General Category > AI War Classic - After Action Reports

Ride the Lightning - a newbie Fallen Spire AAR

(1/8) > >>

Peter Ebbesen:


- a newbie Fallen Spire AAR -



Rather than being a simple rendition of what happened when, which is primarily of value to connoisseurs, who know the game well and are interested in seeing how things diverge from the expeced, I intend this to be more of a chronicle for newer players laying out the strategic thinking behind my choices in this game, be they in the end proven right or wrong.


The Story so far:

I recently picked up AI war, and as I'm the kind of player who tends to play individual games intermittently but intensively when they have my focus, rather than for the long haul, Keith was kind enough to suggest something that would be a bit of a challenge for me after my third attempt at the game on 7/7 with moderate Golems, champions, and the Zenith Trader resulted in a win at >600 AIP within a week of picking up the game.

The challenge: A more war focused game conquering planets all over the place and truly driving up the AIP without access to the superweapons that had made life just a bit too easy for me on 7/7.

Very gratifyingly, his suggested setup crushed me a number of times through my 4th to 7th games over the following week as I learned of new ships and game mechanics that had been little relevant in the 7/7 win, before I finally survived long enough that I felt it made sense to chronicle my efforts, based on hard-won experience and picking what has got to be one of the cheesiest ship picks ever, the Sentinel Frigate, rather than my earlier picks of Infiltrators, Spire Corvettes, and Lightning Torpedo Frigates. (The latter after an attempt where the AI hybrids got their hands on them. Hybrids with LTF are really, really, silly. Sadly, getting a handful of LTF myself turned out to be rather less impressive than fighting hybrids fielding hundreds of them.)

If there's anything cheesier than caps of high damage armour type agnostic armour piercing planetary range sniper units, I'm not sure I want to know what it is.

In my last attempt, game #7, I conquered one entire cluster and was at a bit more than 400 AIP when I finally dared to construct a Spire Hub. When a game like AI war tells me that I should expect to need to fortify heavily, I tend to take its word, though perhaps I overdid it a bit.

Nevertheless, hardly was construction underway than I was promptly crushed by a wave that included two Armoured Golems, an Artillery Golem, and diverse others that punched through my really heavy duty defenses consisting of all forts, all mines, all heavy beam turrets, a heck of a lot of other turrets, and my fleet. The AI hadn't gotten the memo that this was supposed to be a Spire-only superweapon game, and I had not had anywhere near the time to get the Spire hub, which I located on a planet that the AI had to move through when spawning waves, built up to participate meaningfully in the game. The Golems & Co. punched right past that planet, into the homeworld, and punched it out, behaving just like the Shadow Frigate exo waves I'd fought in my 7/7 win, where the Golems were on my side, in going for the goal rather than getting distracted in other systems. Golems are nasty. :P

That's how I learned that Lightning Warheads, that until then had seemed the cure-all for really tough situations, only tickle Golems. Now I know that Golems – or anything else the game may throw at me equally tough – needs to be either a) met with Armoured Warheads, b) far from home, or c) preferably both.

I still like Lightning Warheads, though. They are good at clearing out the rifraff.

Win or lose, this is how the result of Keith's challenge plays out, for after this I'll have to turn my mind to other things for a time.



The setup:

I am not sure how appropriate this challenge is for new players in general, as I am a veteran strategy games player and Keith knows it, which undoubtedly informed his setup. Going from a single victory in 7/7 to 9/9 with double AI types in my second week of playing the game can best be described as rough.

But it is fun, prevents me from accessing the truly powerful champions, Golems, or Zenith Trader goodies to trivialize defense, and to me, at least, it is a challenge at my current level of game knowledge. What more could one reasonably desire? Try this setup at your own risk.

All expansions enabled.
Conquest.
Full fog of war.
100 planets with simple clusters.

9/9 Special Forces Captain/Bouncer and Mad Bomber/Reservist.
4/10 Fallen Spire: Sole source of extra superweapons.
6/10 Hybrids for the SFC/B: A bit more aggression from the AI.
0 automatic AIP increase: The hybrids assure me that I should relax and take my time.
Complex shiptypes: No opting out of any shiptypes.
Schizo waves.
Low caps.

My choice: Sentinel Frigate.

Starting game version: 7.028
Seed: 125439421


The Map:





Initial Analysis:

This map gives me five clusters and plenty of natural chokepoints. It has, it goes without saying, been chosen exactly for those properties. I enumerate the clusters 1 through 5 starting in the lower-left and going clockwise.

