Wait, planets can have three ion cannons? (First time on 7/7)

[Tridus]

After getting my feet wet on 6/6, I've decided to try a game on 7/7 to see how it goes.

AIs: Both Random Easier, reveal is off. That'd spoil the surprise!
Minor Factions: Zenith Traders, Dyson Sphere, Spire Civilian Leaders, Fallen Spire, Golems (Hard), Spirecraft (Hard) - First time for those on hard, I usually have them on Medium or disabled entirely.
Map: Simple - 100 planets. Bonus ship is Parasites
Ships: Normal. Normal caps, speed is on Epic.

Initially I was pretty optimistic. Unlocked Harvesters III (if I do anything with Fallen Spire it'll eat up a lot of territory after all) and start building. Initial scouting rather dampened my enthusiasm. The screenshot is what I found.


Going to the west immediately runs into multiple mk III worlds. North has a mk IV right nearby, which just happens to have THREE Ion Cannons and three Neinzul Viral Clusters. That's just mean. On all these planets aside from some Spirecraft mining resouces there's nothing of interest at all except a Regenerator Golem to the East. Mind you, I'm kind of afraid of taking that this early because of the response it might provoke.

With no sign of an ARS or good early target in sight, for the moment there's little to do but see where the Survey ship wants to send me...

[Minotaar]

Just a hint, Golems Hard (and Spirecraft as well) will send exo-waves at you whether or not you capture any Golems, so don't shy away from taking them, even though Regenerator isn't the best of the bunch 
Good luck 

[zoutzakje]

oh good luck ^^ I remember my first 7/7 game. I got my ass kicked pretty good lol.
At least you're lucky all of your surrounding worlds are mk I. Try to avoid that mk IV world unless you have absolutely no other choice. Keeping enemy numbers low while it's on alert is a pain in the butt.
Also good luck with handling 2 or 3 seperate exo waves. That could become chaotic eventually ^^

[Tridus]

Just a hint, Golems Hard (and Spirecraft as well) will send exo-waves at you whether or not you capture any Golems, so don't shy away from taking them, even though Regenerator isn't the best of the bunch 
Good luck 

  Oh god what have I done to myself? lol. Thanks for the tip. I'll go get that soon then, it seems to work pretty well with parasites.

oh good luck ^^ I remember my first 7/7 game. I got my ass kicked pretty good lol.
At least you're lucky all of your surrounding worlds are mk I. Try to avoid that mk IV world unless you have absolutely no other choice. Keeping enemy numbers low while it's on alert is a pain in the butt.
Also good luck with handling 2 or 3 seperate exo waves. That could become chaotic eventually ^^

Thanks.   I think it will be until I can start getting Spire cities up. With a couple of those you can get the AI to attack somewhat more predictably and although it'll be a lot of ships, I think it'll be manageable if I survive that long.

Yeah it's been pretty interesting so far. The Survey ship sent me down to Vivichar (one hop west, then one south). So I took the western planet and fortified it. I didn't particularly want to because it puts all those mk III's on alert, but I didn't really see how I could actually get the shard to me without it. I threw down a logistics command station, a forcefield,and some turrets. Then took Vivichar and did similar, put my fleet there, and sent the survey ship.

While waiting for the survey I got enough research to unlock another ship, so I took parasites II. Oh, then the AI declared a wave of 300 youngling tigers. Lovely.

Got the shard and started it home. Then the army of AI ships started showing up. Wait, who invited mk IV Paralyzers? This isn't going so well...

The good news is that I did manage to hold Vivichar and get the shard to my homeworld. The bad news is that while I was holding Vivichar, the AI came in from another direction and took my other planet, and then my homeworld. So that was short.

Reloading a save before I sent the Survey ship in, I instead switched to a millitary command station at the world between Vivichar and my homeworld, and fortified it more. Logistics at Vivichar. Unlock Parasites II again. Same AI attack wave. This time I only left my fleet on Vivichar long enough to get the shard out of there, then withdrew everything to the next world and made a stand there. That went much more successfully, and my Parasites even got me a nice small army of Paralyzer IV's. Thanks, AI! Vivichar was overrun, but once I'm finished cleaning up I can go retake it while the survey building is under construction. Or I may not. At the moment it's not that valuable, but it does have some common Spirecraft asteroids.

If I'm lucky the next survey will be in the direction of that Regenerator Golem, because I want to head over there anyway. But we'll see...

