This is the story of my adventures on a 10-planet map, which I heard from the Wiki was very hard to play. Deciding to test that theory, I set the AI types to Zenith Descendant and Attritioner, both difficulty 7. Most minor factions don’t work on 10 planet maps, but the ones I have enabled are Mauraders, Resistance Fighters and Golems-Hard. My starting ship is the Bombardment Frigate. This is a little wordy, so if you don't want to read it all a summary is included at the bottom of each chapter. Image of the mapPreface
The Base at planet Lusitania was arguably doomed from the start. Those who staffed it had been assigned to the most difficult sector of the galaxy. A mere 10 planets within the range of any ship, and no chance of escape after the blockade runners had ferried them there. Surrounded on all sides by High-level planets, gaining territory would be extremely difficult, and maintaining the garrison itself had been a nightmare.
But then, the officer in charge of Lusitania was killed by an AI bombing raid, and needed to be replaced. As such, the Human High Command sent a new commander to the garrison, who’s skill turned out to be the best thing to ever happen to the tiny sector.
Chapter 1: Hold the Fort
In the battle in which the previous general was killed, the Human fighting forces had been decimated, and needed to be rebuilt. Our space docks began churning out Mk. I vehicles as the scouts began to locate key targets, and our scientists use what knowledge we had to develop new ship designs. Turrets were mounted, mines laid and shields booted up. Everyone knew that the AI would not wait to let us get a head start, even now our scouts detected forces massing at our borders.
The low amount of worlds did give us one advantage though: Almost every planet had something of value. It would be impossible to take a planet needlessly. The scouts found that all but two worlds had Research Stations, and Fabricators, Factories and Golems were abundant. Both planets adjacent to Lusitania had advanced factories, but one also had two golems and an ARS, as well as next to no heavy defense. After we fought the initial AI wave, our ships quickly took Talnon.
After erecting our command station and building the basic defenses and material harvesters, we built a full cap of basic ships as well as a few mk.II and III ships. The advanced factory gave us Mk. IV ships, and we also built a cap of Sentinel Frigates and Parasite Mk. Vs from the fabricators. The ARS gave us acid sprayers, and a fleet of those was built too. We began to repair the golems, but the next AI wave arrived before they could be completed. The AI was still underestimating us, so their waves were easy, for the moment. After both Golems were completed (A Botnet and Hive), we looked for other prime targets. There were two available wormholes, one, Iridia, containing A Hive and Black Widow golem, as well as an ARS, and the other, Earth, which was of little use, and bordered a world with two armored golems and another ARS. We hastily valued Iridia as a higher target, and once the hive golem had amassed its 500 wasps we sent an EMP in and immediately after launched all our ships, including the Golems. It was a mistake. Iridia bordered the AI homeworld, and was stocked entirely with Mk. V ships. The botnet golem could not attack them and they ate up the 500 wasps, not to mention they were unaffected by the EMP. We immediately fell back and rebuilt our forces, defending against the backlash.
Needing more ships, we attacked Earth to gain knowledge, as well as energy and materials, which were abundant. Oddly enough, command withdrew the units before the command station was even damaged. We would go for it later, because our scanners had detected an incoming exogalactic wave: Golems would soon be entering our territory. We needed to build defenses fast.
Worryingly, Iridia had massed almost 1000 ships. Desperate to reduce the numbers, fearing that should we have to move ships elsewhere, the AI would attack, command resorted to the tactic of “Fling lighting warheads at them until something good happens.” It was surprisingly successful, taking out half the ships guarding the wormhole. A few missiles were destroyed by warhead interceptors
*, but most of them got through. A quarter of the remaining ships began to retaliate, but were slowed by gravity turrets, bombarded by fleet ships and swarmed by wasps until the number of Mk. V ships was down to 400. Now it was time to brace for the arrival of the Golems.
SUMMARY: We build initial defenses, beat a few waves, and then take planet Talnon for it’s Advanced Factory, ARS and Fabricators. After an attack on Iridia with 500 wasps and 600 standard ships is beaten by the Mk. V ships (Which, I was too late to discover, are immune to EMPs and Reclamation making my Botnet Golem useless), we are forced to launch missiles at them repeatedly, hoping to get their numbers down. We destroy several starships in the progress, but are forced to stop as an Exogalactic Strike Force warning puts us on defensive mode.
NEXT GOAL: Capture one of two Mk. IV planets, as well as Earth. Survive the Exogalactic Wave.*This increased my AI Progress, yet the warhead interceptor's tooltip said that it did not increase the AIP?
