lure, snipe, repeat?

[Fruden]

 Hey, i finally installed 4.0 last week and started a new challenge game (neinzul youngster/cluster 9), most options, and all plots for both ais (so both have normal and advanced hives).

 Having lots of fun really, the game is a lot smoother with the improved economy than it used to, I'm really happy! I feel really lost without my maxed minimap in the corner but i make due and am doing something i wouldnt have though possible before in a 9+ game with 1 player planet, I'm probably gonna end up conquering the entire map (only 40 planets though).

 Anyway, my little issue is that the first couple hours in the game were pretty diverse and interesting, but from now on i can only see 1 method of moving forward. I'm at progress ~370 and have 2 main fronts. Issue is the hives have reached critical mass on the other side of both fronts and i cant go hunt them down (one side has ~40 the other ~60) in their territory since i lose large portions of my fleet and inflict little damage, and i fall behind in the arms race vs the cpu. When i do get a command station i get a max of 5 hives (normally 1-2) to come suicide in my turret walls, and i can't afford to stop moving now because i'll inevitably hit a force field wall if i dont continue pushing the fronts fast enough.

 So far there are only 2 effective methods i've successfully used. First was using emp warheads to disable the force fields and then move in with my fleet (interesting feature of transports is they can still unload while paralyzed, so just before the emp blows, get everything back in, blow the emp, unload, and get a fully functional fleet with a non moving transport without running around). However this has pretty serious issues, like moving the emp to its target system (can be complicated if target is 2 hops away), the progress increase, and the  possibility of a mistake and paralyzing my own fleet.

 The most effective method for dealing with dozens of hives and force fields i've found is to bring a bunch of transports and cloakers, send empty transports to every corner of the system to lure everything away from the command station, send in my bullet catching fleet to the station, then dump the raid ships in the blob and target the command station with them. After that, retreat, regroup, redo. I've cleared 5 systems like this in the last hour and once i get 2 more i'll be mass colonizing them all, only to begin anew the lure snipe repeat action.

 I have exactly 0 idea how else to deal with the super stacks of ai force fields. Even with maxed bombers 1,2,3 + a couple mercenary bombers + munitions boosters + all mk1 starships + whatever is at hand, between the multiple attacks required to take down the force fields and command station the hives build new force fields. I am literally unable to destroy the force fields faster than the ai is building them, the only way I'm moving forward is to avoid them completely by using my single ship that can bypass them and hoping the ai shoots my blob instead of my couple very precious and very fragile raids.

 Anyone have any other idea how to proceed? I admit it's pretty fun for now, but I'm curious to see how else everyone is coping with force field and hybrid hive walls...

 Also, more questions regarding warp jammer stations, do they cancel all the stuff an exo galaxy wormhole spawns once its command station is down? Also do they cancel counter waves? And lastly, if i build a command station in a system to build my harvesters and then destroy the station (while being in supply from a neighbour), will that system ever receive counter waves?

 Looks like its ? / cancel counter waves / dont receive counter waves but i only faced a couple counter wave posts so it could be a coincidence if it did work out like i wanted so far. I really dont know about the warp jammer stopping an exo wormhole though, never tested it before.

edit: funny thing i've noticed is that it's prossible to know exactly where the devourer is in the ai planets if the unexplored planets are shown. It's easy, it's in the middle of the alerted planets (red dots vs white dots on map).

[Lancefighter]

you really need to kill those hives - it seems like for the moment your advancing by ignoring them.


I would recommend a similar lure, but get the hybrids bunched up near the wormhole, then drop emp/lightning missiles on them to get them to run away. Bonus points available for having your fleet pop out of cloaked transports to clean up.

Really, you cant just let hybrids stack up - they really punish you for setting up chokepoints and ignoring them a while.

[Zeba]

Yeah, the key to pulling off a total takeover is to always keep the ai on the defensive by constantly raiding his worlds and killing anything and everything that can add to a planets reinforcement and funneling all the counter attacks into your massive choke.

God forbid what happens when hunter/killers are introduced though. 

[Fruden]

//// you really need to kill those hives - it seems like for the moment your advancing by ignoring them.

 Yeah i am, luring them away from command stations, then destroying the stations, then they run to next world, then repeat.

//// I would recommend a similar lure, but get the hybrids bunched up near the wormhole, then drop emp/lightning missiles on them to get them to run away. Bonus points available for having your fleet pop out of cloaked transports to clean up.

 Huummmmm i love this idea! Lure them over a trapped wormhole, excellent suggestion! I though they were immune to lightning missiles shows what i know! As for pulling the cloaked fleet, much better to get them out of the transports, power them down, cloak them, and then power them up when its time to strike, no waiting while getting out of transport!

// Really, you cant just let hybrids stack up - they really punish you for setting up chokepoints and ignoring them a while.

 I've been careful about minimizing my planets on alert, i chose a simple map with 40 planets with known map so i could use that kind of strategy which cant really be done on realistic 120 planets. So i constantly push the hives 1 world at a time, they must have abandoned close to 100 force fields so far.

// Yeah, the key to pulling off a total takeover is to always keep the ai on the defensive by constantly raiding his worlds and killing anything and everything that can add to a planets reinforcement and funneling all the counter attacks into your massive choke.

