To anyone who want to beat DL with ease:
setup a new game(not campaign!) and select the senario 'DreadLord on parade'.
At simple level, you can defeat DL before it can finish any ship or factory!

The campaign may have built-in cheats that make DL super-poweful...

(This is version 1.2)

Did mission 4 on my 2nd attempt (Normal difficulty lvl, I am not good enough to push it up )

Mistake I mind on my 1st attempt: took too much time to build me up, researching unuseful stuff instead of concentrating on logistic and weapons. I spent time growing my colonies and had very weak ships to defend... and also, tried to put some defense on my ships -> this is not useful at all as the DL still blow you up

On the 2nd attempt, I traded technologies with my allies to make them stronger, I focused on weapon and logistic, and finished them with fleets of upgraded Battle Axe ships

Now I am on to the next mission - Apocalypse I think. 1st attempt, same mistake: focused too much on my colonies. Then the DL sent all ships, a swarm overflowing our sectors. Did not have time to give it a 2nd try.
But next time, I will build up the military quickly, colonize 1 or 2 planets less and attack them before they get too strong.
It looks like the DL needs a lot of time to become really strong, you have to rush them more or less.

Don't research ship hulls against dread lords, just logistics. Then make big fleats (10 or more) of tiny ships armed like hell (6 to 10 attack, lol) so dread lord take out one of cheap worthless tiny ships, but tiny ships take him out in first turn also...

Newbie to Newbie... some of your advice is to advanced but suggests cool things I’m going to try.

I stayed with the simple strategy as outlined in the strategy guide here and add bum rush colony building. I made simple balanced colonies focused on production or research.

About the time DL start attacking the star bases is you clue to focus attacks on the other two plants. Design a simple cheap fighter (remember a plant defender doesn’t need engines or life support), DL will waste time destroying them, and they protect from transports. Expect to lose a plant or two.

Those 3 plants around the one star where key in my transport building. DL will follow ships so make sure you sacrifice some to lead them away. DL like to chase constructor or attack star bases.


I slipped up the bottom of the screen built a Military Star base to assist in taking the first plant.

Then the tricky part I hung back on the left side of the screen with 2 attack fleets and 3 transport fleets (I hope you upgraded the transports with faster engines!)

Took me a couple of tries but finally won the plant. By this time I had lost about 3 or 4 plants to the DL.

But who cares I won the mission. There is a hint to this in the opening mission comments.

Right now I’m working #5 and came here looking for some clues. I have a few ideas to try so thanks. Also I didn’t do this in 4 but recommend you give all your tech to your allies so they can better assist you.

In my game, the DL ships have 180 beam attack and 80 Mass Driver attack, They captured my planets with just 8 troops. How am I supposed to beat them?

Is this normal?

Yes.

Build farms on your planets and keep morale high so you can absorb the losses from their invasions without losing your planets. Other than that, research like mad until you can fight them directly. If you can deal enough damage to take them out (even if they take your ships out as well, which they generally will), then that may be good enough to cover your transports until they can invade the DLs.

Let your allies take all the punishment. Don't expand. Concentrate all your infrastructure on research, a few defenders to handle DL transports, and do not build starbases. They are DL magnets. Your goal here is to be the research center for your allies. As soon as you get a new tech, sell or trade it to all allies. Make sure they stay at the same tech level as you, and they will do 99% of the work. I easily won this way on Tough.

heres the simplest and easiest way to beat them...

on 'normal' level the dreadlords do not escort their transports. This is basically all you need to know to win!

Built a few cargo hulled ships with minimul weapons, good speed and sensors. Use your speed advantage to scoot around the dreadlord ships and kill all their transports.

Meanwhile do not build any other ships or starbases, don't leave anything for the dreadlords to kill.

take your time, research right thru to doomray befor bothering to challenge the dreadlords.

as long as you do a good job with your cargo hull ships killing all their transports, you will have all the time you want.