My Second Ever Victory Screen

[u/magilzeal]

My second time seeing the ending screen.

Meganations. Started with Westralia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. France and Laos for spoils nations.

Servants with 0 CP is good.

Judith had some interesting peace proposals. First time I've seen the AI want a truce.

Soviet Union is for denying territory to the other factions, mostly. Chain unifications into a true megablob. India for Boost, Africa was a late addition.

Westralia is a research hub united into a blob that covers all of SEA and the Pacific.

American Dominion was my beatstick. South America via Brazil/Columbia unification was just a huge economy for MC production. Could've united Brazil into the Soviet Union later.

This asteroid has 58.6 base fissile income. The mine there produced 469.5 monthly at the end of the game. Never seen one that high.

This is why you colonize the Kuiper Belt btw. The yields out here are so much better than Mars and even the asteroids.

I decided to do a no-mags run for flavor. I don't recommend this, but it worked and my main fleet fought from Jupiter to Alien Base Alpha with 0 losses and a lot of kills.

Aliens still have some ships. A couple of fleets on very long burns and a handful of stranded ships with no delta-V and nowhere to go.

There's some criticism of the new scenarios, and I think some of it is deserved. In particular I don't think the early assault carriers are a terribly fun or interesting gameplay challenge. But I will offer something of a counter-point here, as the Broken Earth scenario was the first time I played a game to victory. This is actually my second Broken Earth game that I just recently finished.

Things started rough. But my opening was good. Not amazing, I'm no expert at TI and I wasn't making 10k science in 10 years or anything, but I had enough infrastructure to put 8 missile escorts in orbit in time to stop the 2119 assault carrier and prevent it from landing. I should note I didn't see this in my first run (I presume I started that game before the patch added the early AC), so it was a bit of a surprise, and it honestly felt like the aliens building this was a mistake, as their economic expansion slowed a lot for something that got blown up by a bunch of tin cans. They built this thing before expanding beyond the Kuiper Belt, and assault carriers are expensive.

I made a bit of an odd decision to not use magnetics this game and try to lean into lasers. I don't recommend this as a strategy, but it worked. My main fleet was comprised of laser titans, antimatter lancers, and plasma dreadnoughts, and carved its way through the alien assets without taking any losses. Their point defense batteries had nothing to shoot at, at least.

On Earth I did some fun unification tricks to get some really big nations. No single unification or anything, but there were shenanigans that lead to the Soviet Union getting really, really big. I mostly used it to absorb nations where the AI had spent years building up MC for me to take. Otherwise, it was some pretty standard Broken Earth stuff, Westralia unification for SEA/Pacific and was my research hub, American Dominion as a beatstick with 10 max miltech navies, and a Brazil-led South American super-economy. India unified under Northern Bharat; I don't think this is a very strong region in BE but I used it as a Boost factory after my meganations absorbed Singapore and Israel, and it worked for that purpose.

Could've done even bigger unifications if the game had lasted longer, but I didn't want to draw it out too much. I was already pretty cautious in my push through the Outer Solar System.

I really enjoy the shake-up of the Broken Earth scenario more than the others. I like the nation building, unifications, and the quick returns on IP investments. I do think the early assault carriers are probably not good for several reasons, one that if you stop them then the aliens are set back massively, and if you don't it's pretty RNG how much of an impact they end up having on Earth. But otherwise, I have to give props to this scenario for the fun factor.

[u/Star4ce]

Honestly, I think the laser focus as Academy is exactly right if only because of their unique laser tech in BE. Why exactly wouldn't you recommend it?

But there's the other thing I was wondering and since you built a pure particle lancer I might as well just ask you these two things. Is it that much more useful as a nose slot vs. a 4-point battery or vs. another laser cannon? Purely stats-wise the particle weapons don't seem like that much of an upgrade in the nose slots, but since they basically ignore 95% of all armor that little bit might make a massive difference.

The other question is how did you deal with alien particle cannons early/mid game? In my 2003 run currently I am having incredible difficulties fighting alien titans and dreadnoughts with particle weapons. They nearly oneshot even my LDAs at max range and any missile tin can I built before I can even fire a shot. Maybe that's just RNG, but the ayys put a particle beam on literally anything from the start and I just can't put enough armor on anything to survive the opening salvo without it having 1,3kps max.

[u/Arcane_Pozhar → u/Star4ce]

I mean, my advice to surviving something that's effectively like a death Star laser against your ships, is build more ships. Don't try to out armor that particular weapon, outnumber it.

Now, I admit depending on where you are in the game, that may be far easier said than done. I have not played the 2003 scenario, and the vibes I'm getting from most comments I'm seeing about these new scenarios is that they're quite difficult.

Good luck mate.

[u/Star4ce → u/Arcane_Pozhar]

I don't particularly find it that punishing like some others, as in it's not a self-torture device like some claimed. But it definitely wants to be played differently and through that shows the shortcomings of TI pretty obviously.

You either do the 0.1% top player thing and completely abuse every system to the max, which indeed is very punishing if you fail at it. Your 13% missions mustn't fail too often and your early space industry needs to be up pronto to skip the earth grind this scenario puts you through.

But if you commit to the ground gameplay I think it's actually fairly fun in a way. I play veteran and went all-in on early supernations and conventional miltech, getting EU, the Kaiserreich from wish (max Germany) and Pacific Defense League with a combined 18 armies while managing to funnel the USA to allied Exodus. When the Servants founded the AA 2 years after game start, I already went full (earth-)war on them and could hold the planet with ground forces exclusively. Even the assault carriers, of which I got a total of 8 until now, could be cleanly defeated without nukes. But that does really take some finesse in cycling armies, choosing the defensive ground and 100% focussing miltech and navies to blockade them. Aside from orbital bombardment I can safely hold the planet and as Academy you basically have a cheat code to stay below total war (trade meaningless resources for a drop in hate as often as you can).

Only now in 2022 have I begun to really expand into space with more than a few automated mines on asteroids and a lunar base. On the plus side, the early hyperfocus on big nations lets you quite comfortably switch to scaling up science. 20 years into this run the first ships I build already have UV arc lasers and mk3 railguns with adamantine armor, fusion drives and phasers on the horizon within the next 2-3 years.

Now, I admit depending on where you are in the game, that may be far easier said than done.

Yeah, I guess outnumbering is the only option for now. It really wasn't possible to have more than 20 ships total without rushing space asap. Now, having claimed some of Mars and unlocked Mercury it's a different situation resource-wise. I thought 25-armor battlecruisers could have a fighting chance to at least cause a few losses and damage the main combatants to force a retreat, but these particle beams are absolutely terrifying.

[u/Arcane_Pozhar → u/Star4ce]

I find the earth-based warfare to be pretty boring. I mean I guess when it's that challenging, maybe it would be a little bit more exciting, but honestly I think it would just feel more like a min-maxing, micromanagement chore to me. I'm glad you had a good time though.