700k Awakened fleet, now what?

[Warbird]

So I was in first place with 20 other empires in a huge galaxy. I had just topped 100k fleet strength when the bad guys awoke. They hit me with a 700k fleet. Should I just delete the game? Is there any possible way of winning at this point? My federation of 4 empires all together has 200k in ships. I have the perk that increases damage by 33% against the awakened. I have hundreds of hours played and am not a nube. This just seems like a game breaking balance problem. My ships have mega cannons and the best shields and engines in the game. I think I'm screwed.

[Icemania]

Publicado originalmente por Warbird:

The year is 2370. Yes they declaired war again. They have 1 dreadnaught, 61 battlecrusers, and 161 crusers or whatever they call them. To support this they have 3 small worlds they just expanded to when they awoke. Those planets do not have the advanced buildings on them producing the roughly thousand energy it should take to support a fleet of that size. Maybe they could produce 100 energy? So with their advanced tech maybe 100k in ships tops. I watched them continue to build ships as I ran their main fleet in circles. They grew it from 600k to 700k before they finally caught my main fleet and I was required to go with the white peace or lose everything. It's so frustrating that even though I've taken 90% of their productioin power they haven't weakened a bit. It'll be another 50 years before I can build a fleet that could have a chance to beat them.

You'll get there Warbird. Personally I like the fact that it takes some persistance to beat them.

Out of interest, with their fleet, when you go through their ships, do they have negative modifiers to shields and damage? Also they need as many ships compared to what we would need to get a fleet of that power, as they have "special" designs, hence lower cost to maintain.

[Your Neighbour]

#fallen
#woke
#empire

[Warbird]

Well I got in a fight with them and knocked their fleet down to 200k but mine was down to 50k when I jumped out. So I was like yea maybe I can build 100k more in ships and take them out. Nope. They are now producing 50k in ships every couple months. They are making them faster than I can and I have over 50 worlds INCLUDING their production worlds. The game just cheats period. So now it's back to using multiple fleets and running them in circles as they quickly grow back to 700k. It's fkn rediculous.

[Minoris]

Publicado originalmente por Warbird:

Well I got in a fight with them and knocked their fleet down to 200k but mine was down to 50k when I jumped out. So I was like yea maybe I can build 100k more in ships and take them out. Nope. They are now producing 50k in ships every couple months. They are making them faster than I can and I have over 50 worlds INCLUDING their production worlds. The game just cheats period. So now it's back to using multiple fleets and running them in circles as they quickly grow back to 700k. It's fkn rediculous.

Careful not to mix up "Normal AI" with "Hard and above AI" or "Fallen/Awakened Empire AI".

Normal AI doesn't cheat, period. As for the rest, yeah, they do get bonuses and shortcuts here and there. If you don't like Fallen Empires you can always disable them. Problem solved.

[Mytheos]

Publicado originalmente por Warbird:

Well I got in a fight with them and knocked their fleet down to 200k but mine was down to 50k when I jumped out. So I was like yea maybe I can build 100k more in ships and take them out. Nope. They are now producing 50k in ships every couple months. They are making them faster than I can and I have over 50 worlds INCLUDING their production worlds. The game just cheats period. So now it's back to using multiple fleets and running them in circles as they quickly grow back to 700k. It's fkn rediculous.

If you are making 50 ships at a time you should be able to keep up...?

I mean you had the new ships being made before you ever took your fleet into combat right?

[Botji]

Publicado originalmente por Minoris:

Publicado originalmente por Warbird:

Well I got in a fight with them and knocked their fleet down to 200k but mine was down to 50k when I jumped out. So I was like yea maybe I can build 100k more in ships and take them out. Nope. They are now producing 50k in ships every couple months. They are making them faster than I can and I have over 50 worlds INCLUDING their production worlds. The game just cheats period. So now it's back to using multiple fleets and running them in circles as they quickly grow back to 700k. It's fkn rediculous.

Careful not to mix up "Normal AI" with "Hard and above AI" or "Fallen/Awakened Empire AI".

