The Romulan Star Empire

The Romulan Star Empire in Fleet Operations emphasizes the advantages of cloaking and subterfuge. Thus it follows that all Romulan war-vessels, with the exception of a system-refitted Tavara (which takes one second), take two seconds to cloak and decloak. Special weapon energy does not regenerate while cloaked, but all Romulan vessels have very good system values, which allow them to regenerate this energy quickly if the cloak is dropped. After a quick hit and run, it is usually a good idea to hide in a wayward corner of the map (or in a hidden nebula) to drop the cloak.

All Romulan vessels - save the Mogai-class and Fakairu-class - can cloak (the Fakairu gains this ability once the Cloaking Generator is built). This fast cloak and decloak means that it is quite feasible to recloak in the midst of battle to lick your wounds. Romulan ships are also more expensive than vessels of other factions due to their cloaking prowess, so be careful not to let them be destroyed. Likewise, it is also possible to engage limited arc vessels from their blind spots for a few seconds, only to recloak before they can turn around and target your vessels.

Remember that all Romulan weapons discharge more rapidly at the onset of battle and fire more slowly over time (+30% at the start and -10% for each volley until the shot delay reaches -10% in total). Your strategy should always revolve around fast hit and run attacks to make the most of your initially superior firepower. It takes 15 seconds without firing to recuperate the lost attack power. Consequently, destroy your opponent’s mining vessels at every chance and retreat to recharge your quick firing capabilities. Losing ships is not an option for a Romulan admiral, so engaging solitary ships to whittle down your opponent’s main battle fleet is far more tactically sound than having large fleet battles.

As soon as your ships are produced, cloak them so that your enemy’s spies cannot tell how many ships you might have. If you are playing in a large map and you know where your opponent’s fleet is, keep your ships cloaked half way between your base and your opponent’s, so as to maximize your opportunities to strike when your opponent least expects it. Sometimes however, it is possible to leave some of your ships uncloaked to serve as a warning to your opponent. They will not be sure how many ships you have, and thus those few uncloaked ones might be a strong enough deterrent to prevent an attack in the first place.

Several core Romulan vessels can be refitted to change their role in the Romulan warfleet. You can research a refit at both the Upgrade Facility and the Tal’Shiar Academy research stations, which makes it possible to equip some existing ships classes with new weapons, armor, and passive abilities.

The Romulan technology tree is quite unique to that of the other factions. You can easily skip certain tiers of units to go straight to your heavy cruisers, or even Warbirds like the D’deridex. A decloaking D’deridex can be a fearsome sight when all you’ve got are a few seemingly puny destroyers. Psychological warfare is half the battle with the Romulans. However, be wary that once you jump to a certain set of units as Romulans it is difficult to move to another. Romulan mentality is not very flexible, and so it is important to get your opponent to play to your strengths. To get more advanced Romulan ships, you must build research stations. All refits and special abilities are researched at research stations. The universal upgrades are researched at the Upgrade Facility.