Hello all
I'm new to the forum though I've been following it since I got the game almost a year ago. As expected the forum was very helpfull in the begining and I greet you all, that's why I decided write this little guide about this scenario of Dark Avatar campaign, since I found it quite hard (played in painful difficulty) 'till I found the key to victory, what took me countless restarts because the Dread Lords, sooner or later, always overran me. To be honest I think was my stubborness in keep playing as Federalist because of its multiple bonuses what made me think this scenario was really challenging because it turned out to be piece of cake, even played in painful difficulty, as soon as I changed the political allignement to Technologist.
Though have nice bonus tiles (a 700% science in Drengi and 700% production in Bond) was quite helpfull I don't think that would made a big difference. The key in this scenario is stop, or slow down to snail speed, Dread Lords's ships production and prevent the fall of the Thalans.
To achieve the first goal (I would say the primary if we want things to be easy) is mandatory develope as fast as we can sensors technology tree and propulsion technologies to be able to build cheap warp 6+ ships. As soon as we can build a fast scout ship with wide sensor radious (5+, in fact, if we developed full sensors we can build the Eyes of the Sky superproject and have a 10 pc sensor radious scout ship whithout need fit it with sensor modules so we will have space to add the required life support modules to reach the other side of the map where is located Dread Lord's outpost) it is time to send out scout ships to clear the map around the outpost to be able to place spies in Dread Lord's facilities. By the time that area is cleared you should have enough spies to cope all the factories and research facilities virtually stopping DL production.
The second goal is fairly easy to achieve if you focus your research in defenses: planetary defenses and soldiering. The Thalans are the key to keep DLs busy and ignoring us so don't hesitate trade or even give away these technologies. Also, Thalans will devolope some technologies quite useful we can trade for our own saving research time for the ones we need most.
Thalans tend to not trade easily their technologies so to overcome their resistance research some diplomacy boxes is required (specially those which allow build diplomacy bonus superprojects like universal translators, etc). However, my advice is not spend more than 9 turns researching a diplomacy box in the early stages of this scenario since we need get quickly defense technologies. Once we've got at least 1 planetary defense box and most (if not all) soldiering boxes (planetary bombardment and all the rest) it is time to research radioctive colonization since most of the planets in our side of the map are of this type, but what is more important, there's a radioactive planet right next to Thalan main planet and we need colonize this planet as soon as possible to have an advanced outpost from which invade the Thalan planet before it becomes a stronghold in case DL conquer it. However, DL will take Thalan planets if we are slow researching propulsion technologies and sensors since both technologies are the key to track and hunt down DL transports before they could reach Thalan planets.
Though it is very tempting mine them, the 2 resource spots in our space are beacons for DL. If we try mine them they'll start send ships almost inmediately and the efforts and time put in keep those resources mined are a total waste since it is impossible defendend the stations. Ignore them 'till later, when DL production is stalled by our spies, is the best we can do.
The other way to draw DL attention is build large fleets. They tend to send ships to blow up our fleets as soons as we have more than two or three ships in the same place (planet or spot) so build just a few fast ships (3 or 4) to kill DL transports is all we need. Again, the time to start build up fleets is when DL production is stopped by our spies. The few ships DL could make then will go to kill Thalan ships first and as Thalan get stronger with our help they will manage to badly damage, and sometimes destroy, those ships by themselves.
As soon as we are sure DL won't take any Thalan planet is time to colonize the rest of the radioactive planets in our side and build up strong fleets to kill Korath ships. At this point (either because you did the research, you trade the technology or your spies stole it) you should be able to build medium and large ships and now is just a question of time crush the Korath's planets.
As a side note, I think this scenario can be won playing other political factions, however I think it will be way harder since develope fast the key technologies, specially propulsion and advanced colonization, is what gives the edge.
