Questions about Awakened Empires

[Amaror]

I recently got back into Stellaris and played with the awakened Empires and I have some questions concerning them because they seem a bit hard to me at the moment. Though I might just misunderstand their mechanics.

So, from what I have seen in the game the Empires just suddenly wake up after about 100 years and just start conquering people. In 3 games a xenophobic empire behaved this way, a spiritual empire behaved this way and a materialistic empire behaved this way.
And if you can't beat them right away the game's essentially over, right? They just conquer more and more land and get stronger and stronger as time goes on. So they will just conquer more and more planets until they own everything, right? They might trigger a "War in heaven", but again. Unless you are strong enough to beat both of them at that point they will just continuesly conquer more and more stuff. Even if you support one of them at that point, you will just end up with one winner massive awakened empire, that you can't possibly beat and everybody else is a subject to them, so you can't grow by defeating other races either.
In my games they seemed significantly more dangerous than the endgame crisis events.
While those events had 60k armies, the awakened empires generally seemed to have armies with around 100k fleets.

1. Game an endgame crisis happened and the empire awoke as a result. My first thought was "Great, some usefull help dealing with this!" But the empire was xenophobic, ignored the crisis and just started conquering the galaxy. So instead of one huge threat to the galaxy I now had two huge threats to the galaxy. I gave up that game.
2. Game had a spiritual empire just awaking for no reason and, again starting to conquer shit. Then the materialist empire awoke and started to conquer things. And I wasn't strong enough to do anything against either of them.
3. Game I think I finally managed it. I played much more aggressively conquering other races and expanding using colonization. And when a materialist empire awoke I managed to beat them and take most of their worlds. Now I am just waiting for the truce to eradicate them entirely. And purge all their pops for revenge. But again we are at a point in time were most AI empires have 15k fleets at best and this empire awoke with roughly 200k in overall fleet power, two 50k fleets and 1 100k fleets. I myself had just a single fleet of 80k at the beginning. I just got lucky sniping both their 50k fleets and managed to kill the 100k fleet because I build up during the war and plasma cannons are OP enough to allow my 90k fleet to beat their 100k fleet with only 10k in losses.

 

[Xoatl]

To be completely honest I didn't read your entire post. But when FEs awaken before you're ready you pretty much HAVE TO join a side. Yes, depending on the FE you will miss out on something, less research or can't declare war, or can't colonize. The alternative is losing the game. So its your choice. Or start games without any FE if you don't want to deal with all that.

 

[Kilmantor]

In my experience there are several ways to survive or win the war in heaven:
1. You are far away enough and able to wait for who is winning and then attack the stronger one after a tough battle with the other FE and wipe the floor with the rest of their fleet. Now both empires are weak.
2. You side with one of the awakened empires and fight the other one. In my experience, they'll protect you pretty good.
3. Your Federation is strong enough that together you are able to challenge the two FEs face to face one after another.

To be fair how hard the war in heaven is, depends hardly where you are on the map. If you are between two rivaling empires, you're pretty fucked. If they are on the other side of the map, you can just wait for the right moment to join the fight.

 

[Amaror]

To be completely honest I didn't read your entire post. But when FEs awaken before you're ready you pretty much HAVE TO join a side. Yes, depending on the FE you will miss out on something, less research or can't declare war, or can't colonize. The alternative is losing the game. So its your choice. Or start games without any FE if you don't want to deal with all that.

But they awake so fast. This is a really weird choice because they seem far more difficult to deal with then the engame crisis and they happen not only earlier but more often too.

 

[Xoatl]

But they awake so fast. This is a really weird choice because they seem far more difficult to deal with then the engame crisis and they happen not only earlier but more often too.

There's a lot of variables. What Kilmantor said covers some of that. My last science directorate play through I was able to defend against the awakened empire next to me (and a neighbouring FE). So I went neutral but didn't join the non-aligned powers and where the AE failed this federation did me in. Every game is different.

