When it comes to AI War I enjoy knowing the rules of the game before I start playing, so I'm hoping to learn the nature of the Spire campaign before playing it further. I've done some investigation, so I'll say what I know.
It sounds like you simply gather shards from various planets to your home world, and as you gather more you unlock powerful spire ships and other aids. Any surprises besides the AI aggression when capturing a shard? Also, when capturing a shard do the aggressive AI ships come from nowhere (IE, the "exo-galaxy") or are they freed ships from adjacent planets?
Also, when playing with the Hard variant of Spire or Golems is there any special warning of approaching Golems or Spire ships, like a countdown, or do they just show up in a random wave and surprise you?
