Super Weapons

Auxilary goverment... all starbases have it. Try knocking out an Advent planet with that setup just with superweapons and a small fleet. The shielded structures alone usually prove to be too much for the attackers to bite through.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a Starbase with Auxiliary Government on every planet a lot more expensive than two Novaliths, especially if a Loyalist Tec player has researched Novalith Deregulation?

Well, it depends if you had a starbase there already or not, one axillary government upgrade costs less than a novalith, but building the whole starbase makes it more expensive. I certainly think making AG cheaper would be a good balancing decision.

Well the starbase option aside for the moment, the constant alerts just get so annoying. 4 hard AI each spamming more than 5 at someone else is just a wall of noise and when they decide they want to target your planets they like to do so together usually so take 5 times by 4 u get 20, and now say you have somehow managed to get the aux on a starbase in every system by this point to which you need to be a good player (meaning for anyone new to the game or not so good it will ruin the game for them) you still have up to 20 warheads heading to various planets and it takes between 1 and 3 shots to kill a planet depending on typelets say your lucky and all your planets have 6k health (the people are doomed anyway lol) you will lose 6 or 7 planets worth of people (thats a LOT of tax payers) Now your ecconomy is in tatters more so on a small map where those 6 or 7 planets may be all you have, and also you dont have much of a fleet because you spent all your resources on starbases which have uber counters (enter the vasari superweapon and you might not have that if it gets spammed the same way). So tiny fleet, ruined ecconomy but huzzah you still have 6 or 7 near lifeless planets and oh an AI decides he wants to attack, you might just win a fight but really how long till another AI attacks maybe from another front or maybe at the same time, now dividing your forces is a bad idea so thats 1 system gone maybe more and i doubt that at this point the player will have a titan having spent so much to get starbases with aux. The AI however didnt waste anything on starbases hence the huge fleets and novalith spams...oh an probably a titan. I could go on but unless u have an epic ace up ur sleave like an "insta i win" button then theres no way your having your next ingame birthday party lol.

Also with the Last capital standing, novalith spam + many ai + only one capital +not got aux SB = Insta loss because it doesnt feel like you get much time to set up.

Auxiliary government is no defense against your tax base being destroyed by a couple of Novaliths, and it also weakens your trade network. Considering the very high cost of setting up starbases everywhere... yeah. It's not really an ideal solution. The TEC have planetary shields, which are a much more affordable method.

The whole thing is problematic though, two Novaliths can wipe out any planet not specifically set up with expensive stuff just to defend against it. Two Deliverance Engine hits are a mild annoyance unless the fleet shows up at the same time. The balance on these things is way off, on top of Novalith spam just being annoying and not fun. This is not Sins of an ICBM.

Though as for the last capital standing victory, the Advent Loyalists are even worse. The Titan's ultimate has NO defense. Not even Aux government stops it. If it can get to your planet and there isn't a massive fleet already there, all it has to do is fly in, hit the ultimate, and leave. No defenses in the game can kill a level 6 Titan fast enough to stop that.

OH.......i didnt know about the Titan thing, tho tbh i dont play as them much i prefer the rebel advent titan to all the others....looks cool and is powerful, and also no enemy titan lives that long lol

I dunno, I set up frontal starbases pretty fast, then follow up on the planets behind my lines. I usually have all planets equipped before getting the first warning. As for being expensive: TEC starbases can house lots of tradeports and frigate factories, Advent ones can spread culture and imporve the planet's allegiance. That's more than ehough reason to have one of those in each of my wells anyhow. As for the Novalith ruining my income on certain planets, yes. But the Delivarence does that too, by supressing the enemy culture through delivarence spam reducing your overall income in credits, metal and crystal for that planet. Compared to the loss of tax and trade income when a nova hits that seems pretty fair. The Vasari superweapon can kill your tradeports and temples/media hubs outright, cutting your trade-route in half all of a sudden, quite the huge loss as well.

Note: it seems to me that only the TEC loyalists spam their superweapon. So if you set the AI players manually instead of relying on luck and ending up with four TEC loyalists against you you might have more fun playing.

Superweapons are still very expensive (and highly fragile). It's not particulary difficult to send in suicide squads to kill them, but the free resources the AI get is what ruins the balance i think.

So I think the solution should be to alter the AI to not spend that much resouces on them. Basically, don't nerf the novalith in multiplayer because the AI builds them for free...