Prethoryn invasion - need help with course of action

[sedygrizly]

Hello guys, im new to this game, im playing my second game (havent finished first) with Ironman. And after cca 170 years from start i got Preythoryn swarm crisis (quite lucky i think, get it so soon ).

Situation was simple, Swarm invaded exactly opposite side of galaxy than my empire is situated ( I think im playing med size 4 spiral arms galaxy). No AI empire had any fleet able to chalenge it, they all wasted power figthing each other. So i traded acces and started to build two Wormhole (WH) bridges immediately, one was really strong. Before i get there and learned how to fight them, Swarm got quite lot of planets. Just when i cleared few planets, captured queen, one AI empire, where was my strong WH bridge situated, closed borders thanks to some stupid event...and changed to unfriendly, so no chance to build WH again. By that time my second WH bridge couldnt reach my fleet, leaving it traped inside enemy teritory. I lose queen and small part of fleet (managed to emergency FTL).

Little about my fleet: battleship with particle lances Mk.I, kinetics artilery. Used them together with tank Cruisers, lot of PDs, hangars, shields. Later i tried to change shields for armor, showed up ineffective, becouse im fighting multiple battles without any repairs between, so ships wear down fast and my casualties increased to about 5-8 cruisers each battle. Had corvetess just in few first battles, terrible casualties each battle.

So now im thinking what to do next. I can try to reinforce my second WH bridge (quite tricky, most of teritory is hostile empire....) and start crusading again. I really doubt i can beat Prethoryn this way, fighting so far from borders is ineffective and Prethoryns are gaining new planets quickly.

Second option is let them come to me. This means leaving them about third to half galaxy. Is there any chance to beat them when they become so big? Im thinking about using battleships only then, upgrading armor to block 90%, hope to get lances Mk.2. Is armor as good as i hope? i havent noticed any of their weponry has armor bonus (but i lost queen soon, so i have low intel). So far i played shield only, not sure how effective can it be. So basically im hoping to create fleet which can go through enemy fleet like through butter with no losses. Is it possible? Also this solution has one big downside..... half galaxy will be just barren worlds, but i see no other way out of it.

What do you guys think?

BTW: i think developers should add to game some Crisis AI system.... becouse begging for acces and then loosing it becouse "too many science ships" event (yeah, sorry im scouting Crisis enemy) while saving galaxy....that seems to be little unrealistic.

 

[JMensch]

With the scourge spawned, you can now research jump drive without having to worry about the unbidden showing up. With the jump drive, you dont have to worry about building WH stations, open borders is plenty to allow your fleet passage.

The scourge in my game has a combined fleet power of 670913 in their initial invasion system and 281680 scattered about.

 

[sedygrizly]

I would research jump drive even worrying about Unbidden...i just dont have accces to it yet. Im fanatic spiritualist and researched lot of PSI technologies, but no psi drive yet :/.

 

[Foefaller]

To give yourself the best odds of one showing up, the scientist in charge of Physics (for Jump) or Society (for Psi Jump) should have at least one of the following traits:

Maniacal
Spark of Brilliance
Field Manipulation (for Jump)
Psi Theory (for Psi Jump)
Curator (if you have Leviathans, hired from a Curator Enclave)

As for letting it grow... If there is a Xenophile or Materialist FE around, they might wake up and start a federation to stop the Swarm (Xenophile has about a 50% chance, Materialist only 25%) there are also events specific to the Swarm that can pop up once the Swarm's territory reaches a certain threshold or they're in the galaxy for long that will help in stopping them (I let you find that out for yourself)

Otherwise... in my experience Crisis threats never doomstack, though their individual fleets can still grow in strength, so as long as you keep apace with how fast their fleets grow, you can -in theory- put off wiping them out for a while before there is an actual chance of losing everything.

EDIT: Also, for fleet comp, Kinetic artillery is kinda wasted, as they have no shields and most of their most dangerous weapons are successfuly repelled with PD and Flak (meaning the safety of range is not needed) better to load up with extra plasma to counter their armor if you want to kill them with the fewest ships/casualties possible

 

[sedygrizly]

My old society guy is Maniacal... anyway researching jump is automatically option 2, becouse its long research and Swarm will occupy half of galaxy before i finish it.
Federation is no help, im pretty sure that all empires fleet together cant fight swarm at this point. Best fleet i saw so far had 5k strength....Probably thats disadvantege playing normal dificulty, at hard dif swarm would be maybe more tough, but also empires would be able to fight it...

 

[Emraldis]

My old society guy is Maniacal... anyway researching jump is automatically option 2, becouse its long research and Swarm will occupy half of galaxy before i finish it.
Federation is no help, im pretty sure that all empires fleet together cant fight swarm at this point. Best fleet i saw so far had 5k strength....Probably thats disadvantege playing normal dificulty, at hard dif swarm would be maybe more tough, but also empires would be able to fight it...

I doubt it, all hard difficulty really does is make diplomacy harder. I haven't noticed the AI getting more powerful at all.

 

[TwiceAHuman]

Lots of plasma and armor, flaks. Should do it, at least against separate swarms.

 

[sedygrizly]

Thats true, i removed kinetics from battleships and load it with plasmas. I have T3 plasma, think theres better, but has to do for now. Now ill test only battleshpis fleet, made few carriers and PDs to get care of enemy bombers and missiles, rest go for DPS. Both had almost no shields and 90% armor.

EDIT: cant say how effective is armor, becouse my last 4 DPS shielded cruisers survived all battles so far....plasmas speeded up enemy destruction a lot

EDIT2: cruisers are finally down, but maximum armored battleships works great. Seems they really block all 90% dmg, they focus big targets well, destroy them fast, and enemy corvetes doesnt concentrate firepower enough to destroy any ship. So far lost 1 battleship, enemy lost over 200k power . And tachyon lances research in progress. Regenerative hull tissues are good enough to keep crusade in progress, no need to retreat for repairs. Im actually winning! This game is so awesome, ships setup is such great and crucial thing.

 

[Foefaller]

I doubt it, all hard difficulty really does is make diplomacy harder. I haven't noticed the AI getting more powerful at all.

No, they get a boost to research and income on harder difficulties. Most games I've played on Hard the AI could bounce back fairly well after losing a war, and on a few hard games there were usually one or two basic AI empires that used early conquests of other-biome species to snowball in size and strength to the point where they could beat (unawakened) FAs entirely on their own.

 

[Emraldis]

No, they get a boost to research and income on harder difficulties. Most games I've played on Hard the AI could bounce back fairly well after losing a war, and on a few hard games there were usually one or two basic AI empires that used early conquests of other-biome species to snowball in size and strength to the point where they could beat (unawakened) FAs entirely on their own.

Never seen anything like that happen.

 

[sedygrizly]

And its done: http://prnt.sc/ekubhn

Nobody thanks me lol, hostile empire stayed hostile to me and gained new teritory after Prethoryn . Well anyway good fun for me, couse this map i played with no wars so far, so Crisis is good to get some action . But ill consider staying Pacifist... having two hostiles empires waiting to stab my back isnt pleasent, though they are so weak that they will never attack me.
Hope ill get psi drive soon to repeat action with Unbiddens . Thanks you for help, that plasma advice was crucial.
Aaah, finaly can go sleep.

 

[Emraldis]

woah, where do you get that stats screen?

 

[Pchang]

In iron man - only 1 crisis per game. Now that Prethoryn are done, no Unbidden.

 

[sedygrizly]

woah, where do you get that stats screen?

Situatin log, before i confirm that "crisis is gone" screen

In iron man - only 1 crisis per game. Now that Prethoryn are done, no Unbidden.

wuuut? whyyy