Is it even possible to play as Purifiers/Dev. Swarm on GA?

[BlackholePD]

I don't often play as total war empires, and in my first attempts to do so since moving to almost solely playing GA I've found that I simply cannot overcome the AI's unfair early game bonuses. No matter how rapidly I develop my fleets and economy, as soon as I encounter another empire the following happens:

1. AI realizes that I am a major threat, no hiding behind diplomacy like one might as another empire type.
2. Because it is early game, the AI empires have no have a chance to fall behind on things like empire design, tech investment, and other optimizations. They will automatically produce twice the resources as my empire due to GA flat output bonuses.
3. AI produces fleets in response to neighbouring threat; because of the above they can quickly have twice my military strength.
4. AI declares war immediately to contain my threat.
5. Because it's early game, I don't have access to edicts, relics, or other resources to boost my military economy.
6. My weaker fleets get obliterated trying to defend my systems. As it's a total war, captured systems immediately move to the enemy side, and I lose what resource income I have.
7. AI starts taking out my stations meaning I struggle to reinforce my fleets at all.
8. Economy tanks because my trade network is hit by the blockade. No more income to rescue myself with.
9. My empire is reduced to a few stars with all my planets bombarded and no chance of recovery even after this war.
10. Any other empires that gain my comms see how weak I am, attack to even greater effect, even if war exhaustion has forced a truce with the original attacker.

What am I supposed to do here? I'm not sure how I could optimize my way out of this situation given that no matter what I do the AI will be able to be producing 2x my resources at the same time with no real room to strategize my way out of my corner, or diplomacy to fall back on. Aside from in the case of a very lucky start where I have longer to expand unimpeded, is it even possible to get past the early game on GA while playing as a major threat?

I wish that the difficulty levels were more tied to AI behaviours than just ramping up their resources artificially...

 

[TrotBot]

I don't often play as total war empires, and in my first attempts to do so since moving to almost solely playing GA I've found that I simply cannot overcome the AI's unfair early game bonuses. No matter how rapidly I develop my fleets and economy, as soon as I encounter another empire the following happens:

1. AI realizes that I am a major threat, no hiding behind diplomacy like one might as another empire type.
2. Because it is early game, the AI empires have no have a chance to fall behind on things like empire design, tech investment, and other optimizations. They will automatically produce twice the resources as my empire due to GA flat output bonuses.
3. AI produces fleets in response to neighbouring threat; because of the above they can quickly have twice my military strength.
4. AI declares war immediately to contain my threat.
5. Because it's early game, I don't have access to edicts, relics, or other resources to boost my military economy.
6. My weaker fleets get obliterated trying to defend my systems. As it's a total war, captured systems immediately move to the enemy side, and I lose what resource income I have.
7. AI starts taking out my stations meaning I struggle to reinforce my fleets at all.
8. Economy tanks because my trade network is hit by the blockade. No more income to rescue myself with.
9. My empire is reduced to a few stars with all my planets bombarded and no chance of recovery even after this war.
10. Any other empires that gain my comms see how weak I am, attack to even greater effect, even if war exhaustion has forced a truce with the original attacker.

What am I supposed to do here? I'm not sure how I could optimize my way out of this situation given that no matter what I do the AI will be able to be producing 2x my resources at the same time with no real room to strategize my way out of my corner, or diplomacy to fall back on. Aside from in the case of a very lucky start where I have longer to expand unimpeded, is it even possible to get past the early game on GA while playing as a major threat?

I wish that the difficulty levels were more tied to AI behaviours than just ramping up their resources artificially...

this is why i only play on default difficulty. i would like to learn to beat an AI that's more of a challenge, but I don't see flat resource buffs as a fair challenge. i would love for the AI rework to get rid of reliance on resource buffs for scaling up the difficulty.

that being said, I don't play purifiers or any early war oriented society, but if I did I might try clones or exploding home world to really lean into the rush style.

 

[MathyM]

It used to be, until a few versions ago (earlier this year), and I haven't tried it again since. Maybe the multiple AI improvements finally payed off.

 

[Ryika]

To be honest, homicidal empires aren't all that difficult on GA, you just have to play your opening well. Either you do a quick, but heavy tech rush, or you go all in on your first push almost immediately. If you choose the tech rush, your cheaper ships in combination with a hangar bay starbase will keep you safe, and if you go for an immediate rush, your cheaper ships will help you overcome the AI, which works against almost any opponent except maybe another homicidal empire, or an advanced empire with a good spawn.

Main thing is, you have to decide for one of the two, because if you try to do something in-between or just mass-expand you're not going to be strong enough in either field to get going before the Ai starts forming alliances that make things a lot more difficult.

