As you can see from my post count I'm new to the game. I've been playing the "classic" game, not with the Disharmony DLC activated, and am having trouble keeping up with the AI.



In my last game I had just reached turn 144 when the Automatons decided to declare war. When their fleets moved into systems near mine I sent out a couple scouts to see what they had. Somehow they had a level 14 Hero with one fleet that had 39,205 MP and another that had 22,750 MP.



I decided to attack the fleet to inpect the ships and was surprised at what I saw. The large fleet consisted of 8 ships labeled "Culler 22" that had the following stats:



Kinetic: 1201.2

Deflect: 408.1

Command: 1



it also had 3 ships labled "Sickle 18" with the following stats:



Kinetic: 915.6

Deflect: 349.8

Shield: 349.8

Flak: 349.8

Armor: +768 HP

Command: 2



finally, it also had a couple ships with around 600 lasers and 900 missiles (I didn't get the full stats on those). Comparing that fleet to my ships, my Destroyer can only fit 250 Kinetic and 68 in each of the defenses. My Cruiser and Battleship is only slightly better but nothing to be impressed by. My Hero is level 19 (adventurer, pilot) with all traits related to damage and defense.



To make matters worse, I looked at the Automatons in the faction screen and it says they're earning 33,035 dust per round... how did they manage that?





PS: I'm playing a custom faction based off United Empire. I mainly took traits that improve fleets / battles.

Their Level 14 hero probably had a lot to do with it. By 14, he likely has huge bonuses to fleet offense capabilities. But to be honest, at turn 144 in my last game I had very similar, if not better stats. I focused hard on research, as better tech typically leads to better ships. How many systems do they control? How many do you control? What's your FIDS per turn? What's theirs? Finally, what difficulty are you playing on? Keep in mind that the AI has *tons* of advantages that you don't have (including but not limited to less expansion disapproval, cheaper everything, etc) to make up for them being an AI and thus just not that smart. If you let them get to turn 144 with an advantage over you in the number of colonies, their advantages likely turned into an overwhelming advantage in their FIDS generation, which in turn is going to turn into an overwhelming advantage in tech, and thus, fleet capabilities.



Keep in mind that races with fleet advantages fare better by being very aggressive and wiping out foes when and where encountered, as those fleet advantages are at their most powerful in the early game. +2 speed, for example, is a *ton* when you are having ships with speeds of 6 and 11. By end game, where I had ship speeds of around 70, +2 really doesn't matter. Same goes for weapon boosts. +24% or +36% is insurmountable early on. Later, when your hero provides +80% or more, and tech is able to provide up to an 80% gap just by going up one more level, it stops mattering.



Honestly it sounds like the AI played my typical game and out produced you. Remember that you can check on their FIDS and science scores by "quit game" at any time, and if you have peace with them, can check what techs they have that you do not through the trade window (you can also see where you have a leg up on them). Clever players can also use that to identify what defenses they are doing poorly on, and what offensive capabilities they are focusing on, and research the counters to that as appropriate. From what you're showing there it sounds like missiles would be the way to go, not that it really matters at this point. Best of luck, but it sounds like a fresh start is in order.

GiantOctopodes wrote:


*snip*

Thanks for your reply and insight. I wasn't aware that the AI had such advantages. You're right too in that they had amassed a large number of colonies while I only had about 10 because I was worried about disapproval.



To make matters worse, most of my colonies consisted of one planet I could inhabit while the rest were asteroid belts or gas giants that I didn't have the tech. for. This meant I couldn't focus on military tech. without sacrificing the ability to colonize. I focused on colonization, thinking the AI would do the same.



Strangely, I was plaing against 4 AI and the Automatons seemed to have been the only one with the massive fleets. I wonder if they were engaging the other AI and invading their systems. I will definitely replay the map because I always save at "turn 0" in case I get a seed I really like.