I just played a 2-player game against my wife. I went for using dreadnoughts as my main battle ships. The results were a bit underwhelming, and I shall tell you why. They confirmed a nagging feeling I had had earlier.
The thing with dreadnoughts is, there's only two models of them, and it takes 16 material to get out both. Whereas there are four cruisers, which it takes 20 to get out. And I'd think that given equal tech levels and symmetric build options, 4 cruisers would typically have more combined power than 2 dreadnoughts.
So cruisers give more maximum power that can be got out of a single ship type. Once you've maxed out that ship type, you'd need to build ships of another type. With cruisers, that cap doesn't hit you as soon. The main problem with relying on many ship types for your main battle strength (i.e. winning battles, not tactical uses like pinning, raiding etc) is that each ship type needs to be upgraded separately. And here the dreadnought is doubly penalized, as it not only requires more actions to upgrade fully, but the point where you need to start upgrading your 2nd ship type hits you earlier.
So if I've come to the point where my material production is large enough that getting out all pieces of the same type becomes possible, is there any reason to go for dreadnoughts primarily rather than cruisers?
The thing with dreadnoughts is, there's only two models of them, and it takes 16 material to get out both. Whereas there are four cruisers, which it takes 20 to get out. And I'd think that given equal tech levels and symmetric build options, 4 cruisers would typically have more combined power than 2 dreadnoughts.
So cruisers give more maximum power that can be got out of a single ship type. Once you've maxed out that ship type, you'd need to build ships of another type. With cruisers, that cap doesn't hit you as soon. The main problem with relying on many ship types for your main battle strength (i.e. winning battles, not tactical uses like pinning, raiding etc) is that each ship type needs to be upgraded separately. And here the dreadnought is doubly penalized, as it not only requires more actions to upgrade fully, but the point where you need to start upgrading your 2nd ship type hits you earlier.
So if I've come to the point where my material production is large enough that getting out all pieces of the same type becomes possible, is there any reason to go for dreadnoughts primarily rather than cruisers?