Every time I start a war I conquer two planets and then get gobbled up by superior enemy fleets. So what are tips for successful expansion?

Don't declare war on a superior enemy.



Have you got more background on what you do to get to that point? How is the enemy beating you? Have you tried seeing what is attacking you and countering those ships?

- Have enough dust to upgrade your fleets when you start the war.

- Do a scout attack to check the main attack weapon (example:missiles) of the enemy and what type of defense he is weak (example beam).

- Reconfigure your ships to (mainly) missile defense and only beam weapon (use always only one attack type!)

- upgrade your fleets

- attack and smash him

yeah, I always have problems with armor and money.



but focusing only one weapon type per ship? I always do 50/50 beam/missiles.

Not one weapon type per ship, one weapon type for the whole fleet. Most enemy ships build a defense in all 3 types, if you attack with only one type you will make more damage with that type with a better chance of coming through the defense (because the enemy wasted points on defense types he didn't need).

are rockets preferable? and what type of defense are a must? Flak defense?

I figured it out. Just wiped out two full sized (about 10 ships in each) enemy fleets with my 2 mid sized ships. Their rockets just can't reach me but my rockets reach them just fine.



Does AI adapt its fleet construction to my ships?

I use missiles mainly at the start and later had good results with beam weapons in general, but i change them if an enemy has a tough defense against beam.

I'm not sure, i believe AI adapts, but needs some time to build new ships. If you are fast war is over before AI can react.

are heroes that important?



AI can't destroy two of my ships with its huge armadas of 10+ ships. They just miss. This fleet is under command of a pretty advanced hero.

If you check the bonuses that a hero provides to a fleet, a high-level hero can easily double or even triple the effective performance of a fleet in combat.



They should not under any circumstances be underestimated.

Well back to expansion, I would suggest to research the tech for the happiness when expanding, or otherwise your people won't like the expansion!

Tredecim wrote:
Well back to expansion, I would suggest to research the tech for the happiness when expanding, or otherwise your people won't like the expansion!

I have this covered.

Definately do not split your weapons (on ships or fleets), it seems counterintuitive, but you want max overwhelming damage vs 1 type of defense (and ideally the enemies weakest defense). Also, I like to throw in 1 of the lowest type of the other 2 weapons - I was noticing the enemy was only building defenses to the 1 weapon type before I did this but after I did this, the enemy was evenly distributing its defenses to all 3 defenses, thus weakening itself to my main weapon type.



By sending a couple of scouts in first (you can retreat them 99% of the time), you can determine what his main weapons and defenses are and counter them with your own custom build (remember, you will UPGRADE a current version of your ships). Also remember to look at the #s behind the names of the ships. The largest number is the most current build version of that ship, which is the most likely one he is currently building to attack you (so dont be overly concerned by the #6 ships if you see a ship with the SAME name with a #15 after it, the #15 is the current build type not the #6).



With 1 upgraded fleet targeting their weaknesses as laid out in my, and prior posts, you can literally defend most several nearby systems without taking much damage until the enemy adapts.



Heros? Huge bonus when using them. At the inspect hero screen, on the right side of their window, look at the modifiers they bring. The damage/mitigation mods get very high and the dust cards they can bring to the battles are amazing.



My 2 favs are:

Battle Action: Emergency Shelter - any ships killed in that stage of the fight are brought back to life with 5% HP after the battle ends (Commander Hero)

Battle Action: Dust Barrier - Adds 25% of your max HP to the ships Armor (Pilot Hero)

I find for expansion step one I need to get enough colonizable planet types to plant a plant every system I can reach.