Steam Community :: Guide :: Beginner's Guide to Chaos Galaxy

Store Page

Chaos Galaxy

All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos News Guides Reviews

Chaos Galaxy > Guides > Dinuvar's Guides

28 ratings

Beginner's Guide to Chaos Galaxy

By Dinuvar

This guide provides an overview of the different factions, tactics for winning battles, and strategies to get you into the best position possible before the battle starts.

Award

Created by

Dinuvar
Offline

Category: Gameplay Basics, Walkthroughs

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

18 Aug, 2020 @ 10:02pm

20 Aug, 2020 @ 9:34pm

2,086	Unique Visitors
36	Current Favorites

Guide Index

Overview

I. Introduction

II. Factions

A. The Imperial Court & Imperial Fleets

B. Imperial Allies

C. Neutral States

D. Imperial Enemies

III. Tactics: Trading Damage Efficiently

IV. General Strategies

V. Early-Game Unit Tables

Comments

I. Introduction

This guide is written for players who are new to the genre and are struggling to win battles despite understanding how to build units, develop planets, select policies, and conduct diplomacy. The guide provides an overview of the different factions, tactics for winning battles, and strategies to get you into the best position possible before the battle starts.

Warning: There are some spoilers for events that happen in the first two years of the game, including one that is pretty significant. If this is a concern, then please stop reading and play your first two years as an easy faction like Northsky Fleet or Westwastes Fleet.

Disclaimer: This is my first guide, so please bear with me.

II. Factions

The following subsections will help new players select their starting faction. The Imperial Court is so strong that a faction's relationship as an enemy or ally to the Imperial Court sets the difficulty level for the game. It is recommended to choose one of the Imperial Fleets for your first game. Even players experienced with this genre would likely benefit from winning a few battles as an Imperial Fleet before moving on to a more challenging faction.

