Dear

Hello 

Tip: This has happen to me, I build a star base they go out of there way to come to destroy it where ever it is. So with that in mind build up my forces.  I didn't attack becuase they would just be wipe out.  My M rank 50  to thier M rank 250, I thought I was going to loose big time. This how I won I played mouse and cat not hit and run. I only lost  4 planets in the game becuase he too interested destroying my Military star bases all over the immense sized galaxy . I built a base to lure them off from where my forces were and then on the other side of immense sized galaxy I built another star base. While I was doing this I researched missile weopons and missile defence and huge which is my Battleships. Then I made a no engine battlship called BB-Moon-Jp 60% Offence and 40% Defence. Damage was over 400 and defence was 120. And then slowly took over, I mean really slow as a snail on a football field. I forgot to tell you, at the begining of the game a mega event made all ships move at 5 pc/wk even with stellar engines.  It took 20 years to win but I did it.  I hope this helped a little.

Order of the Bloody Rose of Orders Militant of Adepta Sororitas

Saint Mina of Opelia VII

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“We are at war with forces too terrible to comprehend. We cannot afford mercy for any of its victims too weak to take the correct course. Mercy destroys us; it weakens us and saps our resolve. Put aside all such thought. They are not worthy of Inquisitors in the service of Our Emperor. Praise his name for in our resolve we only reflect his purpose of will.”

Inquisitor Enoch,

Castigations on the Last Days

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I take on vastly superior enemies on Suicidal all the time.  It's probably the most satisfying part of the game for me.  There are so many tricks you can do vs. a dumb AI, he has to runaway quite a bit ahead for you to lose.  There's espionage (you really need to get Medium on him), guerrilla warfare (as in fast, low-attack ships that raid his traders, asteroids, undefended starbases, transports, etc.), luring his fleets off-course, the "let him take your crap planets then retake them" trick from the Dread Lords campaign, letting him build all the ships he wants and choke on the maintenance, and military starbases.   IMO, the latter is mandatory.  Dollar-for-dollar, I can take out fleets costing many times more than what I lose using military SB's. 

Sometimes he's so strong, you can't even take out his orbiters.   No big deal:  just build constructors, make them part of your invasion fleets.  Build a miltary SB over there, use the assist to attack the orbiters.  Invade.  Tech-steal something good, use your shiny new SB to defend against counterattack.

So to take on a vastly superior enemy, I say just attack him.  If you're lucky, you may be able to bribe him into attacking some other races first...THEN you attack him.   Make him fight on three fronts.   I find it's pretty hard to bribe anybody to attack the strongest guy in the game, but you most certainly can bribe the strong guy to attack the weak ones.  Once I take out the strongest guy first, I know I've pretty much got the game won.

great replies everyone.  

Constructors - is it really a viable strat?  I would think building ships instead of the constructors would be more beneficial.  How often do you guys do this?  

Is this one of our important tools that I havent been using?

It's an important tool everyone is not using.   I think it's because most people just don't get in the position of fighting someone far ahead of them in the first place.  It's probably a combination of difficulty level, and probably a lot of diplomatic shake-and-bake.

The trick with constructors is, they ARE ships.  Think of those military assist modules as weapons.  You normally spend 25bc for 1 point of attack--only to get it blown up if the ship dies.  With a military SB, you're spending 95bc per constructor, times X constructors, it gets multiplied by every ship using it, and it does NOT die--the ships do.  If you get only +1 attack on a fleet of just 4 ships, you already come out ahead.  And if you're fighting a defensive battle, lots of ships getting thrown at you, you're going to get a lot more than that.  While he's losing his big 435bc Battle Cruisers, you're losing 85bc Tiny hulls.  The reason I say "constructors" and not "starbases" is, you can wait till the last minute to build the SB, so as to guarantee it will be used at least once.   Constructors move; SB's don't.  You can even move it into the stronger guy's territory, and use it to take out his orbiters. 

Oh!  That reminds me of another dumb AI exploit you can use:  take out his orbiters, over and over again.   If the Dread Lords were hovering their ships over your planets, what would you do?  Not build defenders, right?  Why complete it only to get it blown away the next turn?  Not so with the AI--he'll just crank away defender after defender.  While he's spinning his wheels building targets for you to shoot, you can pull even in research.  If he's so far ahead in research that even his defenders are too strong, put down a military SB there.  What's he going to do--send in fleets and counterattack?  That's precisely what you want.   I think the AI is rush-buying his defenders--it seems like every other turn he rebuilds one.  So if you can interdict just a few of his planets, you can put a drag on the dumb giant's entire economy.

There's a Telenanth "random" event, and there's a Telenanth "mega event".  The random event is something like a 1% racial bonus to each (most?) of their stats per turn; I don't remember what the mega one is (perhaps 5%?).  If it's the former and you ended it within 2 years, you probably wouldn't have noticed a major difference.  If it was the latter, they should have at least been pumping out more and stronger ships, perhaps making more money, but it doesn't really make them play any differently either way.

I had one game back in DA 1.7.something where the Torians got it and had their bonuses in the 700-800% range by the time I got around to conquering them, but as I had colonized around their worlds and basically locked them in, they weren't much of a threat.

This happened to me with the Yor recently in an immense galaxy. they own about 10-15 planets and they are holding there own in a war against the Thalans, who must own somewhere between 100-150 planets. Their research is the second strongest in the galaxy on average and their military is 3rd/4th. the event happened about 4 years ago and they easily have the smallest territory. the event has made what should be the weakest race into one of the most powerful!! they're my ally though so i don't have to worry about them

Another trick you can use is the fleet module aggro strat.

Normally if you put defense on a ship, the computer targets the ships in your fleet that have big weapons. However, fleet modules paint a big red bullzeye on your ship, so that even if it has a lot of defense, its normally attacked first.

Start researching a lot of defense techs, then build a big ship with just a few attack, a lot of defense, and a fleet module. Combine it with ships that are armed to the teeth with weapons. In combat, the terrans will waste their time attack your might armor, while your weapons tear them to pieces.

I kill much stronger opponents regularly with this. Its gotten so easy I just recommend a change to teh devs:)

        A more accurate rating would be based on the strongest 2 or 3 fleets.  When the computer has a fleet or a ship that I can't stop, then I am impressed.  At higher levels, you can't afford to have a decent defense on every planet.  Eyes of the Universe is very helpful here.  Watch out for very fast, armed transport fleets, particularly from the Terrans.  (in my last game, their transports were armed and had a speed of 14 - very hard to defend against)  Of course, ultimately, you want these kind of challenges.  It keeps the game fresh.