Galaxy Map of a successful game?

[Chaosed0]

I'm having trouble deciding which planets to take, and why; my instinct is always to try to take a corner of the galaxy with less than three entrances, then build my way toward an Advanced Factory or somesuch, but this raises the AiP too high (apparently, as evidenced by my last game). So I can try to improve this, can anyone post a Galaxy Map of some successful game(s), preferably in the mid-to-late game? An explanation of priority targets in that map would be helpful, too.

[zoutzakje]

hi and welcome to the forums ^^
I only have one screenshot of a completed game, which I will upload. Don't know if it's going to be of much use to you though. It was a 9/9 game and the map was kind of... interesting.

Basically, it doesn't matter how much planets you take and how high the AIP gets. Just make sure you are well defended, do proper gate raiding and keep threat and enemy numbers on bordering planets low.
Oh and don't put the enemy homeworlds or coreworlds on alert unless you have no choice or plan to attack them.

Personally I usually just find a good target (which means any important structure I could use to my advantage, like ARS, Golem, ZPG, etc) and capture anything along the way. I often end with high AIP. This game is the first game in which I had to skip through several enemy worlds near the end to capture some targets. I stayed at the edge of the map most of the time, because trying to defend 8 wormholes was not something I'd like to try very often, especially at 9/9. I was kind of lucky though, since most good targets actually were at the edge.



Here's the AAR I wrote about this campaign, in case you might be interested to see what kind of tactics I used.

http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,10328.0.html

[keith.lamothe]

Welcome to the forums

I haven't won this one yet, but I'm done capturing planets and now it's just a matter of my fleet vs the AI Homeworlds. I think it's looking promising:



Helin and Devi on the bottom part are also planets I took, but lost later.  The other "gray" planets are simply unscouted.

The AIP is with most (probably all)  datacenters down, and the Coprocs down.

On zoutzakje's screenie, I wouldn't suggest having 400+ AIP before the homeworld assaults, though as he shows it can still be done

[Hearteater]

Here is mine.  It is just before my final push.  I take all the P5 planets to finish.


And the AAR for it.

[Chaosed0]

Thanks guys, this is great info already. I guess I should have looked for some of these AARs (what does that stand for, anyway? EDIT: After Action Report, it's the subforum name, duh) before I posted, since that's really what I am looking for.
Two questions that come to mind:
(1) I see that you have some planets that you heavily fortify as chokes. How do you get the AI to only come through those planets when you have multiple planets bordering other hostile worlds? I understand you can take down warpgates, thus removing the threat of waves, but this never seems to work for me - the AI just comes through, unannounced, to my other planets instead.
(2) How do you take those deep planets (I assume they've got important structures on them) without incurring threat of deepstrike? How the heck do you even get to them? I assume transports, but that never seems to work for me for some reason.

EDIT: Also, if you'd like to see the last game I played and point out some flaws, here's the save: http://www.mediafire.com/?d24b43i8alm2qzi
And a picture of the map, for quick reference:

I kind of gave up on this because I was getting hammered by waves of carriers (it'll probably happen eventually, if you load the save) and there's a fleet of around 5000 ships roaming around in AI space.

[Hearteater]

AAR = After Action Report

Use W on the Galaxy map to see which of your planets is under threat from Warp Gates.  It is very easy to miss them, as some things are Warp Gates that you might not realize.  Eyes for example are Warp Gates.  Your goal is to destroy all the Warp Gates producing units in all systems except the one you want waves to come at.  This will handle waves, but you still need to deal with normal threat and threat fleets.  The best thing I can suggest for that is be careful about letting your threat get too high (you can see how much you have in the UI bar at the top of the screen).

As for skipping AI planets, what you are seeing is normally the in-between systems are heavily gutted, often with just the Command Station and other AIP producing structures left.  Sometimes Wormhole Guard Posts are destroyed, but since they take so long to kill, often they are only killed on the entry and exit points in the system.  This creates a highway through the system from which you get some minor amount of AI harassment, but otherwise can get most of your units through.  Transports help.

Deep Strike threat happens when you go more than 4 systems, so often you see people use stepping stone systems.  Note that you don't need to control a system to prevent Deep Strike.  Just killing an AI Command Station lets you go 4 systems deeper.

[LordSloth]

1). Are you making sure to leave at least one warp gate adjacent? If you don't, the wave will spawn as threat and be free to strike at its own preference. If yes, then check out the Threat filter on the galaxy map, combined with an (auto)scout picket, and you can see where free ships are. Depending on your tactics and AI type, you may be knocking loose an entire system's defense forces when you raid the surrounding systems - if this happens to be the case, advice can be provided. The other possibility for unannounced attacks are border aggression from regular reinforcement cycles, but that shouldn't be happening that frequently.

2).  I think the criteria for deep strikes is five or more hops out? Not actual physical distance. On crosshatch and cluster this makes it easier to manage. On a realistic map style it can be easier to lose track of everything. As well, a deep strike doesn't necessarily spell your doom, especially if you have an x or cluster map, or a certain defensive setup.