 I agree so far in this game, its what I've been doing, but i was worried that at one point i would have so many hives accumulated on the opposite side of one of my moving chokepoints that i simply couldnt get though regardless, which is why i made this post! Those arent as easy to take down as guard posts! Once i move my chokepoints to their new location i'll have a much large economy and then i think i'll be able to pull the "lure over wormhole trap" and rebuild fast enough. Right now, if i did that, i think i might lose the arms race by being out of it for a bit too long, but in a couple more planets i think i'll be able to absorb the losses of that strategy.

edit: probably a bug but a little funny thing is the ais seem to have all the ships unlocked in my game but in low numbers. According to the stat kills, i've destroyed over 40 different types of ships this game!

[Zeba]

edit: probably a bug but a little funny thing is the ais seem to have all the ships unlocked in my game but in low numbers. According to the stat kills, i've destroyed over 40 different types of ships this game!

The ai eyes will spawn multiple ships types even if they are not unlocked by the particular ai the eye is stationed in. This is awesome for milking the ai for a massive defensive fleet so you can commit 100% of your buildable forces for offensive action.

[Fruden]

 Something to remember, thanks for the info!

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, the hives building the ff's is something that will change when I finally get around to re-tuning the hybrids to be more aggressive.  They used to be way more so, but players were dropping like flies so we made them more balanced... and to be honest, the behaviors that are most problematic (the massive ff-stacking and chokepointing) are some of their most successful tactics (and remarkably similar to what many human players do).  But the point of them is to be fun, even if fun means shifting towards a less optimal strategy.  The challenge can be replaced elsewise.

Though to some extent I wonder if maybe I need to split the plots into "basic hybrids", "advanced defensive hybrids" (doing much what they do now), and "advanced offensive hybrids", or something like that.  Because I think some people would prefer what we have now to what I'm going to do with them

[Winter Born]

Yea, the hives building the ff's is something that will change when I finally get around to re-tuning the hybrids to be more aggressive.  They used to be way more so, but players were dropping like flies so we made them more balanced... and to be honest, the behaviors that are most problematic (the massive ff-stacking and chokepointing) are some of their most successful tactics (and remarkably similar to what many human players do).  But the point of them is to be fun, even if fun means shifting towards a less optimal strategy.  The challenge can be replaced elsewise.

Though to some extent I wonder if maybe I need to split the plots into "basic hybrids", "advanced defensive hybrids" (doing much what they do now), and "advanced offensive hybrids", or something like that.  Because I think some people would prefer what we have now to what I'm going to do with them

I like the triple threat concept -- after all they are optional 

[Fruden]

 Wellll, it was a nasty bunch of fights, but i just managed to overcome a super massive hive chokepoint. 150 force fields, 100 hives, 200 facilities, 30 clusters, 5 wardens, and that was after lots of missions to clean up and after the devourer came to feed.

 The most significant issues i had to deal with were the hives (obviously): they overlap their force fields when moving so they cover each other and its really hard to get kills + they have great firepower with their gun modules; the forcefields: they made it almost impossible to get the remaining clusters and facilities; the facilities: even out of supply they still function and spawn hive fleets; and the clusters: they really hurt and they spawn large groups of ships.

 Since i wanted to destroy all those hives, what i did was draw the hives far away from their exit wormhole and then built force fields over it to keep them from escaping + built large numbers of turrets + used large fleet. This by itself didn't work because of the issues of hive modules + facilities spawning ships, but coupled with all 6 emp missiles their force fields and guns were offline long enough to get the job done.

 I pretty much expect to roll the ai now that i've destroyed all their best stuff and have secured my part of the galaxy, but yeah, in a 40 planet map with lots of chokepoints, killing those hives has to be done every once in a while otherwise they build so much and with the facilities spawning ships, i was looking at 2500 ships spawning every little while if i didn't take down the hives fast enough during the big fight.

 Here are some saves and pictures for the curious:


ps: are hive facilities really intended to work out of supply?
ps2: to build all the stuff i needed, i sold 2 ion cannons (mk3+mk4) i had kept for the occasion, it's an incredibly powerful tool being able to spend so many millions of resources in 2-3 minutes

edit: now that basic turrets are useful, could there be something else that costs 250 knowledge? since the sensors arent that useful i got a feeling I'm gonna end all my games at 250 knowledge remaining from now on...

[keith.lamothe]

Wow, that's quite a planet-cracking job you did there

Yes, the facilities are supposed to work outside supply (the hybrids are supposed to be able to function in the complete absence of AI infrastructure, though they can't quite yet).  About the only thing really unintended in that scenario was the 150 forcefields and 30 clusters; I need to convince the hybrids to not plant more than about 20 ffs and say 5 clusters per planet.

Frankly, the reason they don't naturally spread out more is that they win more games by piling up

[Fruden]

Wow, that's quite a planet-cracking job you did there

Yes, the facilities are supposed to work outside supply (the hybrids are supposed to be able to function in the complete absence of AI infrastructure, though they can't quite yet).  About the only thing really unintended in that scenario was the 150 forcefields and 30 clusters; I need to convince the hybrids to not plant more than about 20 ffs and say 5 clusters per planet.

Frankly, the reason they don't naturally spread out more is that they win more games by piling up

 Alright, thanks for the info. Just one thing i'm pretty sure is not supposed to happen: self-attrition stops working when ships are under the effect of EMP. In this case, by stacking all EMP missiles i had roughly 6 minutes of time to work with, and it was quite surprising to see self destroying ships still there at full health when the EMP wore off.

 Later!