Right now I started a commonwealth of man empire and I'm at the very edge of the galaxy. An excellent start imo. Unless that's where the prethoryn start. Then I'm screwed hard. Every game is different.

 

[Splugar]

I think the triggering mechanism for awaken empires need to be adjusted. Unless you are in striking distance to them when they awaken, it becomes very hard to beat them. I Actually wish for the option to turn of awaken empires in game setup, I find them far to disruptive. I like war in heaven although. Maybe my problem stems from the fact they I only play on huge galaxies. Actually I think there is a lot many more settings that can be adjustable from game setup. Some also need to be adjusted based on galaxy size, like ethic divergences. unless 1.5 makes it a meaningless.
Sorry for moving abit of topic.

 

[Arkona]

My only time when the smelly hit the fan was when one of those empires awoke right next to mine. Luckily we were both bright materialists so I joined them for a while until I had enough tech and ships to take them down, but it cost me a lot of research points. In the end after some trial and error I obliterated their 500k fleet with my 250k fleet.

Anyway, the gameplay varies, it's almost never the same but if you're in their close vicinity either join or fight. There is no third option, imho.

 

[Cagliostro]

It's not as automatic as you seem to suggest, unless I have been really lucky.

 

[The Founder]

So, from what I have seen in the game the Empires just suddenly wake up after about 100 years and just start conquering people. In 3 games a xenophobic empire behaved this way, a spiritual empire behaved this way and a materialistic empire behaved this way.

It is not suddenly, it is predictable. Indeed we went through the gamefiles for the Wiki information:
http://www.stellariswiki.com/Fallen_empire#Awakened

Your best shoot is to grab the lands of another Fallen Empire, once the awakening does happen. You will hopefully be the one that triggered it and you can't trigger the awakening twice.

 

[TerrBear]

To be completely honest I didn't read your entire post. But when FEs awaken before you're ready you pretty much HAVE TO join a side. Yes, depending on the FE you will miss out on something, less research or can't declare war, or can't colonize. The alternative is losing the game. So its your choice. Or start games without any FE if you don't want to deal with all that.

As far as i know they're changing it in the next update so all vassals and tributaries etc can still colonize so there is a way to still grow.

 

[Technotopia]

I'm now in game with awakened xenophobe, and I'm their subject.
I had huge hit in energy and still in deficit, but can handle it now.
To compete with them, grabbing the land faster then they do, I need big fleet, and supporting it while paying 25% tax to the AE is not possible.

I think, if the awakening would happen just a bit later, say in 130 year (after start of game) rather than 103, I'd be strong enough to crush them. IIRC the trigger is someone reaching fleetpower of 30k and 100 years in the game. MTTH is 50 years. But this is a huge difference and this kind of random is difference between 'game over' and 'peace of cake'.
I'd slash the MTTH to 5 years, raising the trigger thresholds of fleet power of regular empires and the minimum year since start of game.

 

[Rotkohl]

It is actually not that hard to deal with them if you try. Don`t let the numbers intimidate you; they don`t matter if you avoid direct confrontation. Remember - the AI is dumb.

There are multiple ways to deal with a FE`s Awakening.

In my first WiH game, I joined the Materialist as soon as the War in Heaven broke out. I had a lot of fun fighting the Spiritualists. Never engaged their fleet directly, destroyed their vassal`s fleets and conquered their vassal`s planets, freed any planets the Spiritualists had taken over. We won, and the Spiritualists disappeared.
Once you`re a vassal of an AE, you can continue to grow and prosper until you can declare independance. You will eventually outgrow them. Just don`t join the xenophile FE, it won`t let you declare wars.

In another game, a Xenophobe FE awakened, and no War in Heaven triggered. They were right next to me, and I wasn`t anywhere close to ready.
In the end, my fleet just followed theirs around, undoing what they did, freeing planets they conquered, so that the warscore always remained pretty much at 0. Eventually, they will give up and white peace out. Just continue to do this until you are ready to face them head on.

