How am I supposed to fight Prethoryn Brood?

[Wewius]

Hi there,

I'm new to this game (never played a Paradox Game before) and after many attemps I finally managed to build a small but sustainable empire (I play on the smallest possible Galaxy because I want to keep it simple at my skill level)

I conquered roughly 1/3 of the galaxy and didn't engange in any diplomacy despite defending myself against an aggressor. My combined forces had about 25 to 30 k strength.

Suddenly these motherf******s come in from the edge of the galaxy and ravage through my systems. Just one Fleet of them with 130k dmg and several others with around 40k o 65k. They took a hughe chunk before I was even able to get my fleet there and engage them. They got vaporized in an instant. At this point I ragequitet.

How in the world am I supposed to win against this? I don't even have the fleet capacity to build anything that could defeat them.

I spent I don't know how many hours building this up ant then this ♥♥♥♥ happens. That was really the worst gaming experiance I ever had and I played the E.T. game that was burried in the mexican desert. What point is there in investing countless hours to build up your empire only to see it destroyed in minutes without any chance to defend yourself?

What kind of strategy should I use? Can you give me any advice here?

[Helican]

Get more planets, get a bigger fleet, use weapons with bonus dmg against armor and high range, use point defense and Flak Artillery, bomb the planets they infested, destroy their infestors.

[Half Phased]

They make heavy use of fighters and missiles, so PD will go a long way to help, also the preythorn non-missile weapons are quite short ranged, so long ranged weaponry like artillery or tachyon lances will help.

Shields are a must for all ships obviously, as chances are they are going to be on extended operations into preythorn territory, and they won't be able to return to a spaceport for repairs. Also an admiral how can repair ships for free, battleships with repair aura, living metal or regenerative hull playing can help your fleets survive multiple clashes back to back without needing repairs.

Bombard all planets you find and stop them subjugating other planets. Oh and let someone else hold them off.

[Wewius]

Thanks Helician and Destructively Phase.

I don't see how I am supposed to do anything against this force. I just don't have the time to react. I also don't have any space to expand to since I'm sharing this small galaxy with only two other factions left and right from me. I can't expand. I could colonise more planets with less habitability but that takes time...

I just watched how the brood took over the whole galaxy and not even the NPC players could do anything against them. This is just ridicoulus. I thought I could play this game relaxed and smooth until I control the galaxy (either diplomatically or by force). But now I HAVE to engage in fighting and building an army. I thought this game supports any way I want to play the game? What's the point in having anything other than a "brute force"-Species when you just get rekted as democrazy or pacifist player?

[Half Phased]

Internal democracy should not affect your fleet strength, if you choose to go with federations and alliances your supposed to be able to declare war on the threat as a group so the entire federation fights and can tackle the swarm, but it's impossible to declare even a "pseudo" war against them, so your stuck by yourself, hence why I typically play militant fanatical befrienders.

[Wewius]

My point is that I NEED a fleet here. I HAVE TO research military technologies even though I don't want to. I was under the impression that, ideally, I could play a democratic/pacifist species with only the most neccessary strength to defend myself against space nazis.Now it seems that I have to prepare myself from the beginning of the game for this by investing research time and ressources in military technologies I originally didn't want. What's the point in playing a democratic species then? At this point it's way more logical to BE THE SPACE NAZI and take everything by force.

Did I misunderstand the game? I really thaught I can play how I want and be peacefull.

[Pontiac Jones]

This sounds like the first time I encountered the Unbidden, except I fought until my galaxy was in shambles. It was probably the best loss I've ever had in a game. As far as I can tell pacifism isn't really fully implemented, since the end-game crisis pretty much require you to become a military might very rapidly, or end up watching them gobble up your empire.

I think the next patch is going to add in some options for dealing with the crisis, even if you're not a military might in your galaxy. Until then, if you don't want to fight them, you could always get a mod to deactivate their appearance for your next game.

To specifically answer your question though, you can't be a pacifist against a race that only wants to eat/destroy you. I'm surprised you haven't encountered a regular empire that wants your pristine democractic worlds for himself, but then I've only played on the largest maps so I can't avoid some greedy invaders eventually.

[Wewius]

One of them were aggressive and I had to build a fleet of about 30k strength. That was enough to hold them at bay.

