Prethoryn Swarm two 83k Fleets vs my three 3.5k fleets??! WTF!!!!

[Bruderfaust]

Playing on normal as Earth and at like year 2330 this Prethoryn invasion starts. My domineering and aggressive neighbor to the north is currently the most powerful of the 15 or so races I have encountered, and has fleets with around 10k strength. My fleets are around 2.5k-3k (all with atleast 1 battleship, 3 cruisers, 7 destroyers, and 12 corvettes) and I have three of them. In under ten years the Scourge cleared all my neighbors to the north. They were at my borders so i decided to take a look and see if i could clean up some of the border systems. I sent two of my fleets in to take a look around and immediately two scourge fleets with 83k damage warped in and began battling my fleets. I lasted maybe a three or four minutes before they killed my fleets.

Is this supposed to happen? It seems really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid that I spent all that time building these really good fleets to counter my enemies and put all this thought into their loadouts only to have some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ magically appeared to rape my stuff! Why would this even happen? Idk what to do now, it took ten years for my super powerful north neighbor, plus the other neighbors, to be killed off, so Im sure if i continue IM gonna be killed off in like 5 years!

[FuzzyDragon]

yeah their nasty now, I staved off the crisis with a fleet of 245K fleet I had to take a fallen empire capital just to afford the upkeep when they undock.

3.5k ? are you a like going the peacefull route or something?

[radwyn]

Many find the game quite easy on normal a nerf would ruin äny chällenge in the game. The trend of nerfing games to a short bus level to avoid complaints is mäking them more boring änd less thrilling. I would love it if the scourge had a chance to win, a brutal fight for survival is a challenge and fun. Also mäkes great story

[Birrihappyface]

Messaggio originale di Bruderfaust:

Im conitnuing and theirs more than the two 83k fleets, ive seen a 79k fleet and a 56 k fleet too. what the ♥♥♥♥ man Im really wishing I could refund this right now because im watching the last 8 hours get steamrolled over by something so ridiculous ic ant even describe it!

The scourge is very difficult to defeat, so out-tactic them. I use hyperdrives, which have no cooldown after FTL. This means I can jump to a system, get in position, and when a fleet of prethoryn's arrive, they have 15-20 days where we can lay as much armor-piercing fire into them with no resistance. (year 2355) My 40k fleet took out two 65k prethoryn fleets with little to no losses due to strategy like this. Also, the prethoryn swarm will continue to make their fleets more and more strong as long as a queen is in the fleet. have fun.

[ZS Maeklos]

One thing about the Scourge, though, is that if you kill a fleet, it stays dead - they don't make new fleets. All they make new are troops, infesters (colony ships), and constructors - and they only do that once they start infesting worlds.

I found a fast attack squadron made up of a dozen corvettes armed with torpedoes to be VERY useful. They could jump into a system where an infester or constructor were, nuke them quickly, then get out before a responding fleet could arrive. The increased range of torpedoes meant that if my fast attack squadron did get caught by a fleet, they could usually run down the emergency FTL jump timer before the enemy could get close enough to inflict any damage.

But, the problem is that you've really got to ride shepherd and micromanage your fleets and pay attention to the movement of enemy fleets. If you don't, if you get distracted, that's all it takes for a Scourge fleet to jump right on top of your long-range Scourge-killing fleet and eat it alive.

[curry124242]

In the current game, you can only expand fast by war.

If you can chew up a few empire by 2330, of course your will have your high command points and energy to support some 30K fleet. But it's not true for going peace.
By going war, you can get a lot of full developed planet within 10 year. Can you get 5 full developed full pop planets within 10 year? No.

So, the scourge was too easy for everyone because war was the only way to go due to lack of diplomacy). But they add a lot of new features in v1.2, manay people may want to try some peaceful build and get crashed by a overpower scourge is not fair.

Despite OP's fleet power, OP did mention that the most powerful empire had only 10K fleets. Even the whole galaxy group together to fight scourge, their fleet power sumed up in the whole galaxy may not reach 100K. How can they fight it?

[Volcott]

You need more ships. Way more ships. With weapons that are effective against armor and lotsa point defense.

[ZS Maeklos]

Messaggio originale di curry124242:

Despite OP's fleet power, OP did mention that the most powerful empire had only 10K fleets. Even the whole galaxy group together to fight scourge, their fleet power sumed up in the whole galaxy may not reach 100K. How can they fight it?

You can't. I had a peacenik tech-savvy empire that was making friends with everyone. By the time the Scourge invaded, I had a single fleet of 10k. The other empires had 2-3k fleets, of which they each had one or two. I was able to engage a Scourge vanguard fleet of 59k and do a bit of damage before jumping away - but hit-and-run tactics are BS in this game with the automatic 25% damage to every ship in your fleet from them. This basically takes an entire fleet out of service for a year and eats up the cost of 2-3 more battleships just to repair the damage done to 6-7.

So far, since Asimov hit, I've only been able to beat the Scourge once, with an empire that was nothing but warmongering conquerors. And even then, it took me nearly 100 years and the entire effort of my empire to do it. In that century of warfare, I never once had a vassal fleet join mine, never had them support me - hell, never even had them attack the Scourge. If the Scourge invaded an empire, that empire would move their fleets into Scourge-held systems and then immediately jump out rather than purging any infested planets or engaging static defenses or fleets.

Crisis? Yes. Do-able? Yes and no. Yes if you're a warlike species geared toward nothing but fighting. No if you're anything else.

