Nightmare Avoidance

[Faulty Logic]

So I don't want to deal with the new AI homeworlds on difficulty 10. And yet I am addicted to doom. If only there was some way to win without ever going to the AI HWs...

10/10 Speed Racer/Vicious Raider

70 planet X 252957394 Youngling Vulture.
Normal + Champion, Schizophrenic, complete visibility.
Marauders/Resistance/Rebellions 4
Zenith Traders
Neinzul Enclaves/Wardens 4
Golems/Spirecraft 4 (no Botnet)
Fallen Spire 4
Avengers

===Operation Fade Out===
I can do 5 nebulae without any issue:

Grey Spire vs. Gatlings: Grumble. Getting this one first reduces the number of gatlings reclaimed. I end up with 15.

Pillar vs. Dark Spire vs. Neinzul: the hardest nebula. I always get it as a frigate, and the allied AI splits itself far too often. Destroyer unlocked.

Pillar vs. Citadel: Spire destroyer makes short work of enemy bases, even with just its base weapon. The colony ships are still nasty.

EER vs. Sorrow's Fang: The easiest for me, though that may be simple experience (this is about the twentieth time I have done it).

Mourners vs. Prisons: note to self: popping 5 prisons at once with a destroyer is a bad idea. The base ended up at 3% health. Cruiser unlocked.

By now it is about 1:45 gametime.

===Operation Double Take===

Time to take the planet with the BHM that is holding me in. It also comes with 4 ion cannons and a Hive Golem. This will be the fortress world for the whole game.

Send the cruiser + minions to pop the CS. They die, but succeed. Then I deal with the threat fallout, and send them again. Success. AIP 30. The planet also comes with some pysite, however, so I quickly jumpship-raid 3 DCs. Then I pop the warp gate next to home, so all the waves come to the citadel.

I am constantly fortifying, while my champion does the next 4 nebulae.

IMT vs. RS: Why is the RS faster than me? That made the scenario much harder (that, and the lack of plasma siege modules). Large base ended up at 26%.

2 v 3: On the easy side: all I have to do is defend for a while, then the allies mount successful attacks.

2 v 2: This one is hard. Large bases end up at 12 and 47 percent, respectively.

4 v 5: Awesome. This one is the most fun. It is also much easier since the allied starbases are allowed to repair your shields.

Gametime is now 4 hours. First Golem/Spirecraft exo is at 65%, and I just started the first survey.

Unlocks: Fighter II, Basic turret III, grav/HBC I, laser/mlrs II, Harvesters III.

State of Empire:

[keith.lamothe]

It would appear the deepstrike changes have done nothing to dissuade you

[Faulty Logic]

Um... I never triggered a deepstrike.

[keith.lamothe]

Oh, right, sorry.  I had mistaken the placement of some of the nebulae.

[KDR_11k]

EER is the easiest IMO because you've got two fairly evenly matched sides and you just have to tilt it a bit. Also having only one enemy to focus on makes the dumb ally AI not matter that much.

[Faulty Logic]

Operation Initiate Hostilities
My goal is to get the first spire city up by the time I have to deal with the first golem/spirecraft exo. Ideally, I would also kill all the warpgates in my cluster, forcing the exos to come through my citadel.

The battleship+minions recover the first shard and the refugee ship with no issue.

The refugee outpost complete, I recover the first city shard. And almost lose it. The shard arrives home with 1.5 million health, about half a percent. And my fleet is conspicuously absent. Home Command was saved only with a hive swarm. Exoprogress 90%: no way to refleet and build enough fortifications to survive the event-wave to build the city. Refleeted. Exoprogress 95%. It looks like I have to take this one at home. Hopefully I will have my entire cluster sealed by the next one though.

Operation Red Carpet
At 98%, the second cpa (5000 ships) is announced. Just perfect. Hopefully, they won't arrive at the exact same time, but it will be close.

I conquer the system adjacent to my homeworld purely so I can lay down a huge linear minefield. AIP 19.

Exo time. This one is just swarms of core fleetships, with bunches of spirecraft siege towers/shields, and two Regen Golems. The minefield + Hive swarm + fleet + Spire mod fort defeat it. Close one, though, only survived because of champ shields. In the middle of the fighting, the cpa activated; most (3000) threatball outside the citadel. The other 2000 are en route in carriers.

I send the champion to pop the carriers, but they made it to the world with the other ships, so they deployed core guardians.