[Yang]

Originally posted by Wewius:

My point is that I NEED a fleet here. I HAVE TO research military technologies even though I don't want to. I was under the impression that, ideally, I could play a democratic/pacifist species with only the most neccessary strength to defend myself against space nazis.Now it seems that I have to prepare myself from the beginning of the game for this by investing research time and ressources in military technologies I originally didn't want. What's the point in playing a democratic species then? At this point it's way more logical to BE THE SPACE NAZI and take everything by force.

Did I misunderstand the game? I really thaught I can play how I want and be peacefull.

You could try but you probably want to be in a federation for collective security. Still the federations probably do not help that much against the Prethoryn (this will hopefully change in the next big update). Otherwise just use armour penetrating weapons or bombers if you have any (spam bombers they mow the Prethoryn down). Also bring a lot of point defense.

Originally posted by Helican:

Get more planets, get a bigger fleet, use weapons with bonus dmg against armor and high range, use point defense and Flak Artillery, bomb the planets they infested, destroy their infestors.

^^^
Basically.
What I might add is build destroyers with only point defense and 1 flak artillery, and build battleships with as many Lances as possible (you should always aim to research lances helps so much late game)

Also spam really cheap subspace snare defense platforms in every single system in the galaxy. Arm it with some torps or lasers or generally cheaper weapons to take out any Prethoryn construction or army ships. You need to catch them before they can be put into use (building 10k space stations or infesting ur planets)

[SpectralShade]

Originally posted by PTM Destructively Phased:

They make heavy use of fighters and missiles, so PD will go a long way to help, also the preythorn non-missile weapons are quite short ranged, so long ranged weaponry like artillery or tachyon lances will help.

Shields are a must for all ships obviously, as chances are they are going to be on extended operations into preythorn territory, and they won't be able to return to a spaceport for repairs. Also an admiral how can repair ships for free, battleships with repair aura, living metal or regenerative hull playing can help your fleets survive multiple clashes back to back without needing repairs.

Bombard all planets you find and stop them subjugating other planets. Oh and let someone else hold them off.

why are shields a must?

From looking at reports after fights, and looking at stats of the swarm interceptors after I researched them, shields seem like a waste of space against them. I refitted my entire fleet to go shieldless now.

So far I've taken mostly transporters and floating bases, with the occasional planet bombing before I hightail it away, but at one time I caught a fleet of around 70k-80k with my 3 fleets of just below 30k. After the massacre I had to rebuild 3 destroyers and 2 dozen corvettes, but none of my bigger ships suffered.

So far I am playing a stalling game with them. trying to keep them pinned back in other empires' territory.

My issue with this is cash flow, as keeping my fleets away from spacestation orbits impacts my energy income hugely, even though I am no where near the naval cap. (having 3 fleets out and fighting made my energy go from a capped 5000 to just below 1000 before they were all in orbit again)
Energy income is my biggest issue with fighting them, and this is because none of my sector governors seems to have the faintest idea about how build up colonies. Any colony I rule over myself is maxed out, while colonies the soctors control barely get any buildings at all, and if so, they are filling every space with level 1 food buildings even though I told them to go industry to give me minerals so I can rebuild the ships I loose fast -.-

It's made me starting to shuffle planets in and out of sector control after I have built them up personally now, but this feels even worse micromanaging than if I just controlled them all, as I have to remember which ones I built up and which ones I didn't, and/or go to them individually on the map and looking at them to see if I should take over control again.

The same issue with building spacestations. I can easy see on systems I control directly, but sector systems I have to go into the map and select the planet to see what I can build with the spacestation -.- If they wanted to remove micromanaging with the sector system, they utterly failed, as it has INCREASED it with extra clicks needed to be made just to get the basic things done.

[Half Phased]

Originally posted by SpectralShade:

Originally posted by PTM Destructively Phased:

They make heavy use of fighters and missiles, so PD will go a long way to help, also the preythorn non-missile weapons are quite short ranged, so long ranged weaponry like artillery or tachyon lances will help.

Shields are a must for all ships obviously, as chances are they are going to be on extended operations into preythorn territory, and they won't be able to return to a spaceport for repairs. Also an admiral how can repair ships for free, battleships with repair aura, living metal or regenerative hull playing can help your fleets survive multiple clashes back to back without needing repairs.

Bombard all planets you find and stop them subjugating other planets. Oh and let someone else hold them off.

why are shields a must?

From looking at reports after fights, and looking at stats of the swarm interceptors after I researched them, shields seem like a waste of space against them. I refitted my entire fleet to go shieldless now.