[Grofaz]

Messaggio originale di ZS Maeklos:

Messaggio originale di curry124242:

Despite OP's fleet power, OP did mention that the most powerful empire had only 10K fleets. Even the whole galaxy group together to fight scourge, their fleet power sumed up in the whole galaxy may not reach 100K. How can they fight it?

You can't. I had a peacenik tech-savvy empire that was making friends with everyone. By the time the Scourge invaded, I had a single fleet of 10k. The other empires had 2-3k fleets, of which they each had one or two. I was able to engage a Scourge vanguard fleet of 59k and do a bit of damage before jumping away - but hit-and-run tactics are BS in this game with the automatic 25% damage to every ship in your fleet from them. This basically takes an entire fleet out of service for a year and eats up the cost of 2-3 more battleships just to repair the damage done to 6-7.

So far, since Asimov hit, I've only been able to beat the Scourge once, with an empire that was nothing but warmongering conquerors. And even then, it took me nearly 100 years and the entire effort of my empire to do it. In that century of warfare, I never once had a vassal fleet join mine, never had them support me - hell, never even had them attack the Scourge. If the Scourge invaded an empire, that empire would move their fleets into Scourge-held systems and then immediately jump out rather than purging any infested planets or engaging static defenses or fleets.

Crisis? Yes. Do-able? Yes and no. Yes if you're a warlike species geared toward nothing but fighting. No if you're anything else.

Thank you for deftly describing some of the many AI failings in your post. The description of your vassals never helping, of the fallen empire AI's bizzare and worthless fight vs the Scourge, of the lack of tactical choices. I've only played 30 hours, and was pretty upset, and with this confirmation I will avoid this game for many months (when maybe it will be fixed sorta). The flood of glowing reviews really frustrates me.

[Bruderfaust]

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/445110482490736338/79484381DF7553E8F5CBEE2E541EE8E5E9A0EADD/

Less than fifteen years after their arrival after i loaded and old save and tried to prepare again...

[curry124242]

^^^^^^^^^
Best image showing that peaceful playstyle not existed in this game! Congrats!

If you are a warmonger, you you will be one with the heart flag in your left and maybe 100K fleets by now.

Anyway, try a custom race next time. :)

==================================
This is what i have in 2242, 101 years before your save as a half warmonger
http://imgur.com/Za0Lkyz

[ZS Maeklos]

Yeah, the Scourge definitely needs balancing. It's balls-out warmongering to defeat them or they eat everyone, because the AI does nothing against them now. At least before the Asimov patch, the AI empires would actively fight the Scourge and contain them (though not having open borders made this a PITA).

[domuka]

Messaggio originale di ZS Maeklos:

Yeah, the Scourge definitely needs balancing. It's balls-out warmongering to defeat them or they eat everyone, because the AI does nothing against them now. At least before the Asimov patch, the AI empires would actively fight the Scourge and contain them (though not having open borders made this a PITA).

just had them spawn in my game. my fleet of 21k just won against their 2 fleets of 51k each. it was the most stupidest fight i've ever encountered. just build a fortress with ftl capture and park your fleet. they lost all their fleets, about over 200k to just my 63k fleets. i do agree, however, that the ai needs some improvements, as they are now attacking the swarm's forts, but with only about 3k to 10k. they should feel lucky i wanted a actual challange, even if it wasn't. oh and the fort strat works with all wars, for anyone who wants a easy win

[Igor Von Locket Ohlsson]

Messaggio originale di domuka:

Messaggio originale di ZS Maeklos:

Yeah, the Scourge definitely needs balancing. It's balls-out warmongering to defeat them or they eat everyone, because the AI does nothing against them now. At least before the Asimov patch, the AI empires would actively fight the Scourge and contain them (though not having open borders made this a PITA).

just had them spawn in my game. my fleet of 21k just won against their 2 fleets of 51k each. it was the most stupidest fight i've ever encountered. just build a fortress with ftl capture and park your fleet. they lost all their fleets, about over 200k to just my 63k fleets. i do agree, however, that the ai needs some improvements, as they are now attacking the swarm's forts, but with only about 3k to 10k. they should feel lucky i wanted a actual challange, even if it wasn't. oh and the fort strat works with all wars, for anyone who wants a easy win

Well that one depends on an AI actually stepping into your borders during a war. Wich never have happened to me.

[ZS Maeklos]

Sadly, warp interdictors on fortresses do NOT work against the Scourge, unless you've surrounded your interdictor fort with a ring of lance- or artillery-equipped forts. The reason being that the Scourge have no warp cooldown and do insane amounts of point-blank damage. Even the best interdictor fort won't last more than 4-5 seconds when a swarm jumps on top of it.

And even with lance-equipped stations, they're all going to die unless you're lucky and catch a wounded swarm with 20-30k left.

[domuka]

Messaggio originale di domuka:

just had them spawn in my game. my fleet of 21k just won against their 2 fleets of 51k each. it was the most stupidest fight i've ever encountered. just build a fortress with ftl capture and park your fleet. they lost all their fleets, about over 200k to just my 63k fleets. i do agree, however, that the ai needs some improvements, as they are now attacking the swarm's forts, but with only about 3k to 10k. they should feel lucky i wanted a actual challange, even if it wasn't. oh and the fort strat works with all wars, for anyone who wants a easy win

proof.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=714694332

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=714694356