But once you start purging, the snowball shouldn't ever stop, especially when you're a Fanatic Purifier, since they get the Unity they need to unlock the Become the Crisis perk, and the minerals they need to build their ships, all just from purging pops.

 

[Dr. B]

To be honest, homicidal empires aren't all that difficult on GA, you just have to play your opening well. Either you do a quick, but heavy tech rush, or you go all in on your first push almost immediately. If you choose the tech rush, your cheaper ships in combination with a hangar bay starbase will keep you safe, and if you go for an immediate rush, your cheaper ships will help you overcome the AI, which works against almost any opponent except maybe another homicidal empire, or an advanced empire with a good spawn.

Main thing is, you have to decide for one of the two, because if you try to do something in-between or just mass-expand you're not going to be strong enough in either field to get going before the Ai starts forming alliances that make things a lot more difficult.

But once you start purging, the snowball shouldn't ever stop, especially when you're a Fanatic Purifier, since they get the Unity they need to unlock the Become the Crisis perk, and the minerals they need to build their ships, all just from purging pops.

You are correct.

I recommend the quick tech rush, to get destroyers then transition into military machine.

Scout to identify neighbors, choose direction of expansion carefully. Do not blindly expand but wait until you are ready to border xenos.

Recommend the Gateway Origin.
Your worst enemy is fighting on two fronts with long travel time. Early gateways are invaluable.

 

[Oculument]

Use scaling difficulty. Problem solved, even with Starnet.

 

[evilcat]

Either Scaling Difficulty, dont mess with late game date, and some difficulty mod. Like Startech. Maybe skynet would be better against FP.
FP are rought buddy. Especially when everyone gangs you if you declare war, if you dont the local federation will DOW you and rest will join.
But... there is no reson to play exacly GA, just need to find right difficulty which makes things interesting.

Nevertheless... it is better to do one, working, and smart AI. If necessery give extra low difficulties with bonuses for player, if PDX manage to do too good ai.

 

[Mastikator]

Use scaling difficulty. Problem solved, even with Starnet.

I second this. Also worth noting that Starnet AI on normal difficulty is roughly equivalent to vanilla AI with Grand Admiral. And in the long run much stronger.

 

[Strangedane]

GA adds 60% production output and 60% naval forcelimit.

While it's rough, you CAN outgrow and outpace them.
I prefer starting with a hard alloy focus to get my first batch of volunteer workers as soon as possible.
Once you grab a cap or 2, the snowballing should be unstoppable.

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

can't say anything about devouring swarms or determined exterminators, but purifiers are very much playable. just play tall from the beginning and let them come to you. max out corvettes, construct bastions, and tech rush cruisers. if they attack you while you're still not ready, just play defensive until you get cruisers or become the crisis and unlock manacing corvettes

this is then the point where you switch from a highly productive small empire focusing on tech, unity and defenses to a rapidly expanding blob with massive hordes of bureaucrats to administer your outcourced unity production by extermination purging (if you become crisis you won't even need much of them as you'll get boosts to your speed and will be able to blitz purge entire planets within a few rounds)

 

[Pancakelord]

To be honest, homicidal empires aren't all that difficult on GA, you just have to play your opening well. Either you do a quick, but heavy tech rush, or you go all in on your first push almost immediately. If you choose the tech rush, your cheaper ships in combination with a hangar bay starbase will keep you safe, and if you go for an immediate rush, your cheaper ships will help you overcome the AI, which works against almost any opponent except maybe another homicidal empire, or an advanced empire with a good spawn.

A small addition to this, since the introduction of espionage, I've found its supremely useful to not make contact with AIs on GA until youre ready to eat them as a purifier.

Obviously this isn't always easy to do but if you get a good nebula placement [so their sensors dont pick you up at range], for example, or a lucky spawn far from them - like behind a marauder/FE, (or if the AI's envoys are assigned to other nations), this will delay how soon they can find you (and some first contact options slow comms gain down further). And they cant declare on you if they lack communications. Its all about playing for time with first contact - time to tech rush.

One other small thing is that the AI will only progress first contact with you, after some delay, if its got an assigned envoy to the project (just like the player) - and if you play with a high AI count they'll often have assigned their envoys to other people by the time they find you, so this delays them even attempting first contact for longer.

I've had cases where I hid away behind a nebula until as late as the 2250s, when an enemy science ship finally found me, but its envoys were locked in to GC business by then so we didnt make contact till the 2280s, or so - by which time I was already finishing up battleship tech. First contact went well... For me. I just Alpha-struck their fleet and then wiped their orbital stations / constructors off the map (which they were suprisingly still dependant on), waiting for them to finish contact with me - by which point their economy was in a death spiral. It made the followup assimilation war a cake-walk.