Trying the fortress king, and seeing if the SF captain now deserves its hard status. 10/10 for maximum fun.
Goal: see if the .2 homeworld increase from a champion makes FS impossible. If not, apply 3 spire dreadnaughts (and the rest) to the AI's face. And, as always, to cause a bug report.
Simple 80 planets, don't have the seed this time, Z mirrors are my starting ship. Normal and champion.
Minor factions:
marauders 6
resistance 4
rebellions 6
Z traders
Z dyson sphere 4
broken golems 4
spirecraft moderate
Fallen Spire 4
Complete visiblity, Schizophrenic, Avengers, Hybrids 4 and 4, advanced hybrids 7 and 0, no CSGs. This is more of a fun-oriented game. I will end up taking all the planets which would have CSGs anyway.
Unlock fighters mkII, build fighters I-II and riot Is to repel the first waves. Once I have my mkI fleet and riots, I send the champion in normal transports to do two nebulae. After completing the Epsilon Eridani Remnant and the Shattered Pillar vs. Astids and DS, I use my new destroyer to raid for reptite rams to destroy a mod fort command station, and pysite for jumpships to raid two dcs.
I then take a planet with a hive golem (these are awesome.) and an ARS (bulletproofs. We meet again.).
I use the jumpships to do three more nebulae, achieving cruiser size. They were grey spire vs gatlings (23 gatlings reclaimed, saving them), the neinzul mourners, and the pillar vs citadel.
I have the refugee outpost built by the time of the first cpa. 2700 mkII fleetships are unceremoniously swarmed and overwhelmed by 500 wasps. Hive golems rule.
I recover the first city shard, take three planets, and build the first spire city. AI response has been containable thus far, though I don't think I could do it without golem support at this difficulty (with a champion, without resorting to warheads).
Before my economy can actually build the first hub, the first golem exo arrives: HK mkI and a couple hundred escorts.
Unceremoniously swarmed and overwhelmed.
By now the hybrids have thoroughly entrenched my three border worlds. I spend most of the next two hours building up my spire city/fleet, fortifying my chokepoint, cleansing hybrids cheaply (ie with the champion), and dealing with a super hybrid plot (one reptite ram under cloak kills it quite neatly).
I have unlocked fighters II, harvesters III, Zenith and Spire SSs I, engi IIs, forcefield IIs, and hbc, missile, basic, laser, and mlrs turrets II, as well as grav turrets I. Most of this, along with the neinzul and zenith modular forts, is on my chokepoint.
I recover the second city shard with no issue.
cpa2 has 5000 ships, and requires tactics. Grumble. Specifically, riot-tractoring into the chop-shop. Which is really hard to pull off, because the enemy has Z siege engines. This is a nightmare when dealing with a theatball, or worse, a special forces staging ground. Quintuple champion shields still allow the tactic, as does sending the riots and champion in a transport, so they waste their shot.
Rebel colony declared in an extremely inconvienient location. However, they are there, and that makes me happy after their multi-game hiatus.
Build the second city. I will need to take the surrounding systems to expand it.
As I am rebuilding from the city-hub-placement spawn, the third cpa is announced, and it will bring 7000 ships to the party. At the same time as a normal FS exo. 4500 of those end up as mkIII instead of mkII.
It was tricky. Hive golems are awesome.
Other thoughts:
What happened to waves? I updated to 5.079 and the waves are about an order of magnitude (literally) smaller.
Z siege engines are brutal in the hands of the AI.
Fleetships, even only mkI, are not to be underestimated.
Drones are fun.
The fortress king shreds basically everything.
State of empire: P6 means "will put spire city here" P4s will be taken for other reasons.
