General Category > AI War Classic - After Action Reports
The Exodian Blade (Complete)
Astilious:
Well, there certainly were delays before the next post, sorry about that. Busy few weeks.
I played through part of this segment once, but I scrapped it as I wan't satisfied with my commentary. The important thing to know is that I killed off the last CSG and tried attacking the AI homeworld on Lusnesi. Ultimately I make slow progress, but I'm delayed by a CPA. This taught me two lessons:
1. The AI response to the Exodian Blade on its homeworld is large enough to make the Exodian Blade useless for homeworld assaults.
2. The homeworld assault exos get worse over time. I assumed they had kept coming due to my taking the adjacent core world, so plan to take Ockship instead, but it turns out they keep coming regardless so that was probably a mistake.
So, I start out by considering the worlds I should take for the CSG-B and CSG-D. I decide on Edplu for the advanced starship constructor and Mbyotune for the superterminal. Actually Ockship also had a CSG-D, I primarily just wanted to drop my AIP as my other attempt indicated things would continue for a while yet. I send my fleet to rebuild on Xilarda and take Edplu (which had been cleared earlier) and the Exodian Blade to clear out Mbyotune. The Exodian Blade finishes first, so I have it take out the defences I left alive on Tolun due to reservist strategic reserve while it waits. Finally both tasks are complete, and I move everything to Mbyotune for the superterminal hack.
I throw down a Mk III military command station for the hack and begin. I reason that nothing I could build really matters much next to the Exodian Blade, so I just plan to hack as much as it can manage. The AI response does not dissapoint, with a huge fleet of ships spawning almost immediately! I have my assault transports dart around taking out sentinal frigates while the Exodian Blade handles the bulk of the AI forces. Ultimately I went from 176 to 91 AIP before calling it, which is a pretty solid reduction.
This done I begin to think about what I need to take on the AI HW. I spend some knowledge on unlocking all marks of flagship to act as a power multiplier for the rest of my fleet, throw up some more matter converters and begin construction of a full starship fleet for the first time this game. In the mean time I send the Exodian Blade over to Fued to clear out the planets near it, which I'd only left in tact as I thought there was a decent chance the game was nearing its end.
A CPA announces with 5,494 ships. Shouldn't be too much trouble. I clear out planets while I wait for it to arrive. Apparenly the AI is feeling helpful, as most of the CPA attacks Fued, allowing the Exodian Blade to meander over in time to wreck everything. Another large group hits two hops out on Durzon. Despite the Exodian Blade's proximity it's too slow to save it, so Durzon goes down. Still, the Exodian Blade is in time to clean up, and with another minor assault on Fued the CPA is defeated. I quickly rebuild Durzon and grab the scrap to help build my new starships.
This done I finish clearing out leftover planets. At last though, my starships are complete and the assault on the Lusnesi AI HW can begin. I quickly take Ockship and fortify it as my new ship construction planet. Now the AI defences. First up is the wrath lance, which, for those who don't know, is a guard post that spins on the spot shooting giant death lasers in four directions. The spin rate is fast enough that dodging around them isn't particularly practical, so it has to go immediately. I pack all my cheaper fleet ships into assualt transports and dive onto the AI HW. The wrath lance goes down, and so does my fleet (hence bringing the cheaper stuff). Still, it's not that cheap. Reprisal warning level 3.
5.2k fighters announce on Durzon. Lucky the Exodian Blade is still on Fued. Durzon goes down again, the Exodian Blade kills everything again, I rebuild again. I unlock all spire starships and mk II engineers (20 mk I engineers can't keep up with my salvage sometimes). I have an incedent where the AI manages to snipe Ockship command station. I'm very worried about how long I have before AI HW assualt exos become unmanagable, so I savescum to save time and send the Exodian Blade over to handle any farther assualts of that kind (ok, it was also partly lazyness... rebuilding is fiddly). Rebuilding the fleet takes a long time (the Exodian Blade actually travels the ~10 hops to Ockship before it's done) but eventually I'm ready to attack again.
This time my priority target is the mass driver - the starships are staying back in a separate transport till that's taken out. It's dead before the strategic reserve even spawns. I bring in the starships but keep everything in transports while I'm dealing with soft targets. A neinzul melee, raid engine and riot control guard post go down before the strategic reserve can get close. One transport pops and I lose the ships inside to the strategic reserve. That AI speed boost on AI HW is harsh. I move over to a distant neinzul spawner and pop it along with a barracks (accidentely). I manage to take out a SF guard post too, but the remaining posts are under FF. I swing in a long loop to get around the strategic reserve, then run off back home. Overall I took few enough casualties that I didn't even get a reprisal wave.
I ponder how to deal with the FF, and mistakenly assume a nuke will take care of them. I have the Exodian Blade clear some threat from the AI HW, then build the nuke and escort it over (quickly popping the AI warhead intercepter). I'm quite dissapointed when I find the AI FFs still on. At least the fortress is off, so I decide not to savescum over it. I send in the fleet and unload by a zenith fortress guard post hiding under a core FF. The fleet has enough firepower to take it out just as the strategic reserve arrives. I jump back in the transports and retreat with acceptable losses. Rebuild and repeat for the FF protecting the other neinzul spawner guard post.
I don't realise how large the reprisal was, and it takes out Mbyotune. Lazy strikes again, and I savescum since I had a save from only a couple of minutes before. I manage to get a warhead over in time. Next I move to finishing off the AI HW - at this point I only need to deal with the actual home command. To do this I need to deal with the strategic reserve. I literally run rings around it with my transports until I get them all clustered on the other side of the system, then dive back down to the AI home command. It still reaches me before I punch through the two core FF, but I'm able to take the home command with heavy losses. The strategic reserve dissapears in time to save the reminants of my fleet.
Finally the way is clear for the Exodian Blade. Not sure what will happen I send it in immediately on 66% health. Turns out the AI still gets an exo wave every 10 seconds even with the home command dead, so it dies before reaching the exo wormhole. Savescum, repair the Exodian Blade and rebuild a little of my fleet. This time the combined force moves in and the Exodian Blade reaches the wormhole. BOOOOOOOM. I'm suddenly back on the galaxy map with the "You Win" message. Apparently that was all I had to do to get the Exodian Blade to blow up both AI HW planets and "probably" the entire galaxy they had their manufacturing in!
Well, that was fun, though nowhere near as interesting as the spire or champions. The buggyness of the Exodian Blade itself was also very annoying. Still, I'm happy. I plan to move on to a 10/10 game with nomad planets next. You can expect that over the next week.
Timerlane:
I didn't mention it because you didn't want spoilers, but you actually didn't have to deal with the CSGs. Just bring the Blade to the Exo-wormhole.
I was curious to find out if you'd be able to pull it off, anyway; I remember reading some of the horror stories of what the escalating AI response used to be like, as time passed, back when the difficulty was still being tuned.
Astilious:
Huh, that's interesting. I'm not sure how I would've gotten the Exodian Blade to that exo wormhole without clearing the AI HW defences though. I suppose the AI response would have been milder if I'd gotten to the AI HW sooner. Aside from in the AI HW assault though the Exodian Blade exos were never a problem at all, even in the failed branch not in the AAR. What gave me trouble was the exos you get in response to attacking the AI HW, which iirc are not related to the Exodian Blade.
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