Surprise

[Coppermantis]

I'm trying another Fallen Spire game. I've never beaten one, so I hope to do so this time.

Fairly standard setup:

7/7 Random All AIs (weak, I know, but just wait)

80 Planet realistic map

Minor factions:
Resistance fighters 4
Colony Rebellions 4
Zenith Traders
Dyson Sphere 4
Devourer Golem
Roaming Enclaves 4
Golems (Medium)
Spirecraft (Hard) 4
Fallen Spire 4
Botnet Golem (Hard) 4


AI Mods:

Reveal Random AI Types
No Wave Warnings

^^ I've never heard of anyone playing with this so I wanted to try. The AI doesn't get warned when I attack, so why should I? It's just fair, right? RIGHT?

Right.

All expansions are enabled except for Ancient Shadows, which I haven't bothered to install on my new computer yet.



Onto the game:

After spending some amount of time trying to get the map into a readable state, I end up with this:

The massive network at Vanguard Party makes reorganizing the map somewhat difficult, but this will have to do.

Next, I begin the usual early-game stuff. Scouting, getting the fleet built, etc. Yada yada.

Unlocked:

Econ Command II
Missile Frigates II
Grav Turrets
Zenith Bombards II
Mini Fortresses
Laser Turret II
MLRS Turret II

I'm focusing on defense since I will be being attacked without warning and therefore my fleet may not always be able to arrive in time, so I need a decent safety net to hold off aggression until backup arrives. The AI has Mini-Rams, which the grav turrets can hold back and laser gatlings, which MLRS gets bonuses against. The Laser turrets are good vs. Bombers, which would otherwise take out much of my defense, so that's the logic behind those. The AI types I have are Mine Enthusiast, which shouldn't be a problem, and Experimentalist. The Experimental translocators are why I invested in more Bombards, which have enough range to not care much about translocation.

Scouting reveals some good stuff. There's a hive golem on Sloths II, an ARS on Atmospheric Spire and a Starship IV fab on Augustgrad. I'll hack the ARS later, but right now the Golem is top priority since the Hive is probably almost as OP as the botnet golem.

Some waves come, but nothing worth mentioning happens.

The first subspace signal is, obviously, on my homeworld. Blah blah, wait for the timer to count down, and so on. Once it finishes, it tells me that the next signal is on Eastasia, 2 hops away. My fleet is not big enough to deal with the interception fleet, so I take Vanguard Party to provide supply on Eastasia for mobile builders. My fleet neuters the planet and I establish a beach head consisting of mines, assorted turrets and mini fortresses. Vanguard Party gets its own defenses as well.

With the knowledge from VP I unlock Crystal harvesters II. That should help my economy a bit. Once I finish with the beachhead, I send in the Survey ship.

Upon viewing my homeworld in order to grab the surveyor, I see that the home command shield is a little under 50% and being assaulted by bombers which slipped past the miniforts. I must have missed a wave, which does not bode well for the future. The miniforts are moved closer in and make short work of the bombers. It was a close call, though.


Sorry guys.

The survey ship moves to Eastasia and starts looking for the signal. It finds the shard, as usual, and large numbers of AI ships begin to pour into the system (again as usual). It turns out that making the beachheads was a good idea, since my fleet takes almost no losses.


Escorting the Shard

Conveniently, the wormhole to Mimoulette (my homeworld) and Eastasia are very close together on Vanguard Party, so it takes very little time for the shard to get to its destination once it clears Eastasia.


Fighting on Vanguard Party

The subspace reciever is built and begins searching for another shard. Meanwhile, I've decided to pursue the ARS before the golem. I don't have the resources to sustain one at this moment, and Atmospheric Spire has not only the ARS but a Data Center as well. As I expand, though, the whole "no wave warnings" thing is going to start to hurt. At least it still plays the little sound when one arrives, but that doesn't mean I'm always going to hear it. :V

[LordSloth]

Looking forward to a fallen spire LP (especially since my sp game is going brutally poorly with a Hard AI). When I find fleets slipping past my attention, I find using the per-planet alerts helps... especially if the AI is camping one of your worlds with stealth ships and throwing off your 'number of planetsunder attack' counter in the top right.

