The Iconians waited for the Yor to invade their homeworld. The Arceans expanded, but the Dread Lords took their planets. The Altarians grabbed a couple worlds and the Torians made their one world into a fortress.

I sold all but diplomatic techs to my allies. I remember when I played before (in Dread Lords) that my allies were pretty effective, so I turtled up and researched, and sold them everything...but they really sucked.

I didn't build any star bases. They sent a wave of transports to invade (armed, I might add - everyone had armed transports), of which I managed to kill all but two (they somehow destroyed one of my transport killers), and those two invaded one of my worlds and barely failed. After that, several warships followed freighters into my space, and even though I moved the killers away from them, they still "saw" them and started chasing, and filled my influence with warships and more transports.

At this point, the Torians and Arceans were on the verge of falling, and I couldn't use my transport killers to protect their worlds from transports anymore (Drengin, Yor, Dread Lords).

This was on challenging.

As I understand it, the basic strategy is to hold out until you can produce ships that can fight the Dread Lords, but this takes an extremely long time, and during that time you also have to deal with the Drengin and Yor expanding into your space. You can't afford to maintain a real navy because everything gets one-shotted, and you need big enough guns (and ships to carry them) to fight the Dread Lords.

I like the atlas idea, esp. with some hit point modules on the side.

Well the tank plan seems to be working.  I have a tank ship with 400+ shields that can handle being shot at by a fleet of DreadLords.

As for how the game is going, well the AI's are worthless.  They only colonized one world of any.  The Yor just about destoried the Iconians who only have one planet now up near DreadLord's space.  Who knows why they took a planet up there.  The DreadLords still only have their original 4 planets.  They have tried to take mine and they did take one once, but I took it back near the start of the mission.  Half my team is out of cash also, so I can't even sale them anything.

Recent events, the DreadLords sent fleets (no troop transports?) all over the map destoring everything.  The AI's didn't stand a chance, but I put up a fight.  Just by shear numbers I was only slowing losing ground instead of being ran over like the AI.  Basically I was fighting with all weapon tiny's and weapon/defence/engines hugh's.  The big boys were designed to take out the Yor and Drengin because I needed their planets to make money since my AI's were broke.  Plus the DreadLords had not shown their self recently and the last time they did it was single ship attacks that my massive fleet of tiny's could take with lots of losses of course.  Just before the DreadLords started the massive attack I had just started construction of my tank ship.  Maybe that is why they attacked.  My ships that lived through the first wave regrouped up near my homeworld and took on DreadLord fleet after DreadLord fleet.  They held for around 17 turns then my first tank lanched from it's starport.  One problem it was down near where the Iconians started.  Several turns letter it meets up with one of my big boys and it's tiny's.  That fleet has destoryed 4 DreadLord fleets with no losses so far.  The tank works, and more are being built!!!!!  I have also started designing a larger all attack ship since my other large ship was not designed for this task.  I also plan to design a fleet command ship with no guns that will carry the fleet modules to support the fleet.  I think I am on the road to victory.

By the way this game rocks.

im new and im also on this mission, but things look good in my game.

what i did was expand near my baseplanets and then build troopships asap to reclaim any world the dreadlords take over, i hid them on the edges of the map and behind planets.

Its essential that the Dl cant build up more planets, 4 is too much allready.

Also, research the soldier techs so you can make your planets withstand Dl invasions and trade them to everyone.

After that i focused in weaponresearch first before the strange dimishing retuns thing kicks in and makes it much harder to obtain the last tiers.

For the first fleets i recommend using tiny shiphulls. to beat a frigate you then just need to have more ships than it has guns (8), because HPs are low and they dont use defence.

The other hostiles didnt do anything until someone colonized the planets next to them, which kind of activated them in my game. But my teammembers, being unaffected by the DL yet, handled them alone.

After a while someone will buld a starbase and the cheating AI will instantly see it and all Dl ships except a few defenders will try to get it. by that time you need to go in with tiny ships fleets and clean 1-2 homeplanets of them and then get in troopers to take planets and erase everything on them, if you can you should use massrivers to reduce the tiles, otherwise flooding the planet works best to get the best odds.

This will stop their spam of ships and give you some time to breathe, which you will need because the ships moving to the starbase will run amok for some time.

after that you can decide to just take all their planets when they are gone or you can choose to research for a while and then build superior ships.

Oh and the espionage must have been changed because i never gained any tech.