I have chosen my homeworld to be the single chokepoint in cluster 1, which means that for the duration of the early game I'll be tanking the AI directly on my homeworld with all waves incoming from the planet labeled Hub Alpha, which is where I intend in the fullness of time to construct my Spire hub.

I did get to see what I could construct in the hub from the ship design menu in game #7 even if I didn't get to actually build a Shard Reactor before death, so it is clear that Hub Alpha will in the fullness of time be a very strong position. Ideally, everything will be stopped there or, if not stopped, then take serious damage passing through the system on the way to the Homeworld.

I assume I'll be building more hubs or even greater defenses later on, as Keith told me this was essentially a war campaign. I have thus tentatively labeled the other exit point from cluster 2 Hub Beta. Hub Beta leads directly to both Cluster 3 and Cluster 4. By the time the war really gets going, I'll want enemies to have to fight through both Hub Beta and Hub Alpha to reach my homeworld.

I have chosen the Sentinel Frigate because they seemed almost unbelievably cheesy in general and can laugh at the armour of Armoured Golems, and Golems were my bane in game #7. This means that assuming no spectacular fabricator unlocks that radically changes the equation, most planet defenses will be dealt with by simple pummeling from range by the Sentinel Frigates while keeping the rest of the fleet in a single fleetball to kill anybody approaching the Sentinels.


The projected phases are as follows based on knowledge gained through games #4 to #7. After these phases, I will have to improvise, which is where it gets really fun and dangerous.


PHASE 1:


* Defensive tech unlocks, start building up a fleet and a strong defense. This is expected to last the first 5 minutes or so. I use a defensive setup strongly based on Kahuna's guide HERE. It is highly recommended for new players to read that thread.
* Scout north in cluster 2, sending forces to neutralize a few systems to help the scouts range further out. Mark any Dire Guardian systems and their neighbours for future avoidance. Destroy any Data Centres found. Weed out any hybrids congregating near me on a regular basis. This is expected to take an hour or two, but I must take care not to overdo it as the hybrids progress while I stay at 10 AIP.
* Repeat step #2 south of the homeworld in cluster 1, with the difference that I start taking over capturable turret controllers, fabricators, and factories once I know that there's no Raid Engine or Dire Guardian Lair next door. Look out for alarms. Neuter every planet that does not contain a worthwhile capturable and is not adjacent to one of the AI triggers. During this, unlock more defensive tech to fortify the homeworld chokepoint, the higher tier Sentinel Frigates, level 1 forts, and adjust to fit the developing situation. Make sure always to have a stock of Lightning and Armoured Warheads on the homeworld, just in case the AI sends in something truly nasty, the hybrids spawning in clusters 2-5 decide to invade, or I am hit by yet another new game mechanic. There's no "overkill" where existential threats are concerned. This is expected to take a few hours, as I slowly and methodically reduce the southern defenses and take over everything of note there.
* Systematically take out Raid Engines and Dire Guardian Lairs, and one at a time. Expect massive casualties. Continue unlocking tech. This is expected to take a few hours.
* Throughout this, recruit the mercenary Neinzul (first priority), missile frigates, and zenith beam ships whenever I'm near the resource cap. Why let income go to waste?
* Phase 1 ends when everything worthwile in cluster 1 is under my direct control, I have a strong defensive position in my homeworld, and my navy is ready to see the wider world.


PHASE 2:


* Begin Shard recovery operations (this may actually start in the previous phase, if I deem I am strong enough, but there's no hurry) up to getting the Refugee Colony established on my home planet, should the shards turn out to be accessible without fighting the hybrids congregating north of my homeworld. Time: Unknown.
* Unleash the lightning to blast the hybrids gathering on the Hub Alpha planet to enable passage north. I know from game #7 that they'll be there in the hundreds and stronger by far than my navy, but that's the sort of problem that Lightning Warheads were made for. This is expected to take roughly five minues.
* Go north, and spent HAP on hacking controllers or factories in cluster 2, while also collecting any progressing the Spire campaign up to the Refugee colony step. I'll presumably be under constant pressure from hybrids and special forces during this step, so I have absolutely no idea how long it will take – this is entirely unexplored territory to me.
* If I feel a need for more tech, conquer a few of the planets in cluster 1 that were left out due to lack of interesting capturables. In game #7 I conquered ALL in my initial cluster to have a safe area and didn't operate at all in cluster #2 before trying to build a Spire Hub. I am not sure whether I'll do it this time, since I'd like to have the Spire Hub up and running before hitting the 400+ AIP range again as the normal waves were getting a bit scary and Keith has assured me that AIP isn't factored into the Fallen Spire exowave strength. Since I now know to meet the Spire Hub exowave with Armoured Warheads, I won't need as strong defenses when it arrives. Regardless, combined with the operations in the previous step I should have a stronger position overall. The time to conquer such extra planets will be negligible as they've already been neutered.
* Phase 2 ends when I'm prepared to build the Spire Hub. I must definitely have military stations 3 (an early unlock), mark 3 shields, all mines, and level 1 forts unlocked, as well as several turrets depending on my luck with controllers. I will not necessarily have level 2-3 forts unlocked like in game 3, as I am planning on doing it at lower AIP, to make the regular waves less of a nuisance.