Martyr the threatball. Ah, the cheesiest spirecraft. I then kill the various core guardians using champion strikes (retreat when shield down).

Refleet. Again. Gametime 6 hours.

Now with the red carpet (285 minefields) in place and no imminent doom on the horizon, I want to establish the first city.

Operation Armistice Revoked
I establish the first city.
For a moment, it looks like the AI is just going to ignore it.
Then, 600 ships spawn, 3 of them HK Is, all in a group. I send out ten spirecraft rams under cloak to pop the shield bearers, and then wait for the rest to arrive. When they do, 500 angry wasps are waiting for them. And 285 minefields. 2 SC penetrators also help finish the HKs.

It takes a while to repair the hive and get the first two shipyards built (includes popping the AI cmd station in the center of my cluster), and build the spire ships I am now entitled to. Gametime 6:50.

I now conquer three planets (nothing special on them) in preparation for the next city. All their k goes into defences.

Then I gate-raid/kill warp gate guardians/poke out eyes in every planet, so the AI has to get everything through the massive chokepoint (unless it does something like, say, spawn a warp gate guardian just as an exo is about to hit). Recover second shard. Choke takes a pounding, but I am still in mkII turrets, with only a mil station mkI, so I am not overly worried about future defence.

I also have trader toys under construction: Radar jammer II at 50%, complete armor inhibitor, complete counterspy, and two omds at 0. A black hole machine and two ions remain from the initial conquest.

State of Empire

[keith.lamothe]

Some heavy-duty destruction going on there with the shard-recovery + exo + CPA situation.  I should have guessed you would use macaroni&warheads ("martyr" meaning "warhead" in Spire-ese, it would seem)

Something tells me the nemesis fleet is going to find itself in the wrong order of magnitude, when the time comes.

[Faulty Logic]

("martyr" meaning "warhead" in Spire-ese, it would seem) 

A lightning II would have done it, I just prefer 1 fewer pysite to 2 AIP right now.

Something tells me the nemesis fleet is going to find itself in the wrong order of magnitude, when the time comes.

Is the nemesis fleet (or anything, for that matter) intended to do anything against the Imperial Spire? Or did you implement the tweak where they join the attack on the transceiver?

[Faulty Logic]

Time to establish the second city. As soon as I do so, a normal wave declares. Naturally. Heavy casualties including the counterspy, but the choke holds. Repairing and building the second city and its ships takes another 1.5 hours or so. A colony rebellion on some worthless planet outside my cluster declares. It is behind a double black hole generator, which are under a core ff (stupid turboZenith).

One of the things I really like about this game is that mistakes make the game more fun. In related news, ow.

Operation Double Question Mark
After thinking "what could possibly go wrong?", I conquer all the planets in my cluster. I gain an advanced factory, a core grenade fab, two ARSs (Z medics, Z sentinels), and an armored and black widow golem.

AIP 245. That doesn't sound like that much, but it apparently translates into waves of 10,000 bombers (yes, ten thousand). Along with a schizo wave of 6000 (because the RNG hates me), and an FS exo (because the AI hates me), it wreaks havoc. And I haven't had time to upgrade the defences.

Most of my turrets and the human mod fort are dead, along with the counterspy, the second-to-last ion cannon, and every mobile ship smaller than a spire cruiser (except the neinzul enclaves). It takes some time to recover.

Unlocked the following turrets: HBCIV, (Missile, MLRS, Laser) III, spider. Also unlocked the mil III station.

Freed the rebel colony, then captured a cursed golem. Unlock fortresses I-II. Completed the cap of forts mkI.

11,000 ship CPA. At this point the normal attacks are much (much) nastier than the exos. This tells me I should build up the FS fleet.

But first: the CPA. It all arrives together. Stupid turbocarriers. I retreat the mobile fleet, and they bite.

Ridiculous space carnage ensues. Between 4 golems, the champion fleet, the FS fleet, 5 fortsI, 4 modular forts, all the turrets, the armor inhibitor, and the milIII station (under all normal forcefieldsI-III), the battle is actually fairly one-sided. I take maybe a million each of metal and crystal worth of casualties.

Time for the third and fourth cities.

Operation Urban Sprawl
Once the damage from the cpa is repaired, I start the third city survey. It is within my territory.

The shard-chasers barely scratch the paint on the chokepoint. Twiddling thumbs while the colony ship constructs. Colony rebellion declared.

The hub-spawn also lacks paint-scratching ability.

