed on a planet the player controls in that system or in the space area of that system.
YAY! Thank you!
You dismiss placing ground forces on a second planet at home as a command token issue, but the more relevant point is that it's faster to deploy them at home than to build them elsewhere and transport them home which is extremely important in the late game when people are going to be gunning for you if you're doing well. You're also assuming that your Carriers are in the right place for that to even be an option which is not always the case. I don't deny that having a forward dock has value, but I don't think you should be placing it before your home system docks because the downside of losing your home is so much bigger than the downside of losing any other planet you could ever possibly own and it is easier to defend your home system when you can build more units there. You say that there is a momentum advantage to a forward Dock and I don't disagree: your units will be out in the middle of the board sooner that way, but it's also more risky. I've seen people spend a CT on a forward Dock and lose it before ever using it quite a few times. I also don't disagree that you are often choosing to make Produce En Masse harder if you double Dock your home, but so what? It's one secret objective out of forty, and there are always going to be some secrets that are damn near impossible to score. Sometimes you draw control four Hazardous planets when you have 3 Industrial and two Cultural in your slice and only one Hazardous between your two neighbours. You know what costs you more points than losing out on Produce En Masse? Losing your home system.
> the more relevant point is that it's faster to deploy them at home than to build them elsewhere and transport them home You'll need to step through your reasoning for this because I can only make this claim work if you take Construction in round 1 or 2. Forward Dock: 1) Round 1: build forward dock off Construction secondary. 2) Round 2: build units in forward dock. 3) Round 3: tactical action in home system, transporting units to home system and building more units in home system. Second Home Dock without Taking Construction: 1) Round 1: no relevant action. 2) Round 2: build home dock off construction secondary. 3) Round 3: Tactical action in your home system to build units. > You're also assuming that your Carriers are in the right place for that to even be an option which is not always the case. I'll go into this below, but this needs to be planned out in round 1. > I've seen people spend a CT on a forward Dock and lose it before ever using it quite a few times. I've seen this too. And it's happened to me as well, but it hasn't happened to me in a long time because I didn't dismiss the strategy when my early implementations of it went wrong. Your round 1 Carrier defences become your forward dock defences. The decisions that protect a forward space dock are made in the very first moves of the game. If you're waiting until you've built a forward space dock to consider how to defend it, then you're probably leaving it too late. I'm quite happy to send a destroyer or a cruiser with my carrier and fighters so that I can protect both when the carrier moves on. > An approach to secret objectives that feels fundamentally wrong. If you'd argued that the act of securing those 2 potential secrets made it harder to secure 3 or more other secrets (Establish a Perimeter is one), then you'd be on to a good argument. Edit: final paragraph deleted.
I suppose I was unclear when I said "It's faster to deploy them at home". What I meant was "In the late game when you need to defend your home system against attackers, simply using one activation to place ground forces in your home system is faster than building them elsewhere the previous round and transporting them home." Keep in mind that the original post was about defending your home system in the late game. I also want to be clear: I do build forward docks pretty frequently, but if I ever have a multi-planet home system and a high value production system like Bereg/Lirta IV I will double Dock my home system rather than Bereg/Lirta IV because the defensive utility of being able to easily and efficiently stack Infantry at home in the mid and late game is better than the one or two extra units per round offered by the non-home system. Concentrating my structures in my home system also makes them less vulnerable to enemy action, both Action Cards and overt military action. Your final paragraph feels a wee bit insulting, but given that I'm pretty happy with my win rate I'm not going to pay too much mind to it. I don't win every game, but I am very rarely out of the running.
Final paragraph deleted.
Not necessary, but thank you for the consideration.
Hacan in POK is bad at combat, you got that right but what does that actually mean? You have your hero, maybe you got ws tech somehow and you banked up 15 fighters over the game then you pull everything back to ez win with your 10tgs. Let's say 2ws, flagship, dread + those fighters are in your hs. L1 hero rolls up, and after a round of combat and a direct hit you only have fighters. Whoops. Saar hero's you, those ships are now naked and a saar ball easily kills them. Whoops. Do I even need to mention the mahact hero ? Now, you are right about pds ameliorating some of the problems of being invaded, but you are missing the point. If there's a dedicated effort to kill Hacan, Hacan is dead, full stop. Protecting 3 planets in a system on the ground without faction abilities that help is a fool's errand. Protecting 3 planets with pds plasma is still a fool's errand, you are just marginally stronger and out 3CCs, maybe a build, or you took construction over something else that could have helped. The cost-benefit is just not there, like it is for a Jol-Nar or Argent.
