FTFE: Faster Than Fallen Empire

[scaper12123]

Here's a fun story. I just had war declared on me by a small (but powerful) awakened empire. Usual ramble bramble "250k unbeatable doomstack" shenanigans, but somehow or another I found a workaround that's basically FTL: Faster Than Light.

I sent a single corvette into one of their captured systems and, hilariously, they decided to call in the whole fleet to attack them. (that's four stacks of 60-80k, by the by). Hilariously, however, they kept following me as I had that ship run for its life to avoid leading it back into my space. And... well, they kept following. For a long time. I did some sensor data trades with my neighbors through whom I was running for dear life and saw they were fixated on the corvette.

I managed to lead an invasion on two of their captured planets, prompting one (and exactly one) of their fleets to come and try to take it back. I intercepted it with one of my own and obliterated their battlecruisers.

The moral of the story is: FTL has a lot more applications than we originally thought.

I find this outright hilarious, but since the enemy is so dang overpowered I am going to abuse the hell out of this to win. It's too bad I can't upgrade my corvette to make it suited for taking out the Titan ship like in FTL but still!

 

[Insane Commander]

They are extremely arrogant.

"How dare they defy us with a single ship! Send all of our fleets to destroy it!"
"But sir, their main forces are attacking our planets!"
"Shut up! We have to destroy that frigate!"

 

[scaper12123]

They are extremely arrogant.

"How dare they defy us with a single ship! Send all of our fleets to destroy it!"
"But sir, their main forces are attacking our planets!"
"Shut up! We have to destroy that frigate!"

A few months into the campaign, this is what i imagine happened:
"Sir, they're turning around again, apparently moving towards the exact same system they retreated to a moment ago. They're obviously leading us on a-"
"Shut up! I will not be outwitted by a single three-man vessel!"
And then the other guy looks at him as if unsure whether he's serious.

 

[gajop]

Yes, the AI is quite lacking in strategic combat. As soon as you send a single fleet, weaker than their doomstack, to any system in their empire space, they will immediately move their doomstack to follow it. This works for all empires. They will chase the fleet until it dies, retreats, cannot be reached (border access) or until a new hostile fleet comes to their empire space, making it easy to kite them around, bring them to your main fleet/defences or even hostile aliens. While you can still bring them to Leviathans, they will immediately leave those systems, so this is only viable if they immediately engage it (which can be difficult as it assumes your fleet can survive the Leviathan long enough as well).

Many wars can be won like this, but I don't use it anymore, as it destroys the RP elements and can lead to some very annoying micro.

 

[Jakobus]

I have another good one, though it abuses warscore mechanics...

I got declared on by an awakened Empire and it's, as it turned out, extremely weak client. Just to see what happened, i set AE home system as my wargoal. (they only had a single one). Their unbeatable doomstack come after one of my sector colonies and starts bombarding. Then they stay there awaiting troop transports. Since no transports came, they remained there for the rest of the war keeping any ground resistance thoroughly supressed.
My fleet went after a few of the AE fortresses in a system with two shielded planets. I thought I was going to loose the war and thought I would at least get some sweet salvage out of it. After taking out the fortresses and salvaging, I went after the weak client state. My campaign there did, to my supprise and dissapointment, go so well that I built up enough warscore to actually win the war! AE homeworld gained without even visiting the system, or firing a shot in fleet action !

 

[Insane Commander]

You can also blockade several planets at the same time with small fleets and reach 100% warscore in months. But it may be bad for RP.

 

[Diezy]

When they invaded our tree allies, we got dragged into the war due to a defensive pact. We weren't quite ready for it, and we had to retreat from the first scuffle with them and retrofit, and we were sure we were goners. What 50k was left of their fleet was now bombarding one of our worlds, and their transports show up.

But then they pack up and leave just as fortifications are gone, without invading!

This goes on for a few years, and it turns out, it was the Tree AI doing the very same thing with the Corvette, distracting their whole fleet away! Buying quite enough time for us to rebuild the fleet and win!

Truly, they stalled like the ents in Fangorn.

 

[scaper12123]

I have another good one, though it abuses warscore mechanics...

I got declared on by an awakened Empire and it's, as it turned out, extremely weak client. Just to see what happened, i set AE home system as my wargoal. (they only had a single one). Their unbeatable doomstack come after one of my sector colonies and starts bombarding. Then they stay there awaiting troop transports. Since no transports came, they remained there for the rest of the war keeping any ground resistance thoroughly supressed.
My fleet went after a few of the AE fortresses in a system with two shielded planets. I thought I was going to loose the war and thought I would at least get some sweet salvage out of it. After taking out the fortresses and salvaging, I went after the weak client state. My campaign there did, to my supprise and dissapointment, go so well that I built up enough warscore to actually win the war! AE homeworld gained without even visiting the system, or firing a shot in fleet action !

Oh yeah, I remember having a War in Heaven campaign where basically the same thing happened for me. My allies and I were able to conquer the (very very tiny) vassle planets of the awakened fallen empire, and after getting the low low requirement of 75 warscore we eliminated their entire empire without ever having set foot in their space. Warscore earning definately needs to be reworked in THAT respect.

 

[Adamsrealm]

I normally just snowball tech until I can flick an awakened empire awake like a fly, which is fun as hell