Fallen Friends Arise - PRAETORIAN GUARDS

[ACU]

I have started this premade campaign at level 7. I got 1 spire city and 2 hubs. I'm trying to get the third spire hub but whenever I start a new command center on the planet with the hub, 3 unbeatable praetorian ships appear destroy it. Then they leave the planet.
The pretorian ships have like 10 times damage and health of my best spire ship. No way to fight.
Any advice?
Thanks

[Ovalcircle]

Those would be the AI Dragons. Every time you create a Spire City from a relic, a Dragon spawns. Their purpose is to prevent early cheese by building a Spire city or two and immediately rushing the AI Homeworld with the Spire ships for an early win.

The Praetorian Guard can extend up to 3 hops away from an AI Homeworld. Which means you put a city right on the AI's doorstep.

My advice is to either give up the planet for the time being until you get stronger, or reload to a save before you placed that city down.

[ACU]

Many thanks for your reply.
Actually it seems that any planet I try to conquer Dragons will appear making it impossible to advance. I think it is not balanced like that.
Anyway I will load a previous save.

[x4000]

The dragons are meant to be defensive only for the AI, so if you are not right on top of the AI you shouldn't have to deal with them until much later when you are extremely powerful.  At a certain point, by leveling up your cities and doing other activities, even the dragons will be like paper before your forces.  You shouldn't have to interact with them unless you are very close to an AI homeworld, unless there is a new bug I'm not aware of (which is possible).

[BadgerBadger]

Was this on the X map?

[ACU]

no. It became unplayable. 1 city and 3 hubs. I'm quite an expert player, I spent so many hours at AIWAR1... but apparently I'm doing something wrong here

[ACU]

Thanks it was that: 3 hops from the core. Going around