I feel kinda stupid that it never occured to me before, but now that I had this epiphany I wanted to share it.
So, when you enter the early mid-game, the pirate factions start offering their services as mercenaries. In mid game, they are mostly obsolete and in early game, they are invincible.
But in the early phases of the mid game (in my current game it was about year 2045) , AI-fleets tend to be in the 10k range while your fleet may be significantly lower or slightly higher, depending on your build.
In my game I played a Fanatic Xenophile Spiritualist empire with Merchant Guilds and Anglers Civic and the Here Be Dragons origin. The plan was to lie low until getting Catalytic Processing as a third civic, and then massively ramping up the alloy production and conquer everything in the mid-game with the help of dragons. And while I was well on track to achieving my goal I remembered that you can conquer some Civs without having to claim anything.
And as luck would have it, I was distant neighbour to two Purifiers/Exterminators! And if I beefed up my defense force a bit and throw in some Mercs (9k energy for a 6.4k fleet) I could comfortably conquer the Prikkiki-Ti, defend my home turf against the Gurite Kingdom and later gobble up the Prime Expungers even before completing the Dragon event chain.
In other games I occasionally used mercs to keep my own losses low, but I never employed them in a pivotal role.
Although, it's kind of a no brainer for a merchant empire to load up on mercs just when needed, now that I reflect on it.
Anyway, I discovered the obvious. Feel free to make fun of me. I'm a noob with barely more than 2k hours in this game.
So, when you enter the early mid-game, the pirate factions start offering their services as mercenaries. In mid game, they are mostly obsolete and in early game, they are invincible.
But in the early phases of the mid game (in my current game it was about year 2045) , AI-fleets tend to be in the 10k range while your fleet may be significantly lower or slightly higher, depending on your build.
In my game I played a Fanatic Xenophile Spiritualist empire with Merchant Guilds and Anglers Civic and the Here Be Dragons origin. The plan was to lie low until getting Catalytic Processing as a third civic, and then massively ramping up the alloy production and conquer everything in the mid-game with the help of dragons. And while I was well on track to achieving my goal I remembered that you can conquer some Civs without having to claim anything.
And as luck would have it, I was distant neighbour to two Purifiers/Exterminators! And if I beefed up my defense force a bit and throw in some Mercs (9k energy for a 6.4k fleet) I could comfortably conquer the Prikkiki-Ti, defend my home turf against the Gurite Kingdom and later gobble up the Prime Expungers even before completing the Dragon event chain.
In other games I occasionally used mercs to keep my own losses low, but I never employed them in a pivotal role.
Although, it's kind of a no brainer for a merchant empire to load up on mercs just when needed, now that I reflect on it.
Anyway, I discovered the obvious. Feel free to make fun of me. I'm a noob with barely more than 2k hours in this game.
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