How do I defend against the servants?

[AnUnculturedLittlePotato]

It really seems like they can do whatever they want. They can steal any point with no support and a defend interests, they can hide their xenoflora despite like, 20 surviels. I genuinely have no idea how I'm supposed to defend against their, like, 14 counselors

[AnUnculturedLittlePotato]

Originally posted by =:

The aliens have their own tech tree of a sort which is based on the number of successful abduction missions they complete, this then gives them access to better mission types and the presence of xenofauna makes alien missions easier. They eventually have a mission which gives a significant popularity boost to servant or protectorate popularity and another which instantly flips a control point. In combination, this can quickly cause you to lose well defended nations like China.

If you do lose a point, instantly crackdown and purge it and keep working on your faction popularity to make your missions easier. Eventually you will kill or capture the alien or it will move away and you can stabilise the situation.

Basically, clean up all the xenofauna in your own nations (and elsewhere if you can spare the agent actions) and assassinate every alien that dares to enter your territory, you will need a high (20+) espionage agent for this, and a lot of Ops as it will usually take a few attempts, so you need to prepare for this early (and make sure they have actually the assassination mission). There are techs which protect you from alien missions once you advance up the story tech tree and alien councillors quickly stop being a problem once you can stop them landing on earth.

By about 2030ish you need to have a councillor with high investigation and crackdown, one with high espionage with purge and assassination missions and another with good command to clear alien Xenoflora and bases to keep aliens from stealing your nations.

I see. I think I'm behind on that front. Somehow the aliens just gained a nation peacefully. Is that inevitable or if I go hard on the servants can I stop them from handing over india?

[AnUnculturedLittlePotato]

My spaceships are also too weak to afford making the aliens too mad unfortunately

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by AnUnculturedLittlePotato:

I see. I think I'm behind on that front. Somehow the aliens just gained a nation peacefully. Is that inevitable or if I go hard on the servants can I stop them from handing over india?

Aliens can peacefully gain countries that the Servants totally control after the Servants have progressed enough. I'll hold off on telling you the specifics unless you want to know.

[Torpex]

I'd really like to know if there are any updated guides for the latest version please, as I keep seeing people bragging winning the game in 15 years on brutal.

I am getting my ass kicked by AI. I know that AI has the same limitations as I do. It is no longer a cake walk on normal like it was a year ago.

I still don't quite understand how it was possible for AI to populate all orbits around the earth and outcompete me on Mars and asteroids while I was leading on boost. And it also out-researched me at the same time (my guess all those labs on interface orbit).

Aliens also no longer send single raiders. It's usually a battleship group which already wiped my mars orbital twice (after kill and detain on hydra respectively).

[AnUnculturedLittlePotato]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by AnUnculturedLittlePotato:

I see. I think I'm behind on that front. Somehow the aliens just gained a nation peacefully. Is that inevitable or if I go hard on the servants can I stop them from handing over india?

Aliens can peacefully gain countries that the Servants totally control after the Servants have progressed enough. I'll hold off on telling you the specifics unless you want to know.

Can you tell me if a coup will reset whatever progress the servants are making? Or is India doomed no matter what I do

[soulfreezer]

Originally posted by AnUnculturedLittlePotato:

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Aliens can peacefully gain countries that the Servants totally control after the Servants have progressed enough. I'll hold off on telling you the specifics unless you want to know.

Can you tell me if a coup will reset whatever progress the servants are making? Or is India doomed no matter what I do

After the aliens (or servants) have done 15 (or 12? not sure) abductions in a region, the servants can use a councilor to construct an alien facility in that region and after that they can use a councilor to transfer that nation to the aliens.

You cant reset the abduction progress, but you can destoying the alien facility with the assault alien asset mission or take over a nation that has a facility, to stop the servants from giving it to the aliens.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by AnUnculturedLittlePotato:

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Aliens can peacefully gain countries that the Servants totally control after the Servants have progressed enough. I'll hold off on telling you the specifics unless you want to know.

Can you tell me if a coup will reset whatever progress the servants are making? Or is India doomed no matter what I do

As I said, they can only hand it over if they control all of the CPs. So anything that disrupts their control of the nation will prevent them from doing so unless they regain control again.