PHASE 3:


* With metal capped, and with no incoming CPA, shortly after destroying regular incoming waves move the entire navy to one of the three neutered systems adjacent to Hub Alpha in cluster 2, destroy the command station, and take over the system. For the first time since phase 1, I will now have more than one jump gate leading to one of my planets – the jump gates leading to this decoy planet and the jump gate leading from Hub Alpha to Homeworld. I do this to ensure that the AI has a world to target with a jumpgate in the unlikely event that it decides to initiate a wave during the next step.
* Go to the Hub Alpha system along with a constructor and all engineers. Destroy anybody defending the planet, then destroy the command station, build a Military 3 station, throw spare shields and Core Turrets on it, and begin building the Spire Hub with full engineer support. For the brief duration of the construction of the military station, my only incoming wormhole is to the decoy planet. Without that decoy, it is theoretically possible that the AI would warp in a large wave somewhere at random, which would be really bad when combined with an incoming exo. With resources capped out before construction and with the salvage coming in from the waves destroyed immediately prior to initiating this step, it is possible that I'll complete the Spire Hub and a Shard Reactor while the exowave arrives. And perhaps not.
* When the exowave arrives, throw Armoured and Lightning Warheads at it until it is dead.
* Build up defenses in Hub Alpha such that most (all?) things will die here without ever penetrating to the homeworld. It'll only be 12% salvage rather than 50%, but that's a small price to pay for a bit of defensive depth.
* Phase 3 ends with a shining completed Spire Hub in Hub Alpha, that is so strongly defended that I can laugh at anything except for what the Fallen Spire campaign throws at me. That Golem exowave in game #7 convinced me that the campaign is way nastier than anything the base game throws at me unless I deliberately rack up AIP beyond what I feel I can control.


So, how did this plan actually work out?

As noted in the beginning, I have progressed far enough in the game that a considerable amount of these opening phases have been accomplished (if not exactly according to my initial planning) and valuable lessons have been learned, and I'll be writing those installments as I find time over the next few days as well as playing on.

I'll start by noting that my initial unlocks were Military Stations Mk. II and III, Sentinel Frigates Mk. II, Neinzul Enclave Starship Mk. II, and the Heavy Beam Cannon.

Newbie advice: The HBC marks are truly amazing defensive weapons. They are so cheap to construct that you can profitably destroy them whereever they are located in favour of constructing them on the fly in locations that come under attack so long as you have a bunch of engineers present. I generally use most of them at chokepoints – all of them in times of danger – but demolish some or all of them whenever I need to defend somewhere else. This also makes for a good bait. If there's an enemy amassing beyond a chokepoint that will soon be strong enough to attack, why NOT demolish all your HBC's at the chokepoint, thus lessening the threat the AI senses, tempting it to attack earlier... only to quickly rebuild all of them when the AI starts pouring in? Backed up by a few score engineers, you can build all HBCs of all marks in a few second so long as you have the resources, and they provide a considerable boost to your defenses when set up between your command station and your tractor/lightning/flak trap, such that they cover everybody on that final stretch of the assault route or stuck dealing with your TLF trap?

Also, one note before the smart guys chime in: As I have progressed further, I later realized that I could just have sent scouts in transports on death trips rather than painstakingly killing off sentries and neutering to push out my sensor net in the early game, but as I hadn't thought of that at the time, well, that's just how it goes. You live and learn.



ONE REQUEST:

Please do not, kind reader, tell me overmuch about what the campaign will bring. Comment my actions, certainly, but leave me scope for exploration and failure. :)

keith.lamothe:

--- Quote from: Peter Ebbesen on May 22, 2014, 02:12:10 pm ---I am not sure how appropriate this challenge is for new players in general, as I am a veteran strategy games player and Keith knows it, which undoubtedly informed his setup.
--- End quote ---
Definitely.  I had to think for a bit on how to set the difficulty to "Serene" :)

*grabs popcorn*

Peter Ebbesen:


- Phase 1, part 1 -


Scouting the North

Initial unlocks were Military Stations Mk. II and III, Sentinel Frigates Mk. II, Neinzul Enclave Starship Mk. II, and the Heavy Beam Cannon.