A. The Imperial Court & Imperial Fleets

The Imperial Court is the strongest faction at the start of the game, with seven planets (the next strongest faction only has four), seven generals (four more than anyone else), four factions that are vassals (which happen to be the strongest factions after the Imperial Court), several allies, a prime location at the center of the map, and several uncontested planets to conquer near the top of the map. While the Imperial Court is not normally playable, it is important to keep in mind that they are still a powerful faction and will send fleets to attack and expand.
Northsky Fleet is great for beginners. As with all of the other Imperial Fleets, they start with four planets. However, their location in the northeast corner of the map means that they only have to focus on one front against one enemy: the Emishi Pirates. Their other borders are either protected by the Eastocean Fleet (to the south), the Imperial Court (to the west), and the border of the map (to the north). The only early strategic decision is how much you want to focus on fighting the pirates versus claiming some of the empty planets to your south. Like the other Imperials, the Northsky fleet relies on lances (submarines, cruisers, battleships, flagships) which can easily out-range anything available to the pirates in the early game. Their early unique unit, Iron Cavalry (Mecha) is also very strong at performing its role. With its increased speed, it has an easier time getting behind enemy units to deal damage without the risk of a counter-attack. With it's power shield, it can withstand the enemy's attacks on the following turn much better than most other mecha. Your enemies, the Emishi Pirates, have a much weaker early unique unit (Red Samurai) in that it's main benefit is that it is "indomitable" meaning that it will never retreat. Typically, battles have already been decided by the time that units start to retreat. For your first battle, keep your fleet together and open with a support ship using lock on a target. Then score a few hits on the target with lances from submarines that have dived (cloaked) so that they cannot be countered. Follow-up with back-attacks to deal even more damage that cannot be countered. Then finish with something that can deal enough damage so that the enemy dies before it has a chance to counterattack (note that your lances will have close to 100% hit chance, making them a safe choice if they deal enough to kill the unit). If you have extra damage left-over, try to target enemy mecha with range or back-attacks since if you are able to take out 1/3rd or 2/3rds of their health, it will reduce their damage by that amount on their next turn. This method will let you deal considerable damage, take no or very little damage from counterattacks, and reduce the amount of damage that your enemy can deal next turn.
Westwastes Fleet is the strongest playable faction at the start. It has four planets and several empty planets open for expansion to the north, west, and southwest. To the west, the Pella Corps will be busy fighting your allies, the Lycurgus Corps. To the south, the Black Khalif Jihad will face attacks from your other nearby allies: the Aerie Assassins, the Southeaven Fleet, and even the Imperial Court. This means that you can expand rapidly into empty planets at the start of the game and rely on superior numbers afterwards. Their early unique unit, the Cossack, is somewhat underwhelming. It's special ability is that it gains energy on each kill, which helps in long fights. Consider it to be an alternative to the default Imperial Infantry, with 50% more health, but with double the upkeep and 66% more leadership cost. However, the extra health can help it to stay alive and gain experience, leading to even more health as the campaign goes on.
Eastocean Fleet is another decent choice for a first game if you find the Northsky Fleet to be too boring or the Westwastes too powerful. Again, it starts with four planets and there are some empty planets to the north. It is bordered by allies on the north (the Northsky Fleet) and west (the Imperial Court). The Southheaven Fleet is to the southwest, but is an unreliable ally. To the south, the Southsea Guild tends to be an imperial ally, but you can expect them to be preoccupied with fighting the Eastgalaxy Corporation. Your main focus should be on fighting the Kurushima Pirates to the southeast. Out of every faction's early unique units, yours is the only one that is a submarine (the Nova Class Submarine). It has four cannons and about 30% more hp. It is best used with 1) dive since you cannot out-range most enemies, and 2) a support ship to lock on to the target since cannons have low accuracy. The Kurushima Pirates are trickier than the Emishi Pirates because the Kurushima have an early unique mecha (the Taihou) that deals considerable damage at long range. Most of the Kurushima units use missiles and may try to attack your units from the blindspot between your cannons and lances (the blind spot is like a knight's move in chess), so keep that in mind as you position your units.
Southeaven Fleet is not for beginners, but is a very interesting faction. They start in a strong position (four planets) and typically start by taking empty planets to the west and south. You can push against the Black Khalif Jihad in the west, but can also leave your allies to handle that threat. Otherwise, once you have expanded into the empty planets, developed your planets, and built up your fleet, your main option to grow would be to rebel against the empire. While the faction is well suited to rebellion, the Imperial Court will make a challenging adversary and a tough game. Your early unique unit, the Headsman, is fairly useful. Like the Northsky Fleet's Iron Cavalry, it has a power shield to help absorb enemy attacks. While it only has the default movement speed, it makes up for this with extra health.

