To raid or not to raid?

[Marko Box]

Hello Arcen, my first post here.
I'm in love with this game and the way you handle its development and i look forward to you realeasing ai war 2 one day and making it big!
Now i need advice on playing dif 9-10 strategy.
I'm at currently playing a dif 9 campaign on 40 planets with spire asteroids and no golems. My plan was to unlock all raid starships, get space planes etc. and do heavy raiding while keeping my fleet busy. Plan is to neuter planets of guard posts and hybrid facilities with a small group of raiding ships so main fleet could have easier job.

But I'm begining to doubt this tactic since that planet + adjescent planets are placed on allert and ships which used to be on guard posts are joinng roaming group and later trown at me in cross planet attacks. Ai currently had 6k roaming fleet which i had to use martyr on while those attacks before i had barley survived thanks to those huge roaming fleets being trown imidietly afther large ctas hiting me.
So question is: On dif9/10 is it better to do what I'm currently doing OR just neuter system quickly with main fleet while killing every single ai ship and avoid stiring deeper systems untill I'm ready to come in force?

Attached screenshot is something I'm not sure how its happening. Why is that mlrs guard post not attacking those raid ships? They are in his attack zone and thier radar dampening shouldnt be stoping it.

[Bognor]

Welcome to the forums, Marko Box!

I'm in love with this game and the way you handle its development and i look forward to you realeasing ai war 2 one day and making it big!

Actually Chris has said he'd rather not make an AIW2, but instead continue releasing expansions, ever building on existing content.

Attached screenshot is something I'm not sure how its happening. Why is that mlrs guard post not attacking those raid ships? They are in his attack zone and thier radar dampening shouldnt be stoping it.

I can't tell all their marks from the screenshot, but Mark II and higher human Raid Starships are immune to missiles.

[raptor3312]

This is why you would normally neuter specific systems. If your aim is to neuter the entire galaxy, well I think that would counter the alerts(not entirely sure TBH).

[Kahuna]

Hello Arcen, my first post here.
I'm in love with this game and the way you handle its development

Welcome to the forums! I'm glad you're enjoying the game.

Now i need advice on playing dif 9-10 strategy.

Good to see other high difficulty level players.

I'm at currently playing a dif 9 campaign on 40 planets with spire asteroids and no golems. My plan was to unlock all raid starships, get space planes etc. and do heavy raiding while keeping my fleet busy. Plan is to neuter planets of guard posts and hybrid facilities with a small group of raiding ships so main fleet could have easier job.

But I'm begining to doubt this tactic since that planet + adjescent planets are placed on allert and ships which used to be on guard posts are joinng roaming group and later trown at me in cross planet attacks. Ai currently had 6k roaming fleet which i had to use martyr on while those attacks before i had barley survived thanks to those huge roaming fleets being trown imidietly afther large ctas hiting me.

Raid Starships and Space Planes are both excellent choices but you shouldn't bother trying to neuter the whole galaxy. There's no need to and it would take way too much time. Pretty much the same with Hybrid Facilities although they're much easier to raid. I always destroy all Hybrid Facilities on my way but I don't really bother raiding for them specifically. Depending on Hybrid plot intensity there can be hundreds of Hybrid Facilities in the galaxy so destroying 20 of them is not going to have any significant effect.

Hybrid Facilities on an 80 planet map with Hybrids at 8/8 intensity:


Because of that I wish Hybrid Facilities were a bit more rare but more meaningful. That way raiding them would become more important.. aka the player would have more ways to affect the flow of the game.. aka the game would be even more interesting.

So question is: On dif9/10 is it better to do what I'm currently doing OR just neuter system quickly with main fleet while killing every single ai ship and avoid stiring deeper systems untill I'm ready to come in force?

I rarely neuter planets. Usually I just do tachyon raids as I go. By tachyon raiding I mean destoying Tachyon Guardians. I always make kind of "tachyon free highways" so I can just send my Assault Transports from point A to point B and ignore the heavily fortified AI planets. Which is why I usually don't care if an AI planet is on alert. I just fly past the guarding AI ships. Although if you have a massive fleet you might run out of Assault Transports.. But then you can use Assault Transports, normal Transports and Cloaker Starships. With that combination you can cloak 6700 ships. You don't necessarily even need to unlock Assault Transports. Normal Transports + Mark I Cloaker Starships = 4000 cloaked ships. Also mid/late game I usually have like 2000-4000 threat at all times but I don't care since I'm a really turret happy player.