And the all seeing eye thingy helps a great deal in this scenario to spot DL Troopships or attack ships that try to kill yours.

BTW, is the Ai always this dumb or is it just the scenario? The dreadlords are really borderline braindead with their shipmovement and my allies have literally hundreds of ships just sitting at their planets while the dreadlords give me a hard time holding the front. One of my allies has a massive fleet with some huge hulls and the first strike ability(i think) and could wipe out the DL in simple ship to ship combat, but it just doesnt do anything.

i even gave it planets near the DL so it would feel more treatened by them.

Edit: Sorry about the formating, this forum handles it a bit strange, i either have to write a wall or have those gaps everywhere.

Well I'm playing Apocalypse at Normal difficulty. This galaxy is now being over-run by DL Frigates. Yes they have 3-4 worlds. I'm barely allowed to build a small fleet but can't deal, ON MY OWN, with 20+ Frigates and 10+ Escorts. My allies similarly suffer.

Money in this game is and has ALWAYS been poorly designed. I have this under control in this game but come on, WTF? I have had to Sell tech and research the max in economic tech to get it under control. I have been virtually the sole provider of tech in this game and it's not enough. My max weapon tech I Graviton Driver I and Harpoon III. All other races have less, except for missile tech, for which I traded to acquire and offered in trade to everyone else.

I will be restarting... again, and choosing tech differently... again. But some practical advise would help.

Confirmed:

• My allies are useless
• Tech is no longer captured when taking a DL planet
• Stinkin' 1HP survivor rule...

How am I supposed to build and defend an economy while planning to conquer the DL?

WTH is up with the insane cost of Graviton Drivers? Is this a bug? I won't be using the Mass Driver tech again.

Spies??? Who can afford that? The game isn't designed to provide sufficient funds, period. Not gonna happen. Also no benefit in this scenario.

I understand that many techs are not useful in these scenarios. They were designed for non-campaign play. This also means that achieving a top weapon tech may not be desirable or necessary. So choosing the right tech path can make or break an empire and that seems to be what's happening in mine and others campaigns.

Exploit: I have had to reload countless times to either get a better battle outcome or get a better reward for the Asteroid anomalies.

Tip: (Same/Similar as others have suggested.) I scattered single fighters in a path that lone DL transports take to conquer my planets. Only works if they aren't discovered by an Escort or Frigate... Leaving an undefended colony can be used to lure them along this path.

Tip: (Haven't tried this.) Build a starbase at a great distance from your colonies. Lure the DL's far far away...

Tip: Choose the ability, Creativity. This can greatly improve your research capability.

Exploit: The Creativity ability seems to be tested when a game is loaded and at the beginning of each turn. Hint, hint, hint. Got an 80 turn tech you want right away? Reload. Hint, hint, hint. Want the next tech in the series? Quicksave when your current research is one turn away. Select Next Turn. If you didn't get a breakthrough, reload.

Tip: Each DL ship can see a great distance. Sometimes sacrificing a ship to lure them away from "hiding" or "staging" ships can help.

Spoiler: The DL start with 4 planets! Two are class 14 and two are class 13 (already terraformed).

Well, I'm up to June 2332, that would be 5 1/2 years game time! I've managed to keep my original team alive, recruit two new allies, the Krox and the Drath and eliminate the Yor and the Dregin. So now, the Dread Lords are the only enemy, and I don't have a good plan to eliminate five or six strong ships defending a planet! The DL took two additional planets from the computer civs before I had enough transport hunters.

Others have suggested that cargo hulls loaded with sensors and engines and minimum weapons could be used to pick off the DL transports. That has been a central theme of my game. At some point, I built the Eyes of the Universe and that gave every ship sensors that see 15 parsecs. That was a big help. I started with a ship with no engine moving 6 and now that's up to 9. It was huge when I research the warp engine and my slowest ships moved 7, one more than most DL ships.

A really weird tactic I've used throughout is 'walking the dog". Once a DL ship locks onto one of my transport hunters they almost never quit, at least if I don't get too far away, so I move back and forth along the right edge of the map, staying just out of reach while watching for transports. I've always been able to sprint away to kill the transports and then resume leading the DL warships. I think one of my transport hunters has a group of 50 DL warships following it around. Not a problem with 17 speed vs. 6. Actually it was pretty easy with speed 9 vs. 6.

I made an interesting use of the Fleet Bubble. I put one on a tiny, unarmed ship. The enemy never attacks it and Ican join one up with any minimum speed fleet for +3 speed! I sometimes use one to ferry a new ship across the map if it has a long way to go to get to the action.

