Exercise in futility

[Cinth]

So 4 attempts at 10/10, 120 stars, 16 HW, Low caps, and I've managed to get the game to CTD once. 

Some observations though..
Carriers are very annoying. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to manually target each one.
39 million power? Way to much. I don't think I could even use it all with full caps of everything.
Wardens and Enclaves spawn ships with no caps it seems.  The one game I had them on I could make absolutely no progress because of their numbers.
Spire Civilian Leaders might need to be looked at.  Currently it takes 3 freed leaders to start seeing the benefit, and several hours to actually see the progress start to go down...

Building a strong defense stops the AI from attacking all together. This has been around forever, but is there a tipping point to where the AI will actually send the ships it has camping my wormholes?

[TechSY730]

Carriers are very annoying. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to manually target each one.
39 million power? Way to much. I don't think I could even use it all with full caps of everything.

There is an option to turn on auto-targeting of carriers.
It would be even more firepower if the ships inside them were all spawned outside the carrier. (unless they are filled with things like laser gattlings or minipods, by in the average case, it should be about 1/3 of the firepower of the contained ships)

Wardens and Enclaves spawn ships with no caps it seems.  The one game I had them on I could make absolutely no progress because of their numbers.

They don't have caps? That should be looked at.

Spire Civilian Leaders might need to be looked at.  Currently it takes 3 freed leaders to start seeing the benefit, and several hours to actually see the progress start to go down...

It's a tricky balance trying to make them something you want to take but no make the AIP management trivial once you do have it.

Building a strong defense stops the AI from attacking all together. This has been around forever, but is there a tipping point to where the AI will actually send the ships it has camping my wormholes?

They will enter when they feel like they have enough to win (or on 9+, when they feel like they have 2x the amount they think they need to win)

I made a suggestion on mantis to reduce these ratios some, though. (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=7016)

[Hearteater]

Spire Civilian Leaders are a straight up negative faction.  Turn them on only when you want to make the game harder.

[Cinth]

TechSy730: Didn't know about the auto-target for carriers.. more pieces hidden in the nooks and crannies of the game lol.  The thing about carriers is that they fly through all your static defenses. Individual ships however get caught in tractors and blocked by FFs.
The bit about Enclaves and Wardens was anecdotal. ~5600 assorted ships in my fleet waltzed into a Mk II AI world that had a reported 300 ships. Aside from normal traffic in AI planets it seemed like all that I was fighting were drones. A planet that should have seem me with minimal losses ended up with the complete loss of that entire fleet, and no infrastructure damage to the AI... ~5600 ships stymied by a continuous wave of Neinzul Commandos and Bombers .

The point at which I ended my last game (its not playable anymore) I had taken the main cross plant on the "X" map. Warp jammer station to keep the AI from being alerted and ALL the T1 and T2 turrets I could place to protect my branch of the map. Some 20 Fort 2's and a variety of FFs to protect the line. I was in the middle of building a few goodies from the trader (Armor boost, armor inhibitor, BHM, radar jammer II, counter spy and a handful of orbital mass drivers) and the planet is the ralley point for my shipyards.  AI currently had ~20000 ships camping the wormholes (23 carriers) and that,s after I destroyed 11 carriers and a couple thousand ships at one wormhole.

With the SCL, it is the only way I can keep the AI progress down over the long haul. My goal is to wipe the AI completely out of the system. Length of the campaign isn't an issue. SCL are they best way to manage AIP over the long term. And yes, I fully expect my endeavor to be an exercise in futility 

[MaxAstro]

Spire Civilian Leaders are a straight up negative faction.  Turn them on only when you want to make the game harder.

What I do is turn off regular time-based AIP increase and turn on the civy leaders, which feels much more... organic.  It feels like I can control the time-based progress, which is very empowering and honestly feels like the way the game "should" be.  I also like the challenge in keeping them alive to keep yourself in the positive.

They definitely make things harder compared to not having them, but I see them as an improvement over boring "X AIP every Y minutes forever".

[Cinth]

Whelp... I did run into something that might be relevant to speak on.  Had another crash (not relevant) but AI was in the process of sending a few waves. These ships were about a hop or two from my fleet when the crash occurred.

Load up the last auto-save and these waves aren't being reported anymore but they are definitely on the way (relevant).

And what the  heck happened to Devo G? He used to be a real threat and now... very much able to ignore.

[doctorfrog]

On Spire Sieves:

Maybe they could scale downward in terms of effectiveness, and start at a higher effectiveness. Like:

1st spire civ: -5 AIP/15 min
2nd spire civ: -4 AIP/15 min
etc.

While also sniping them out of existence could have diminishing returns:
1st spire civ: instant -10 AIP
2nd spire civ: -7 AIP
etc. until future spire civs: +1 AIP, +3 AIP

Or, as you start capping Spire civs, they start offering bonuses or bounties for either taking out, or helping out their fellow civs:
"Hey buddy, you know that civ on Xyzzyxx? I hate 'em. Take 'em out and I'll tell you where all the IV planets are in the galaxy."
or: "Liberate our brethren at Hog Anus XIX and we shall bestow unto you a gifting of fine cheeses and also the blueprints for Youngling Vultures."