B. Imperial Allies

Lycurgus Corps starts with two planets and is a mercenary faction which brings several interesting units. To the south is the Mozi Order, who is a natural ally. The Aerie Assassins to the east are also a good choice for an ally. It is common for the Lycurgus Corps, Mozi Order, and Aerie Assassins to all become vassals to the Imperial Court, giving a three-way alliance in the region. The main enemy is the Pella Corps to the north. Early game, you will need to focus on defeating their first attack and immediately taking Pella. This will severely cripple your opponent by stealing his most valuable planet. Mercenary ships are interesting in that, instead of lances, they have a melee attack to complement their cannons. Your early unique unit, the Gladiator, has the highest health of any of the default and early unique mecha. However, your opponent's unique unit, the Sarissa, has a power shield. This means that your mecha, cruisers, battleships, and flagships will be looking for opportunities to make rear attacks and, if none are available, can always use their melee attack on the Sarissa to deal a little damage without the risk of a counter-attack. Note that since melee attacks have a guaranteed chance to hit, support ships are mostly for helping your cannon units. Still, having one in a battle is useful to replenish energy and remove debuffs (Agis has a tendency to run out of energy).
Mozi Order starts with three planets and is an omnic faction which lacks melee weapons but brings the longest-range weapons in the early game. To the north is the Lycurgus Corps, which is a natural ally. To the northeast is the Aerie Assassins, who make another good choice for an ally. To the east is the Black Khalif Jihad, which should be watched to make sure that they do not hit you from behind while you are focused on your true enemy. Your enemy, the Omnic Apocalypse, is to the southeast. Both sides have rail guns on their submarines and cruisers, which are longer-range and stronger versions of the lances used by the imperial factions. Your ships also have missiles, which have the same firing arc as cannons but with longer range. This makes it impossible for other factions to out-range your units. As a ranged faction, the lock ability can be very useful to make sure that your hits actually land on agile units like mecha. As a consequence, your early unique unit is the Space Hacker, a mecha which is a good alternative to the support ship since it is much more mobile, can lock targets, and has an interesting virus ability that can make an enemy unable to attack or use abilities for one turn. Your opponent's unique unit is the Regenerating Drone, which has missiles like the Kurushima Pirate's Taihou, and can remove status debuffs from itself. However, the Regenerating Drone has low health, making it a prime target for a lock and early elimination. If you are able to defeat the Omnic Apocalypse, you can make use of your superior range against the neighboring factions that focus on melee attacks and close-range cannon weapons (the mercenaries to the north and sandmen to the northeast).
Aerie Assassins start with one planet and are a sandman faction. Your main enemy is the Black Khalif Jihad to the southeast. However, the early focus should be on securing 1-2 empty planets if you can safely spare the fleets while the enemy is distracted by the Westwastes Fleet, Southsea Fleet, or Imperial Court. Given your weak position early on, you should strongly consider becoming a vassal of the Imperial Court, especially if the Mozi Order and Lycurgus Corps become vassals of the Imperial Court. By the time that the BKJ is mostly finished, the Southsea Fleet will likely have rebelled, giving you another target to continue expanding eastward. Similar to the trader factions, their default units rely on melee for mecha and cannons for everything else. Your early unique unit carries a large area-of-effect attack, but kills your unit in the process. Again, given the reliance on cannons, support ships are very useful.

C. Neutral States

Southsea Guild starts with three planets and is a trader faction. While on paper it looks similar to the Lycurgus Corps and Mozi order, it's starting position is actually much more difficult. It is locked in a life-or-death struggle with the Eastgalaxy Corporation to the southeast. You will need to get an alliance, or swear fealty, to the Imperial Court to avoid attacks from the Southeaven Fleet to the northwest and Eastocean Fleet to the north. However, even if you do, it is likely that the Southeaven Fleet will rebel and attack you from the northwest – threatening any unguarded planets while you are focused on an enemy in the opposite direction. This can make it difficult to expand in either direction and will be a challenge even once you are able to reliably win battles. Trader units are pretty standard in that their mecha have melee attacks and their submarines and ships use cannons. Compared to the imperials, your units tend to have less health and lack long-range lances, but make up for it with extra energy (either by default or by gaining energy for each kill). Your unique unit, the Outlaw, is similar to the Westwastes' Cossack in that its only benefit is that it gains energy on each kill. However, your main enemy has the Musketeer, which is a mecha with long-range rail guns. Like the Kurushima's Taihou, the combination of a ranged weapon with mecha makes for an immensely powerful unit. The rail gun will be able to out-range your units, making it imperative to close in and wipe it out by melee combat with your own mecha, attack from behind with fast units, and/or use your flagship to deal massive damage to reduce the Musketeer's ability to counterattack. Given the inaccuracy of your cannons, support ships are very useful for any fleets using submarines and ships, but not as necessary for a fleet focused on mecha.
Omnic Apocalypse starts with three planets. Your main enemy is the Mozi Order to the northwest. However, if they join the Imperial Court as a vassal, you could find that other Imperials send an occasional fleet your way. Forturnately, most such fleets would stop and fight the Black Khalif Jihad which is between you and the Imperials. Most of your planets are focused on upgrading defenses, but you will need to take the fight to the Mozi Order to become strong enough to challenge anyone else. As an omnic, you have access to some of the most devastating ranged weapons: railguns. Use these to out-range and out-damage enemy units. Your early unique unit is a mecha that has long-range missiles and can use auto repair (misleading title, it just removes debuffs). If you can defeat the Mozi order, your neighbors will likely prove easier targets with their focus on short-range cannons and melee attacks.
Eastgalaxy Corporation starts with three planets and at war with the Southsea Guild. This faction starts off allied to the Kurushima Pirates to the northeast and neutral to the Imperial Court. However, the Southsea Guild often becomes a vassal of the Imperial Court, which will mark you as an enemy of the Imperial factions. As with the Southsea Guild, your units focus on cannons and melee attacks, with increased energy at the cost of health. However, your early unique unit, the Musketeer, uses a railgun. This boasts the longest range and incredible damage in the early game. However, given the range limitations of Musketeers, you may not be able to line up more than one or two shots on the same target at ranges far enough to avoid a counter-attack. You can supplement with a submarine or two to help soften targets with attacks that cannot be countered before finishing with a cruiser or flagship. If the Southsea Guild became vassals of the Imperial Court before you defeated them, you will likely want to continue pushing into Eastocean once you are finished with Southsea. If not, then you can consider whether to turn west into Southeaven or northeast into Kurushima. If possible, grabbing a few of the empty planets to your northeast or southwest in the early game would help with securing a solid economic base into the mid-game.