[Coppermantis]

per-planet alerts

I feel that this is one of the things that I should know what it is but don't. How do I use this exactly?

[LordSloth]

From the game proper, click on the CTRLS tab from the bottom left bar.
Go to the Planet-Specific specific section of the in-game controls.
Top two options of the middle column:
Alert when # of enemy units present
Alert when # of aggressive units present:
Save.

The difference between the two is important for differentiating threat from guards. If you want to sweep a system every time you get 400 ships there, you can do it with the first. If you're trying to protect from CPAs without keeping your eye on the threat listing or the galactic filter for threat, you can put aggressive alerts in every adjacent planet for 100 or so. If you just need reminders when something is on your own planet, either will do just fine if you account for hidden spire survey signals (they count as an enemy), special ops posts, etc.

With the brutality of guardians and other exo-galactic strike ships, I'd recommend setting an alert for two (until the signal is gone from your HW) on your homeworld, 10 or so for planets flanking your homeworld assuming they've got shielded military command stations over those wormholes, and then sticking severe alerts on just the outer ring and non-frontline chokes. A few spirecraft won't hurt you badly, but once H/Ks start appearing  (you'll probably have a large swath of territory) you should start nitpicking a bit more out of paranoia.

Golems? With Fallen Spire you should have enough defense in depth to have time to notice those before they hit your HW thanks to their relatively low speed, until you hit the final part of the campaign. With or without alerts.

[Coppermantis]

Thanks.

[Coppermantis]

And now it's time to begin the offensive towards Atmospheric Spire, with the end goal of hopefully acquiring the ARS in orbit there. There are no significant defenses except for an Ion Cannon I on Iridian Citadel, which should be easily cleared out with starships. All I have are two flagships, which should be enough to take it out. Even if they die, I have the resources to replace them. Halfway to the cannon, though, they get eaten by a Disassembler Guardian. I could build raid starships, but that would take a while. It's just a Mk. I cannon, so I can probably just take it out with fleet ships and suffer minimal losses.

Devourer Golem on Iridian Citadel

'

I'll just wait for that to pass. In the mean time, taking Lusitania might be a good idea. It's adjacent to both Vanguard Party and Mimoulette, so I can easily defend it and taking it would also remove a potential high-level (IV) threat against my homeworld. Also, the Traders stop by, so I purchase a Zenith Generator.

The Cookie Monster left, so I now have the option of immediately pursuing Atmospheric Spire. That sounds like a better idea, since I need to conserve defenses for the next Shard chase, and by taking Lusitania I would need to allocate some of my remaining caps of turrets there instead of on Arrakis.

I'm greeted by a bunch of explosions upon entering Iridian Citadel. I forgot that I was playing against Mine Enthusiast. I'll send in a decloaker before my fleet next time. After taking a quick retreat to repair, I send my fleet back in. It turns out that Enclave guardians under a Mk. III and Spire Guard Post Shield are pretty nasty. There's also a Counterattack Guard Post, which I don't know whether or not sends wave warnings when "No Wave Warnings" is turned on.

They don't.

Eventually I clear the planet. Atmospheric Spire is next. I'll see if there's anything worth hacking for.

[Coppermantis]

ARS tab shows Armor Booster, Polarizer, Beam Frigate, in that order, The leftmost one is the default, correct?

[Hearteater]

Yes.

[Coppermantis]

While moving my fleet towards the Iridian Citadel > Atmospheric Spire wormhole, I cross a minefield around the home command station and lose ~200 ships, which is roughly half my fleet. That's not fun. I'll just wait for them to be rebuilt before continuing the campaign. Once I have a full fleet, however, the Devourer golem chases me around for a good four minutes before I get the idea to just head to another planet and lose it. That works, but the Devourer continues to hang out on Vanguard Party.

Moving into Atmospheric Spire, I hit more mines, again losing around 200 ships. Time to rebuild AGAIN, Might as well call the survivors back.

"Roaming Enclaves are attacking Vanguard Party"

Well, this is unfortunate. My fleet is en route, but because of the mines it may not be enough. Wait, the Enclaves are all gone? Oh, right, Devourer Golem. That's actually pretty helpful, for once.

