So, it's been a little while since I've had time to play any what with all of the trivialities of adult life like getting married and buying a house and so forth. I know the game has changed significantly since I last played so I figured I'd try and break out of my antisocial shell and solicit some advice and criticism of my game play. Plus it would be really cool to actually you know, win, once...
I used to play almost Cinth-style slogs against the AI, though I preferred 8 homeworlds and 80-120 planet snake or maze maps. I know that that probably does not help speed along the process of winning so I thought I would try something a little different this time. I've started up a 120 planet spoke map, with complex ships against 2) 7.0 random easier AI's. I've got Resistance fighters, Broken Golems(hard), and the Dyson sphere all on 4/10 and the Avenger enabled for AI 1. My homeworld (Ciral) has two wormholes that both lead to hub worlds with 7 and 13 other connections each.
My current plan is to capture and fortify the two worlds bordering my homeworld, dropping the command stations right on the wormholes leading into my space and setting up defenses to attrition the enemy forces as they fly towards my command station rather than trying to stomp them at the wormhole. After I capture those initial 2 planets I need to scout and locate nearby golems to work towards for exo defense, and I will also be leveling up my champion with the closest nebulae and neutering the most dangerous systems connected to my hub worlds. Any initial thoughts while I get this thing started?
edit: The mark 3 system to my left was my first target, unfortunately AI1's unlock was Zenith Bombards so I have been sending in small groups of fighters and bombers to chase down the bombards (about 20 bombers and 30 fighters) and using my shadow frigate to do the same. I then found out that AI2's unlock was the shiny new Zenith Siege Engines. I'm pretty sure I heard them laughing as they obliterated my champion in what seemed like a single volley. Oh, I forgot to mention the Fort mark 3 sitting pretty right on top of the command station.
edit2:I finally took out the core force field and fortress. I immediately built a Mil 1 station put up two forcefields. Then I unlocked and placed my miniforts, these look like they will make defense a little less attention-necessary while I work on dealing with grinding down my mk4 neighbor. The main problem is going to be the distributed nature of the AI's defense force, I have never had to deal with so many wormhole guard posts and they add far more to a feeling of being surrounded by enemies. Since there are no forcefields nor forts I am just going to take my fleet in and focus down one post at a time and destroy as many of the enemies on planet as possible before popping the command station. I'm at 39 minutes of gametime now, and while I haven't scouted further than 2 hops out I'm fairly sure that the AI homeworlds should spawn on the only 2 planets that are 8 hops away. If that's the case then I shouldn't have to worry much about putting them on alert as I won't have to break their isolation until I'm ready to take them down.
