The Big Push

[fibio]

Okay, so on my first game; I've got a stageing ground close enough to the first AI's homeworld, built up a large fleet 1500+, of which both bombers and frigates are level 4, dropped a nuke on the planet to soften it up and then got beaten back before I could destroy their home station. 

Anyone got any advice for my second attack?

[x4000]

Welcome to the forums!

You gotta be careful with those nukes, the up the AI Progress a lot and have almost no effect on AI homeworlds because of the level of the ships there. Nukes are better for other large planets that don't have a lot of V/Core ships on them.

The best idea with those homeworlds is generally to try to take out all of the outlying ships on them in general.  Go for each guard post individually, clean it off, and then take the command station itself.  If you just go straight for the command station, they'll all gang up on you and it's a lot harder.  If there are ion cannons, then taking them out early can also be really good.

Also, it's a good idea to have a lot of ships of a high level, 1500 or so is okay but not stellar.  You can also bring a mobile builder over to build some turrets on the AI planet, although now that you've nuked it that wouldn't work.  But you could do that on the second AI homeworld.  Having enough high-level bombers is really important for killing the fortress and the forcefield, and the command station itself for that matter.

Just bear in mind that when you kill that command station, the AI Progress goes up again (by 100), and any core ships remaining may make a beeline to your home station.  It can be easy to lose right when you are taking out the first AI, so just be on your guard.  It's uphill all the way from here, it gets harder instead of easier after you take out the first AI.  So getting prepped to kill the second AI home planet, and killing them both at the same time, can also be a great tactic if you can muster the forces to do it.  In the meantime, avoiding alerting the AI homeworlds to your presence when you are not in the process of attacking can help.

That's a lot of generalized advice, and really the strategy of it can vary quite a bit.  You can bring in lightning missiles to help clear out groups of enemy ships, for instance.  The main thing is to try to divide and conquer, just engage as few of their core ships at a time as possible, with as many of your ships as possible, and that's the best way to win.  Just keep darting around and chipping away until there's nothing left, and then go in for the kill!

[Kjara]

How many advanced research stations have you taken?  Usually by the time I'm trying for the first ai command center I've taken 3 or 4, and hopefully have gotten at least 2 good units out of them(and increased the total unit count I can field to 2.5-3k or so).

Edit: A lightning missile or two for clearing out the wormhole you have to enter from will help your units go further as well(by reducing losses from entry).

Edit2: being able to field 2 zeniths and 2 spires can also help quite a bit(both in damage boost and in the damage/hps they have).

[fibio]

Thanks for the quick response. That some good advice there though given I've got the AI turned down a little low for my level (I underestimated) I may risk the direct strike.

Yeah, I live dangerously.

I've taken all the research stations but, because it was a smallish map, there were only two. Is there any other way of boosting unti-caps without reserching new tech's?

[x4000]

Yep, the smaller maps (playing 10 planets?) are a lot more limiting.  You can increase your ship caps from the start by starting with multiple planets, but once you are in a game the only way to increase your ship caps is with ARSes or via unlocking more techs.  The balance of anything less than 40 planets is a lot more quick and aggressive in that way, the AI Progress doesn't get all that high but you also need to make do with fewer ships in general.  The divide and conquer strategy still works well, though.  My advice would generally be to play with at least 40 planets to get the most out of the game, but personally I prefer 80.

[fibio]

Yeah, I think I'm playing 30. I don't know, it was six hours ago that I decided that  . Any game that can keep me playing for six hours, and still fight off my best attempt at a doom fleet is good in my book!

[x4000]

If you're playing on 30, there really should be more ARSes out there -- might want to make sure you didn't overlook anything in your scouting, that could really help your fleet size.  You should be able to unlock quite a lot of techs if you steal knowledge from enemy planets, too.  But that's up to you, you could just try to go for the throat on the AIs, too.  Glad you're enjoying it!

[fibio]

Hmm, I just checked the settings and I'm apparently on a 40 star map, but also the ARS objective is reading zero. Maybe I got unlucky, or they're hiding and I have no idea how to find them.

[x4000]

Hmm, that would seem to indicate that there are only two, then, yeah.  Sometimes there can be fewer if the map is really inopportune, but that's really rare that there would be less than five on a map that size.

[fibio]

That doesn't bode well for my future luck with this game. Oh well, at least I can look forward to playing with even more toys next round.

[x4000]

If you post the settings you used, and the map seed and such, I can look into it.  I imagine your situation is salvageable with that campaign, but it might be tougher than it otherwise would be.  If you've been using a lot of nukes, it's possible that you nuked the other three, or something like that...

[fibio]

Simple hubs
No astro trains
Everything else default

116699219

Definately did not nuke any labs, there were only ever two listed on the objectives (and when I fired up the same settings it also came out as two)

[RCIX]

Not that i can really help (as i havent gotten into a game enough to get that far) but i hear lighting missiles are good for taking out clusters of units, they might help if you can send some at clusters of units heading towards your fleet.

[darke]

I just ran through generating a few 40 maps and started with one planet and I never got more then 2 ARS' and 2 AFs on a map. On both 25s and 30s I only ever got 1ARS/2AF, or once only one ARS since the start world had something like 6 or 7 wormholes.

I also noticed that on the 20's, if I picked two adjacent start planets, I could get 1ARS/4AFs, but if I picked two planets that were essentially "on opposite ends of the galaxy" I only ever got 1ARS.

Starting with 10s, if you pick a world at the "end" of a chain, you get 1ARS/1AF, if you pick a world in the "middle" of the chain, or that is otherwise well connected you get 1ARS and 0AF.

Between all these, and the fact I can't get any ARS+AF on anything up to including 20 planet worlds with my 8 planet starts (best I've gotten is a single ARS on 20 worlds) does indicate there may be something wrong with the generator at the moment.

Maybe the tweak to start the V worlds further apart managed to block out more of the worlds that allow the ARS/AF to be populated on? I think that if at least one ARS/AF can't be populated anywhere other then on a player or AI homeworld, it should drop one of each on one of the player's homeworlds. Is a bit of an unusual bonus, but that's what randomness is for.

[Volatar]

Maybe the tweak to start the V worlds further apart managed to block out more of the worlds that allow the ARS/AF to be populated on? I think that if at least one ARS/AF can't be populated anywhere other then on a player or AI homeworld, it should drop one of each on one of the player's homeworlds. Is a bit of an unusual bonus, but that's what randomness is for.

How about dropping one on each of the AI's homeworlds? That would make it hard AND fun