The ever victorious armies

[Gorgar]

Hi there!
This is my first AAR in a game ever so please come with constructive critique. I have been playing playing this game a few times at AI 7 and each time added something new. Last time though I won in four hours and thought its time to ramp up the evilness of the AI, so here I will have two random all except technologist difficulty 8.

So here I will tell the tale of how the human factions try to survive and even win against the ever victorious armies of the AI.
Everything started in the dark (left) corner of the galaxy against an Attritioner and an Vanilla AI with
100 planets in clusters
Zenith Traders
Zenith Dyson sphere 4
Fallen Spire 4
Broken Golems easy
Botnet Golem hard 4

So this is my first time with FS and a hard golem setting so some exiting things will happen guaranteed.
I start with unlocking Harvesters 2-3, Mini Fort, warp sensor and heavy beam (I like these). Then I proceed to see what special ship I got.
I got the corvette as special ship, that will be fun. Nice to try some things from Shadow, first game with that expansion.
So my start looks like

I directly decide that I will clear out this cluster and set up my whipping boys at the exits from this cluster, but I start with clearing out and taking the planets that border my HW. While I do that I notice that the corvette fits my style so unlock lvl 2 here I come. I also unlock engineer 2, heavy beam 2 and Raid 2.

So my expansion yet so far had been easy so I went for Romurderba and decided to skip Aidvi on the way as seen in picture.

As seen from the picture I succeeded but it was not as easy as I thought it would be. On Aidvi I was allowed to see how efficient tacklers are in AI hands. They totally annihilated my fleet twice until I decided to go starship fleet only. After that decision things went more smoothly (How am I to handle those if I don't want to go starship only?).
Lasharp is polite enough to have a botnet so that will be fun to try, otherwise my cluster contains nothing of interest. Because of all the tacklers I unlock more starships two and a half hour in the game: Zenith and spire but I also unlock spider turrets to get more power to my corvettes.

[Diazo]

Welcome to the fight! 

Actually several things that caught my eye in your AAR, this is going to be fun.

- Won your previous game in four hours? Nice. That is fast for a 100 planet map. (I'm assuming you played the same number of worlds last time.)

-First time for both FS and Golem hard? 
You've got fun times ahead.

-You are planning to take the entire cluster which fits for an FS campaign. I saw no comments about shard recovery however, did you investigate the signal in your homeworld? That is what actually starts the FS campaign. (Check the STATS -> Journal Tab.)

-All starship fleet? Nice to see someone else try this. Don't neglect your fleet ships though, you'll probably end up wanting Mk II of a couple fleet ships as there will be situations where starships will just suck at.
Having said that, with the AI having Tacklers starships are going to be your friend.

Continue the good fight!

D.

[keith.lamothe]

Welcome to the forums and to the game   Looks like you're picking it up pretty well indeed if you beat a Diff 7 in 4 hours.  Securing that cluster probably will be a good thing, in light of playing with Fallen Spire on.

[Gorgar]

I must admit though that it was a 80 star system that i played last time, and the stomp can be explained by that i had the shield bearers. They are extremely powerful, at least on AI 7.3, therefore I would not chose that this time.
And yes this game is going to be extremely interesting because I had no idea what a exo was until it happened.
And how would you use the fleet ships on this game? The only use i have had of fleet ships yet so far in this map is for defense, when they cant use the tackler against me.

So where were I?
Yes I was out with my fleet and clearing the cluster

The fleet has reached one Whipping boy and the second almost is reached, when I see this

oo intresting. An exo, with what i have understood, they come from warp gates so i need to clear out my cluster before this happens. After that i will start the FS.

Apparently the AI don't like me, I cant really understand why but the feeling is mutual. I had unlock Heavy beam 3 and force field lvl 2 a little before so with that I let them come, I could even continue my hack while defending against that thanks to the whipping boy.
At 4 hours into the game i have cleared the cluster totally and have a threat of 3k which is including the exo that was released i guess. I'm pretty scared so I unlock modular fortress to help me, lets see what happens.

Hmm when I had set up such a heavy defense that only a high AIP game allows, the Exo was tooth less (does it get harder when times roll on?). I continue on with more defense for future so i unlock: counter missile, fortress, basic 2, lightning 2, gavity and hardened FF. I really appreciated the counter missile, the wave of 2k missile ships was like taking candy from a polar bear (I know, because thats what we do in Sweden ). I unlock Laser 2 and 3 for my new spire ships that i got from the second signal. Forgot to mention that i went out and got first and second, it did these things in the wrong order because now there where no fun chasing they mostly died against my defenses. I will wait with getting more until I have scouted and picked those closest cluster clean.
So 6 hours into the game I go on a crusade into the galaxy with only starships

it goes well and i feel brave so I plan to go to the other side of the cluster and cleaning away all the tachyon sensors for later scouting