D. Imperial Enemies

Kurushima Pirates start with three planets. You have allies to the northeast (Emishi Pirates) and south (Eastgalaxy Corporation). To the southeast and north are empty planets that can be claimed if you have a chance. Your main enemy is the Eastocean Fleet to the northwest. The borders are very close, with only a two-turn gap for travel between the closest planets, so an early battle is inevitable. Your unique unit, the Taihou mecha, is one of the only ranged mecha and deals incredible damage in that it fires three missiles when at full health. Your submarines, cruisers, and battleships also have missiles. Against Imperial enemies, you should position your missile units to abuse the blind-spot between the enemy's cannons and lance. This is shown in the diagrams below, but it is the location of a knight's move (in chess) from the enemy unit. Support ships can amplify your damage considerably.
Emishi Pirates start with three planets. To the north and east, you are bordered by the edge of the map. To the south is your ally, the Kurushima Pirates. To the southwest are some empty planets which can be claimed. Your first enemy is the Northsky Fleet to the west. As with Kurushima, you face a much stronger opponent. However, your early unique unit, the Red Samurai, may seem underwhelming in that its special ability is only that it will not retreat. It also appears to be outmatched by the Northsky's special unit, the Iron Cavalry, which has faster movement and a power shield for durability. However, you can make up for this with good generals for combat. One of your generals gives 20% extra damage to imperials. Your leader's tactical ability gives your ammunition units (which includes missile units) the ability to attack twice. Your other leader gives mecha units 20% additional attack and his tactical ability gives them a second strike. There is also a strong early policy which gives 10% extra damage to Imperials. For the first battle, it is recommended to use the policy and commander to get 30% extra damage to Imperials and focus on using missiles from your submarines, cruisers, and flagships (with a support ship for locking targets). Three of your four unique units are mecha, making the mecha commander fearsome if you make it far enough to unlock them.
Pella Corps start with three planets. To the south is the Lycurgus Corps and to the east is the Westwastes Fleet. To the east and southeast are empty planets. The focus should be on either 1) taking a couple of empty planets to the southeast and holding off attacks until your economy can get rolling, or 2) subduing the Lycurgus Corps quickly so that you are able to turn to face the Westwastes Fleet and avoid a two-front war. As a mercenary, your ships have a melee attack and use cannons. Your first unique unit, the Sarissa, is the only non-Imperial unit to have power shields in the early game. A support ship is useful to actually land hits with the inaccurate cannon units, although it is redundant for supporting melee attacks.
Black Khalif Jihad starts with three planets. At the start, you have powerful Imperial Fleets to the north and east. Imperial lackeys are to the northwest (Aerie Assassins) and southwest (Mozi Order). If possible, an alliance with the Pella Corps and Omnic Apocalpyse would at least get you someone friendly in the area. Either way, you will need to monitor the fleet movements in this entire region to spot fleets coming from any direction. There are some unclaimed planets to the north and east, but you will have to decide how much you can safely devote to these planets given the enemy assassins on your doorstep. If you can survive, time is to your advantage in that the Southsea revolt will remove some Imperial pressure. Similarly, as long as you have more planets than the assassins, time will allow you to gain more from development and get larger fleets. As a sandman, you rely on inaccurate cannons that benefit greatly from a support ship. Your early unique is a support ship that has significantly more health. Each combat fleet should have one, but no more than one, support ship. Against the Aerie Assassins, you will have to watch for nuke servitors to avoid getting a hit on multiple of your units.