So far I've taken mostly transporters and floating bases, with the occasional planet bombing before I hightail it away, but at one time I caught a fleet of around 70k-80k with my 3 fleets of just below 30k. After the massacre I had to rebuild 3 destroyers and 2 dozen corvettes, but none of my bigger ships suffered.

So far I am playing a stalling game with them. trying to keep them pinned back in other empires' territory.

My issue with this is cash flow, as keeping my fleets away from spacestation orbits impacts my energy income hugely, even though I am no where near the naval cap. (having 3 fleets out and fighting made my energy go from a capped 5000 to just below 1000 before they were all in orbit again)
Energy income is my biggest issue with fighting them, and this is because none of my sector governors seems to have the faintest idea about how build up colonies. Any colony I rule over myself is maxed out, while colonies the soctors control barely get any buildings at all, and if so, they are filling every space with level 1 food buildings even though I told them to go industry to give me minerals so I can rebuild the ships I loose fast -.-

It's made me starting to shuffle planets in and out of sector control after I have built them up personally now, but this feels even worse micromanaging than if I just controlled them all, as I have to remember which ones I built up and which ones I didn't, and/or go to them individually on the map and looking at them to see if I should take over control again.

The same issue with building spacestations. I can easy see on systems I control directly, but sector systems I have to go into the map and select the planet to see what I can build with the spacestation -.- If they wanted to remove micromanaging with the sector system, they utterly failed, as it has INCREASED it with extra clicks needed to be made just to get the basic things done.

You need shields as they prevent hull damage and the preythorn have no shield penetrating weapons. Recharging your shields is far faster than fixing hull damage and costs no minerals.

Also, armour gives diminishing returns, meaning shields can provide a greater effect than armour.

Also shields should always be a must, unless you know your enemy has shield penetrating weapons, but the preythorn dont...

[chefcook90]

I didn't really feal like reading through several walls of text (I read through the OP carefully, but I just skimmed the replies), so I did ctrl+f searches for "finite" and "attrition."
Since nothing came up, I'd like to point out that the prethoryn have a very finite number of prethoryn queens, and that that the scourge can be beaten through raw attrition.

-> To clarify, Prethoryn don't "build" warships like regular empires do - instead their fleets are led by Queens that spawn additional warships over time - if the queens are killed, they can't rebuild their fleets. Queens can't spawn new queens, so over time the scourge invasion will fizzle out as the Queens die off. Supposedly they can get reinforcements through special events, but I've yet to see it happen, and I've beaten the scourge 3 times now.

I didn't see "invasion," "ground" or "land" either, so I'm also going to point out that it's very easy to defend your planets from prethoryn ground invasions by filling up your garrisons with defensive armies supplimented by one or two gene warrior armies. Psionic armies and Xeno armies work too if you don't have gene warriors yet.
-> Prethoryn fleets don't use orbital bombardment, so you don't need to worry about pushing their warships out of orbit as long as you have good ground defenses.

Also important: Prethoryn don't use fighters, they use BOMBERS, so they don't have any anti-strikecraft defense of their own. Massed fighters work great as a substitute for flak artillery if you want long-range point defense
(in my personal experience fighters work a lot better, but a lot of people on these boards seem to swear by flak artillery, even though my flak artillery only ever target strikecraft and seem to ignore scourge missiles completely)

EDIT: wait, none of you guys mentioned how queens work either? What kind of advice are you giving this guy?

[chefcook90]

Oh yeah, I should probably mention that it IS possible to beat the Prethoryn without building massive fleets or doing a whole lot of military research - if you hold out long enough the Sentinels will show up and loan you an Anti-Prethoryn warfleet.

As a matter of fact, I think you NEED to not have any military ships in order to get the Sentinels to show up - in my games I'm usually at near full fleet capacity when the scourge shows up and I've yet to see the Sentinel event happen.

[Dionysosss]

as far as i know the sentinals are surivors of empires that have fallen to the sourrge so they need to destoy a few empires

[Wewius]

Thanks for all the advice. Most of it seems to be advanced military tactics with all that talk about different kinds of weapons and defences and so on. It's a bit over my head at this moment but I'll look into it.

Those sentinels did show up after the Prethoryn got nearly all of my empire. Too late for me to do anything or maybe I was just too overwhelmed to react correctly.

[Dionysosss]

you could always play the empire that flees :P
and see how long you can last
if ya didnt ♥♥♥♥ up your diplomacy you should be able to flee to an area with some free planets XD
you aint death until your last planet//ship falls!