With 5.051 I decided to give difficulty 8 a try, and break open The Children of the Neinzul. I also put a requirement on myself that I pick a Youngling bonus ship to get a feel for how they work.
8 Golemite with Hybrid Hives 4
8 Neinzul Youngster with Hybrid Hives 4
Minion Factions: Broken Golems - Hard 4, Zenith Trader, Zenith Dyson Sphere 4, Human Resistance Fighters 4, Neinzul Rocketry Corps 4, Neinzul Preservation Wardens 4, Neinzul Roaming Enclaves 4
Expansions Active: The Zenith Remnant, The Children of Neinzul
AI Progress: +1 / 30 minutes
Speed and Caps: Normal / Normal
Map: Simple (791330646)
Bonus Ship: Youngling Weasel
0:46 [11 AIP]
I spend some time setting up homeworld defense and stopping waves. I've got a Super Terminal and a Grav Driller next to my homeworld, so expanding might be an issue. I don't want to capture the Super Terminal system for awhile, so I'll just need to clear that out without claiming it if I want waves off my homeworld.
Unlocks: Gravitational Turrets, Metal Harvester III
2:46 [78 AIP]
I Clear Artemis, which has the Super Terminal, and Cadia, which has the Gravity Drill. Hilariously, Human Resistance Fighters are immune to gravity and they show up to help speed up the clearing of Cadia. I then take Golgotha, fortify it, and leave the only Warp Gate next to that so all waves will now come in through there.
Unlocks: Youngling Weasel II, Scout Drone II, Basic Turret II
5:30 [119 AIP]
Cadia is set up as a choke point (aka whipping boy) for the remainder of the game. This choke proves so strong, for all intents and purposes, waves are non-existent. With a Military Command Station in a Gravity Drill system, nothing can touch me. Younglings can't even make it in range before they self attrition. Once the Super Fortress gets completed, this choke point reaches the status of godlike. The only danger it faces is an attack from Hagia which would puts AI ships right next to the Gravity Drill itself, or an Artillery Golem from the Golemite or an Exo.
While Cadia is getting setup, my first Exo hits. It contains an Artillery Goelm and it comes in from Artemis. I just don't have the forces to deal 100 million damage before the Artillery comes through to Yu'Kanesh and evaporates my Force Fields and Home Command Station in short order. I save scum and get a different Exo coming in from three locations, two of which are Cadia, which is handled without much difficulty.
Unlocks: Crystal Harvester III, Hardened Force Field I, Force Field II
9:30 [170 AIP]
From this point on, I use exclusively Younglings and golems for offense, and my other ships for defense of my homeworld. This gets so ridiculous I actually almost hit my cap of Space Docks. This is because I build Space Docks in pairs all over and set them to loop build Youngling Weasels I & II with the rally point set to FRD on whatever the target system I'm trying to take is. I leave these Space Dock pairs up but powered down, and if anything attacks I just power down my current offensive Space Docks and activate the old ones to pour out a stream of Younglings to defend myself. Once the threat is gone, I swap back. I support up my Space Docks with 2 Engineers each (I do run out of Engineers and need to start scrapping some to make room later), so I can put out about 2-4 Youngling per second, which proves strong enough to stop some insanely large forces.
Anyway, I quickly take Hagia to eliminate something Force Field immune coming through and picking off the Gravity Drill. The AI has Inflitrators, and of course a Raid Starship or Plasma Siege are always a serious threat. I also find and raid a Data Center with Raid Starships to take a little of the AIP edge off. Then I take all the systems down to Ullanor, getting a Cursed Golem.
I gate raid around Artemis in preparation to use the Super Terminal and finally claim that system. There is an Ion Eye on Hydraphur, so I spend some time clearing out the guard posts in that system. I'm zerging with Youngling Weasels, and keeping all my other ships back for defense. Again, all of these, including gate raiding, is done with just Younglings and my Cursed Golem. I actually use my Raid Starships only once more this game.
Unlocks: Hardened Force Field II, Spider Turret
10:32 [186 AIP]
Doh, Belis Corona has a Special Forces Alarm Post, which is a warp gate. Killing that, which of course sets it off, bumps my AIP to 192. Lucky I noticed before a wave got declared. Always, always check your galaxy map with W. I remembered to check right as my Command Station finished and was able to rush my Youngling zerg in to deal with the problem.
Meanwhile, I start setting up to take down the Super Terminal. I build up a four Fortresses and a full cap of Heavy Beam Cannons. I only use one Force Field II on the theory that, if anything starts banging on that, I've already lost. I max out my turret caps and the Trader is helpful enough to provide a Counter Spy. The AI has Space Planes which are being annoying to my OCD need to see Attack 0 at the top of the screen. I use the Stealthed Tachyon Beam Emitters to cover Cadia in case any Space Planes turn up there.
Unlocks: Fortress I, Tachyon Beam Emitter, Stealthed Tachyon Beam Emitter, Heavy Beam Cannons
11:15 [82 AIP]
I ride the Super Terminal down. This is surprisingly easy, and I probably could have gotten lower, but I got nervous with 4k enemy ships a fair chunk of which were in Mark IV-V range. What probably made this a touch easier was a lot of Autobombs spawned which got stopped by Gravity Turrets and wrecked by my short range turrets without any chance to causing any damage. Anyway, I stopped before I really took any damage to my Fortresses or Force Fields. I'm happy with -110 AIP on difficulty 8. There are still 1158 Space Planes cloaked. So I did what any lazy commander would do, I let the Counter Spy kill them, one at a time, every 4 seconds. It took about 77 minutes, meanwhile I continue the game.