III. Tactics: Trading Damage Efficiently

The goal in a battle is to destroy all of your enemy's units without losing any of your own. The way to do this is to make sure that you deal far more damage than the enemy over the course of the battle. This can be done by avoiding counterattacks and avoiding damage on the enemy's turn to attack. This section will also include a discussion on mitigating risk by locking targets and using multiple attacks for hard-to-hit enemies.

A. Avoid Counterattacks.

Cloaked Submarines (Dive) can attack without being countered.
Out-range your enemy. Attack from beyond the range of your enemy's counterattack. If they are melee, you can use any ranged attack, including cannons. Lances and missiles can out-range cannons. Railguns can out-range anything other than a railgun.
Exploit Gaps in your enemy's range. Lances and railguns can only fire in a straight horizontal or vertical line, so you can avoid a counterattack by using a cannon or missile at an angle from the enemy. Note that Imperial ships often have both cannons and lances, but have a blind-spot that can be exploited by missiles (it's a knight's move in chess, see the diagram at the end of the guide)
Attack from Behind. Attacks from behind cannot be countered (but can be shielded). Attacks from behind and from the flanks also deal increased damage.
Finishing Strikes. If your unit can deal enough damage to kill the enemy, then the enemy will not have a chance to counter-attack. This often falls to units that lack the ability to out-range the enemy and are not in a position to attack from behind. Note that it is safest to leave the finishing blow to a unit with a high chance to hit, such as a guaranteed melee attack.
Enemies with Shields. When you attack an enemy with a power shield, they will often use the power shield to cut damage in half rather than counter your attack. In contrast, the player should often prefer to counter-attack to turn the engagement into an even trade in terms of damage.
Force a Weak Counterattack. Most mecha units are comprised of three mecha in a squad. At full health, the mecha unit will attack three times. After it has taken 33% damage, it will only attack twice. After it has taken 66% damage, it will only attack once. If you can deal enough to kill 1-2 mecha on your attack, then the enemy will have a much weaker counterattack. However, this is less desirable than the other options because you will still take some damage. Also, this may not always be true. It seems to work with melee units, but I think I have seen ranged mecha fire three times even when one died in the attack. This may change with patches going forward.