But out here I notice I'm not as cool as i thought, the special forces hunts me and almost crush me. The botnet goes down to 2% and half of my starships are dead, the other half is down under 10% and in a cloaked starship but then the last tackler die. My "mighty" fleet killed more than 3k ships so it was a great battle. The fleet gets to rest and a command station is built out there, repairs of the fleet and a new hive golem is undertaken. While i repair i notice that special forces has a new 2k fleet moving around and coming towards me. Therefore, the starships go into a transport and the golems are set off line. Together they hide silent as mice, below a cloaking starship, precisely when the AI jumps in for a kill. I slowly start to flee move towards the home cluster. I succeed getting home without loses but it was scary, really scary. This is how my whipping boy looked after my return and a lot of threat + fallen spire wave hit it simultaneously.


As you can see the AIP is really high but one cluster is cleared. It was not much of interest in my part of the galaxy but the botnet balance that out.

[Diazo]

And how would you use the fleet ships on this game? The only use i have had of fleet ships yet so far in this map is for defense, when they cant use the tackler against me.

Because you have the golem along which I did not in my game, the issue I ran into may not be such a big deal.

What I was running into was that the AI was getting so much firepower on the warp point that my starship fleet could not make use of their higher survivability to win the battle.

In more detail, a cap of starships has roughly twice the health, but half the DPS of the equivalent cap of fleet ships.

That means the starships have to survive twice as long to deal the same amount of damage that the fleet ships do.

The AI was massing so much firepower that my starships were only surviving maybe 15% longer then the fleet ships would so I was not able to break into the system and survive to get off the warp point because the starships were actually putting out less damage before dying then the equivalent fleet ships would.

Now, two things in your favor is that I had the difficulty a lot higher. (9 or 9.3 I think? It's been a while.) And I had no golem to assist me.

Still, it makes for a very interesting read to see someone else try a  pure starship fleet. It is actually very uncommon to do so it seems. (At least in the AARs that get posted.)

D.

[Faulty Logic]

So this is my first time with FS and a hard golem setting so some exiting things will happen guaranteed.

They hunt! They kill!

(How am I to handle those if I don't want to go starship only?).

Unlock Riot starship IIIs and stick gravity modules on them (requires grav I research as well). Or have enough shieldbearers/corvettes to cover your non-tractor-immune ships in forcefields.

-All starship fleet? Nice to see someone else try this. Don't neglect your fleet ships though, you'll probably end up wanting Mk II of a couple fleet ships as there will be situations where starships will just suck at.

Listen to him. He knows.

Welcome to the forums and to the game   Looks like you're picking it up pretty well indeed if you beat a Diff 7 in 4 hours.

All sentiments echoed.

Apparently the AI don't like me, I cant really understand why but the feeling is mutual.

The hate (both ways) is just getting started.

Hmm when I had set up such a heavy defense that only a high AIP game allows, the Exo was tooth less (does it get harder when times roll on?).

Yes, by about +25% strength each exo. They happen faster at higher AIP, too. That said, you shouldn't have any issues with the amount of k you've spent on defence, the AI difficulty, and the exo intensities.

I succeed getting home without loses but it was scary, really scary.

Yeah, SF after their update are made of beef.

I must admit though that it was a 80 star system that i played last time, and the stomp can be explained by that i had the shield bearers. They are extremely powerful, at least on AI 7.3, therefore I would not chose that this time.

Shield Bearer awesomeness does not decrease with higher difficulties. If anything, they become even better.

Still, it makes for a very interesting read to see someone else try a  pure starship fleet. It is actually very uncommon to do so it seems. (At least in the AARs that get posted.)

Diazo, you are a special kind of crazy.


How many cities do you plan to build?

[Gorgar]

The AI was massing so much firepower that my starships were only surviving maybe 15% longer then the fleet ships would so I was not able to break into the system and survive to get off the warp point because the starships were actually putting out less damage before dying then the equivalent fleet ships would.

For me the botnet compensates rather well for that. It generates enough extra targets to save my starships through the battle even when its 1k ships on the wormhole, even easier now with more golems. But i do hit and run similar tactic to not lose to many ships when decimating the road blocks.

To the question about the number of cites, i don't know. i didn't know i could build different amount of them before a win.

[Gorgar]

So the ever victorious armies can at least lose battles but can they lose wars? In this post we will not see if the AI actually can lose, but we will get a step further down the road of bloody war.

So after i cleared out the left cluster i went for the next. I have added some spire ships with help of my two FS shipyards and they really give a punch, the AI fleet scramble into pieces in front of my starships. Many thousands of ships are massacred with minimal loses for the fighting humans, finally they can have the thrill of killing that have been reserved by the AI before this point.