My fleetships are annoyed with me that they are considered sub-paint. And that I build caps of them strictly as a damage soak for the turrets.

The FS exo, then the golem/spirecraft exo bounce harmlessly of my wall o' fortresses. Again, the normal attacks (11,000 ships in a single wave) are much worse.

Third city complete.

I need to take a break from the Spire to rescue my fellow humans. I wait until a regular FS exo, then take the spire and champion fleet out to do battle with the Special forces. Heavy casualties on both sides, but I stand victorious. I then take the rebel colony world, and build the resistance fleet.

The k from that world lets me unlock cloakerIIs and fortIIs.

Abandoned the rebel colony, built a fortII.

Recovered fourth shard and built fourth city with no problem.


State of Empire:

[zoutzakje]

very nice, looks like you got a solid game going on here. I hope the Alternate Win FS fleet is actually capable of destroying the homeworlds on 10/10. I remember seeing a case where they couldn't make progress and just ended up in a stalemate. That was a long time ago though, changes could have been made to make the victory a certainty instead of a probability.

[keith.lamothe]

If the end fleet doesn't do it, just call it a win, I'll agree

[Faulty Logic]

Had to completely reinstall AIWar and its expansions due to a virus, so I lost my screenshots/saves, and this will be more of a vague recollection than an AAR proper.

I recover the fifth shard, then rebuild.

I then spend about 13 hours fortifying my chokepoint far past any sane level. I build the final city, then the capitol.

The Rebel, FS, Champion, and Golem fleets recover the final shard.

I deal with the start-of-construction spawn for the Transceiver. I then wait for my economy to be near cap to trigger the endgame.

The final matchup:

My Citadel:
Fleet:
Fleetships: IREs I-IV, triangles I, grenade launch V.
Starships: all mkI, neinzul enclaves III and riots III.
Golems: 2 hive, 2 armored, 3 cursed, 1 widow.
Spirecraft: anything from xampite or lower is at full caps, all 15 attritioners, all implosions.
Champion Fleet: FL is a fully upgraded human battleship, and nine nebulae worth of minions.
Resistance Fleet: Full rebel caps.
Fallen Spire Fleet: 52 FFs, 12 DDs, 6 CAs, 3 BBs, 1 DN. With the latest in HBC and Shield Tech.

Stationary Defences:
All turrets I-III, HBC IV.
All four mod forts.
Full fortress caps I-III.
2 OMDs. 1 IonII. BHM, Armor inhibitor and booster, Radar Jammer II.
Military CmdIII, under all possible human forcefields.
Spire City, with 6 points and no shipyards.
Superfortress.

And, of course, I have a full cap of Lightning and Armored warheads under cloak, and nukes on standby two worlds away.

I also have a giant minefield, and a second spire city that the enemies would need to burn through.

In retrospect, I overfortified. Victory at 26 hours. The Imperial Fleet had no trouble.

[keith.lamothe]

Had to completely reinstall AIWar and its expansions due to a virus, so I lost my screenshots/saves, and this will be more of a vague recollection than an AAR proper.

Ouch, sorry to hear about the virus.  Perhaps the AI is getting extra-curricular.

I then spend about 13 hours fortifying my chokepoint far past any sane level.

13... hours?  That's more than the length of many full campaigns!

My Citadel:
(summary: total insanity)

The AI needs warheads.

In retrospect, I overfortified. Victory at 26 hours. The Imperial Fleet had no trouble.

"I've got your brutal pick right here, AI!"

Congratulations

[zoutzakje]

haha awesome I would have loved to see something penetrating that super defense of yours. Play with hybrids and trains 10/10 next time

[Dichotomy]

10/10 Speed Racer/Vicious Raider

Do you even play non-10/10 games?

I establish the first city.

The hardest part of the entire campaign.

One of the things I really like about this game is that mistakes make the game more fun. In related news, ow.

LOL.

"what could possibly go wrong?"

Now #1 on the Last Thoughts list!

Ridiculous space carnage ensues. Between 4 golems, the champion fleet, the FS fleet, 5 fortsI, 4 modular forts, all the turrets, the armor inhibitor, and the milIII station (under all normal forcefieldsI-III), the battle is actually fairly one-sided. I take maybe a million each of metal and crystal worth of casualties.

But the AI is supposed to be stomping you!

My Citadel:
(summary: total insanity)

The AI needs warheads.

Or astro trains.