B. Avoid Damage on the Enemy's Turn

Focus Fire to Finish Enemy Units or Partially Destroy Mecha. Destroyed enemy units cannot attack on the following turn. Similarly, mecha units that have lost 1-2 mecha will not deal as much damage on their attack the following turn. This means that you should focus your attacks on trying to completely eliminate enemy units or at least damage mecha enough to reduce their damage output the following turn.
Abuse Map Positioning. It is recommended to keep your units close together to allow them all to target the same enemy unit on your turn (focus fire). Keeping your units close together also means that if the enemy is spread out when they engage, their back line might not be close enough to engage your units on the following turn. Keep your enemy's movement and weapons range in mind to try to avoid giving their back line anything to target on their turn. This is particularly easy when it comes to enemy forts since they cannot move. Also, you can sometimes exploit chokepoints created by asteroid belts to force enemy ships to enter a narrow kill zone where the enemy has to come in with a few units at a time, only to be eliminated one after another. If you are defending, sometimes you can force an attacker to come within range of your forts and attack your ships sitting in orbit of the planet. This gives you an extra attack on the following turn (the fort) and lets your unit heal some of the damage the following turn since it was in orbit.

C. Mitigating Risk with Multiple Attacks & Locking Targets

A statistics major would be better able to explain this, but there is an idea that when you have a chance for something to happen, you are less likely to get an extreme result if you roll multiple times than if you only roll once. What this means is that if all of your attacks have a low chance to hit, such as attacking a mecha in an asteroid belt without a lock, then you can minimize the risk of missing all of your attacks by choosing to use a weapon with a larger number of attacks. You are less likely to land all of your hits and less likely to miss all of your hits, but at least you are more likely to make at least some forward progress. However, the developer seems to be conscious of this and has mitigated the effect by making the less accurate weapons like cannons have more attacks than more accurate cannons. Still, it is worth considering when weighing your options to attack an enemy unit.
The value of the lock ability (+20% to hit) increases as the enemy becomes more difficult to target. For example, if you have a 40% chance to hit the target that gets increased to 60%, then that can be seen as increasing your average expected damage by 50%. In contrast, if you have an 80% chance to hit and this gets increased to 100%, then that only increases your average expected damage by 25%. The takeaway is that lock is more valuable for inaccurate weapons like cannons and when you are targeting hard-to-hit enemies like mecha (especially in asteroids). Conversely, it is less valuable for accurate weapons like rail guns when used against slow ships and is absolutely useless when supporting a melee unit with a guaranteed attack. Keep in mind that lock also becomes more valuable with the more units that take advantage of it to support their attack, such as when you are focusing your entire fleet's firepower on a beefy flagship with the goal of taking it down this turn.

