Hi everyone,

I have a quick question: Why do academy fleets (even colonizer ships) siege my systems? 

Is this intended, regardless of the relation to the Academy? I can't tell them not to, without angering/killing them, but I don't want my main systems to take a permanent economy loss. Do I really need to have some ships in all of my systems to prevent this? Is this because the academy uses the religious super law? 

Thanks in advance!

Are they staying for more than one turn?

They stayed for the rest of the game and completely brought down the manpower of the system with just a colonizer. xD

Yes I blame the law.
No, it's not cool.

Wow...they stayed for the rest of the game???

I've had only very brief stopovers and then they leave.

I think they only leave if there is another colonizable system closeby.

Bloody fix this please.

Please fix this. My last game academy besieged my 2nd best system for ages, then Choir declared war for no reason, came out of nowhere took that system and raized in 2 turns before I could take my fleet to that system and fight back. And if you attack academy to prevent them sieging, you automatically declare war and they ask for reperations for peace. For 12 turns you can't have any relation with academy and your relations reset to 0.

Me: Oh cool! Look there's a new expansion for Endless Space 2....

My face when I realize the academy now has a fleet that goes around and orbitally bombards every system they come across without repurcussions :(

Just ran into this today, completely screwed over the player who started near the academy while the rest of course got to ignore it.

This is such a weird mechanic. Do the devs realize we liked the Vaulters, too? Despite that mini exp not bringing a new game mechanic? And frankly in hindsight I think I like that expansion the most, because personally I also think Hacking should have been the species unique thing of the Choir and Behemoths should have been something unique to the Hissho. But those are minor details, while this Academy thing makes it a huge liability to start near the academy.

I'm playing a game right now where I live next to the Academy, They are sieging down 3 of my systems, eating up my man power and there is nothing I can do about it...

From my experience you just have to give at least a low amount of the ressources they ask for (each time a new competition starts), what should result in academy fleet moving on the following turn past academy fleet enters one of your systems. Alternatively you can attack and destroy academy fleet(s) and pay reparation.

As a new player, I find this very confusing. Lorewise, the Academy seem to be a neutral galactic organization with no overtly aggressive tendencies to this point (turn 50). They offer the galaxy opportunity through their initiatives and every faction helps with their requests for aid. Yet, playing as the Vaulters, when their ships rest in my system, which I welcome and have no problem with, they siege me down to zero. They themselves have two foriegn ships in one of their systems (from Vodyani and Riftborn) that have so far sieged that system down to 158/700 at a rate of -4/turn.

It muddles my mind and makes me feel inferior, because I don't know why it is happening. Maybe the game is too complex for me to understand?

bodhi wrote:

As a new player, I find this very confusing. Lorewise, the Academy seem to be a neutral galactic organization with no overtly aggressive tendencies to this point (turn 50). They offer the galaxy opportunity through their initiatives and every faction helps with their requests for aid. Yet, playing as the Vaulters, when their ships rest in my system, which I welcome and have no problem with, they siege me down to zero. They themselves have two foriegn ships in one of their systems (from Vodyani and Riftborn) that have so far sieged that system down to 158/700 at a rate of -4/turn.

It muddles my mind and makes me feel inferior, because I don't know why it is happening. Maybe the game is too complex for me to understand?

The Vodyani are the ones sieging the Academy system down, because their default Political party is Religious, which includes the ability to attack/invade systems during Cold War. So uh, yeah, don't trust the space vampires unless you have declared Truce or Peace with them. Treat any Cold War with Vodyani as a hot war and shoot them on sight.

After the Academy has finished it's donation round, you'll either be at Peace or War with the Academy depending on your donation status. Make sure to check. If you are at War, just treat their ships in your systems like you would any other faction invading your sovereign space, shoot on sight. The reparations aren't that expensive. If you can't defeat their fleet, avoid it.

The possible diplomatic states are:
War - full war, can only end in Truce. Forced Truce is possible once either side wins enough points, costs Influence to decline Forced Truce.
Cold War - no attacking ships in enemy influence zone, anything outside of that is fair game. You can blockade enemy outposts to prevent expansion.

(Religious party is an exception to the no attacking/invading, default Religious factions are Vodyani and Nakalim.)

Truce - 10 turn ceased hostilities, basically Peace but with Closed Borders.

Peace - Faction is neutral to you, can't attack or blockade their ships/systems.

Alliance - You are sharing victory conditions and diplomatic relations with them. Factions will be at War/Cold War/Truce/Peace with the entire alliance.

The thing is, if you start near the Academy, quite aside from the fact that they quickly settle the available systems, they tend to siege your precious few starting systems with large, advanced fleets. If it were possible to avoid their fleets, that would be fine. But the fact that this faction that is so benevolent about training heroes and dishing out rewards is so malevolent and aggressive during cold war is bizarre from a lore perspective. And from a balance perspective, they can totally destroy a good start if they randomly decide to siege your a crucial system for what seems like no apparent reason. Once your fleets are powerful, the reparations are trivial, but there are many important turns before your fleets are powerful enough to chase off a random sieging academy fleet.

In a recent game, I had the academy sit a large, overpowered fleet on siege on my home system from very early in game, for just under 20 turns, which made the possibility of trade routes impossible, and sapped my manpower pretty badly, leaving me super vulnerable. The whole time I kept asking, "Why is this even possible?" The academy should be a lot less aggressive during cold war than it is, simply because it has such powerful fleets early in the game, and it isn't a hostile competitor the way other factions are, nor does the player have any complex diplomatic counterplays to its random bouts of aggressive blockading. You can't even tell it to remove its ships, like you can with full opponent factions.

Can't really argue with that.

They probably need to be set to another party as default, or have the default diplomatic state be Peace instead of Cold War. Once the first round of donations has started, you should be able to Declare War and fight them if you wish.

But the entire Academy Fleet has been a sore point with the community since the DLC released. Too strong early in the game, too weak later in the game. And if the AI get the fleet, they immediately declare War because the power balance just shifted.