[Tridus]

Moving along, I retook the planet and unlocked Heavy Beam cannons and Scouts II. Fended off another Neinzul wave and then a wave of standard ships while waiting for the survey. It's also two hops away, one SE and then S. So I took the first planet, and sent my scouts farther afield. Botnet Golem, score! Even better, it's on the planet with the Dyson Sphere! Also a troop accelerator, counterattack guard post... quite a lot going on at this planet!

That's a hop away from my target planet though, so first I need to secure my target planet and prepare for the incursion. Vivichar has some Spirecraft asteroids on it, so I'm going to start building with those. Four Siege Tower I's and one Attritioner. While those were going, the Zenith Trader strode through my home system, so I got started on a ZPG.

With the extra Spirecraft firepower I should be able to hop and take the Botnet Golem. And with that baby on my side, I'm feeling a lot more confident about the chase for the next shard. Unfortunately still nothing in the way of AIP reducers that I've seen, and more then an hour into the game that's becoming worrysome with the Civilian Leaders working against me.

[zoutzakje]

use that botnet golem right and you've pretty much already won your game. And the dyson sphere as well, nice =) To bad the dyson is bugged in this version

[Tridus]

use that botnet golem right and you've pretty much already won your game. And the dyson sphere as well, nice =) To bad the dyson is bugged in this version

I didn't upgrade to that version, so I'm okay. Curious on what you mean by "use the botnet right" though? Is there a trick to it? Normally I just let it reclaim stuff and then I have tons of zombies running around, but they seem to do whatever they want.

With the Botnet and Dysons, things are pretty secure right now. More scouting revealed two Spire Civilian leaders to the south along with a data center, leading up to the chokepoint. Up north there's a Factory IV and some of those gravity building that slow things down but give you resources. And the next shard is right above the mk IV planet.

So I've got a choice now on if I want to just head for the shard and get a Spire City online ASAP, or clear out the Factory IV first and put the city there (which would require taking a LOT of territory), or clear up to the chokepoint and wall off the southern part of the map by putting the city there, and get some AIP reducers.

Not sure what I'll do yet, but I need to also decide if I want to go now or wait until after the two exo-galactic strikes that just popped up on my alert list come at me.

[Tridus]

Alrightie. Survived another set of exo's, some other waves. Took the Factory IV, and secured the hell out of it. Just finished the ZPG, so the Spire City is going up next (at the Factory IV, might as well protect it as much as I can!).

After that's done and I get some more Spire ships, I hope to start consolidating and reducing the surface area the AI has to attack me. Right now they can come from so many directions that it's stretching my forces out. There's some great chokepoints that I could funnel the exos through, but it'll take time to set them all up. The eventual goal is to put Spire Cities on them, because those things guarding a wormhole are beastly.

[Tridus]

Up to hour 7 now. I control a fair bit of the map, but not in a happy chokepoint kind of way. At least not yet.

Second city shard is at the planet I've got selected on the map here. I'm going to build the city near there, at the chokepoint. With this setup once I get up to 4 cities I can force the AI to go through one of them. Unfotunately the next two shards are likely to be farther up the map, so I'll have to consolidate what I have. It's getting more difficult to defend with so many different exo entrances right now. Once I get that sorted out some I'll have to go around scrapping some back world defenses so I can move them forward, as I'm running low on some turret types.

FINALLY found an ARS. Got Shield Bearers from that one, and Electric Bombers from the second one. There's a few Civilian leaders in the middle, as well as a second Botnet golem and the Regenerator Golem, so it'll be worth going in there. Just picked up an Artillery Golem, which should help me on assaults. Unlocked Fighters, Bombers, and Parasites III, as well as Riot Starship II's and Flagships. I've also got FF III's, Heavy Beam Cannon III's, Laser III's, and Spider Turrets (all of which are helping my Spire cities/ships, not that I have much in the way of ships yet).

[Tridus]

I'm not going to be able to play much for a while due to vacations and such, so here's an hour 12 update.

Captured a third Spire City. Two of them are on choke points (and the third is guarding my Factory IV). The third chokepoint is guarded by a Botnet golem and my Spire fleet. It's also the one that leads to the next shard, which I can take by capturing mercifully little territory.  I've recovered 5 of the Civilian Leaders now. Still looking for at least one more ARS and most of the Co-Processors. AIP is pretty manageable along with the exos when they're attacking me due to the cities, but pushing forward on offense is getting slower.

Also met a Hunter/Killer. Those don't play nice at all, but they're not a real match for my Spire fleet. I've just made sure there's a chain of Logistics command stations between the front line and home command, just in case. Also built a SuperFortress there on a lark, which doesn't seem to do much against H/K's but flattens anything else that gets through.