How do you guys deal with a superpower?

I would try to ally, then try to culture flip them.

Wow that sounds like extreme cheese. Frankly if your able to do that without them declaring war then the game is broken and Stardock need to fix it.

You know, I'm getting tired of people calling every solution other than a military one "cheese". Honestly its a good tactic. Diplomatic and culture wins can be just as tough as military ones.

But if you are dead set against anything but a military victory, then I suggest you launch a sneak attack deep in the heart of their territory. Hit their major production worlds, and even their home planet. Hopefully you can snag some advanced tech and be able to create some custom anti-Korath ships. Just be sure you have a good strong economy to support a prolonged war effort.

uh? i do this in just about every game to atleast 1 AI. how is it broken? they won't declare war on their ally because they don't want --diplomacy with everyone. that might even draw currently hostile civs into war with them. you wouldn't want to be at war with more than 1 civ at a time would you, and with no ally? plus you are their ally, they like you and you are more than just a friend. well, atleast that's what you make them think with your superior diplomacy. i use a combination of all 4 ways to win. it's not cheese, it's smart. i always ally with drengin or korath cause they're too strong, by whatever means necessary.

Hi!

Why cheese? If you can't beat them, join them.

BR, Iztok

If you can take out a superior empire (an empire that has larger military and more planets) using cultral starbases to flip over pretty much all there empire then thats just abusing poor AI and is cheese imo.

From the Notes of 1.5x frogboy has tried to make the AI notice cultral aggression more. The korath AI should certainly declare war on wargazmo if he tries a culture starbase planet flip strategy considering he has less planets and smaller military imo. If it doesn't then frogboy has a lot more work to do on this imo.

I think cultural starbase aggression should cause a declaration of war in most circumstances it's currently extremely powerful and wreeks so much of abuse I personally try not to use them.

Hi!

Before that happens be prepared to become a vulture: wait with lots of troop transports at the edge of the front and when enough victim's planets lose defenders, you land your transports and claim planets for yourself. You even don't need your own military, as the attacker will take care for victim's warships. That's not a honorable tactic, but c'est la guerre.

BR, Iztok

Frankly, cultural flipping/victory and such is not cheese. That's like saying the United States is gonna declare war on Germany because Americans like Mercedes Benz cars. Or having England declare war on the United States because british kids eat mcdonalds and shop at aeropostale.

Come on man, snap out of it.

Same goes with music, food, furniture, any consumer goods and/or products from another culture. It's a matter of citizens liking a product or service another culture offers. It is not cheese. You need to think of it in these terms.

The sneak attack option will only work though if you don't have neutral ground enforced, because if it is, all your ships get put on the border, very annoying.

On a side note, how do you get another group to attack someone? Everytime I go to war, I want to ask other civs to join in. I go to the diplomacty screen, choose attack, but no one's ever in there, even if the two civs in question hate each other. Am I missing something?

Something that works for me is to make quality ships that are specifically tailored to beat the types of weapons and defense they're using. Make sure you have good logistics and miniaturization techs, they're every bit as important as weapons/defense.

If possible, trade to get ahead of them weapons/defense wise, making sure that a single one of your ships can hopefully have a 2:1 advantage to theirs in terms of statistics. If you have a small amount of space to defend, it should be relatively easy to make those few ships count for a lot, but make sure you're always producing more.

Once war is declared, let them throw everything they have at you, until they just run out of ships. Yeah, this will probably take a long time, but it's hard to lose using this strategy, I've beaten much larger civs with a relatively small amount of ships because each one of mine was killing three or so of theirs before it went down. If they're so far ahead technologically that this won't work, I don't see any way you can salvage a military victory out of it. I wouldn't feel bad personally though, most of my victories are diplomatic; usually I end up with one civ that parallels me in power and controls a lot of space, and war with them just wouldn't be worth it.

Another thing I've found helps is to remove damaged ships from fleets and relegate them to planet defense. They repair quicker, and they help make sure they don't slip a transport in. If YOU have the population to spare it may be worth it to sneak invade their highest production worlds and then destroy the colony, because if it's deep in their space, they'll almost always take it back. Better to get rid of all the improvements to make sure they can't use it again immediately.

Cheese tastes good... hmm wrong cheese?

