Ok.
So I was happily stealing collecting knowledge from an adjacent AI planet
where I built the markIII knowledge collector so I could borrow some of it from the
enemy planet.
As I started building it, as usual, the AI got really mad and dozens of ships started pouring
from the ai command post. I had a flagship and fifty Viral Shredder so that when they would attack
the enemy, their number would constantly grow. I reached two hundred Shredders, keeping the enemy
at bay, it seemed like an ancient civilizations battle, where a line was kept by a column of soldiers.
Anyway, suddenly the projection started to change. In fact from 200shredders, as I saw later,
cos I also had to think about defending my homeworld, there were only 50.
I've noticed that killing the enemy let the AI accumulate Spire Tractor Platforms, as they can't
be damaged by the shredder. Anyway there were like thirty, forty of them, something I found weird
as their attack is really high (14.000x21), their armor was "Turret", so harder to destroy, and
they also could trap in their beams my ships.
They kept raising their number, till there were something like 60-70 of them, which decided to go
to my homeworld, defended not heavily, but with practically full tier one of missile launchers and MRLS turret. Even with this defense they managed to make me lose destroying my Headquarter.
So do you have any suggestion?
Of course I shouldn't have tried to steal the enemy reseearch so soon in game, but still, how can you defend against the Sipre Tractor Platforms. They're really strong, and they don't seem to have particulary weak points. Unfortunately I seem to have encountered a kind of AI which relies heavily on them. (moderate/easier difficulty, both AI at 7)
Thanks for the anwsers (I'm kind of new to the AI war series, which I find AWESOME, and being spoiled by the old age of empires like games turtling, playing against an enemy which can destroy any defense I try to make it's really challenging and fun!!!)