[AnUnculturedLittlePotato]

Originally posted by soulfreezer:

Originally posted by AnUnculturedLittlePotato:

Can you tell me if a coup will reset whatever progress the servants are making? Or is India doomed no matter what I do

After the aliens (or servants) have done 15 (or 12? not sure) abductions in a region, the servants can use a councilor to construct an alien facility in that region and after that they can use a councilor to transfer that nation to the aliens.

You cant reset the abduction progress, but you can destoying the alien facility with the assault alien asset mission or take over a nation that has a facility, to stop the servants from giving it to the aliens.

If they regain control can they pick up back where they left off or will they need to wait a few turns until they can again?

[soulfreezer]

Originally posted by AnUnculturedLittlePotato:

Originally posted by soulfreezer:

After the aliens (or servants) have done 15 (or 12? not sure) abductions in a region, the servants can use a councilor to construct an alien facility in that region and after that they can use a councilor to transfer that nation to the aliens.

You cant reset the abduction progress, but you can destoying the alien facility with the assault alien asset mission or take over a nation that has a facility, to stop the servants from giving it to the aliens.

If they regain control can they pick up back where they left off or will they need to wait a few turns until they can again?

Once the servants gain control of a nation that has a region with enough abduction, they can give it to the aliens within two turns, one turn to create a facility and another to hand it over.

[AnUnculturedLittlePotato]

Originally posted by soulfreezer:

Originally posted by AnUnculturedLittlePotato:

If they regain control can they pick up back where they left off or will they need to wait a few turns until they can again?

Once the servants gain control of a nation that has a region with enough abduction, they can give it to the aliens within two turns, one turn to create a facility and another to hand it over.

I see. One last thing, by control do you mean executive control or just all the cps

[soulfreezer]

I'm not sure about that, executive control wasn't required when I last played servants, but that was over a year ago.

Once an alien facility gets build, destroy it immediately and then coup/purge that nations and don't let the servants regain control over it and you'll be fine. You can easily stop the alien administration from ever getting created by doing this.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by AnUnculturedLittlePotato:

Originally posted by soulfreezer:

Once the servants gain control of a nation that has a region with enough abduction, they can give it to the aliens within two turns, one turn to create a facility and another to hand it over.

I see. One last thing, by control do you mean executive control or just all the cps

If you mean executive consolidation, last I knew, that wasn't required.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by Torpex:

I'd really like to know if there are any updated guides for the latest version please, as I keep seeing people bragging winning the game in 15 years on brutal.

That's not bragging - it is just saying what's possible if you play close to optimally. I don't think you will find guides for the latest version but you can find playthroughs, eg. my brother's one (in making) that is not close to optimal (it will probably take him about 20 years to win - he was too late in space with warships and has too low research) but demonstrates ideas for early space warfare and winning quite easily on Brutal (and by extension on other difficulties):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x704FfIEsc4

[Torpex]

So far I lost 4 games, all of them at the point of making that first stand at space. Current loss is with tech level Green arcs, coils and adv. pulsars in 2035.

The problem I keep encountering is that aliens use plasma from the beginning and tier2 layered defense modules are useless now. having 4 of them on the orbital equals to having none if they are outranged.

In ship combat aliens are properly flanking now and having ridiculous combat acceleration they just dance around my slow pigs and murder them. BTW, invasion transports now come with proper plasma armed destroyer escorts too.

This is just too frustrating. game was a definite buy a year ago, now I wouldn't recommend it.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by Torpex:

This is just too frustrating. game was a definite buy a year ago, now I wouldn't recommend it.

No, you just got used to it being far too easy with numerous exploits and now that they are removed you are probably still trying to use the same flawed strategies/tactics that worked for you before (but even then they were flawed) when all you need is to adapt.

What you have wrong in your post:

1. Aliens don't use plasma from the beginning

2. Hab defensive modules were always a suboptimal choice in comparison to a fleet so they were comparatively useless also in the past (perhaps with exception of asteroid habs)

3. Having "slow pigs" is your choice - I have cheap ships with 4G acceleration and 14.4km/s DV in 2028 in my current game (standard Initiative Brutal 0.3.109) that are capable of reliably winning 1vs1 against their contemporary alien Corvettes and Destroyers.

4. As you could see in my brother's playthrough first Assault Carrier came alone (it should be as you say and they should have escorts).