Ombral Choir strategy Topic

[LeX']

If you have any question about the Ombral Choir, ask me anything, i did a lot of games with OC since the launch of the DLC. The race is a bit boring because of the same path of victory unfortunately...

[Druitt]

How do you manage overpopulation? I may have hit it too hard in my initial testing, but I don’t feel like I sacrificed everything for food, yet every (upgraded) planet in the home system is full, as are all 8 or so sanctuaries I have. Should I have way more sanctuaries? Should I just pop out 10 sleepers to leech resources and let the empire whack them? Or maybe I shouldn’t care?

[LeX']

You just have to ignore the overpopulation, it's not a big deal, you dont need population because UC doesn't go to war, Depend of your playstyle but you have to focus on making neighboors sanctuaries and strategic ressources. The Wonder victory is THE WAY to win with UC. If you handle well, you win in 70-80 turns.

[Malibloo]

Currently I'm at war with someone, and I'm not exactly swimming in ships, trying to play it clever (like you can with other factions). Now every time I "conquer" a system; forcing to raze them because I already have sanctuaries on all of them, they *instantly* recapture it, making this entirely unwinnable without supposedly creating a solid fleet to wipe out everything.
What do?

[Spacesuit Spiff]

If you're playing vs AI, just hide and fill them with sanctuaries/sleepers, get your shadow pops, they have no idea how to play against that.

[utilityguy]

I'm currently testing out a game where the aim is for the Umbral Choir to never get dragged into wars and just peace out with everyone. Will probably, maybe, post back here when it's finished

[utilityguy]

One thing to keep in mind is that the sleepers you have in other player's systems can be moved through transports by the target empire. Meaning, if the target empire is Min/max pop happy, you can get lucky with your embedded sleepers and start seeing them pop up in all sorts of different systems.
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On Normal speed, Endless Pirates gain Stealth III detection around turn 70.
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Just failed Flight of the Prototype for no reason. The Prototype was okay, the minor faction didn't get assimilated, and I had two more turns out of the 16 left to complete. Not gonna lie, I kinda could use some peace right now.
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^Nvm, Vodyani turned them.

[Ajosra]

Do you think that due to their nature, they belive they are good, but other races would probably think of them as evil body possesers ?

Thats how i see them at least.

[utilityguy]

Originally posted by Ajosra:

Do you think that due to their nature, they belive they are good, but other races would probably think of them as evil body possesers ?

Thats how i see them at least.

The Faction story quest goes into this. My answer: It's all on how the Choir goes onto communicate with the other species. Clear, concise, propper communication can go a long ways in preventing things from blowing up.

[LeX']

If someone claim the war to you, you just have to ignore it haha. Get focusing on your growth, UC have to many advantage with the stealth and the single solar system. Dont waste your time to get population in enemies's planet if the system is bad, a backdoor is enough to go farther

[Spark0]

How do you hide your sanctuaries after they are discovered?

Is it worth purging a minor-faction? (Cause you lose the dust and much needed MP benefits, and it is likely to be taken by an opponent if you do want to leave them neutral).

Is there somewhere I can see the progress of a trace vs my own hack? I don't see that info, so I can't tell if I should cancel the hack or not.

[Malibloo]

It's great that people are saying one should ignore wars and hide, but how do you actually destroy other factions when they're constantly colonizing planets you just purged not 2 turns ago?

[utilityguy]

Originally posted by Malibloo:

It's great that people are saying one should ignore wars and hide, but how do you actually destroy other factions when they're constantly colonizing planets you just purged not 2 turns ago?

By probably leaving a military ship or two to guard the planets you just digitized? Of course, that doesn't prevent the AI from clicking colonize planet before you click on attack, but you can always... uh... siege the colony into un-existance.

[LeX']

Originally posted by Andras:

How do you hide your sanctuaries after they are discovered?

Is it worth purging a minor-faction? (Cause you lose the dust and much needed MP benefits, and it is likely to be taken by an opponent if you do want to leave them neutral).

Is there somewhere I can see the progress of a trace vs my own hack? I don't see that info, so I can't tell if I should cancel the hack or not.

Purging a minor-faction is great, because you can expand your sanctuaries close to the purged faction. Try to get as much as possible purged-faction, you can ignore the bonus of the minor faction. Try to get as fast as possible 3 possibles hacks in the same time with the technology, 4 is better but its cost a lot of time to research the tech.

Originally posted by Malibloo:

It's great that people are saying one should ignore wars and hide, but how do you actually destroy other factions when they're constantly colonizing planets you just purged not 2 turns ago?

The best way is to get solar system as fast as possible before enemies, and not only close to your main planet, that's why you should purged minor faction as soon as possible to be flexible to develop your sanctuaries.

[Malibloo]

Originally posted by LeX':

The best way is to get solar system as fast as possible before enemies, and not only close to your main planet, that's why you should purged minor faction as soon as possible to be flexible to develop your sanctuaries.

Am I missing something? Am I supposed to somehow colonize as the Umbral?
Because even if I own half the galaxy, AI still colonizes planets.
With normal factions you CONQUER them, and they have to TAKE IT BACK. With the Umbral you just DELETE the colonies and they can resettle with a single ship INSTANTLY.

The system that seems to be working so far is: First getting all sanctuaries, by either hacking, or conquering and converting. Then filling the entire system full of sleepers. THEN conquering it again the next round and abducting all populations. And FINALLY conquering again to raze it, which seemingly keeps the AI at bay because they don't care for quickly recolonizing systems without population.
This is such a roundabout progress that I'll probably hit the turn limit before being able to conquer anything.

[utilityguy]

Creating sanctuaries doesn't prevent those systems from being colonized.

Like, you can have every solar system in the game be colonized by different empires and still be capable of achieving a conquest victory without ever needing to declare war/attacking as the Choir.