I'm playing a game right now at the Crippling difficult that is turning into a dogfight. I'm playing the Yorand I got a decent start position. I was able to nab planets at a good clip and hem the Thalans, Korx, and Iconians into one corner more or less. Also had 2 minor races in the mix. By 2227, I have conquered all of them and unified my little corner of rhe map.
The United Planets gave me a planet in the opposite corner ofrhe map around about year 226. I used to the location to get some high profit long range trading going with the Altarians, Terrans and the Arcean.
Unfornately, I think I fell victim to empire envy because next thing I know within about 3 or 4 turns all 6 remaining empires (Terran, Arcean, Altarian, Drath, Torian and Drengin) declared war on me. Fortunately, I bribed the Altarians into attacking the Drengin and Terrans just before they decided to declar war on me. Since all but one of my planets were on the far side of the map compared to the remaining empires, I had some time to prepare for the onslaught and the fight I stirred between the Terrans, Altarians and Drengin boguth me some time as well.
I noticed that for some reason all the empires were focusing on mass drivers for both offense and defense. I had stolen Singularity driver 4 from the Thalans during my conquest of their empire. I also managed to liberate Kanvium from the Korx which was the last empire in my corner of the map to fall. The Terrans have a monster tech lead on me but having gobbled up the Thalans, Korx, Iconians and 2 minor races, I have several nice size worlds that are well developed already and a big population . Early on I focused heavy on invasion tactics so that I could capture worlds pretty much intact. This was also helpful sine the Drengin were able to get a few transports into my territoy before I could mount an effective defense, I loss a few thousand troops on each planet but did manage to keep all of my worlds.
Anyway I have focused my research on beam weapons and mass driver defense. Right now I have disruptors and duralene armor and I have managed to turn the tide. I upgraded my fleet of small crafts (38 total) all at once and launched a massive counter offensive with several fleets of the small hull vessels and a fleet of 3 fast moving troop transports. The massive fleet upgrade threw me about 20,000 in the hole and is costing me about a 1000 a turn for the next 3 game years but I didn't have any other option and I needed a defensive fleet that could hold off the first few waves of attacks from the Arceans, Terrans and Drengin, all of whom had strong fleets.
Side note, I destroyed my colony that was across the map, scorched earth tactic. There was no way I could defend it and I didn't want to risk losing a serious beam weapon to one of the enemy empires when they conquered the planets. I have not had a chance to research any singificant defense to either beams or missiles yet.
Anyway, the Drengin have been back down and finally accepted a peace treaty. The Torians are a joke and never posed a real threat. From the Arceans, I snatched 3 planets; those 3 transports came in real handy. The apparently threw everything into there first assault so once I weathered that storm, I had a straight shot at their territory. By the time I capture the 3rd planet, my economy was finally out of the negative. I dipped back into the hole to get 2 more transport and snagged 2 more Arcean worlds. Finally, they surrendered to my, giving me 3 more worlds. Unfornately, one of the planets in right on the Terran border and they still refuse to agree to a peace treaty. The Terran military is still more powerful than mine so I destroyed this colony like the previous one. Right now the conquered Arcean worlds are my biggest concern, since they are much closer to all the other empires that other planets. I really lucked up on location. I researched Eyes of the Universe, so I can see enemy troop movements and counter it as needed. I am blostering the Arcean region now with all available ships and doing som hit and run on the Terrans to keep them off balance. A stray freighter here, a space station there... Just letting them know how much I think of them:)
I have managed to get every one but the Terrans to agree to a peace treaty at this point. The Terrans have gotten way up the mass driver offense tech branch and each engagement with them is costing a few ships.
We'll see if things died down and let me catch my breath or if it all spirals right back out of control again. I think that since my military is more formidable now, the wolf pack will think twice before ganging up on me. I can see from the economy screen that the Terran economy just bottomed out which probably means massive fleet upgrade. Damn!!
I have survived with fleets of small crafts that all have at least duralene or better armor and phasor VI or better beams. With the current lull, I'm wanting to add a few large hull ships to the mix, I got large hull tech from one of the Arcean worlds I conquered. I also want to start moving up the missile offense tech branch. I've notice that during some of the last few battles the enemy fleets had meager shielding, which means that are likely developing beam defenses. I'll have to check espionage reports next time I'm back in the game.
Tactic advise:
1. Defense, don't get so anxious to conquer that you spread yourself thin. By letting them come to me, I was able to build up my forces and also I didn'y need to waste hull space on modules to extend range. When it came time to counter attack, I was able to get to the Arceans by moving constructors onto defeated resource stations and then defending them with small fleets. I hopped my transports from guarded resource station to another so they were never in any danger of getting caught undefended.
2. Keep moving faster than your enemies. This lets you do more with a smaller number of fleets and also get your hits in and move away before they can get you. The Arceans were conquered with basically 3 fleets of 4 ships each. 2 warp engine son each ship. I was able to wade thrown their fleets and take planets before they could generate much of a defense. After wiping out their fleets, my ships hovered near their planets to pick off any ships they managed to build. Even if they have surrendered to another empire, the planets would still have been defenseless and easy picking for my transports for the conquered worlds.
3. When building troop transports, I keep 2 version both fast moving. One has a capacity of at least 3000 troops and the other is 1000. I invade first with the higher capacity transports. I tend to use either information war or mini soldiers, so I lose as few troops as possible. Then I have the planet immediately start building a smaller capacity transport so that I can pick off nearby worlds as well. This is really useful for quickly taking enemy worlds with a relatively small number of soldiers but you have to have a strong attack advantage for this to really be effective. I find that the AI tends to ingore researching this path until it is way to late.
Hope this was helpful