Normal AI doesn't cheat, period. As for the rest, yeah, they do get bonuses and shortcuts here and there. If you don't like Fallen Empires you can always disable them. Problem solved.

Do AEs really get any 'cheat' bonuses though?
Aside from the fleet they get when they awaken.

Personally I think they are probably just living off their (probably) massive stockpiles but when those run out I wouldnt expect them to be able to do much without their core worlds.

Just looked it up on the wiki:

----------------------
Their Government Type is changed to Awakened Ascendancy
Their Civics will be set to Revanchist Fervor (+1 Monthly Influence) and Ancient Caches of Technology (+25% Pop resource production). Due to the loss of their previous Civics, they now can conquer and build ships fully.

They receive 20000 Minerals, 5000 Energy and 1000 Influence as their storages are emptied by the change.

They receive Fleet once via the normal Reinforcement Event
If a default empire has more than 50k Fleet Power, the event will trigger a 2nd time
The reinforcement Event available for Sleepers can no longer trigger for them, however.
Communication is established with all other empires
-----------------------

The only bonus they get is a bunch of resources, a fleet to start off with and +25% resources with their pops so yeah, I would assume that they are still living off their stockpiled resources and losing the core worlds will really hurt unless they have been able to build up their other worlds by the time their banked stuff runs out.

[Warbird]

20k in minerals would buy 15 battleships. They are making that much every 2 months even though they have no production planets. They only have 3 new planets with basic starting buildings. The AI is cheating. Period. No alternative, period. I'm playing on NORMAL. They have 3 planets with at most 100 energy production. They should at most be able to support 100k fleet and have NO chance of building an extra 100k fleet in 10 years. They are doing that every few months. It's fcked. On top of that I have to deal with 3 other FE that could turn AE at any moment and my fleet is now a pitiiful 50k. The AE fleet has gone from 200k to 300k in the time it took me to build 50k. So I'm outgunned 6 to 1, out produced 2 to 1 and I have 10x the production of the AE. So I have to take advantage of the crappy AI programing or lose. Time to start kiting the AE fleet in a circle again. Damnit.

[Silver Felyne]

Publicado originalmente por Warbird:

20k in minerals would buy 15 battleships. They are making that much every 2 months even though they have no production planets. They only have 3 new planets with basic starting buildings. The AI is cheating.

Ah yes, nobody here mentioned that Fallen Empire ships can be made much faster. And I THINK are much cheaper.
They can make Battlecruisers in 100 days. Your Battleships take 480.

[Hugh]

If you have the strategic depth, just white peace them.
It's strange how many people have trouble with overwhelming AE fleets. If you have enough planets, they can never beat you no matter how powerful they are.
Just stay close to their fleets and recap your lost world's until they give up and wanna go home.

[Icemania]

Publicado originalmente por Warbird:

20k in minerals would buy 15 battleships. They are making that much every 2 months even though they have no production planets. They only have 3 new planets with basic starting buildings. The AI is cheating. Period. No alternative, period. I'm playing on NORMAL. They have 3 planets with at most 100 energy production. They should at most be able to support 100k fleet and have NO chance of building an extra 100k fleet in 10 years. They are doing that every few months. It's fcked. On top of that I have to deal with 3 other FE that could turn AE at any moment and my fleet is now a pitiiful 50k. The AE fleet has gone from 200k to 300k in the time it took me to build 50k. So I'm outgunned 6 to 1, out produced 2 to 1 and I have 10x the production of the AE. So I have to take advantage of the crappy AI programing or lose. Time to start kiting the AE fleet in a circle again. Damnit.

This isn't the same debate as the AI cheating with Normal empires (which is total rubbish other than perhaps map vision).

The Crises and Awakened Fallen Empires are deliberately designed asymmetric mechanics to provide a challenge.

Most folks don't post on a forum to try to get tips, then complain, they either figure it out or turn it off in the set-up.