But when I do neuter a planet I first send small raiding fleets to take out Ion Cannons and Orbital Mass Drivers etc. Then I bring in the rest of the fleet to counter the Guard Posts, Fortresses, Force Fields and the guarding AI ships etc. You don't necessarily need to destroy every single AI ship on the planet. You just need to destroy all Guard Posts to minimize the amount of reinforcements the planet gets. Don't bother destroying the Wormhole Guard Posts unless you have Mark IV Bombers and Munitions Boosters.

Why is that mlrs guard post not attacking those raid ships?

Mark >= II Raid Starships are immune to missiles.

[Marko Box]

4000 treat is a lot, how do you keep secondary planets from not dying to cross planet attacks? 

I have attached the ss of that dif 9 game. Yeurnsuo is system which broders a warp gate and i use it to tank waves but Vic, Geokal and Durpan are all secondary sytems and arent as heavilly defended, so during cross planet attacks they get hit hard and i end up lossing someof them and I'm ussually forced to use nukes and martyrs.
I've unlocked jammer station early and have been using it to keep systems from being allerted and not having the need to kill all adjesent warp gates.
How do you keep your systems from dying to high treat?

[Kahuna]

4000 treat is a lot, how do you keep secondary planets from not dying to cross planet attacks? 

I always have about 5-7 permanent planets (including the homeworld) that I try not to lose. I fortify those planets very heavily and am prepared to protect them with Warheads.
In addition to that I have about 4-6 "beachhead planets"/"secondary planets". I do try to keep them alive but I don't really care if I lose them since they're just temporarily used as staging grounds. If I need those planets again then I'll just rebuild them when then danger is over. I do build full caps of all turrets on those beachhead planets but I don't always expect them to survive a CPA. Sometimes they actually help at stopping CPAs because they can attract part of the CPA and whittle it down before it reaches my main planets.

How do you keep your systems from dying to high treat?

3.2 Proper positioning
This is how the Turrets should be positioned for maximum effectiveness.


Here's a late game example of one of my whipping boys. The setup is pretty much the same as the one above. A couple of small tweaks.

So in short I just fortify my planets so that 4000 ships don't stand a chance.
For more information about defenses you can check out my strategy guide. The link's in my signature.

I've attached a save file of my current game so you can take a look how I have setup my empire.

[Marko Box]

I checked your save game, and holly shit is it a different game on dif 10. I use your turret placment which works great but you have less than half of the fleet i have but almost every turret unlocked and built in core systems at the simmilar campaign hour. Not even the t2 metal collectors unlocked, all defence. And that nuclear arsenal is impressive tbh. I might play a bit on your save to see what those waves look like which warrant having 20+ nukes sitting on your core world. I also see that you neuted some systems, but havent bothered even droping jammer station

[Kahuna]

Yes it's a completely different game on high difficulty levels.

Here's a newer save file. I had triggered 2 Raid Engines and both of them sent about 7000 ships. There's still about 5000 AI ships on SHC-106.

I don't need a huge fleet since I ignore most of the AI planets with Assault Transports and only do surgical strikes and beachheading. Which is also why I haven't bothered dropping Warp Jammers on those neutered planets. I don't care if the surrounding planets get reinforcements since I'm just going to fly past them. It would be just pain in the ass rebuilding the Warp Jammers every time there's a big AI threat fleet.

I don't have higher Marks of Metal Harvesters unlocked because I chose Mark III Economical Command Stations.

Not all of my tech unlocks are defenses. I have unlocked Mark IIs of Munitions Boosters, Neinzul Tigers, Engineers, Cloaker Starships, Scout Starships and Enclave Starships. In addition to that I have Assault Transports, Mobile Space Docks, Warp Jammers and Mark III Economical Command Stations.

And the warheads on my home planet aren't nukes. I am going to use 1 Mark II Nuke later in the game however Possibly also some Mark Is. Anyway the warheads on my home planet are Lightning and Armored Warheads. I'm stockpiling full caps of all of them. I mostly use them to stop CPAs. Normal waves are usually stopped by defenses. I will be using a lot of Warheads when I attack the AI Homeworlds. They will be used to destroy the Guard Posts and to get rid of the Strategic Reserve. That's when the higher Marks of Cloaker Starships kick in.