It seems that every game goes the same way for me. I expand, grab some nice planets and choke points before bumping up against on of my neighbours. I build up some defense fleets and start shooting down the inevitable harrasment parties that start showing up at my outposts. Once my hero and fleet have some exp and decent numbers, I decide to go on the attack. I send my main fleet to issolate a few enemy outposts from reinforment and send a token fleet to the invade one of the outposts. I set one planet to producing ships to reinforce my main line and another to creating seige ships, both of which I drip feed into the enemy systems. Every turn the enemy turns up with a half/full stack of ships which I shoot down, killing hundreds of enemy CP over the course of the engament while barly taking a scratch. The siege units just don't do their job however. I'll have three or four full stacks of seige attacking an outpost and getting an estimate of 50 turns until it falls. I keep on sending more siege to reduce the timer, but it only knocks a turn or two off from victory. Meanwhile my economy is buckling under the weight of ships I'm producing and I'm having to set most of my planets to dust production to keep up with the demand. My tech focus becomes militaristic to get the next tier of seige weaponry, which, when it finally arrives, shaves another few turns of the clock. Then the enemy starts to take the tech advantage. Those full stacks of destroyers with tier one beams and kenetics become bigger hulls with more dangerous weapons and I start to take caualties. A suprisingly powerful enemy fleet takes out my hero then they move on my seige lines. With T-minus ten until the outpost falls I desperatly try to fight the enemy off for a few more turns, but I'm throwing my ships at a brick wall. My fleets crumble, my siege fleets are destroyed and my home systems get invaded. Unlike their systems however, mine will only hold out a measly 10 turns if I'm lucky. It's at this point that I quit in frustration.



What am I doing wrong? I know that invasion gets much faster when you get troop mods for your ships, but they are a mid game upgrade. I'm usually ready for war much earlier than that. Clearly I'm doing something very wrong though.



So, how do you go about taking enemy systems in the early game?

I'd be curious to see what kind of modules your siege ships are packing, also about what you consider early game.



Considering their position on the tech tree, you should be able to very easily have lvl 2 weapon tech when you get your first invasion tech.

The pic above is of a game I've recently started but can see myself falling into the same trap.



It's turn 60 on slow speed.



I've teched to supermarkets and the CP cap unlock on the left tree. Siege 1 and beams 1 on the military. And I'm about to pick up Hexaferum on the right. I've got basically nothing unlocked in the expanision tree except tundra.



The plan was to get hexaferum then start upgrading to tier 2 wepons and siege to keep on top of the invasion effort.



The outpost I'm trying to capture has a defense rating of almost 4000. I have 4500 worth of siege attacking the planet and a gain of 1% control per turn. It's going to be another 96 turns before I capture the planet. I'm already starting to feel the upkeep costs however (-20 a turn), so my only real choice is to wait until I get the better siege tech. By the time I get the tech, build new ships, move them into the system, etc, I'll probably have that timer down to something like 30 turns - so lets say it's going to take me around 50 turns until that system falls under my control if all goes well.



50 turns fighting Cravers and not focusing on my science/economic growth properly? I can't see how this story will have a happy ending.

I have to admit I've never ever played in slow speed, so I can't speak from experience.



I think that playing the exact same galaxy with normal or fast speed would be a lot more beneficial against the AI, because depending on the difficulty level and their propensity to spam combat fleets, you will end up in a slogfest with an alarming regularity in slow speed, since your empire growth (colonizing intra-system, military build-up) will be relatively much faster than in normal/fast.

I carried on with my game, playing another 20 turns. I now have 13000 siege power on the craver outpost against its defense of 3500 and I'm still only making a gain of 1% control per turn. Am I misunderstanding a game mechanic here?

Took control of the system finally. Turn 109. That's 50 turns roughly to take the system. I'm halfway through each of the tech trees and the well into the mid game at this point. I actually unlocked troop modules for my seige craft before the system fell. I would have been batter off just letting the Cravers invade my systems and killing them while I waited for the troop tech to unlock. Would have had regen in my own territory, easier reinforcment and retrofiting, and saved myself thousands in upkeep to boot. Would have taken their system in a similar time frame as well. I'm sure I must be missing something here, because siege weaponry seems worthless without bombs/troops to back it up. There isn't any other option early game though. How are other people handling early invasion attempts?

I had a chat with Meedoc, and it seems that this behavior is normal.



For a start, let me reiterate: I'd really like to see the build screen for your first invasion ships because they seem to have really low invasion value.



Then, purely off an XML standpoint, in Slow speed, your max invasion control loss per turn is 5%, with at least 20 turns to capture a system. In Normal you'd have 10 minimum, 5 minimum in Fast. I'd suggest having stronger invasion fleets from the onset to try and invade systems.



Keep in mind, however, that you're winning the battle against the Cravers: after 100 turns, their systems should be mostly depleted, weakening them significantly (but also making them a lot less attractive to invade).



Hope this helps!

Thanks Frogsquadron



I guess those half moon icons signify locust activity. I was wondering about that.



My first build for siege craft was as many seige weapons as I could fit and nothing else. When I first launched my invasion I had 3x5 fighter craft and 1x5 seige. I never lost a single fighter over the entire war and built another 15 seige units to help with the invasion. They were a mix of about 50/50 siege 1 and 2 tech. I hit troop modules about 5 turns before the system fell. The next planet in line fell much quicker.



It just strikes me as odd that the addition of an extra 20000 seige power on the origional 5000 added so little that the ingame tool tips couldn't recognize the increase, which I assume was something like 1% to 1.5% per turn.



The game actually ended about 20 turns after that. I was in second place on the score board (out of six) with a score of 350. Cravers were third place with a score to 300. The Sowers who were in first place with a score of 1200 invaded me and just ripped through my fleets without a scratch and then started seiging my systems. They had lower seige values than me, but they were taking my systems in roughly 20 turns.

I'd be curious to see if you had a save game from, say, between turns 50 to 100?



Also give Normal/Fast a try and let me know if war progression speed is more to your liking.

It's a late post but if you're still having this issue, let me introduce you to the wonder world of: Hypermagnetics. Don't leave home without them... or rather... don't invade someone else's home without them. It's a relatively fast tech, and the extra % bonus that it gives is absolutely critical on your siege. You'll notice that a full siege ship will triple or quadruple it's siege output compared to the other ship designs. This gives you the ability to make the siege you need without breaking the bank on ships.



Side note, I also generally play on normal, as I find it the most fun... but I did stray into slow once... Hypermagnetics should solve your issue, but I'm a bigger fan of the normal progression. 8-10 turns is reasonable to take a system, about 20 is not. More than that is ridiculous. Against cravers use Troops to grab systems as fast as you can to avoid depletion.