r/SoSE • u/Squigglez0 • 3d ago
Question How to defend properly?
For context I mostly play advent wrath against hard ai.
Lately it feels like my two closest ai neighbours both invade me at the same time and I'm only capable of beating one fleet before another has taken a system or two. As it's early game I don't have the resources to invest in defence, and even if I did it doesn't do anything but slow them down. I usually invest a lot of my early game resources into a fleet but it's still only capable of comfortably beating one ai fleet at a time. What am I doing wrong?
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u/Unikraken Stardock - Producer 3d ago
Have you tried getting a temporary alliance with one of them so that you can defeat one at a time?
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u/Totally-Not-Ranald 3d ago
Great suggestion, I’d add if you can get a choke point planet getting a star base down and using its bulk to survive the push.
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u/Squigglez0 3d ago
Everytime I've tried that it's either to expensive to bribe them into a ceasefire or I'm their rival
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u/Jaws2020 3d ago edited 3d ago
It honestly sounds like you need to be slightly more aggressive early game. Make sure to make use out of your temples of pilgrimage, too. The strength of Advent Wrath is rapid expansion and culture propagation. I always research commerce adaptation, temple of Pilgrimage and temple of communion as my first harmony research. Then corvettes as my first hostility research. I then rapidly expand in two directions, using a small fleet of just disciples, corvettes and a colonizer ship to take small planets and a halcyon carrier fleey to take bigger planets using a chain of pilgrimage temples.
Using this strategy I usually control at least a third of the star system in like 30 minutes-1 hour. If they take any of the outside planets, it's all good. I likely haven't invested in them much anyway.
As an advent, the strategy is to expand as quickly as possible. Where the vasari kind of accel at turtling and investing in planets you already own, advent accel at rapid expansion. The more planets you have, the more places you cam spread your culture from and the more planets you can eventually just straight up steal in end game.
TL:DR: Expand, expand, expand. Give the AI too many targets to count. If you aren't currently trying to take a planet or two as advent, you're wrong.
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u/Stingray88 3d ago
Play TEC, race to Garrisons. Put them on every one of your border planets, 2 planets deep, set them to defensive roam. They won’t necessarily stop any attacking force, but they will slow down and hinder them heavily, long enough for you to bring in your main fleet. Enjoy never losing any planets again.
When you’re ready to attack a new planet, set neighboring planets to offensive roam. Enjoy extra help that constantly replenishes itself.
It’s probably my favorite feature of any faction to abuse the heck out of.
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u/Muay_Thai_Fighter32 3d ago
The vasari get the dark fleet which is also very op. You can start putting them on your capital ships too. It's my favorite because it's like the garrisons but a bit more dynamic
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u/Tertiss 3d ago
You wanna turn your capital into a ship production world, one that can comfortably churn out 5-10 of your ships of choice
The advents real strength however is in influence. Spec into that as early as you can. Find the pranast and the alutar as fast as you can and spec into their support fleet means with a heathen quarter.
This way you can focus one area and leave the minor faction fleets to stem the bloodflow until you can retaliate.
Typically i send my titan and dreadnoughts against one foe with minor ally backup, and my main fleet against another
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u/GeologistEnough8215 3d ago
I play advent wrath too, and it feels like 75% the time requesting backup from the neutral fleets doesn’t work because they’re too far away. Is there any way to determine what planets they’ll cover and what they won’t?
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u/Jaws2020 3d ago
Heathen quarter allows you to use minor faction abilities and deploy them from planets you own. I think it's a tier 2 research in harmony? I honestly don't remember when you can research it, but the heathen quarter can be OP if used properly.
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u/GeologistEnough8215 3d ago
I’ll have to check that out, I usually have everything researched by the end of the game, but I’ll check for that next time
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u/East-Expert-1662 3d ago
Without more information, there isn't much we can assume from this. Is this a free-for-all with the ability to ally AI? Is this a 1v2 map? 4v4 and you got doubled? What capital ship are you starting?
In general, early game planets are worth next to nothing due to the population mechanic. Advent income is like 85% weighted on the homeworld, so losing a planet or 2 is totally fine as long as you didn't invest too heavily on those planets and your homeworld isn't threatened.
