k thanks

One obscure trick is the "click-spam" exploit.  If there are obstructions (other frigates, structures, asteroid rocks, etc) between a unit and its destination, rapidly giving move orders just as it's passing by the obstruction will actually improve its pathing considerably.  Bigger units will even push smaller units out of their way when using the click-spam trick.  This is a life-saver with capital ships if something gets in their way.

Personally, I'm not a fan of focus firing capital ships first.  It works well enough if there are no enemy units that can heal nearby, but the moment there are hoshikos or overseers the fiend capital ships just become too good of a damage sink.  I'm more of a fan of knocking out the enemy's damage-dealing units quickly to shut down their firepower, and then cleaning up the capital ship once its supporting units are dead or it's trying to retreat.  If you have overwhelming firepower and can bring down the capital ship quickly, it's a great target, but if you can't make it stick play it safe and take down those frigates.

The only targets I would say merit special priority are construction frigates (don't let the enemy build any defenses; these things are really fragile, just take them out right away) and Stikulus Subverters, which are downright nasty.

pls help i cant beat 4 easy ai they gang up on me and b4 i know im toast i followed the expand like crazy approach it works until i decide to turtle up not noticing they made alliances how do u make them to do a quest for you - i was playing gateway 4 random ai- i was playing advent that didnt go to well they are too hard for me -so i went vasari but my issue is im losing units like crazy i dont have a repair thing only my cap ship which is a carrier .i got this game 2 weeks ago.im totally new.

one more thing how do you use the vasari phase stabilizers i put my ship on it and it didnt go to the other phase point and the front like is there.does it only work with lil ships cruisers no cap ships???

Just give them a regular move order between the two planets.  If there are phase stabilizers on both ends, they will jump directly between them even if there are no phase lanes.

The AI behaves differently on unlocked teams depending on which version of the game you have.  I really can't give you any advice without knowing what version you're playing.

I will say that if you don't like getting gang-beat, you should probably play with locked teams and assign the alliances yourself.  With locked teams, no one can make or break alliances so there's no gang-beating unless you sign up for it.

i have diplomacy v1.21 got the economy and all that good works but i decided to turtle because my cap ships are only 3 and low levels the strongest was 4 it was a carrier and i pile them on the outer edges but they attack with a level 6 cap ship radiance and all hell breaks loose and brings in 5 more caps and other ships that i dont know and one of my enforcers switched sides i dont know why im like what the heck-pls help.:'( beefore i know it they blow up my starbase and within 2 phase jumps away to my homeworld with a fleet that outnumber be 4 to 1 and plus the cap ships thats 4 of them*took me an hour to learn the game just to get triple teamed and getting slaughtered .

does the cap ships fit on the phase jump things cant remember the name ???

There is LVL 6 ability on advent siege capital ship that can "convert" frigates.

One trick you can use against ai.

Keep moving your capital ships around your defenses. AI will follow and will be using valuable time not firing when ships are out of range or angle of attack doesn't let them fire. When your capital ship is damaged take it out of gravity well for repairs. 

Vasari has great ability on his turrets which disables hull and antimatter regeneration. When you are running around and AI is chasing run around your turrets and repair platforms. so turrets keep killing his ships. If you put well upgraded SB in center of circle you are running around with 1-2 carrier caps (use fighters for air cover and bombers ability disabled so you can use repair cloud) you can kill about 1000 AIs fleet supply easily. With few overseers and subverters with ability that shuts down fleets you can win a fight against 1500-2000 ais fleet supply while you having about 150-200 of fleet supply.

i didnt get the subverters because they dont have weapons??are they that good.

If you know how to micromanage subverters 10-15 subverters can disable whole fleet but capital ships. It is ability that needs additional research. Which effectively means ships don't move or fire. With phasic hangar upgrade Vasari excels with disabling enemy forces.

one more question finally beat 1 ai but the other 1 is heavily fortified on its homeworld with lots of metal and cash i outnumber it  in capital ships but it has a starbase  i think 2 caps and a few daestra and subjucators and light frigates why is my kostura not attacking anything in the homeworld its the only thing left kinda pinned it down 1 planet and i got the most of it -i tried attacking but destroys my whole fleet and ai has a repair platform and a thing that regenerates antimater- most of my caps ar level 6 and up with the evacuator being at 10 how do i beat this thing. i killed the other ai when my cannon blew up its tactical structures and phase node on the back but cant do it on this one-its heavy defended with homing mines the works-suggestions.:)i got a kortul as well at level 8-if i make those subveters can it disable the starbase????