In another war in heaven, I was lucky enough to witness how the two AE fleets obliterated each other. They were easy to take out afterwards.

If you give it a try, winning against an AE isn`t that hard. Just don`t fight their fleets directly, be sneaky, and you`ll be fine.

Have fun!

 

[niallmcfc]

Here's a tip as well: if you've got a xenophile or materialist fe that's in danger of awakening (or already has) then rush dangerous techs. Try and force the Unbidden or the AI revolt and the FE will happily run off and deal with them instead. In fact, afterwards the xenophile fe will probably be totally fine joining a federation with you.

Oh, and you don't need to worry about the crisis getting out of hand. The awakened empire will utterly crush it in about a year, tops.

 

[Technotopia]

I'm presently a thrall of AE (xenophobic one). I intend to fight for my freedom one day, but I simply can't expect to field big enough fleet to oppose them. But HOW?
AE has at least two 200k fleets.
To have a chance against them I need at least 150k, which is 3 times my current strength. And even now, when my ships undock I'm in serious shortfall of energy. I have barely +100 energy when docked at starport with crew quarters and engineering bay. Of course, I have to pay a huge 25% tax to my overlord and that's why I can't expand my fleet. But I can't overthrow them, until I have a big enough fleet to risk war against AE.

 

[D Inqu]

Except for Signatories, other Awakened Empire subjects can still wage war. So all you need is keep conquering.

 

[niallmcfc]

I'm presently a thrall of AE (xenophobic one). I intend to fight for my freedom one day, but I simply can't expect to field big enough fleet to oppose them. But HOW?
AE has at least two 200k fleets.
To have a chance against them I need at least 150k, which is 3 times my current strength. And even now, when my ships undock I'm in serious shortfall of energy. I have barely +100 energy when docked at starport with crew quarters and engineering bay. Of course, I have to pay a huge 25% tax to my overlord and that's why I can't expand my fleet. But I can't overthrow them, until I have a big enough fleet to risk war against AE.

Repeatable techs, colonise what you can (use droids if you have to I guess). IIRC even awakened empires don't tech up

 

[The Founder]

engineering bay.

A common misconception about Engineering bays:
It does not apply a Cost reduction to docked fleets.
It instead applies a Buff to ship build at them. Like the Academy or the pre-rework Strategic Resources Modules.
Build them where you build ships, rather then where you park them (unless you build there too).

Have you focussed some sectors on energy? Ideally ones with a Thrifty species where ignoring tile resources was turned on?

You need to conquer new lands to stand a chance. In particular other Fallen Empires and their Resource production will be crucial for your survival.

 

[Technotopia]

Repeatable techs, colonise what you can (use droids if you have to I guess). IIRC even awakened empires don't tech up

I can't colonize as I'm thrall. When I couldn't colonize, I conquered some pre-FTL races and everyone hates me. I have ~40 planets, they are well developed, and I have more then any other race in the galaxy, so, to actually generate thrice more energy via expansion I need to eat most of the galaxy and practically win the game. And by the way, conquering others isn't going to be easy. There are two major races, that have superior fleet power and they have defensive pact. I can eat some smaller races, but my expansion by conquest is limited. And as I said, waging long wars is a problem when I can't undock all my fleet without being in negative energy balance. Ah, by the way, because of conquering primitives I have no friendly races that could sell me some energy for minerals.

 

[Technotopia]

A common misconception about Engineering bays:
It does not apply a Cost reduction to docked fleets.
It instead applies a Buff to ship build at them. Like the Academy or the pre-rework Strategic Resources Modules.
Build them where you build ships, rather then where you park them (unless you build there too).

Have you focussed some sectors on energy? Ideally ones with a Thrifty species where ignoring tile resources was turned on?

You need to conquer new lands to stand a chance. In particular other Fallen Empires and their Resource production will be crucial for your survival.

I don't have any sectors, I have a 100 core planet mod enabled, so I directly control all my planets. And indeed, I do some tweaking to increase the energy production.