So without any reinforcement the fleet succeed doing a trip around the cluster and come back as heroes to the human cluster. And with them they had a map of the AI cluster that will be used for future expansion of the human fleet.

So now with acid sprayers and neinzul younglings to bolster the defense forces the now bold fleet go out again to retrieve one more hive golem and a regeneration golem. This goes much better than last time and the SF is no match for the fleet.
Then AI throws a new card into the game to show the humans their position in the galaxy

Thats 10 spire ships with more than ONE thousand fire power, my fleet captains decides that they have an extremely important parade to attend back in human space and they make it in time

Maybe not as heroic return as last time but at least they did return without any loses and the following fleet are dealt with quickly.
Precisely after that i get two attacks with bombers at my leftmost whipping boy which made it feel more like a weeping boy but its alive and 8k ships in total was killed including the threat that is no more. And with dose repairs pending I go for bed...

I do have a lot of knowledge left and don't really know what to do with it. Any tips of good unlocks? I also feel that i can't let the AIP go up more, it really hurts. Peace out

[Gorgar]

I have not have time to play that much last nights, but i took some time to read about the spire cities. I noticed that I can't get the 5 cities I need for a capitol inside my controlled space. Sadly I don't think my forces would be strong enough to build outside this cluster so it seems I can't win as I have done
Have i misunderstood something?

[Diazo]

Erm, yes and no (I think.)

Taking a quick look, I count that you can build 4 cities in the cluster you control so you are correct you can not get 5 cities.

However, 4 cities will allow you to amass quite a large spire fleet, which will be a big increase in the firepower available to you. That Spire Fleet should give you the punch to expand into another cluster to build the 5th city.


Also, on the knowledge, if you are serious about pursuing the Fallen Spire, I would save it.

Unlocking the high level Spire stuff is expensive, 12,000 knowledge for the Spire Dreadnaught.

D.

[Aeson]

I agree with Diazio - I don't think you can build more than four Spire cities in your home cluster, but with the Spire fleet from four (or three and a half) Spire cities you ought to have enough firepower to go conquer another few worlds. If you put a Spire city at each of the two entry worlds into your home cluster, you could choose one to be a fortress world (put down as many shard reactors and habitation modules as you can, since these carry more firepower) and drop lots of supporting turrets there, and use it to receive wave attacks while your fleet goes off to conquer enough worlds at the other exit to place at least one more city.

Additional cities beyond the first five will continue to boost your Spire fleet cap, and somewhat amusingly will allow you to build additional Spire Galactic Capitols if you reach an integer multiple of five cities (though this doesn't really do anything aside from provide a slight firepower boost at one additional Spire city).

If your defenses have trouble, at the point in time that you have two or three Spire cities you can essentially start leaving your normal fleet at home and rely on the Spire fleet for offense, so that increases your defensive strength by a fair amount. Just be careful and try to make exo-waves land on fortress worlds if at all possible.

[Faulty Logic]

I agree with Diazo - I don't think you can build more than four Spire cities in your home cluster, but with the Spire fleet from four (or three and a half) Spire cities you ought to have enough firepower to go conquer another few worlds.

Hmm, I would either stop at four cities or conquer an entire other cluster, probably the upper right one. The AI will not be happy, but you can probably get away with it at that difficulty and with a couple of spire dreadnaughts.

[Gorgar]

The humans where scared that their plan of building cities would fail, but with revised plans they hope to survive. By continuously raid the warp gates to keep threat level down and building up the cities we get more powerful.
The state of the galaxy looks like

and I was lucky getting a trader to wixu so we build all things


Something strange though, when i built the third city i added two reactors and then added one habitat but i can't add more than that. On the other two cities i could have two reactors, two habitats, and two shipyards. Why don't it allow me to build more? It does not give me a signal for next city either

[keith.lamothe]

Something strange though, when i built the third city i added two reactors and then added one habitat but i can't add more than that. On the other two cities i could have two reactors, two habitats, and two shipyards. Why don't it allow me to build more? It does not give me a signal for next city either

I didn't try to see if the screenshots had the info as I didn't notice the name of the planet to check, but: have you cleared all AI presence from all the planets adjacent to the new city?  The journal entries tell that's necessary for a city to grow to the second stage.

[Aeson]

Note: by "cleared all AI presence", Keith means that you've destroyed the warp gate and command station. It is not required that you take the planet (although after you destroy the command station you might as well, if you can hold it), nor is it necessary to kill all ships on the planet.

I'm not sure, but I don't think it's necessary to kill Special Forces Guard Posts. I'm also unsure of whether or not you need to destroy any Warp Guardians (the ones that act as wave warp gates) present on the planet.

Probably easier just to kill everything on the nearby AI planets and finish building your city.