IV. General Strategies

Local Advantage. The only time units give you value is when they are used in a fight. For this reason, you want to consolidate your fleets into 1-2 combat fleets and, if possible, use 100% of the units in every battle. Even if your enemy has more units on the map, they are meaningless if they are not participating in the battle.
Use Two Fleets in Combat. Especially in the early game when battles involve small numbers of units on each side, every unit counts. Even if you consolidate all of your forces into one combat fleet (recommended at the start), having an extra flagship in the battle can help tremendously. So early game you will want to move your combat fleet with another fleet to support in attacks. In the mid-game, this can turn into having two full combat fleets engage the enemy with overwhelming force.
Temporary Oversupply to Defend. On the strategy map, if you know that an enemy will attack you at a particular planet, then you can have a fleet wait at that location until the last turn before the enemy attacks, then buy a bunch of units, even if it will make you lose supply each turn. The idea is that some of your units will die in the battle, your industry will improve each turn, and you can always disband excess units the following turn. Since you get a large portion of the labor back from disbanding, the only real cost is gold. This strategy is especially useful for the first fight or two as one of the weaker factions taking on a stronger adversary. Keep in mind that in this paragraph, I am talking about your supply income/expense each turn and not your total supply. If you let your total supply go into the negative, then you can have negative consequences such as reduced morale and desertion. I have not experimented much with these consequences, but understand that they can be somewhat offset by units with the indomitable trait such as Emishi's Red Samurai.
Static Defenses are a Last-Ditch Effort. As noted above, the only units that generate value are those that participate in a fight. Forts look good on paper since they do not cost supply, do not have upkeep, and deal a lot of damage. However, since they cannot move, they cannot participate in attacks on enemy planets and cannot be relocated to another planet as you take more territory. Similarly, even in a battle, you cannot move the fort and thus are left with the option of leaving it behind or hiding behind it for your opponent, losing the ability to choose a better area to fight. I would only recommend forts if you are fighting a last-ditch defense, such as when defending against the first attack from a much stronger enemy. Note that forts use the same resource as policies and development, so again it might make sense to invest in immediate survival to repel that first overwhelming attack. However, the converse is that any money spent building forts that sit idle for most of the game could instead have been spent to give you an ongoing advantage through better policies, development, and improved relations with allies.
Policies are valuable if you can survive to use them. Some of the T1 technologies are incredibly powerful. Some give 10% damage to imperial units, others give industry every turn, others unlock battleships and your early unique unit. T1 technologies are also very cheap, so you can rush some early game if this factors into your strategy. However, for many of the factions, you will be struggling to survive at the beginning and might not be able to afford the luxury of investing beyond 1-2 policies at the start. Rather, you can instead drop that gold into trade and/or industry to get your economy to the point where it can support more units. This can help you regain the initiative by successfully repelling attacks and bringing the fight to the enemy in the early game. As you capture more planets and your economy becomes stronger, you can afford to push policies constantly.
Denying a planet is valuable even if you cannot hold it. When you take a planet, it can take many turns before you build up enough loyalty to get any value from it. However, immediately on conquering a planet, you have denied your enemy from getting any value from it. One example is that when Lycurgus Corps takes Pella, it immediately removes Pella's economic advantage by making both factions rely on the economy generated by only two planets. Similarly, sometimes Kurushima takes a planet from Eastocean, only to have the two factions trade it back and forth over the next year. This is an advantage for Kurushima because it essentially pits both factions at three planets (with an advantage to the side that was faster at seizing empty planets). A cheap mecha fleet could also be used to capture enemy planets that were recently conquered and flee when the enemy responds with a real combat fleet. This would at least re-set the enemy's attempts to build up loyalty on the planet to get value from it.
Extra fleets can be used to transport units and guard planets. Early-game you should consider having your third fleet (the one that is not going to be used for combat) transfer its units to your combat fleets and then buy the cheapest available mecha (if they provide assault) to conquer unclaimed planets. You can also have extra fleets sit on planets with bonuses to producing units (either more cheaply or more skilled) and use the fleet to ferry units to your combat fleets as they suffer losses or the commander gains levels. Lastly, if you are unsure if an attack will come from a certain direction, you can rest an extra fleet on that planet so that it is ready to mass-buy if the enemy does send a fleet your way.

V. Early-Game Unit Tables

TBD. Apparently it's not easy to export from excel or word into a Steam guide. Will either give this another shot or just remove this section.

Unit

Faction

Power

Energy

Agility

Gold

Supply

Upkeep

Disband

Assault

Bomb

Attack#1

AVG DMG

Attack#2

AVG DMG

10 Comments

< >

Cymoric 17 Nov, 2024 @ 11:54pm

Your advice on Pella Corps doesn't make much sense to me.
1. You can't really go taking planets because you have 3 mediocre fleets that can't control that much area. I've won a ton of battles and still finally just have 1 more leader after nearly 2 years.
2. I subjugated Lycurgis asap and it doesn't matter you still have a 2 front war vs Mozi Order and Empire and both just throw tons of fleets at you consantly. Omnic Apocalypse don't do anything useful even when Mozi has left their core worlds completely undefended to swarm you.
So now I'm stuck fighting of 4 imperial and west wastes fleets in the north with 2 of mine, 2 more in the east with 1 of mine, and Mozi order in the south with 1 of mine.

perhaps 13 Aug, 2024 @ 2:14pm

Auto-battle solved a huge fight for me: a fleet with ~7500 power and 5 space stations wrecked a ~14000 power fleet, losing just 1 ship (a cruiser or a sub, i dont remember) and 4 space stations. Much better result than my actual attempt fighting it.

