If I was doing this (and I should) I would also disable cloaking.
No cloaking means no scouting, but I suppose turning off Fog of War solves that little problem. That would have been an EXCELLENT call as the biggest threats to my defenses are space planes and especially eyebots.
NemesisIt's been a long, long time. Work has kept me busy. I finally picked this campaign back up.
So.
It was not time to kill the AI homeworld. Triggering the Core CPA guard post triggers a CPA which launches the champion nemesis exo. The CPA is rather anemic, because there's
nothing left in the galaxy. I've neutered everything. One (not-alerted b/c warp jammer) core world has a few guard posts left, the other has only the command station and a ZPG, and then the AI homeworlds themselves (plus a handful of warp counterattack guard posts because those can kill me).
I pull the fleet back out of Madrid (southern core world) and go conquering again. Taking Amsterdam in the southern arm nets me a broken Arty golem that I probably won't repair and an ARS with Chameleons. Sadly I don't have the K for higher marks right now. Taking Jackson (also in the southern arm) gets me an advanced starship constructor, plus a broken Armored golem.
I unlock mark III Protector and Enclave starships since that gets me MkIV. Sadly, economy is in the crapper due to building defenses and a horde of nebula ships. I have mark I and II FFs and hardened FFs, but I decide that Area Mines and MkIII grav turrets will be a great addition to my defenses, both for waves and for dealing with the coming exo.
While I wait for stuff to build, I look around for stuff to do. I notice I have 160 Hacking Progress, I've done zero fab hacks, and New Mexico (next to Amsterdam) has a Core Spider Turret Controller and a Core Attractor fab. Spider Turrets should be an excellent counter to Eyebots and Space Planes, both of which are potential problems in waves. Still directing waves at my homeworld, of course.
I start up the hack, and just after that notice that the threat numbre in the top right is astronomical. Don't play AI War late at night, kids. I completely forgot about the champion nemesis exo I was waiting for. It launched right as I started the hack, with my entire fleet off in the arse end of nowhere. 250 champion nemesis frigates, for the record.
Also for the record, champion nemesis exos didn't exist when I started this campaign. I'd have done max alt-champion-progress and zero alt-nemesis-response if the option had been available.
Just to see how it goes, I let it rampage. The first exo blasts through everything (killing *two* ZPGs on it's way through Choke Mid) on the way to my homeworld. I frantically build matter converters to deal with the energy debt so my homeworld defenses come back online. But, by the time the first exo finally gets there, it's in tatters; the huge pile of HW defenses and the massive Roaming Enclave fleet shred the remnants easily. The other exo is coming, but I'm not worried about it actually killing me. Losing the ZPGs is deemed... unacceptable.
I reset back and start frantically compiling defenses, now that I know what's coming. Mines and Mark III grav drones to try to slow down the incoming horde, with 4 champs sent to Choke East to support the full set of turrets and a mod-fort. The rest of the champs, both useful golems, and the fleet head to Choke Mid, my fallback. The botnet hides out of the way on Choke South; one of my attempts had it get caught by the exo while it was trying to get to CHoke Mid, and it died almost instantly.
I try to build martyrs, but between allt he turrets I'm trying to build in various places, my economy is running on empty, esp with a few of the econ stations swapped to logistics to slow the eastern exo.
First attempt at the defenses goes rather poorly. Once the grav turrets go down on Choke East, the exo just flies past everything and sails on to the next system, killing the command center on the way through. I also have my one martyer inconveneniently placed and can't blast the exo as it charges the fleet at Choke Mid.
The second attempt happens when I'm much more awake and goes rather refreshingly better. I realize that the key to Choke East is to *keep the grav turrets alive*. The obvious way to do that is to drop every available champion shadow shield over it. Since I have all those shadow shields, I may as well place them so I can hide my champs under them while getting into close range of the exo. I have a rather ludicrous number of laser modules on my battleship hulls, and between that and all the turrets and the fort, that actually winds up being enough (though they did fly through a very long minefield on the way in). I think I way overestimated the danger of these, or way underestimated the ridiculous power of maxed out champions with clever module loadout choice.
Choke mid goes swimmingly, I attempt to soften them witha martyer when they dont' immediately melt before my fleet, and that takes out most of the exo; I think my fleet softened up the forcefield blob.
For anyone who has to fight these, it does't look like you're making any progress at first because ALL the champs have force fields, and you have to get through ALL the force fields before they start dying. Once you get that far, though, turrets will do amazing things; no fixed defenses have bonuses against Structural (FFs) but lots of things have bonuses vs Heavy (the hulls). That threw me off a bit, I think.
I rebuild; it does't take too long. I have two mkII Martyrs left, and could probably build a few more.
I notice the Roaming Enclave fleet heading to the southern arm. They turn east at Choke South and head into Madrid... which is next to the southern AI hoemworld. For a moment I'm wondering if they've decided they have the firepower to take the AI hoemworld itself on... but no, they're just cleaning up the threat on Madrid. That's where I saved; I'm trying to decide if I should use them to soak the Core Raid Engine wave and just go in on the homeworld. I suspect I could take it with judicious use of my two martyrs and some finely tuned application of 8 Battleship hulls. IE, I need more Lasers to kill the defending nemesis champs.