As the ships enter the wormhole to Vanguard Party, though, they hit ANOTHER minefield, but since this one was just remnants that somehow were missed during my attacks on Iridian Citadel I only lose a few ships.

I Switch view to Mimoulette for a second to grab my fleet and send it to the rest of the survivors who are stationed on Vanguard Party, but upon returning to that location I notice a mysterious lack of fleet.

I'd forgotten about the Devourer Golem. Frak.

This is going nowhere fast.

[keith.lamothe]

Wow, between the mines and the cookie monster, everybody's being shut down

Been a while since I saw the Mine Enthusiast provoke refleets with its hobby.  Feel free to send the mkI fighters ahead of your main group

[Coppermantis]

Yeah, that's a good tactic for dealing with mines, but only when I actually remember that I'm playing against Mine Enthusiast.

[keith.lamothe]

Some scout starships out ahead may also help reveal the mines.  But yea, if you're not thinking about a particular threat it's at least 100x more likely to bite you in the rear

[Hearteater]

Still think the AI needs to rebuild mines periodically.  Maybe on Reinforcement pulses, so mainly on alerted worlds.

[Mánagarmr]

Somewhere in space, a loud "OMNOMNOMNOM!" can be heard

[Coppermantis]

I haven't played this in a while, what with Skyward Collapse, some VotM testing, and some level design work for a Half-Life 2 mod I'm working on taking up all of my free time, and Finals+Driver's Ed taking up all of the rest. In any case, school is now over so I have an abundance of Free time, so back to work.





I've lost my fleet again. Not to the Cookie Monster or Mines, this time, though. (Hearteater's idea about rebuilding mines is something I've thought about before too, since it would also give Cleanup Drones a little more purpose.) Rather, I successfully Hacked the ARS on Atmospheric Spire with little difficulty, but once I destroyed the Command Station, the Barracks positioned there sent about 300 Mk. III ships at me, which were more than a match for my fleet. I had a few transports on AS because of the way I brought in reinforcements to defend the Hacker, but only managed to rescue a little over 70 ships this way. Many of them were my expensive Zenith Bombards and assorted Starships, though, so that was a relief. There's now a big threatfleet (~400) that I must deal with, so that'll be fun.

One little oddity:



The Threat meter at the top indicates 101 Threatening units on Eastasia, but scouting intel reveals only 34 total units on that planet. Is there something that I'm missing?


Meanwhile, hostile and friendly Neinzul Enclaves are fighting back and forth on my two planets. Some AI waves show up occasionally, but they never have enough punch to deal with even my static defense, much less my slowly regrowing fleet. I've got a lot of resources built up, so once my fleet is remaxed I'm going to throw some Mercenary units into the mix to increase my odds when engaging the units released from the barracks.


Suddenly, 310 ships on Vanguard Party? That's a bigger wave than I'm used to at this stage.

Oh, it's just an Enclave Guardian. Carry on, the Friendly Enclaves should be able to deal with it.

Aaaaand then the rest of the threatfleet decides to crash the party. Maybe some fleet intervention is called for at this point.




Ain't no party like a Vanguard Party 'cause a Vanguard Party is REVOLUTIONARY



With the enemy threat now dealt with, I can now safely colonize Atmospheric Spire.


Escorting the colonists


Atmospheric Spire Defensive Setup


Scouting reveals another ARS and an Autocannon Minipod Mk. V Fabricator on Didu, two hops from Atmospheric Spire. A priority objective, to be sure, but more important right now is the Subspace signal on Arrakis. I'll clear that planet out and gate raid Void Gaze and Vassal to delay the shard interception reinforcement time, which should make it easier. I also just remembered that Spirecraft are a thing, so I might be including some of them in my army soon, once I have the resources. I got a Z-gen from the kindly trader, but I've been devoting most of my stockpile to fleet and turret construction, since Power is not a huge issue at the moment. Some Spirecraft Shield Bearers could come in handy from protecting the second "shard," though, so that might be something I'll grab.

"Incoming AI Exogalactic Strikeforce (x2) [Broken Golems-Hard][Spirecraft-Hard]"

I might wait until this blows over before taking the shard itself, but I should still have ample time to preform the pre-retrieval operations. Go Go Go.


Update: ****, I really, really hate the devourer golem. At least some of my Merc fighters made it out this time.