The AI's response to champions question...

[Faulty Logic]

The nemeses would join the already-painful defence fund.

Since it is end game, it hardly matters how painful it is. If you can take out one nemesis each time, then with enough patience you will wear down the nemesis force if you have 150ish aip when you start. Its no different then launching  a suicidal wave to take out a core guard post or two. If anything, it is easier, since you have to not travel as far since the nemesis come to you.

You're being really inconsistent here. Time matters, especially when the AI is firing off FS exos. And if you have a strong enough fleet to both defend yourself and launch a nemesis-killiing wave, you deserve to win at that point.

[chemical_art]

Why is encouraging a strong champion in FS a problem?

Because the current mechanic that discourages this (nemesis) is mostly ignored in FS. When you have the AI lobbing motherships at you for HW defense the nemesis don't really do much.

[Faulty Logic]

By the same token, the champion and the starship minions don't matter as much.

[TechSY730]

The nemeses would join the already-painful defence fund.

Since it is end game, it hardly matters how painful it is. If you can take out one nemesis each time, then with enough patience you will wear down the nemesis force if you have 150ish aip when you start. Its no different then launching  a suicidal wave to take out a core guard post or two. If anything, it is easier, since you have to not travel as far since the nemesis come to you.

That is assuming you can wear it out before it wears your home command station out, especially if it has the exo spawned from the defense fund helping it.
Even with an end-game spire fleet + battleship, hunter-killers, opposing champs, and motherships are scary, especially if you let them gather in large-ish numbers (which if you used this somewhat stall-ish strat, you probably did)

(Wait, do nemesis champs stay at the home even after being "woken up", even after a failed HW attack?)

My only present champ-balance concern is for FS campaigns played all the way through (to the Imperial Spire fleet). I think simply calling both nemesis fleets to attack at, say, 10 minutes into the tranceiver timer is all that is needed.

I can agree with this. At this point, responding to champs on the HW is no longer the concern. The AI should send everything it can spare at taking out the receiver.

[chemical_art]

You're being really inconsistent here. Time matters, especially when the AI is firing off FS exos. And if you have a strong enough fleet to both defend yourself and launch a nemesis-killiing wave, you deserve to win at that point.

If the enemy is launching FS exos, the enemy is launching motherships at you for HW defense. If you can take of that, those nemesis are not doing much relatively. Especially since the optimal tactic is to bait the mothership then hide on the otherside of a knife fight to counter its massive range.

[Faulty Logic]

(Wait, do nemesis champs stay at the home even after being "woken up", even after a failed HW attack?)

Yes.

If the enemy is launching FS exos, the enemy is launching motherships at you for HW defense. If you can take of that, those nemesis are not doing much relatively. Especially since the optimal tactic is to bait the mothership then hide on the otherside of a knife fight to counter its massive range.

By the same token, the champion and the starship minions don't matter as much.

[chemical_art]

(Wait, do nemesis champs stay at the home even after being "woken up", even after a failed HW attack?)

Yes. Since you need to bait the ai off the HW to take care of the mothership anyway, the nemesis don't even help with that. However your hundredish allies and champ are helping pound whatever other defense force on the otherside for the wormhole.

[chemical_art]

By the same token, the champion and the starship minions don't matter as much.

No, but the economy and allies you get is worth at least another city that can never be lost plus whatever K you earned along the way.

If you keep your champ allies and human fleetships to act as mobile defenses (before AS I was able to defend against 90% of exos with just my fleetships), your spire fleet and champ is free to attack without being tied down. So if they get wiped but took out a few nemesis, you still win.

[TechSY730]

(Wait, do nemesis champs stay at the home even after being "woken up", even after a failed HW attack?)

Yes.

Ugh, that may be worth changing up some. Any possibility of having some portion (but NOT all) of them go out to retailiate after a failed HW attack, once the nemesis "fleet" builds up to a certain level (to prevent "tier 2" or so nemises fleets from trying to counterattack after your half-hearted bait, and just uselessly suicide on your homeworld. However, even part of a maxed out nemesis fleet you would be very hesistent to face even with a home-turf advantage, so that is when they should send them out)? If it was able to take out your high level champ, then there is a decent chance a good segment of them could crush a large portion of your empire as well, possibly even take you out.

[chemical_art]

Ugh, that may be worth changing up some. Any possibility of having some portion (but NOT all) of them go out to retailiate after a failed HW attack, once the nemesis "fleet" builds up to a certain level? If it was able to take out your high level champ, then there is a decent chance a good segment of them could crush a large portion of your empire as well, possibly even take you out.