As planned, I began scouting cluster 2, which as the reader will recall is the cluster immediately north of my starting cluster, cluster 1, with waves of 10 scouts, pushing them as far as they could reach before they died. Once all that could be reached had been scouted and I had constructed full caps of all my fleet ships and starships, I began neutering planets, leaving only jump gate and command centre alive, in order to allow me to send scouts further.

I found two Data Centres, a Factory IV, an Advanced Research Centre, a Design Backup for Bombards, a Sniper Turret V controller, a Zenith Power Generator, and two Dire Guardian Lairs.

Now, if there's one thing I fear, and perhaps irrationally so, it is Dire Guardian Lairs. Keith gave me the lowdown on them recently, and they are not quite as fearsome as I dreaded, but they are dangerous enough.

The ultra-safe thing is to avoid them and their neighbours like the plague until you are strong enough to deal with them, and to avoid moving anything but scouts to a planet unless you have already scouted all its neighbour planets, to ensure that none of them are Dire Guardian Lairs. This does down slow scouting, but better safe than sorry.

Since I wanted to take out the two Data Centres as they weren't adjacent to Dire Guardians and since opposition was fairly weak, I neutered all the planets on the way to the Data Centres including the ARS and Factory IV planets. I didn't want those two now, giving me planets on alert in cluster 2 as well as AIP before I'd started to secure my backyard in cluster 1, but neutering them now when I was going for the Data Centres anyhow might save me future pain.

All together, this took some two hours or so, much of it at +5 to +6 speed setting, a time that can obviously be improved on with less neutering and more bypassing defenses using transports, but I was in no real hurry.

Nevertheless, it was with a certain amount of relif that I turned my eye to the southern cluster, cluster 1, and began scouting it with a view to the main goal of this particular game, conquest!



Scouring the South

Here the scouting would not be so monotonous! The wave of scouts was followed closely by my fleet, neutering the unworthy and destroying their jump gates in the process, and conquering the worthy!

Initial scouting reports showed some major goodies in the western parts of the cluster, so that was the vector of my initial attack. A Zenith Power Generator, Zenith Siege Engine V, Spider Turret V, and Advanced Starship Factory, all close together and very heavily defended.

There were none of Raid Engines or Dire Guardian Lairs I feared, but multiple radar dampened Sniper Guard posts doing upwards of a million damage per shot at arbitrary range do incur a certain amount of respect, especially when located under force fields. Let's just say that my Starship heavy fleet backed up by Sentinel Frigates had no problems defeating any of the defenses, but it sure got bloody at times and for the mark 4 worlds I had to peel them one layer of defenses at a time, withdrawing the fleet to repair and receive major reinforcements on a regular basis. Apart from a few heavily defended mk. 4 worlds, most defenses in my 7/7 game had been a joke when my fleet showed up, the fleet being able to destroy all planet defenses in one go; With difficulty 9/9, that was no longer the case.

Fortunately, the planets guarded by the Special Forces captain mostly had Special Forces Guard posts all over the place, which were rather easier to deal with.

By the time two or three CPAs had come and gone, the western part of cluster 1 was secured and it was time to move in on the eastern part, which had fewer goodies, but one of them was very good indeed: the Superterminal!


The map below shows the situation at 6h and a bit. The key is as follows:

P9: Dire Guardian Lair or Raid Engine – avoid!
P8: Planet that I want to avoid (e.g. next to a DG or Raid Engine)
P7: AI defenses intact, warp gate destroyed if adjacent to one of my planets.
P6: Neutered planet, that I for some reason or another want to remember something about, so that I don't take action here without remembering it or reading an attached note.
P5: Neutered planet with something worth conquering or hacking.
P1: Planet that is important to defend.
P0: Planet that is essential to defend due to an irreplaceable building.

All planets that aren't controlled by me but are scouted and don't have a priority mark are planets under AI control that have been neutered, and in case of those adjacent to any of my planets, have had their warp gate destroyed as well.






I had a quandary on my hands:  Should I take down the Superterminal now or wait until later on for a greater AIP reduction when I had a larger fleet and Fallen Spire ships some time during phase 2 or 3?

I decided to stay with the spirit of the challenge and play this like a game of conquest rather than minimum AIP: I would complete phase 1, and then, when I had conquered the Flak Turret V controller, the Bomber V fabricator, and gotten the Refugee outpost built and was ready for phase 2, I'd take down the terminal as my last act before turning my attention north to the real war.