Also i improved relations with the Imperial Court by giving them a planet i coldn't defend and that was captured like a turn later lmao

Luna 27 Nov, 2023 @ 10:47am

Further info on shields. Don't be afraid to hit enemy ship with weapons it can negate. Sure, preferably you should target the enemies without the shields first. But the important thing to note is that shields eats a LOT of energy on use, plus attack that was negated by shield also means no counter attack. So, a generally after a few attacks are negated... the ship in question just runs out of Energy. Once out of Energy, you can attack it with whatever as not only it will no longer have energy to use shields or any other ability. It could be a so low that it won't be able to use any other of their weapons at all. Be it for attack or counter attack.

Aleccia Rosewater 3 Jun, 2022 @ 8:47pm

AoE weapons have perfect accuracy and don't provoke counterattacks. You can also reveal submarines by damaging them with aoe
Against aoe you should just accept that multiple ships will get hit and instead arrange your units into groups of two. This makes it easier to keep your ships within attack range

Fascinated Medic 22 May, 2022 @ 2:58pm

overall a pretty good guide.
Here's a few things I picked up while playing:

Retreating:
Sometimes you may encounter enemies with shields that resist all of your current weapons (Energy shields if you are using beams or Ether shields if you use projectiles).
While the shields negate the damage dealt, the enemy will still lose morale if attacked from the sides or the rear which may cause a full health enemy to retreat.
It is also important to note that the enemy will always shield if it can meaning you can get as close as you want, the enemy won't retailiate.
It is important to note that enemies will lose half of their morale when the enemy flagship sinks which can cause even the strongest units to flee with a few back/side attacks.

Fascinated Medic 22 May, 2022 @ 2:58pm

Ambushing:

As mentioned, subs can dive and attack without fear of retaliation or shields getting in the way.
However, it is also possible for them to intercept enemy units if they try to cross the space where the dived sub is.
Now many would think that it is impossible since the AI knows where your units are which is true, however, the AI will often priorize trying to strike any of your ships from behind even if they have to cross a space occupied by a sub.
If they do, the sub will block the enemy unit, ending its turn and attack immediately without any retailiation or shield like a regular ambush.
It will however reveal itself by doing so, however that won't be a problem since you'll probably end the turn of one of their strongest units (battleships, nuclear subs etc)

Fascinated Medic 22 May, 2022 @ 2:58pm

Positioning:

While it is true that having your units grouped up to have overlapping attacks is good, you WILL face enemies with AOE damages or AOE powers.
ALWAYS check the enemy's army composition and check their weapons and CO power.
If they have anything nuclear, that means you'll have to split your units 2 squares from each other before facing the nuke unit.
Once the nuke unit appears, you'll have to throw everything at it to prevent taking heavy damages.
There are also starkillers that can fire in a straight line in which case having your units in a perpendicular line to the enemy's starkiller is key.

Fascinated Medic 22 May, 2022 @ 2:58pm

AOEs:

Nuke (cross):
x
xxx
x
Starkiller (Line):
xxxx
or
x
x
x
x

Be careful of power meters:

Powers in this game range from game ending to useless.
With this in mind, checking your opponent's power and keeping track of its progress is crucial as it can lead to some devastating blows/scenarios.
also keep in mind that powers will charge every turn even if no units are destroyed (htough they charge much faster when units die).
With this knowledge, it is sometimes better to stall or disengage in order to mitigate your oponent's power.

For instance, you may want to run away from your opponent instead of engaging them if their power gauge is almost full.
The AI will ALWAYS use their power regardless if they can attack you or not meaning they'll use it for nothing and you can then deal massive damages to them with yours.

It is also very important to note that if you sink the enemy's flagship, they will be unable to use their power even if it was full.

Korriban 13 Nov, 2021 @ 1:41am

Some really good, fundamental info here. Thanks for the write-up.

gigamelon1981 2 Feb, 2021 @ 6:21pm

Diving submarines ignores any shield.

< >