Am I missing something?

[Creegull]

I play 4X games all the time, but I get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ steamrolled every two seconds by AI.

Games all go the same, I build up a bit, then the AI randomly declares war out of nowhere and facerolls cities before I have a chance to get to them with three armies and the games over.

Does the exact same on any difficulty I try. What am I missing in the initial growth stage as no matter what all enemies are above me.

[snuggleform]

(OP didn't like my advice)

[Creegull]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

Yeah I suffered too for the longest time but I figured it out; what you're missing is that the AI actually does not randomly declare war on you, at all. The key is "casus belli." points (a resource you can see when you click on diplomacy; you can read more baout it in the help archives if you are totally unfamiliar with what I'm talking about). If you do things like trespass on enemy territory, annex a sector close to them, use covert ops on them and they detect it, insult them etc they get casus belli. If casus belli is nonzero, they will have a chance to declare war on you.

What makes this complicated, is that although casus belli is MOSTlY your fault if you did something diplomatically bad with them, any commander can use a covert operation called "fabricate casus belli" which gives them 3 casus belli against you if the op succeeds and 1 point if it fails.

How do you deal with fabricate casus belli?

The best way is to keep your operation defense high enough that enemy covert ops fail against you. Pick the cover ops trait when making your commander helps, and in game you should quickly research 2 levels of operational strength along the bottom and also research the "counter ops" part which allows you to enact "secret society" doctrine. I do this very early, right after frontier policy + food research I go straight to ops defenses.

When you research counter ops, make sure to use at the very least 1 x "internal purge" covert ops because the problem is the AI will use "infiltrate covert ops" on you which lowers your covert defenses almost as soon as they meet you. When the operation finishes in 2 turns it tells you how many breaches there are left. If there are 0 left and you have secret society installed then you should not have to worry about covert ops until much later in the game.If there is some nonzero number left just keep lanching internal purge until the breaches are gone. If they infiltrate your ops that means they're going to fabricate casus belli soon.

Not only do you need to keep op defense high, but you need to realize YOU CAN TRADE AWAY casus belli for energy. Regularly check the enemy commanders click trade and look on the right hand of the screen if they have casus belli (if you have casus belli on the left that's not relevant to whether they declare war or not, it's their casus belli that matters not yours). If you see they have casus belli then try to trade energy for it as soon as you can. The going rate is 50 energy per CB but if the computer does not accept it, adjust your offer up by increments of 10 energy and keep trying; it will always take it at some point (except extreme circumstances which I'll tell you later).

Wwat I listed above teaches you how to avoid getting casus belli for the most part; let me finish up with some other non-obvious ways to get casus belli

- if you progress along a particular road to victory (take too many sectors, build doomsday devices) everyone gets a casus belli against you that is untradeable/unerasable. i.e. this kind of CB is unavoidable except be sneaky about how you want to do a victory. For example I won't build any doomsday devices until the very last second I intend to actually launch it vs building them gradually.

- if you're playing campaign, the AI is scripted to declare war on you at certain points in time based on story/events. Having good habits like op defense, trading away CB won't work in the campaign.

See my main issue is I just don't ever have enough resources to put em up against the AI before they've already managed to murk an expansion and immediately follow up with attacking my city on the same turn, I have no time to respond and never have the resources to mount a good defense anyway

[CrUsHeR]

Try playing on Easy, and figure out how to explore and expand.

Rule of thumb, by turn 20 you should have at least three colonies, and three armies. When your second Hero shows up around turn 20 and you don't have his army ready, you are already lagging behind.

There usually is one neutral settlement of your own race nearby, this is more important than a bronze landmark when deciding what to do with your first 45 Influence.

To pay the bills you're going to need a colony which only produces energy. Also the loot and quest rewards might look tempting, but most of the time you should sell them directly. Only exceptions are gamechangers like the Jetpack.

Don't waste Cosmite on mods for your starting units, as long as you need to pay for Colonizers. NPC Factions will also randomly ask for Cosmite.

And don't fall into the trap of going forth and back with quests for NPC Factions.
If they give you a kill quest, first close the pop-up and check where it is and if you can easily do it without getting too distracted. Most of the time the quests are actually a setback in your expansion, where you lose many turns going back and forth where you should have cleared sectors for new colonies.

[snuggleform]

See my main issue is I just don't ever have enough resources to put em up against the AI before they've already managed to murk an expansion and immediately follow up with attacking my city on the same turn, I have no time to respond and never have the resources to mount a good defense anyway

You didn't read my post or try it at all. I told you exactly how the AI decide to declare war on you. The scenario you described is 100% avoidable. I never said you have to build a good army. In fact, you don't have to build a single army unit with my explanation. It's all about managing casus belli and maintaining covert operations defense. I've beat many hard Ais without building literally a single army unit for the first 80 turns.

I gave you a goldmine of information, try to use it please.

[Creegull]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

See my main issue is I just don't ever have enough resources to put em up against the AI before they've already managed to murk an expansion and immediately follow up with attacking my city on the same turn, I have no time to respond and never have the resources to mount a good defense anyway

You didn't read my post or try it at all. I told you exactly how the AI decide to declare war on you. The scenario you described is 100% avoidable. I never said you have to build a good army. In fact, you don't have to build a single army unit with my explanation. It's all about managing casus belli and maintaining covert operations defense. I've beat many hard Ais without building literally a single army unit for the first 80 turns.

I gave you a goldmine of information, try to use it please.

Don't comment at all if you can't read and are a condescending ♥♥♥♥. My issue is how I can't match the AI's doomstacks early on, I don't want to play a game avoiding combat entirely.

[Creegull]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Try playing on Easy, and figure out how to explore and expand.

Rule of thumb, by turn 20 you should have at least three colonies, and three armies. When your second Hero shows up around turn 20 and you don't have his army ready, you are already lagging behind.

