Thats a DL mission rite?

You just need to know 2 things to beat the Dreadlords – firstly, never garrison your planets! The reason for this is that the AI will not fleet its transports. Secondly as a result of having unfleeted transports, this then leaves them vunerable to a special kind of ship you will need to build- get a cargo hull and put just 1 cheap weapon on it, then add some sensors and heaps of engines. Use this fast ship to avoid dreadlord combat vessels while picking off all their transports. This strategy is made much easier with eyes of the universe wonder.

You are then free to take your time and research some respectable technology before even bothering to build any true combat vessels.

good luck

well you need to built dreadlord transport hunters fairly early on, you just have to avoid dreadlord warships but you do loose one on occasion thats normal. Then build real warships using tiny hulls only - make sure they are faster than Dreadlord ships so you can send them off to a distant safe corner of the map to fleet up. You will need some logistics technology to have reasonable sized fleets. The ships do not have to be powerful, so long as the dreadlords are not shielded against their weapon type, they will be suprisingly effective.

Simple - Don't use lasers! Missiles are much more powerful and Mass Drivers are more compact. Since your cargo-fighters are preventing the Dread Lords from invading you, you won't be troubled by the Missiles' or Mass Drivers' high research costs.

Forget that defense nonsense - don't even care to research Starship Defenses, they won't help you. Focus on economy and research, building up your treasury and technological level. When you have enough tech to build fleets that you think can kill a Dread Lord Frigate in one shot, flip over to an industrial regime and begin building these things. Then beat back the Dreads and do whatever your objective was, if your allies haven't done it already. Try to get Eyes of the Universe - it will save space on your ships and will provide you with a fool-proof early-warning and space-reconnaissance system.

Of course, I wish I can open that box and play this campaign... I actually have never played GC2 at all. This post comes from whatever I've come to know during my rather... intense excitement-induced preparation.

Thanks for all of the tips!

So it seems like as long as I can keep my plantets safe, there is no disadvantage to taking a while to research higher weapons and such. Sadly, in the mission I'm doing I can only research beam weapons. I guess I'll just have to get really high level ones.

My last questions are these:

1. What is a good infracture for my planets, and when should I upgrade the builings on them?

2. How do I go about making credits if the Dreadlords constantly destroy my trade routes?

Thanks SO much all! You've been most helpful!

that above strategy of going crazy with markets everywhare has served me well right up to my current difficulty level of 'insane' or is it 'obscene'? the one before suicidal anyway. Currently i am playing a random map on gigantic and the Drengin just surrended to me. I am getting over 5000bc each turn! I am ready to face suicidal with that market madness strategy with my next game.

too excel in the galciv universe you just need to know 1 word.... 'money'

I used all of your great strategies and everything worked out really well. I eventually gave up though because they ended up conquering planets too close to mine and could reach my planets with transports in one turn. I could also only knock their ships down to 1 HP. Once their ships had 1HP they could not be destroyed for some reason.

Oh well, thanks so much to you all! 

As for reaching your planets in 1 turn,,,, well usually they will not immediately garrison a planet, so you can always retake the planet if you have troop transports. Also that retaking of a planet will give you a free technology each time, not too shabby. Also you can probably trade that stolen technology with your allies by to get transports from them. meanwhile the big problem is that transports are troublesomly slow to get built, so in the end you still probably loose.

Not being able to destroy a dreadlord ship as you describe is a result of not using fleets. Get some logisticks technology and create some fleets!

Thats 1 more colony ship than what you will ever see in DL! But surly, you need to let them build their ships so you can have some fun??