Your Kostura can disable the starbase, but only for a short time.  Subverters can only disable frigates and cruisers, not starbases, structures, or capital ships.

It sounds like this starbase is too powerful you to take on directly with your current fleet size.  Your number one priority is staying out of its weapon range.  Very few units can survive more than a few seconds within weapons range of a heavily upgraded starbase, so unless you have an absolutely massive fleet don't even attempt the "brute force" approach.   Open up the unit behavior menu and set them to "hold ground" behavior so they won't charge in and attack.

You have a couple of options.  One is to build your own starbase in the gravity well and upgrade it (two weapons, two hull).  If you bring some Overseers to heal it, you'll prevail over the enemy starbase.  Another option is to bring a large number of bombers.  Starbases cannot attack bombers, and 30 squads should take it down with sufficient time.  Remember to destroy the repair platforms first; the starbase will be much easier to destroy once they're downed.

Your Kortul will not be particularly useful against a heavily upgraded starbase.  Given enough time it can beat down a lesser starbase, but it just doesn't have enough firepower to be significant here.

bummer i should have attacked but instead went after the strongest 1 and bfore i know it the enemy ai has more credits  than i do.at least the enemy ai is stuck on his homeworld unable to attack.can i use the media hubs then i have 1 built thats close 2 phasejumps away can it overthrow it then i win.lol.yes or nope-my mistake was moving my entire fleet over 1 enemy since i got it all bottled up on 3 planets now it has 1 but the starbase is close to the gravity well as soon as you end your phasejump its right there in front of you its cap ship is 4 minutes into joining the battle -and i still lose my entire fleet how about having 2 kostura will it make a difference - i thought the kostura suppose to nail the planet not the structures.

Actually subverters can disable structures. At least their abilities. They are very good against vasari hangars with phasic trap upgrade......

Heh, well, I stand corrected on that one.  Good to know, though if you've got a substantial number of combat units and can get them safely in range of a structure you may as well just blast it.

Then take your time and experiment a bit.  When I first got the Entrenchment expansion pack, I reloaded my assaults against starbases repeatedly to try different approaches and get a sense of what works and how well.  Because of this, I have a very good idea of how many forces are necessary to take down different kinds of starbases, and what kinds of casualties / delay that will entail.

Yes, though you'll usually need 2-3 for every one the enemy has.  Actually "turning" a planet with culture, particularly if they have a capital ship and culture stations of their own present, is very difficult.  If you have them trapped on a single planet, though, this is a totally valid response.

When making an offensive jump, follow this checklist:

1) Look before you leap:  scout the target gravity well so you know what defenses are waiting there.  Ensure you're ready to fight them or are capable of retreating.  It's always a good idea to carry 8-12 scouts with your fleet just so you can sacrifice them for this purpose, plus then you have minesweepers.  If you don't have scouts, flak frigates are your best alternative since they're inexpensive and more likely to survive than other unit types due to their incredible toughness.

2) Position Accordingly:  If you line up your units, you have some control over where they will appear in the target gravity well.  You can almost always avoid minefields and starbases in this manner.  If you can't avoid the defenses entirely, be sure to move out of their range immediately after jumping in.

3) Ensure all your units are present and synced:  You don't want your units to trickle in one at a time, so ensure your units are all synced with the right behaviors and are ready to jump simultaneously.

4) If you cannot avoid minefields, send a clearing force:  3 scouts and 5 flak frigates (give or take) is my typical clearing force.  Warp them in and they'll almost instantly kill every mine in a radius around them.  Within seconds they'll have punched a considerable hole in the minefield, giving the rest of your fleet and entry point.

