First Contact hostilities

[Wolfgang I]

Destroying mines, sience ships and construction ships while the AI fleets get destroyed by your spaceport is surprisingly entertaining. I even managed to destroy the first colony ship of the first empire I discovered in my current game. The research bonus you get from debris is also nice.

Has anyone tried to invade an uncontacted homeworld before 2210? How many armies would you need?

 

[Emraldis]

Destroying mines, sience ships and construction ships while the AI fleets get destroyed by your spaceport is surprisingly entertaining. I even managed to destroy the first colony ship of the first empire I discovered in my current game. The research bonus you get from debris is also nice.

Has anyone tried to invade an uncontacted homeworld before 2210? How many armies would you need?

As soon as they see any of your ships or stations they can research you. This means that if you try to blow up their things, they will be able to research you as soon as you warp in.

 

[StJimmyRocks92]

Has anyone tried to invade an uncontacted homeworld before 2210? How many armies would you need?

I've tried, I had a huge army so I won easily (don't remember exactly how big). Problem was that after I won nothing happened, and then they contacted me and hostilities ended my armies were stuck on their homeworld until I declared war, then they disappeared.

 

[Wolfgang I]

As soon as they see any of your ships or stations they can research you. This means that if you try to blow up their things, they will be able to research you as soon as you warp in.

That's true but early in a game it can take the AI quites some time meanwhile you can prevent them from expanding.

I've tried, I had a huge army so I won easily (don't remember exactly how big). Problem was that after I won nothing happened, and then they contacted me and hostilities ended my armies were stuck on their homeworld until I declared war, then they disappeared.

Now that sounds annoying.

 

[StJimmyRocks92]

Now that sounds annoying.

Quite. Although, it was a patch ago and may not have that problem anymore. I haven't tried since.

 

[ColZimin]

Huh. And here for a year I've been wondering if there was even a point to hostile first contact protocols! Thanks OP, will have to try that, and I'll see if I can replicate StJimmy's invasion bug at the same time.

 

[Slynx]

This means that if you try to blow up their things, they will be able to research you as soon as you warp in.

with their starting 5-10 society science it'll probably will take them 6-12 month to research. enough time to wreck havoc and you'll probably will get almost no opinion penalty if it'll fail

 

[Emraldis]

with their starting 5-10 society science it'll probably will take them 6-12 month to research. enough time to wreck havoc and you'll probably will get almost no opinion penalty if it'll fail

Yeah, I was moreso referring to "doing a campaign where you aren't detected at all within the first 10 years, due to aggressive first-contact".

 

[Wolfgang I]

Huh. And here for a year I've been wondering if there was even a point to hostile first contact protocols! Thanks OP, will have to try that, and I'll see if I can replicate StJimmy's invasion bug at the same time.

I discovered it while roleplaying as rather stupid Fanatic Xenophobes. I even rivaled the first FE I encountered.
The game can be quite difficult and entertaining if you avoid powergaming and stick to a role. Although blobbing with FS/C or FI/M is fun too.

 

[Diezy]

Huh. And here for a year I've been wondering if there was even a point to hostile first contact protocols! Thanks OP, will have to try that, and I'll see if I can replicate StJimmy's invasion bug at the same time.

It's pretty handy if you want to expand, but the space is owned by someone you didn't contact yet. You can go and destroy the Frontier Outpost, or intrerrupt the construction/stop the colony ship from colonizing a system you want.

The AI doesn't seem to know what to do about it, future patches giving it a pre-contact strategy would make things quite interesting.

 

[Taritu]

Never managed that. I do often destroy their frontier outpost if it is blocking habitable worlds for me.