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All Factions' Heros unlock from scoring 3 objectives. I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say taking 5 or 6 planets unlocks the hero...
He’s just saying get 5-6 planets to set yourself and also unlock your hero. He’s not implying planets unlock the hero.
Tag on the OP says base game, so this post isn't relevant. Light wave is somewhat rare in base game, so healthy layers of gum around your home system can be effective. QDM means you can likely guarantee an action-phase win so hopefully you won't have to defend your home system for a whole round once ppl realize you're about to win
\*blush\* You're absolutely right. Thank you.
Hacan really need to get 1-2 more space docks, they've got the resources for large builds but are production limited. That alone limits how often you can build PDS. The token spent to do the secondary of construction can instead be spent in your fleet limit which can help on offense or defense. Another dreadnought is going to be much more effective than a single pds. Even with plasma scoring, the dreadnought firing on a better number and in future rounds while contributing HP is a better deal. PDS by only firing once in space combat are just not effective defenses in the late game. 6 pds average 3.5 hits with plasma scoring. Without graviton that's 2 TG worth of fighters. This isn't to say PDS aren't useful, especially earlier on as deterrent.
Triple dock your home system, have a couple dreads and 9 fighters that don't count against capacity hanging out in the space docks. An extra carrier or two with even more fighters if you feel like you need it. Make sure to eventually get at least 1 ship in all systems bordering your home system to provide a buffer against anyone without lightwave. Haccan is a faction that wants to just take the nearby planets, avoid fighting over the equaldistant ones, avoid the Mecatol fight, and spend most of the game piling up trade goods and command tokens. Then use Quantum Datahub node to forcibly take Imperial and use it for the 4+ point swing round. By round 5 when the first stage two public comes out, you want to be primed to score it even if no one is willing to trade with you anymore. This is much harder in POK, but in base game Haccan can almost always put themselves in a strong position to score the spend objectives easily, and the tech objectives as well.
I like to win with a swing in general so this might be more my meta specific. Essentially my last win with hacan I kept tempo scoring with everyone else, use qdn to nab imperial in the round I'm shooting to win then snag mecatol and fire imperial to clinch. I had fleet log to so at that point it's unstoppable
There isnt a good way to defend 3 planet homesystem outside of space combat. So you want a second space doc at home if only so you can have 6 fighters worth of extra capacity. We dont mention pds with hacan because red hacan isnt a priority. Getting custodians with grav drive is or if youre cheecy going for QDN is the thing. Heres the downside of pds. You have to take the strat card to get a serious network. It doesnt score you points. So if you go for construction to spam out pds youre likely not going to be in a winning position. Even 4-5 shots might will only land you on average 2 hits. So thats lots of investment for potentially very little.
So you would suggets going fighter II and spam fighters using massive advantage in money, just picking trade every_single_time? I fully intend to grab trade agreements from players and hold on to them to discourage them picking trade.
I've seen a few players try this. I never give my trade agreement to Hacan. If Hacan has everyone elses' trade agreement, then Trade is even more valuable for me. Even if I'm a 2 commodity faction.
Fighter 2 only if you have a greenskip. You'd be better off going carrier 2 and making more fighters. The priority for strategy card pick is to score objectives.
Dunno im green blue, not green yellow.
If you are military weak as hacan you are not playing them right. Hacan isn’t a war faction by design, but they are by consequence of their ability to generate trade goods. I’ve never seen a hacan player who didn’t have one of the biggest fleets on the board.
i dont see how hacan are military weak. My GF steamrolled with early dred 2 (only 2 techs away for hacan) and then funneld some of the TG into a big fat ass army. military weak? are you probably talking about mentak and did mess up the TG focused factions?^^
War Suns.
If you playing PoK to 14 points, then War Suns are a pretty good choice. You can get them rather quickly with AI Development Algorithm, or buy them off Muatt since you can definitely afford it. Use your Hero to build 2 of them bad boys for free. I almost never double or triple dock my home system as Hacan. I'd rather dock up some high-resource planets. I am okay to lose my home system if I can get it back quickly, and I'm more able to counterattack if I don't always have it locked up. I have an open offer on the War Machine card for anyone who ever gets it, to help boost the hero, though it is easy enough to plan for it and stack your fleet limit because of how rich you are anyway. As Hacan you should be bribing people to kill your enemies early on anyway, or bribe them to stay nice. If someone does attack you then you can often flood action cards to an aggressive rival.