The key is to mass large fleets of cheap ships with strong attack. Because of the way the battle system works (a ship can only target one enemy per round in combat), this lets you pummel them while only losing one ship per battle. Since you're going to have some attrition no matter what just because the Dreadlords are so powerful, don't waste money on massive ships or defenses.

It's worth noting that since the difficulty affects all AIs (not just the enemy), raising it can sometimes make it easier, since your AI allies will be able to put up a better fight.

Going by what I am seeing the higher the difficulty the harder the gameplay--What a concept

Getting my head handed to me on this section of the campaign. Tried it on various difficulities with the same results. Just find that I am exterminated sooner on the higher difficulites.

Strategy that seems to work the best so far is do a 2 colony ship rush to the top left corner star system where there is a class 9 and 10 system. I dont bother with the other star systems as they usually get nuked off by troop transports before you can get an established population for defence. Let the Allies take the hit on those planets. I make one planet economy other manufacturing with starbase. This is where I build my fleet (if I ever get a chance to get one started).

I find that of the 2 start planets the top one (outpost 21??) usually gets taken out by troop transports earlier in the game (by turn 30 or so). I have tried specializing in soldier but best tech I could get up to was 50 compared to the dreadlords 800 or so.. Usually lose in the order of 4000 pop for every troop transport so it dont take long for them to eat up my pop even by suplimenting with my troop transports from the other outpost to keep population up. Tried taking out thier transports with cheap tiny ships with nothing but a weapon and best engine but my loses were to high to sustain it for very long. I do see some merit with this so will continue to expore this line of defence. It works if transports are unescorted only.

I only spend cash on 1 factory on each world and the first 2 colony ships. Run about -100 to -160 bc each turn keeping aproval at 100% or so. I suppliment income by selling techs when I cant trade for new ones.

My problem is I cant seem to hold onto the initial 2 outpost planets for enough time to generate a fleet to take over the target planet. I am assuming that once you get the target planet the senario is won. Have tried just specializing in engines and life support to launch a strike force from far away from the target planet but it keeps getting nuked or by the time I can generate one the target planet is to well defended to get the transports through.

Be interested to hear how others are doing on this one. Having fun and learning lots from the forums in any case.

The "one ship per round of combat" doesn't seem to be the case... I had three fleets, admittedly they were but two ships per fleet, when I attacked a single dreadlord ship. Fist fleet of mine- both ships destroyed, no damage to the DL ship. Second fleet to attack- both ships destroyed, no damage to DL ship. Third fleet attacks (these are all in the same turn)- both ships destroyed, minor damage to the lone DL ship.

In this case you're seeing the entire battle, not one round. Obviously, if your ships are unable to deal any damage at all, they'll all be destroyed by the end of the battle no matter how many there are. However, within a single battle, it would be resolved as so (Each round is a volley and counter-volley):

Round 1:
Your ship #1 attacks DL ship.
Your ship #2 attacks DL ship.
DL ship obliterates your ship #1.

Round 2:
Your ship #2 attacks DL ship.
DL ship obliterates your ship #2.

You can see it play out like that if you watch the full fleet battles with the combat viewer. If you could have massed all your ships into one fleet, they would have stood a much better chance, since you would get six shots per round to the DL ship's one shot per round. In taking the DL ship on piecemeal, you only effectively had a 2:1 shot ratio at best rather than a 6:1 ratio. The importance of large fleets against the Dreadlords cannot be understated--if you try to take them on singly or with small fleets, you *will* lose.