As of 6:18:46, tech unlocks are:

Offensive:
Neinzul Enclave Starship Mk. II and III
Sentinel Frigates Mk. II and III

Defensive:
Engineer Mk. II
Force Field Mk. II
Fortress Mk. I
Heavy Beam Cannon Mk. I and II
Military Stations Mk. II and III
Spider Turret


-----
Incidentally, why aren't the columns in the STATS pages sortable by clicking their title? E.g. Click the time column in techs and it sorts the column by time, click the techname column and it sorts by techname, and so on for all the columns in all the stats pages? This is done for the resource flows panel, but rest assured that the ability to sort would be just as appreciated for all the other panels (military, economy, technology, ships by player, types by player)

You go to all this trouble to present players with useful information at their fingertips, something I deeply appreciate as I am very much a lover of numbers, and then you don't enable rudimentary sorting of the data. It is a low hanging fruit where improving the interface is concerned.

Peter Ebbesen:


- Phase 1, part 2 -


Preparing for the Superterminal

Thus I went about conquering the Flak Turret V controller and the Bomber V fabricator and began the Spire campaign story. AI waves were manageable, but between rebuilding, a hybrid invasion, a CPA, and some of the neutered planets in the south stacking enough ships to launch invasions of their conquered neighbours, it was to be three hours before I had the refugee colony established, four spire frigates launched, and was ready to take on the Superterminal.

For that purpose, my navy was heavily augmented with the addition of 36 shield bearers, that my leech starships had nicked from the enemy, and I brought an engineering team along. As soon as the military station III had finished on the planet, Spider V and Flak 5 turrets were installed, as well as every single HBC I had available at the time, that is, all of marks I through III. I also had, near the Superterminal that spawns from it would be within the AOE but far enough away that the warheads wouldn't be taken out by accidental AOE from battle near the terminal, four Lightning III warheads under Cloaker starship protection, and further warheads stationed at critical P0 planets along the route from the terminal to the homeworld.

The reason for not stationing all the warheads at the Superterminal was simple – if I grossly miscalculated what was needed to ensure that the fixed defenses and fleet killed off the remnants of the superpulsing at the end, rebuilding all turrets for the defense of the next planet and rushing in reinforcements for the ships dead in the Superterminal world, and perhaps doing this for several non-critical worlds in a row before burning AIP to defeat the remnants once an important world was reached, seemed to me to have the least chance of going completely wrong in case of miscalculation.



Hacking the Superterminal

In the event, I happily slaughtered the Superhacking response until the strength increase per tick reached around 6k or so. Based on Lightning Warhead experiences in game #7, I knew that in most cases I could count on a Lightning III taking out roughly 20-40k strength, and probably more like 30-35k if one counted stacking multiple warheads, but I had seen as low as 20-25k, which meant that as strength increase approached 7-8k per tick, and assuming the total level was such that I'd want to use warheads in the first place, further reducing AIP would be an unacceptable risk, as I'd risk paying as much, or more, AIP on warheads than the reduction given, and would at the same time increase the risk to myself if anything went wrong.

Thus, at 195,768 terminal strength response and with 334 enemy ships already engaging me, I ordered my Sentinel Frigates to fry the Superterminal, watched the AI spawn thousands of ships, and detonated the four warheads.

In a word, it was glorious!






Also, I must admit, a bit of a letdown. The warheads destroyed 150k threat, which was in the very high range of what I expected, which meant that it is possible I might have been able to make do with three rather than four. I ended up with a surprisingly large proportion of my fleet surviving the battle, on the order of 60-70%.

On the other hand, it is better to be safe than sorry, and it was merely luck – not skill – that made the AI populate its terminal spawn with low-hitpoint ships rather than high-hitpoint ships.

In the end I gained a 196 AIP reduction (and hence 98 increase), for a total reduction after counting in the warhead costs of 86, and for a practically risk-free operation (once due precautions had been taken), I'm happy with the outcome.

If I'd had a better grasp of the post-hacking Superterminal response in 7.028 I might have hacked for longer, but as I wanted to be damn sure to progress further than I did in game #7, I played it safe in this and other decisions.

It was time to take the battle to the hybrids.





The Hybrids with a hundred Shield Bearers. Oh, well, it could have been worse.

keith.lamothe:
And the greedy heroes did somehow in their infinite wisdom decide to disturb the chamber in which the great monster was sealed 1,000 years ago.  A remarkably good seal, which required extreme jumping-up-and-down on to so disturb.  And then the nearly-200,000-strength doom of the galaxy was unleashed...

At which point the heroes vaporized the entire solar system and laughed all the way to the bank.

They had played JRPGs, and watched horror films, you see.



A well-executed hack :)

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page