Awakened FE, should I surrender?

[Machiavellian]

I have been playing as a Pacifist empire and have been fortunate enough to form a fairly large federation of somewhat like minded races. We control roughly half the galaxy, with my civilization controlling a good quarter of the galaxy.

I defeated the Plethorian scourge when it spawned in a federation members space with little real danger. Unfortunately one of the Fallen Empires awakened. The Engimatic Observer, which now wants to unify the galaxy. It has been conquering non-federation members and grown considerably. Eventually my federation wanted to declare war to liberate some areas and stop them. First I voted against it, but eventually I conceded when the request came later and now I am at war with this Awakened Empire. They are sending massive fleets of 95K stacks against me. Even after winning a few battles, my fleet is utterly depleted. I don't think I can win this war -- is this hopeless? Should I concede the game at this point and just wait for Utopia?

 

[Mitchz95]

I find the best way to deal with Awakened Empires is to declare war as soon as they awaken. That way they don't have time to build up their fleets.

In this case, I'd recommend hit-and-run attacks behind their lines to disrupt their shipbuilding. If your Federation members still have their fleets relatively intact, they should be able to help too.

 

[Machiavellian]

I couldn't declare war the moment they awakened since I am fanatical pacifists. In fact, the awakened empire viewed my race with some favoritism (+10) relations. I think my federation members still have fleets in tact, but they have not been very helpful at all and seem to have their own target priorities. I can stem the tide, but I don't think I can win the war. It is unfortunate because I was hoping to import this race as a possible AI race in the future.

 

[melkor88]

I feel it is always better to go down heroically fighting, it is good RP. When I am getting destroyed by a FE, it reminds me of Babylon 5, the Earth-Minbari war

 

[General Retreat]

One suggestion for minimising losses: a lot of FE damage output comes from the ludicrously powerful dual forward cannons as well as strike craft/missiles.

I recently took out a 70k FE fleet with equivalent power while losing a handful of cruisers. The way I did it was setting up a snare trap with fire rate suppressors, with four other fortresses in a + formation on the four corners. These have kinetic artillery and minefields/shield boosters.

Split your fleet up so each corner fortress has a detachment. When the FE jumps in, at any one time at least 3/4 of your forces will be out of their XL weapon firing arcs. Combine this with flak/PD to knock out munitions. Leading their fleets into traps by using small raiding forces to goad them out is the way to go.

Once you've broken the back of the fleets they start with, they'll never sufficiently recover in time for future wars.