First time doing the showdown event.

[vigilo confido]

The AI warp grid has been shut down. The first mobile AI galactic control ship is down. Is there enough firepower for the final one?

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6/6 AI difficulty. random(tank), random(support corps).

80 planets

resistance fighters 4/10

rebel colonies 1/10

dark spire 10/10

showdown devices on

Neinzul hybrid hives plot enabled for both.

It has been a long campaign. I hardly remember how it all began. The campaign went mostly ok until I got near the showdown part. I tried it at first with as few planets as possible. That did not work out too well as the AI simply overran the 12 or so planets I had. I then went and captured 42 systems in total.

Next time, the showdown is going a lot better. The support corps is buffing the hell out of each wave during showdown though. It is extremely tough. One tactic I used is dropping a nuke on each AI homeworld when the large exo galactic attack started. Kept a cloak starship on each nuke so some raider ship does not detonate the nuke on my planet. 7K ships or so are gone when the nukes activate. The CPA is brutal. Every single ship from every planet and barracks in the galaxy is launched at me including the homeworld ships. I barely held the line against it. Having a threat of over 15K ships is not good. After so many brutal waves supported by Support Corps, the AI warp grid is shut down.

I got a real nasty surprise I was not expecting. The AI home command stations mobilize and make an all out, last attempt at my homeworld. Good thing one had to travel through a whole bunch of Mark II logistic stations while being pelted by mark V snipers. I managed to intercept the first one while it was in the middle of AI territory. The cost to destroy the first one was immense. I had to scrap nearly every turret and every structure on every remaining planet to fuel the rebuilding of my fleet. The last AI galactic command ship was only minutes away. I start a fight with it at the last minute only 1 jump away from the homeoworld. The AI galactic command ship enters my homeworld. It has only 5% HP left but nearly all my ships are dead.

The homeworld defenses are doing their best to finish it off. Death is only seconds away. Then comes the closest finish in history. The AI galactic command ship gets in range of my home command station and launches a death volley at it. But before the volley hits, the AI galactic command ship is destroyed a half a second before my home command station is destroyed. That was an unbelievable photo finish, both home commands, mine and the AI blowing up within the same second. Victory is achieved and it could not have been closer.

[keith.lamothe]

Congratulations!

One tactic I used is dropping a nuke on each AI homeworld when the large exo galactic attack started.

When multiple nukes are used as a preliminary you know you're in the final stretch

But before the volley hits, the AI galactic command ship is destroyed a half a second before my home command station is destroyed.

Wow, that might be a record.  In one game I stopped an Avenger with a half-health home command station left, but an Avenger is rather weaker and has rather less buildup than a GCS.

Awesome.  Glad you're having fun!

[vigilo confido]

Thanks for the post. I could not believe how close it was, scrapping everything on every other planet so I could get another fleet up in time, and seeing the victory screen come up as my home command station gets hit. The suspense was unbelievable.

I do believe the strength of the AI galactic command ships needs to scale with how close the AI homeworld is too yours and the interval between each one though. I managed to manipulate the interval between fighting each one to some extent but it is easy to get screwed by bad luck.

[keith.lamothe]

Ship strength doesn't scale particularly granularly on a ship-stats basis.

But even if it did, the fact that each game has a somewhat different balance is ok, and even helpful to replay value.  Btw, it does put the AI HWs about as far from you as it can, though it makes no particular effort to control the distance one wormhole exit-point is from another on a planet.

Sure, that means sometimes you'll get the short end of the stick if you go for a victory condition that's less favored by your particular map seed & config, but that provides an opportunity for one of the most fun things I've found about this game (in my experience and others) : taking a situation you don't know how to solve, and solving it.  There's a tremendous amount of difference you as a commander can make by using all the tools in your toolbox in the most efficient ways possible.  It's not frequently necessary (or else an hours-long campaign would be too grueling for all but the hardest-core players), but when it is the resulting problems and solutions can be quite satisfying.

[vigilo confido]

I do agree with your statement keith. I definitely should of destroyed the AI homeworlds if I wanted the easy win. The showdown event was made even more difficult by the fact that the support corps AI supported every single wave. I even got that AI type randomly which I would disable if I plan to do the showdown event again. The plan for showdown seems to be intercept the AI galactic command ship closest to my homeworld and slow the other one down with Mark III/Mark II logistic stations.