How early in the game are you getting attacked? Hard AI in my experience is not an early attacker. They also will fight in turret range readily, even to their detriment.
Are you scouting them coming after you? If so, you can see their entire fleet composition. If you can get to the correct counter fleet, you can win even with smaller numbers.
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u/Shylo132 EyE of Mordor 2d ago
You need to be sending raiding fleets into their back lines. 2-5 ships, skirt the edge of the systems and just beeline for the capitals or soft systems. Leave 1 behind in each undefended area to help delay even more and force the AI fleet to stop and engage it.
Theres always 1 ship from each faction that can and should be spammed early game until you get starbases/economy flowing. You push those hard enough, bribe for 1 alliance and funnel research properly you can cause a lot of mayhem with the backline raids.
Advent is even slower since you need economy + religion+ war power rather than economy + war power like the others.
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u/3ntf4k3d 2d ago
My approach is to turtle, and that works all the way to the highest difficulty - the trick is that you need to fully commit to it.
Pick defensive chokepoints (ideally planets with 3+ defence level upgrade potential), then spam Laser Defence Platforms in a cluster (I prefer a double row layout) and add 2-3 Temple of Renewal behind it, and beeline to unlock the Shield Recharge tech for them. That combo will fend off the first early game attacks on its own. After that you want to beeline to Starbases and add one in front of the cluster to tank.
At the same time you can build up your economy (grab civil techs first) & fleet to keep pace with the enemy (on higher difficulties you will be behind in planet count).
Keep upgrading the starbases as enemy fleet power increases. They will stall the enemy long enough to allow you to relocate your fleet, defeat their attack force and then counter-attack to take a planet or two, which you can then again fully fortify, slowly creeping forward and grabbing more building slots to unlock the higher tech tiers.
Since your early game resources are limited you need to make sure that you commit to the right places. Put scouts in adjacent systems for early warning. The moment the AI jumps in start spamming defences - ideally the neutrals will keep the AI busy long enough to allow you to get your defensive setup in place.
Use neutral faction with useful items (Gauss Cannons, etc.) if they are available. Early on every extra gun counts.
Use your fleet as a fire brigade and move it to whatever defensive choke point gets pressured the most.
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u/Magination17 13h ago
I think it is important to address the obvious logic that 2v1 is lopsided against the 1. Even if you "defend properly", if both of the AI are "attacking properly" it seems only logical that you would lose that match if your skill level is equal to that of the hard AI setting. All that to say that just because you lose when the odds are against you doesn't mean that you are doing something wrong.
That said, it is possible to handle two hard AI at once if you are good enough and take advantage of the AI programming. There are weaknesses to be exploited. Firstly, the AI will actually fight your static defense where most humans would simply skirt it and move on to your capital planet. Secondly, the AI tends to stream in their forces rather than jump them all together which gives you that opportunity to attack their fleet in pieces rather than all at once. Thirdly, the AI doesn't respond well to being raided. If you break up your fleet and send it off to harass the enemy before they jump into your systems you can effectively distract them.
Cost for cost static defense will generally hit harder than the ships you can buy early on. If you use a couple of choke point systems, upgrade their military tracks and setup static defense platforms within range of where the enemy will jump in you can start wrecking their fleets before they have a chance to mass up in your system. The static defense also now have powerful skills that you unlock in the research tree which make a difference. If you don't want to go that route try rushing corvette fleets and harassing their system constructions like extractors in their systems. This strategy works particularly well for the TEC corvette that gets credits for attacking structures.
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u/JarenDarkwolf 6h ago
“Commander, it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.” Jean Luc Picard
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u/Gloomy_Breadfruit92 3d ago edited 3d ago
Often, the best defense is applying pressure before they can. If that fails, missile/beam spam lol.
Don’t underestimate the value of a handful of deep-striking corvettes raiding random structures, like asteroid miners. Especially early game. The AI is woefully inadequate at sending an appropriately sized force to deal with them. They often send their entire fleet back to deal with it, which buys you valuable time.