If absolutely no one is absolutely ever in there, then something's wrong. I don't think civs with whom the particular AI has good relations will show up, and possibly military ratings are also involved. But there's usually at least one who shows up for at least one AI most of the time for me.

Are you playing suicidal? Just asking because I haven't played that yet and I don't know if that would have anything to do with it.

Yeah, you might have dug yourself a hole actually. By getting other civs to fight the "superpower" and giving it the chance to expand its territory you have made your position worse. What you need to do is fight their population, not their army. There are several ways to do this (cheesy or not):
- Gain more territory yourself so you can out produce them. By gaining more territory, you will gain more population. One of the best ways Iztok just described. The AI is slow and inconsistent about taking worlds (the Korath, are sadly the exception - because the AI is released from the burden of worrying about population management, and can just kick out spore ships) - and if you have a few dozen extra transports sitting arounds, just take every world they clear. You know the civ you are taking the worlds from can't fight you, their military is devastated by the Korath. Timing is the key to this strategy, you might only have a window of a turn or two to strike each world.
- Use spies on all of their farm buildings. This works better than you might think, if you can manage the money for a decent number of spies. The AI doesn't build a lot of farms, and the Korath in particular have lots of worlds (high maintenance costs) and small populations (so small taxes). Keep them struggling to produce troops and taxes by forcing all their worlds down to a 6b pop cap.
- Culture flip the Korath, make their populations come to you. It is SAFER to do this if you ally with them first, but not necessary (and maybe not possible depending on your alignement and diplomacy skill).

They key is you want worlds and people - military might can come later. If they have 60-70% of the galactic resources (that is planetary tiles, not minable resources) then you have probably lost, although there is still a sliver of hope. If they have less than that, there is still time for you to use some method or other to pick up as much territory as they'e got and compete.

No, look at the American colonies in the revolutionary war. Much less powerful, much better economy. You could make the case that we "flipped" England.

If you can't beat the superpower, beat everyone else! Don't fight the big boy, fight the runts. Then rebuild their worlds, straighten out your economy, and you will probably be in a position to make your move. But it takes a while...

Go go 50 moves/turn transports!

Seriously, cheesey as hell, quicker than culturebombing. Got screwed over a few times myself, and leapt from 4th to 1st in economy and social in one turn thanks to some well placed attacks. They then gave me their two biggest planets in exchange for peace, and my military started skyrocketing.

Also if you want open war, try moving your fleets around with allies fleets for backup. If you can't take them on yourself, pounce when they're weakened by someone else.

Also, high defence dreadnaughts are a risky option. They can ruin your economy but single-handedly take on battleship fleets if you've maxed out the defence tech.

Strange, I always found 1 superpower to be easier. I just attack them. Where I always have the hard time is when you have multiple superpowers, and if you go to war with 1 that wears you down and the others jump ahead.

Bunker down with military starbases. Do that right and they pretty much carn't touch you untill your ready to come out fighting.

Once a superpower reaches it's military tech limit, you can only get stronger while they get nowhare!

Can you even flip an ally? That doesn't seem to make sense.

Tell that to the Von Trap family!!

Yes, you can, and yes, it's a pretty obvious exploit. It's a no risk tactic and a free win, and I'd really like to see the AI react with great hostility towards it. Culture flipping a planet arguably ought to cause an alliance break. You don't stay allied to a power that's financing insurrection and revolution in your territory, after all.

hehehe tell that to the von trap family too!!

What I don't understand is how you're supposed to get a race that's twice as powerful as you to agree to an alliance. I mean you have to get relations to close, but even with much of the diplomacy tree reserached I still get neutral at best from a civ that powerful.

Hi!

You have to check what they think of your race. You can find that in the diplomacy window under the third tab. IMO the main obstacle is the "-- your military strenght", that cancels out the "++ your diplomacy skill".

BR, Iztok

You can?? hehehe yea um, i just thought that was funny, sorry.

Oh well, i guess it does give accurate diplomacy guidance 'occasionally'.

I find culture flipping not done as well as it should. For starters, it's easy. Research two quite cheap trees that have their own bonuses outside the culture goal, and then start building conships to build influence starbases. Secondly, I hate it when it happens by accident. There should definitely be some kind of slider for influence, because right now, you're culture flipping while building up your military/heading for tech victory/whatever with no downsides.
And as for alliance breaks for culture flips, bad idea, because culture flips happen by accident. Alot.