Well, thank God, got it done.
I stuck with the game , in which I used the Syndicates on the 32x32 map. I was concerned about being overwhelmed, as in civilization the units are similar and it is easy to be swarmed if you don't have a handy ocean to block the human waves. Evidently the alien units are not similar to ours -- to use a starcraft analogy, they are the zerg and we are the protoss. They will swarm and take over most of the map in most scenarios, but they can still be defeated with tactics, a strong economy, and a good research strategy.
Since the game state as I pointed out, I carefully moved out in my first wave of colonization and tackled my backfield. Strangely, the aliens stopped colonizing when they had about a 2-1 advantage and only colonized a new planet when I also colonized one. So by the mid point of the game I had 10 planets while they had 18 -- unpleasant, but nowhere near as bad as it could have been.
I researched fighters 3 and after that concentrated on the economy, eventually getting my income up to 1.6K per turn and 80,000. I held the bottom left corner of the map, the aliens held most of the rest, but not the bottom right hand corner for whatever reason.
Their first attack consisted of 2 world killers and the usual assortment of cheap ships. When I destroyed the two world killers they promptly turned and left. End of first wave.
The second wave was much harder. They through an overwhelming force across multiple axes including 4 world killers. I lost a lot of ships , but my reinforcements were build just in time as the enemy was driven off.
Around 6.0AE, I went on the offensive, pushing directly to the bottom right of the map. I found that the stars on this map came in pairs, and usually they came with one star of 10+ quality and one star of 4. Both colonized by the aliens of course, I destroyed the one and captured the other as a refueling base. I didn't bother with a dead zone, nor did I bother with defense upgrades -- a wall of fighters served both purposes. Three times I was forced to evacuate some populations from worlds when the world killers came, but I was able to drive them off before inflicting serious damage.
The game was easy as I pushed to the lower right side of the map and destroyed the lone colony the aliens had just planted in that corner. When I started, the numbers were 10 for me and 18 for them. Now the numbers were 12 for me and 16 for them. At this point, the asteroid field broke up the map into three separate channels, and the aliens attacked down each channel rather than concentrating on one. Since it was far less than the massive numbers of the second offensive, I enjoyed a bit of a breather.
Pushed up the map in a counter clockwise fashion, resting my landing ships, escorted by fighters and carriers, after every capture at the previous star. Colonized as much as possible. The numbers continued to shrink. Because the stars were so close together, the aliens lost planets in pairs. I returned to the starship research tree, fearing that research advantage I had discussed earlier. I chose to research the fighter advanced weapons branch off of about starship construction 7, as well as the early reactor branch and, of course, fleet ops.
By the way, invasion is VERY nice is 1.3.2. I think the Trese brothers have hit just the right amount of fun.
The alien count went from 16, to 14, to 12. I captured the capital in the upper right corner and the aliens went berserk. I'm beginning to find that 'reduced xeno activity' is little comfort -- it means that, rather than throwing their ships at you as quickly as they can build them, they're collecting them for a massive hammer blow! There was a terrible battle around blue stars in the center of the map nearly as bad as the second wave, but by this time I had 15 planets and they had 10, so the weight of numbers told.
Things began to get rough again as I took the center cluster of blue stars and pushed into the upper left corner of the map which the aliens held. They had only 10 planets at this point, but they were close together while my own troops were at the end of lengthy supply lines. Carriers helped, but I was hard pressed to create a foothold in their territory large enough to keep as many of the 32-odd ships I had brought in green as much as possible.
Nonetheless, the numbers continued down. 6.
At this point the aliens discovered ships rated 4, and my early vehicles were outclassed. Fortunately I had already begun deploying newer ships armed with long guns as early as the Great Center Battle, and so was prepared for them. My greatest trouble, in addition to the difficulty of hitting the enemy, was keeping my ships repaired and fueled this deep into enemy territory.
I nonetheless pushed through. 4 planets to go.
At this point I noticed that the aliens held four planets in two groups of two stars each, which were right adjacent to each other. While this made invasion more difficult, as only 7 transports can be brought to bear at once, it also meant each planet could be surrounded with 7 ships. My ships were damaged and low on fuel and it was a long way back to base, but I realized I had more than 30 ships in total. 7x4=28...
Acting quickly, I threw the bulk of my ships at the alien worlds and quickly surrounded three of them completely. The last one had one square free so I rushed up anything that could fly to block that square. The aliens launched two missile ships, but due to the close nature of the planets this meant one alien immediately confronted 14 human ships. As difficult as they were to hit, 14-1 odds still worked well.
Then the reinforcements showed up. I plugged the whole, then swapped a refueling carrier out of the line for a fighter, which then filled up on water and tended to all the ships that were out of water fuel.
The rest was an exercise. Take 8 transports, fuel them up, move the blockade out of the way and immediately surround them with the transports. Invade the planet, and if necessary reinstitute the blockade if the transports can't do the job, but they did. Last xeno world obliterated 9.30AE, victory screen shown.
Thank you all for all your help! And thanks to Cory and Fallen for a great game!
Respectfully,
Brian P.
