How does the AI attack in the Fallen Spire campaign?

[Fleet]

Hi all. Just wanted some clarification by the devs or players who have completed this, regarding the nature of the AI attacks against me as I progress building spire stuff. Once I start growing beyond the one hub, do they attack on a cycle (every 10min, for example)? Or do they still send specific waves when I begin constructing something? I think I read about some cap increasing for each wave, so that each wave could have more firepower or something...how does this factor in? Is it in my best interest to complete the game as fast as possible once I start the building hubs?

[keith.lamothe]

Ah, I need to finish that wiki article   Don't think we've even published the link to it actually, which is just as well until it's done.

Anyway:
- Initially, NextRawEventWaveSize = 10,000.
- Every Game Minute, each city hub adds 1000 to AccumulatedEventWaveCounter.
- When AccumulatedEventWaveCounter > NextRawEventWaveSize:
-- An attack is sent (with point value = AccumulatedEventWaveCounter)
-- NextRawEventWaveSize = Min(NextRawEventWaveSize * 1.25, maximumAllowableThreshold)
--- maximumAllowableThreshold is number of city hubs * 60,000

A capitol (if you choose to build one) counts as an additional city hub for this purpose, and the very last phase of the progression (if you choose to pursue it that far) has some alternate rules.

[keith.lamothe]

Oh, and the chase fleets that spawn when you find a shard still happen like normal, and every time you start building a new city hub it spawns a one-time armada of 60,000 points (a capitol works the same way, except double magnitude).

In general there's not a huge pressure to complete the game asap because of the maximum threshold for the city-hub-provoked attacks, but defending against the max-threshold level of attack will require some pretty intense defenses (hopefully you've placed the city in such a way that it can help with the defense, and hopefully you've had a chance to build as many capital ships as it will support).

Bear in mind that higher difficulties and/or multiple human homeworlds multiply the actual magnitudes of the armadas, though they don't alter the math I've just described at all (so the timing of the attacks should be exactly the same, they'll just be bigger).

[Fleet]

Ah, so the max accumulated wave has the same strength as the wave sent when a hub is build. That is comforting to know (honest, it provides reference).

Last question for now   How is the wave spawn location determined? (is it always the same)? If so, then it would seem to make this a bit easier because the same system can be the focus on heavy reinforcements specifically for these attacks.

EDIT: Thanks for always being available to explain these things. It's appreciated. 

[keith.lamothe]

Ah, so the max accumulated wave has the same strength as the wave sent when a hub is build. That is comforting to know (honest, it provides reference).

Yea, actually, I think it does work out to roughly the same  Though your max threshold with 2 hubs will be twice that, and so on.  But with 2 hubs you can have a fairly impressive capital fleet to rearrange faces with.

Last question for now   How is the wave spawn location determined? (is it always the same)? If so, then it would seem to make this a bit easier because the same system can be the focus on heavy reinforcements specifically for these attacks.

An armada is actually split into several battlegroups, 1 going after a human home command station (always the same one, I think), 1 after your refugee outpost (which is also on a humanhomeworld), 1 after one of the facilities of the city (can't attack the actual hub, if there are no facilities then there's just 2 fleets instead of 3).  The spawn point selection is somewhat complicated but basically it's a random selection from those AI planets with warp gates (including special forces guard posts and other structures with the warp-gate-wave ability) that are closest to your territory.  To my knowledge there's not a whole lot of way to influence which angle they come at you from, so it's very much in your favor to find a way to seal off access to your homeworld(s) via 3 or fewer chokepoints, and plant city hubs on top of the wormholes the invaders would have to use to get into your inner territory.

EDIT: Thanks for always being available to explain these things. It's appreciated.

My pleasure   Going to sleep now

[Fleet]

Oh...didn't see that multiplier there. So...5 city hubs would produce quite a powerful warp. I don't even want to consider it, since the only way I was able to survive this one was with the help of about 30 spirecraft rams. I look forward to more FUN

And the randomized attack thing is not good great news . Time for a major overhaul of our defenses to get a new framework up which will allow us to expand and cover chokepoints more efficiently.

I wonder, since we are going to try and win through Fallen Spire, the AIP seems to be a little less important since once we have our territory, we don't need to push to their homeworlds (as far as I know...) Maybe this will allow us to take a few more planets or destroy some more warp gates then we normally would, in the interest of consolidating defenses.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, it's a pretty different game, particularly with regard to AIP.  A little while ago I played a full game with Fallen Spire on against 2 diff-7 Vanilla AIs on a concentric-circles map (starting on the outer ring), and while it was a challenge and I was pushed back to my homeworld several times I did manage to win without excessive difficulty.  At one point I took my Spire capital fleet and just glassed the rest of the outer ring so I could later bring in a team of science vessels (with colony ships to plunk down for supply, etc) to get the knowledge I would need.  Not the sort of thing I'd do normally, for AIP reasons

One thing to remember when playing Fallen-Spire is that researching Laser Turrets, Heavy Beam Cannon Turrets, and Forcefields is pretty important as those techs also unlock the higher-tier modules for the spire capital ships and the spire city facilities that have defensive modules.  My suggestion would be to get HBC I asap, and then try to get up to FF III (which equals mk III ship shields and mk II city shields), and then maybe laser II, HBC II, laser III; HBC III doesn't (iirc) give you any new modules until the galactic capitol "era", but then you'll definitely want to get it after you research the bigger hull types (the BBs and DNs can just hammer things into oblivion by mounting multiple HBC III and IV mounts).  And of course the capitol lets you research advanced versions of the modules too, Adv Shields is majorly important, etc.

Anyway, it does depend a bit on whether you can use the cities to cover all your chokepoints, if so then it's probably a good idea to prioritize their module technologies over other stuff because they're such defensive powerhouses with the higher level city shields.  If there's too many paths into your territory you may need to fall back on more conventional defenses and tech up that stuff.  To some degree you can have both; in my game I covered one of my flanks for a while with my entire cap of mkII and mkIII laser turrets that I got for the higher power spire laser modules, and they were rather effective at bloodying the nose of any major attacks that came through there so I could fight an effective rolling-retreat without too much getting through to my homeworld.

Hope you have fun

[Fleet]

Working on building the city hub now. One concern my partner has is that since the hub is mine, can he build any spire ships? Do I have to gift? (or is that even possible)?

[keith.lamothe]

When you build a shipyard it should have a foldout for him to use, and he'll have separate caps, etc.

The refugee outpost should also have a foldout he can use to build the frigates.