The reason it was changed was to avoiding baiting. Having them leave is even worse, since for example with my situation instead of having to suicide to take out 1 or 2 I could wipe out 3 or 4 as I knife fight them outside the HW.

[TechSY730]

Ugh, that may be worth changing up some. Any possibility of having some portion (but NOT all) of them go out to retailiate after a failed HW attack, once the nemesis "fleet" builds up to a certain level? If it was able to take out your high level champ, then there is a decent chance a good segment of them could crush a large portion of your empire as well, possibly even take you out.

The reason it was changed was to avoiding baiting. Having them leave is even worse, since for example with my situation instead of having to suicide to take out 1 or 2 I could wipe out 3 or 4 as I knife fight them outside the HW.

That's why I amended by request to not "counterattack" until they get so big that even a decent fraction (like 1/3 or 1/2) of them you wouldn't want barreling down towards you, even if they have to fight on your terms, as there would be a good risk that they would be strong enough to take your out anyways, or at least inflict severe losses. If the nemises fleet is too small to be able to deal good damage to your worlds (like with the earlier "teirs" of nemesis fleets), then it should just stay there, like it does now.

[Faulty Logic]

5000 k, one battleship, 147 minions, 3 mod forts, and economic benefits. This is what you get from 10 nebulae.

The AI gets: a 20% increase to waves, reinforcements, and cpas, some bonus (I don't know exactly) to all exos, and the nemesis fleets.

I agree that you can get advantages from having a champion, if you play it right. I fail to see how, in any scenario (except the aforementioned all-the-way-through-FS one), this is severely unbalanced.

Definetly oppose them leaving the AI HWs at any point (except the aforementioned all-the-way-through-FS one).

[chemical_art]

That's why I amended by request to not "counterattack" until they get so big that even a decent fraction (like 1/3 or 1/2) of them you wouldn't want barreling down towards you, even if they have to fight on your terms, as there would be a good risk that they would be strong enough to take your out anyways, or at least inflict severe losses. If the nemises fleet is too small to be able to deal good damage to your worlds (like with the earlier "teirs" of nemesis fleets), then it should just stay there, like it does now.

The problem is that with that you always want to bait. If they ever got strong that half of them could wipe you out, then the whole mass would vaporize your fleet even faster. If you attacked with full force and lost they'd come at you with a counterattack anyway, so baiting would be the optimal strategy every time.

[chemical_art]

5000 k, one battleship, 147 minions, and economic benefits. This is what you get from 10 nebulae.

The AI gets: a 20% increase to waves, reinforcements, and cpas, some bonus (I don't know exactly) to all exos, and the nemesis fleets.

I agree that you can get advantages from having a champion, if you play it right. I fail to see how, in any scenario (except the aforementioned all-the-way-through-FS one), this is severely unbalanced.

Definetly oppose them leaving the AI HWs at any point (except the aforementioned all-the-way-through-FS one).

I just want something to discourage you getting that with one HW. The nemesis feel like half the puzzle to me. They become mobile core posts if you have 150ish aip when you attack the HW. So you treat them like core posts. Knock out one or two, retreat, rinse and repeat. I don't see that as anything more then a time sink.

[TechSY730]

5000 k, one battleship, 147 minions, and economic benefits. This is what you get from 10 nebulae.

The AI gets: a 20% increase to waves, reinforcements, and cpas, some bonus (I don't know exactly) to all exos, and the nemesis fleets.

I agree that you can get advantages from having a champion, if you play it right. I fail to see how, in any scenario (except the aforementioned all-the-way-through-FS one), this is severely unbalanced.

Definetly oppose them leaving the AI HWs at any point (except the aforementioned all-the-way-through-FS one).

I just want something to discourage you getting that with one HW. The nemesis feel like half the puzzle to me. They become mobile core posts if you have 150ish aip when you attack the HW. So you treat them like core posts. Knock out one or two, retreat, rinse and repeat. I don't see that as anything more then a time sink.

I agree there needs to be a more active response earlier (like an offensive strike force or something), but it needs to be proportionately strong enough to deter early "rushing" of the hull tiers, but not so severe such that champ-only players or upgrading hull teirs in any case (even at the "proper" pacing) from being a liability, or even strong enough to make being a "champ-only" player a not so fun proposition, or with periodic "grindy", unfun, annoying retreats. The possibility of champ-only players really throws monkey wrenches into many of the conventional solutions we have for other things (like pre-emptive strike exo-waves for the fallen spire stuff, both the shard chance and the periodic ones)