Let’s get straight to the point, the Compound is way too powerful. Now, I currently play on Grand Admiral and x25 Crisis power, but I use ACOT, so that I can beat the empowered crises without having to spam repeatable for decades. On x25, the Compound is damn near unstoppable. Only by upgrading to Stellarite tech from ACOT actually gave me an edge. “But did you get the Stellar Annihilator?” Yes, I got that long before I actually got Stellarite tech. With Alpha tech from ACOT, I could maybe contest them with ten fleets of battleships... if they had like two or three fleets. Basically, I HAD to get Stellarite to actually have a chance of beating the Compound. This basically makes ACOT all but a soft requirement, as not doing so will mean the Compound will stomp the galaxy flat.

Even with Stellarite, I still barely inflict casualties. Yes, I can win with minimal casualties, provided I stay at range, but, for the most part, most of their ships escape alive. Note, escape, not dead. The thing I’ve noticed about the vanilla crisises is that they basically have No Retreat, meaning that every ship in the system will die and not run away if crippled. The Compound must be running Hit and Run as their war doctrine because they keep escaping, preventing me from inflcting meaningful losses. No joke, I’ve done millions of hull points worth of damage to them. And yet I barely get any kills. How much health do they have? Surely the number is astronomical if there somehow are significant numbers of survivors from that high a damage. Their tendency to flee has the unfortunate side effect of getting to the Compound’s home system a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nightmare. Oh, you killed ten percent of their hundreds of ships? They run away and reappear at the Compound’s home system at full strength, making your battered fleets unable to finish them off. No joke, I beat a bunch of their fleets as it entered their system adjacent their home system, and literally an in game week later, they reappeared at full strength.

Now, how would we balance this? For starters, prevent the Compound from being able to disengage from combat. Aren’t they the “uLtImAtE LiFe FoRm?” If they were, they wouldn’t run away like a little ♥♥♥♥♥ and instead would try to prove their superiority by battling to the death. That way you can actually fight a decisive battle that meaningfully affects the rest of the war with the Compound. Reducing their health in all categories would also make it easier to beat.