There usually is one neutral settlement of your own race nearby, this is more important than a bronze landmark when deciding what to do with your first 45 Influence.

To pay the bills you're going to need a colony which only produces energy. Also the loot and quest rewards might look tempting, but most of the time you should sell them directly. Only exceptions are gamechangers like the Jetpack.

Don't waste Cosmite on mods for your starting units, as long as you need to pay for Colonizers. NPC Factions will also randomly ask for Cosmite.

And don't fall into the trap of going forth and back with quests for NPC Factions.
If they give you a kill quest, first close the pop-up and check where it is and if you can easily do it without getting too distracted. Most of the time the quests are actually a setback in your expansion, where you lose many turns going back and forth where you should have cleared sectors for new colonies.

Thanks this clears it up, I was clearly lagging well behind by turn 20 in my games, and focussed way too much on the neutral quests.

[snuggleform]

You never ever said you wanted to try to match their doomstacks, you merely asked if there's something you're missing because the AI delcares war on you when you're not ready. I gave you amazing advice and you spit on it. I'm going to go ahead and delete what I wrote because it's pearls before swine.

[Creegull]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

You never ever said you wanted to try to match their doomstacks, you merely asked if there's something you're missing because the AI delcares war on you when you're not ready. I gave you amazing advice and you spit on it. I'm going to go ahead and delete what I wrote because it's pearls before swine.

You gave advice, and then when I reiterated what my issue was you decided to be extremely condescending. Don't be a ♥♥♥♥ and maybe I wouldn't spit on your advice.

[sandman25dcsss]

Well, if you want to have armies to fight AI, you should build armies. Put your colonists into production slots, build armies, then put colonists into energy slots to support the armies.
I don't build many colonies, just 3-4, after that it is more efficient to get some colonies from AI. I disable all victory conditions though so lacking in science is completely ok in such games.

[BBB]

I am going to make some assum ptions.

If they are incorrect or offensive, apologies in advance, and please correct me.

1. Your 4x background means Civ or similar, in other words very city based, and very slow compared to AoW.

2. You are trying to get every upgrade in every city

3. You are acquiring cities at a slow rate (I have my 2nd city by turn 6 or 7, usually a settlement I buy with influence, very rarely a coloniser. I don't much care for the coloniser race, so I tend to build very very few of these in my games)

4. You are being too passive, waiting for things to happen.

Suggestions:

Every single turn, be in at least one fight, especially at the start of the game. Fight can be as simple as clearing an energy node or similar.

Bear in mind the concept of incremental, cumulative advantages. For example, if you are playing Assembly, get the doctrine that lets you research from combat up and running as soon as possible. Then fight as much as possible, that extra research shaves a turn or 2 of each research project, that's an incremental advantage, that you can then snowball.

Use your militia. Build it up.

Related to that last, do not be afraid if the AI captures a city. They will ALWAYS try and absorb it, meaning you have several turns to recapture it. Plus they will ALWAYS send an invasion force that is only slightly stronger than the known defences of said city.

So, a tactic that works quite well is to have a mobile reaction force nearby, say 2 turns away, and LET the AI capture the city, but fight the fight manually and kill as much as possible. You can usually get 2 or 3 units.

Then swoop in and recapture it. Done right, this is borderline cheese.


Prescription:


Set the game settings to very dangerous/high marauders, and practice building your militia up quickly, and having a mobile force. This setting means the independents will constantly attack you, so you will learn how to fight them off.

[BBB]

BTW, I disagree with the advice to save your cosmite for colonisers.


I always get a mod heavy strong stack, and a secondary stack, and then I take cities from the AI.

[cadfan17]

There’s a lot going on in Planetfall so it’s hard to answer without knowing how you play.

I have mid level skill.

I generally open by identifying the nearest landmark with a minor faction on it, talking to them, and doing quests. The goal is to get about 80 influence, which should be enough to pay them to leave and to pay the nearest settlement of your race to join you. I also build a colonist unit around turn 10.

This can get you to three cities very quickly.

My capital usually gets two industrial, one food, and one energy. That’s enough to focus them so you grow faster, upgrade your city faster, and get production and energy discounts on core, skirmisher, and specialist units.

Other cities get a mix of energy and research, with a little variety over time.

By turn thirty you want at least three stacks of six units. It’s ok if they’re all core units and stuff you got from quests and minor factions.

Place the little vision beacon operations between you and your nearest hostile enemy. It will let you know what’s coming before it arrives, and get your troops in place when you get invaded. Try to fight defensively if you can. You get bonus militia units and favorable terrain.

Use attack ops if you can.

Ideally you should be at war with your nearest enemy by turn 30. Try to steamroll them. If you win one battle, try to push on to a city. If you rebuild, they rebuild. Make them do it with fewer cities. If you’re burned out and expect to get steamrolled when they counterattack, try to pay for a truce.

Compliment enemies you don’t want to fight. It doesn’t do much but it does something. Intentionally offend enemies you do want to fight.

If you’re worried about guarding two cities, put units between them then run to the city the AI approaches.

If you have enough units, respond to an AI invasion by counter invading. Defend with what you can and try to cut down their unguarded cities.

Cheap units are key. Amazon get so much done with just archers and that mobile cover plant guy, for example.

[easytarget]

If there was just one way to do this I wouldn't have bothered playing this or AOW3. Fortunately that's not the case.

[snuggleform]

The new strategic ops you get from landmarks/marauder sites are extremely helpful in jebaiting the AI; if you save up 3-4 of them then dump them the turn before the AI attacks your colony you can overcome a pretty big power differential and kick their butts.

[Cyber_Wizard]

Having same problems I get rekt by easy ai XD (on mission 2 for vanguard)