Trouble going into the mid-game

[Reefpirate]

This is my first real deep-dive into the world of AI War and I have to say I'm hooked! AI War 2 has been fascinating to me so far.

However, I'm having some problems with overall strategy as I go into the mid-game. I've tried a couple of different campaigns now, and it seems each time I get up to about strength 50 in Strike fleets and then start scratching my head. Let's see if I can narrow it down to a few questions:

- I keep hearing that you shouldn't conquer everything, but how does this look exactly as you move into later stages of the game? How big should my 'core' empire be before I start skipping planets to conquer?

- I also keep hearing about these 'deep strikes' to target specific objectives far away from your own territory. I get all excited about my target, get my transports ready and then watch as they slowly get crippled on their way to the objective! Often I have to jump through Mark IV or V planets on my way, and the defenses there seem to have no problem stopping my 'deep strikes'. Oh, and I learned you don't send your Combat Factories or support flagships on these deep strikes because they're way too slow so I can't do any repairs or reinforcement once they arrive anyways.

- What kind of fights should I expect to actually win with 50 strength worth of mobile combat ships? Mark III planets seem doable, but should I be able to also do Mark IV's with that?

I feel like I get to 50 strength and then run out of Mark II planets to conquer and then sort of just stand around waiting for waves to come at me. I need help with figuring out what to do with this 50 strength of offensive capability! What do I do??

Thanks

[BadgerBadger]

In my last game I had a "home empire" of about 4 or 5 planets, and then spent most of time time deepstriking until late game.

If your flagships are always getting crippled on the way to a deepstrike I'm a bit surprised, usually flagships are pretty speedy. You can always load your fleets up, then micro your flagships around the guard posts.

Useful targets to deepstrike for are ARS, Tech Vaults, progress reducers.

If you only have 50 strength in your fleet you're still early game, not mid game. You need to capture more ship lines and then spend science to upgrade your ships.

[Reefpirate]

I guess my latest campaign is kind of unlucky: The AI seems to have a LOT of sniper turrets around that were chewing up my Transports when trying to be sneaky.

Thanks for the tips!

Any tips about capturing planets disconnected from your "home empire", for example if I want to capture a new Fleet? Should I just scrap my Command station when I get the fleet? Should I build defenses just to slow down it being recaptured? Should I ever try to hold on to these disconnected planets?

[BadgerBadger]

I typically hold a planet to get all the science out, or if I need it as a place to rebuild my fleet for other deepstrikes. Otherwise I usually scrap it to  reuse the energy elsewhere

[Democracy? Democracy!]

If your flagships are always getting crippled on the way to a deepstrike I'm a bit surprised, usually flagships are pretty speedy. You can always load your fleets up, then micro your flagships around the guard posts.

Once when I was moving transports about through AI territory, I noticed one was crippled in the group of 4. I wondered why since normally they are pretty durable, and i found out the reason was because the AI had a bunch of sniper units (the ones that damage high speed units). And I mean ALOT of snipers.

[PokerChen]

The way I would normally "deep strike" is to eliminate all of the AI forces on each planet along the way, except the command center and warp gate. This is called neutering. The first targets are always more flagships, and I would always take a combat factory along because it's critical to reinforce. The AI reinforces much slower than players, so it's ok to grind 50 strength against a series of 30 strength planets.

Whether you get stuck on mark IV-V planets along the way is mostly a matter of the map layout you choose. When that happens, it's best to shorten your deep strikes to "a guardpost on that planet", until the garrison is whittled down.

[Kraiz]

I tend to play on small clusters maps, so I'll capture my 4-6 starting sector's planets and fortify them.  After that, I start exploring nearby clusters, grabbing ARS, Flagships, Reducers, and tech vaults.  I'll hold onto the occasional system with a military station if it's surrounded by other goodies and high mark planets (The 3x factories help attacking worlds adjacent to the military station).  They also help propel your forces deeper into AI territory to get some of the farther-off golems and officer flagships. So, in my case of playing on small clusters, I might have one military station every 3 clusters or so just to give my fleet a local place to repair up if needed.  Support fleets are good for this, but as of 1.002 the AI really loves murdering support fleets.

[I-KP]

Support fleets are far less useful than they were. Now they die pretty much immediately and all of their Engineers are lucky to see twenty seconds of action. No use in attack now; defence only.

Battlestations are also very much weakened as a result of being targeted by everything (which they often were anyway) but as now the essential Engineer escort required to actually build a beachhead gets sniped in seconds those turrets rarely complete.

Battlestations and Citadels were difficult to justify capturing before. Now they're even less enticing.