At one point Ihad to save my allies from the Dregin and the Yor using similar transport hunting tactics. The Thalens and Iconians got beat back to one planet each before I could get things under control. I've been protecting the last Drath planet from the DL for some time.

Since my allies haven't been any help in battle, I cultivated them as technology partners. Any tech I get that helps research or economy is immediately passed along to all allies. I was stingy with ship techs, they just built ships and got them destroyed, usually while sitting in orbit. I routinely check to see what they are researching and if I have the tech, I sell or give them the tech. No use having them researching something I already have.

I wonder what would happen I I claimed all the military resources at once? With seven built out planets among my 18, it wouldn't take long to turn out 20 tiny constructors.

Not exactly a quick strike. I just hope I can win from here.

I've had the Fleet Warp Bubble every time I played the Terrans. It becomes available once you research New Propulsion Techniques. It's purple. There are three levels that add 1, 2 and 3 speed. It's a ship module, but you only need one per fleet.

In the past I've had "special" ships to carry items that affect all the ships in the fleet. Sometimes you can't put certain combinations of modules on one ship design. Ideally, I would have a command ship for each fleet and have the command ship equipped with the best sensors, a fleet warp bubble, a fleet defense module and the fleet offense module. I've tried putting some of those modules on a medium ship with little firepower and lots of defense. The AI always attacks that ship first, but apparently, not when it is unarmed.

I haven't seen the galactic privateer wonder. maybe I need to research Master Trade. I don't think any of my allies have it, I can view all their planets. I've read some comments that suggest the tech tree is randomized each time a scenario is initiated. I do have 7 trade routes but they avoid the DL territory. The DL doesn't leave the top center of the map much anymore. Maybe "walking the dog" accomplishes the same thing, keeping the DL busy and harmless.

I'm poking around the net now trying to set my plan for the military resource modules. The DL has 2 and 9 are untaken. During a recent game I learned that morale resources will max out at around 200. I had about 6 morale resources and reached the point where mining them further did no good. I don't want to waste constructors mining if there is a similar limit for military resources.

With my current tech, I can add 6 mining modules and/or three battle stations. Those battle stations won't slow down the DL. The rough plan is to station 5 constructors by each resource and build an invasionfleet a couple of turns from the target planet. Then build out all the resources at once. I'm hoping the DL will react by sending most of their ships out to destroy my starbases and I can take a planet or two before they get back. If not, I should get a hell of a boost in my military ability.

Failing that I will try your suggestion. It never occurred to me I could defend a starbase against a DL attack.

I have paid very little attention to defense since the DL attack is so strong. My plan is to attack with huge fleets of tiny ships. My current logistics number is 43 soon to be 58. I have tiny ships that have 12 attack ratings. They can take down a DL frigate with about 6 shots and it seems I'm going to lose 7 or 8 ships every time regardless of whether they are tiny, small or medium. Twenty nine tiny fighters with a total 348 attack rating should be pretty devastating.

One negative development. The DL have started to put together small (10 logistics) fleets.

One nasty surprise. At least for research, a bonus applied to a bonus doesn't work. Early in the game I built a tech capital (+100% research) on a +700% bonus research tile. I thought I would get a 700% bonus on all the other tech producers on the planet. In the summary it says I'm getting 750 tp (before factoring in the spend profile from the economy screen) but I'm actually getting 46. If I work through the numbers ignoring the 700% bonus, I get 46, just like it says on the planet screen. Too bad you can't demolish a super project.

I agree with Wiserby4, this is too much like work, Ive tried all three campaigns, and I dont know what the developers were thinking.

For example in TA, I agree there can be one mission with a supership against a 10 planets empire, but to base the entire campaign on it? that realy kills the fun, moreover the Arnor ships are too expensive to support, a small one is about 64mc

a week, so the objective is to build transport ships and get to the target planet before you go bankrupt, which you will if you start with 3 arnor ships. 

In DL ... you know the problem, no balance or devealopement whatsoever, every mission.

In DA no Idea but my planets just dont get a population, even though I research in that area, I go bankrupt, but thats not my problem, I dont likethe monkey Empire, I think that Campaigns should be Terranas Standard, (only my point of view)

Didnt the devealopers think about makeing the campaigns a lot more smoth, balanced and for crying out loud ENJOYABLE?

And limit the research of every mission, so you can bring your tech to the next? that would be .