Kosturas only affect structures, damaging and disabling them.  However, they also open a phase stabilizer gateway.  This allows you to jump directly to the target world from anywhere that has a phase stabilizer.  Once you have a kostura, you can literally invade any world you like.  That's not significant in your current situation, unfortunately, so the kostura is more limited.

The TEC Novalith bombards planets (3500 per shot) and largely disables the economy of the planet afterwards.  The Advent Deliverance Engine increases the fighting power of friendly units in the gravity well and creates friendly culture there (making it the only superweapon that can be used defensively).

Are you sure? I just tested it (via the dev.exe) and the starbase was continually firing at enemy ships, even after the Kostura shell hit the planet.

Yes kosutra disables SB but only for ridiciously low amount of time 5- 10 sec

To be fair, many upgraded starbases will cost you more than a kostura, and when fleets are throwing out over 1000 DPS ten seconds can be quite significant, especially with the repair platforms offline for the next few minutes.

Just tested it again (via the dev.exe), using about 10 planets or so with a Kostura on each one. Had them recharge and point towards the one enemy planet with a starbase, sent a ton of scout frigates in to take damage, and then had all of the Kosturas fire at once. Given the distances, this would mean a Kostura shell would hit the planet every 5-10 seconds or so.

I watched the starbase closely once the shells started arriving (it had all weapon upgrades). It never stopped firing, and my ships never stopped taking damage, not even for a second. I don't think the Kostura cannon disables starbases, not even for 5 seconds.

I can upload a savegame with everything in place, just before I ordered the Kosturas to start firing, if you want to look at it yourself without having to waste time on the setup. The Kostura does not affect starbases at all, it seems.

This must have changed in the last patch with the Kostura nerf.

Guess it no longer stuns or damages starbases, either....

i tried full assault but the casualties downed my invasion fleet to 1 level 10 cap battlefield  heavily damagedwith the enemy ai still  having 5 daestra no frigates no starbase missing both a hostility and the communion platforms and repair damaged-sent in a second wave of new level 1  10 caps and a full fleet of support ships -i won but my losses was bad

i should have split my fleet and attack both ai .newbie mistake.soooo whats easier for me to use tec or advent  -this is my third week playing-im intrigued about the domination effect of that rapture battlecruiser and the tec novalith and kol and nova carrier-any thoughts??/  

If you don't want to take as many losses (or, don't want to take ANY losses) and you're playing against the AI, simply build a bunch of carrier capital ships and keep them on the edge of the gravity well, warping them out when they take significant damage. You could build carrier cruisers too, but you'll have to be quicker on the uptake to warp them out in time.

The AI simply can't handle large numbers of strikecraft attacking it, nor is it that good at taking out caps.

let me try that approach -if this works thanks.any thoughts on whats a good next race tec or advent.

TEC, Advent is currently bottom of the barrel with Diplomacy 1.21

ok let me try tec thanks again for advice

Oh uh one thing about the carrier-only strategy: if you're playing against Hard or anything harder, the AI will come at you with huge swarms of light frigates and a few other ships early in the game. (Carrier cruisers are relatively weak against light frigates.) Therefore, don't build carrier cruisers at first. Instead, build 10 to 20 long range frigates 15 minutes into the game, to defend yourself (they melt light frigates). Those long range frigates, plus your capital ship and your few other ships you built for taking out the neutral ships should be enough to take out anything the AI hits you with in the early game. (also build repair platforms to support your ships, of course)

Or, if you feel like being cheap and don't want to build long range frigates, just build a starbase on the world the AI will attack, and it will suicide its entire fleet on it. (I don't play with starbases at all because it's a ridiculously cheesy strategy that works way too well.)

Once your defenders are set up (whether they're long range frigates or a starbase), wait until you have a decent amount of funds, and then build tons of carrier capital ships or carrier cruisers. When using them, keep them on the edge of the gravity well, and warp them out individually once their shields and half their hull is gone. If your timing is good, you'll take literally no losses. While this strategy is also somewhat cheap, it does involve a significant amount of micromanagement and good timing on the player's part, so it isn't that bad of an idea for someone learning the game.