A lot of the best moments I've had with Stellaris are due to these asymmetric elements. It was the same with Distant Worlds, another highly respected 4X game, with the Shakturi providing some great fun. First game it's "OMG" when they arrive. After a couple of games, it's just not the same without them, and I would never even consider turning them off.

Also you don't need to kite, just avoid. Stay out of their territory. Just reinvade any lost planets after they've moved on. Frankly, the AI can't win if you do it this way, at least while we have Doomstacks (hopefully considered in the a future patch).

[Botji]

Well, it would be easy to check how much income the AI has, even if its a Ironman game.

Just start/load a normal game and type debugtooltip in the console so it turns on, quit to menu and load your Ironman save, tada.. you have debugtooltip on and can see exactly how much energy and minerals the AI is getting each month if you go to the diplomacy screen and hover over the comparison.. the first value is theirs and the one in brackets is yours, so 200 (300) would be 200 for them and you have 300.

If you want to get rid of debugtooltip you simply restart the game or go back into a normal game and use the comman in the console again to turn it off, your Ironman save is still Ironman.

I also just want to add that im pretty sure the AEs have ALL technologies so that would include stuff like mega engineering which gives +20k mineral storage, with the core worlds and bonuses they have for resources as a AE it wouldnt be odd if they were completely full on storage, so like 40-50k or more... tried finding info on what their ships costs but could only find build timers and they can build battleships like crazy, question is how much they are paying for them :/

I dont have a save with a live AE, otherwise I would switch over control to it and check how it looks from their side.

[Hugh]

Publicado originalmente por Warbird:

20k in minerals would buy 15 battleships. They are making that much every 2 months even though they have no production planets. They only have 3 new planets with basic starting buildings. The AI is cheating. Period. No alternative, period. I'm playing on NORMAL. They have 3 planets with at most 100 energy production. They should at most be able to support 100k fleet and have NO chance of building an extra 100k fleet in 10 years. They are doing that every few months. It's fcked. On top of that I have to deal with 3 other FE that could turn AE at any moment and my fleet is now a pitiiful 50k. The AE fleet has gone from 200k to 300k in the time it took me to build 50k. So I'm outgunned 6 to 1, out produced 2 to 1 and I have 10x the production of the AE. So I have to take advantage of the crappy AI programing or lose. Time to start kiting the AE fleet in a circle again. Damnit.

Don't complain. Fallen and awaken empires are supposed to be uber buff.
If you're a scrub that can't handle it then turn them off in the galaxy set up.

[Warbird]

I've beaten AE before. It just really pisses me off that they are rebuilding faster than I can build while I own their production worlds Core and Boundary. I really expected that to cripple them. Also, what are Doomstacks? Is that so many troops you can take a world without reducing the defenses or something? That would be a big screw as the AE don't seem to chanse troop fleets.

[Doctor Proteus]

Publicado originalmente por Warbird:

I've beaten AE before. It just really pisses me off that they are rebuilding faster than I can build while I own their production worlds Core and Boundary. I really expected that to cripple them. Also, what are Doomstacks? Is that so many troops you can take a world without reducing the defenses or something? That would be a big screw as the AE don't seem to chanse troop fleets.

A Doomstick is when someone condenses a huge amount of millitary force into one fleet/betallion. Usually to be a "Doomstick" it needs to be so big and powerful it cannot be defeated by any one adversary.

[Mytheos]

Publicado originalmente por Warbird:

I've beaten AE before. It just really pisses me off that they are rebuilding faster than I can build while I own their production worlds Core and Boundary. I really expected that to cripple them. Also, what are Doomstacks? Is that so many troops you can take a world without reducing the defenses or something? That would be a big screw as the AE don't seem to chanse troop fleets.

Essentially the AI is dumb and doesnt make defense fleets or multiple attack fleets really.

They just pile everything into a single fleet, a doomstack.

Which means as a player you can send out 10 CRVs to 10 different systems and wipe their resource harvesters while your doomstack plays with or engages theirs.

But because they use a simplistic doomstack strategy we are forced into doing similar things in general.

Hopefully next patch that changes.