I played a few games recently, still 3.14, but this is about fleet movements only.
I noticed quite a few times that the enemy's entire fleet comes in my direction, but one jump before my starbase—where I gathered everything I could—they split and only send in half of their strength.
In more than one game I would have lost if they hadn't done that. Fanatic Purifiers are abundant and quite successful in this version (much stronger than I remembered). Anyway, while I'm glad they did it, it feels cheap... at least when I bait them to my defense platforms by hiding my fleets on jump points, I'm doing something, but in this case they are just giving me victory.
On another topic, doomstacking in games like this—full of choke points and noodle-like system chains—is just too strong a tactic without any alternative...
A few more "observations":
-In all my games, Fanatic Purifiers are eating their neighbors with ease. My survival usually depends on whether I get disruptors before I have to face them. Disruptor corvettes destroy two-times-stronger AI fleets without heavy losses.
-It seems these FPs leave their captured planets at 2 unproductive pops. Could this hinder them by increasing empire size drastically?
-In one game, an FP conquered half of the galaxy by 2300 and was already declared a crisis. The Galactic Community, with my contribution, defeated this crisis—even a Fallen Empire was attacking them. The problem was that I got tons of systems and planets, which increased my empire size drastically, and I had no chance of create vassal or something because peace was not an option. Finishing this war would have taken just too long, so eventually I just restarted. (Couldn't get rid of the planets during war, except depopulating, but that's 200 influence, so limited usage.)
Anyway, did you noticed the ai doing something like this with its doomstack?
I noticed quite a few times that the enemy's entire fleet comes in my direction, but one jump before my starbase—where I gathered everything I could—they split and only send in half of their strength.
In more than one game I would have lost if they hadn't done that. Fanatic Purifiers are abundant and quite successful in this version (much stronger than I remembered). Anyway, while I'm glad they did it, it feels cheap... at least when I bait them to my defense platforms by hiding my fleets on jump points, I'm doing something, but in this case they are just giving me victory.
On another topic, doomstacking in games like this—full of choke points and noodle-like system chains—is just too strong a tactic without any alternative...
A few more "observations":
-In all my games, Fanatic Purifiers are eating their neighbors with ease. My survival usually depends on whether I get disruptors before I have to face them. Disruptor corvettes destroy two-times-stronger AI fleets without heavy losses.
-It seems these FPs leave their captured planets at 2 unproductive pops. Could this hinder them by increasing empire size drastically?
-In one game, an FP conquered half of the galaxy by 2300 and was already declared a crisis. The Galactic Community, with my contribution, defeated this crisis—even a Fallen Empire was attacking them. The problem was that I got tons of systems and planets, which increased my empire size drastically, and I had no chance of create vassal or something because peace was not an option. Finishing this war would have taken just too long, so eventually I just restarted. (Couldn't get rid of the planets during war, except depopulating, but that's 200 influence, so limited usage.)
Anyway, did you noticed the ai doing something like this with its doomstack?
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