OK, I went to the game and looked it up.

Constructor 1 builds the generic starbase
Constructor 2 builds (under military) terror-star shell
Constructor 3 builds terror-star bridge
Constructor 4 builds terror-star core
Consturctor 5 builds terror-star and costs 5000 bc.

And then you have one silver basketball-sized bon-bon. LOL.

Correction:

one badass silver basketball-sized bon-bon!

Do terror stars carry influence?
For example, can I make a party palace, then add the 4 terror steps, then rove into enemy territory bringing the influence bonus with me?

Yes.

Oh yes! Mobile party palaces are extremely useful. eEven if you dont want to destroy whole star systems you can flip them.

I guess the hardest thing about making AI use terror stars is the 'when to use them'.

As for AAM, I've seen them used rarely but not effectively. Gift a whole lot to an AI in war and most of them get blown up or sit there. However they do use them occasionally against planets which was cool to see. Otherwise they seem to go for the latest ship as has already been said.

(sorry quick post)

~SDC~

Thanks for the tips (much appreciated)

Influence resources. If the AI has em and you don't, nothing else matters. They can flip a whole cluster just by grabbing one system. In the opposite situation, you can also do the same to them.

Check the total influence in the sector. If you don't have a sizable lead, better gear up some defensive culture bases. I've found that against majors, with both sides over 1000 in the sector, whoever has the lead, even if only by a small margin, is GOING TO flip the other. 500 seems to be the magic flip trigger. Less than that, nothing seems to happen.

If enough loyalty buildings are in place, flips can be delayed, but they will happen eventually. Better is to regain the culture lead and keep it.

One NASSSSSSSSSTY trick to pull on the AI, if you've got +200% influence or more, is to send a colony ship and a pack of constructors. If you have a planet IN the sector, they won't object to you building culture starbases IN the sector. Settle any junk planet, plop down your starbase (only need one if you've got the influence resources to pull this move) and very shortly, you start taking over.

That could be abused, of course, but I only build one starbase per sector.

I flipped an entire 20-planet Alexian civ isolated to one cluster in my recent Gigantic/Abundant game, just by having two influence resources and sending a colony ship to a PQ13. They just started falling like dominoes. I didn't even grab the planet intending to flip them, but to extend my reach. Go figure. They were worshipping us as gods, apparently. LOL

Majors are much more significant, but I FEAR any major with influence wonders and resources. Best to have some forces ready to take out any minors inside your space if you see majors coming with combat transports. Park a few scouts/drones around, or whatever, to see the AI's coming at your pet minor. And if you can't stop it, and the winning major has influence powers, get those culture bases up inside the sector ASAP, or at least prepare to do so. If they show up with higher influence than you, you won't have much time to fix it.


- Sirian

Ummm, on the higher levels I've noticed they definitely DO care if you build a culture starbase, regardless of if you have a colony or not. It actually annoys me, because I had a major come take over a minor's planet then yell at me for the cultural starbases I had--in MY SECTOR!

Thanks Sirian, JordanVmp . . . makes sense. Has anyone noticed how much more powerful Culture Palaces are these days? Im the older version isolated ones didn't seem to do much but these latest ones don't seem to require that you have any planets in the vicinity to be able to flip distant systems. :notsure:

Ah. Could be. Never happened to me yet. Coincidence? Maybe.

I only put one per sector, could that explain it? Did you have more than one, Jordan? Maybe they will tolerate one if you have a planet in the sector?


- Sirian

Back on topic . . .

I had a thought (yes its true!) about Terror Stars . . . I think that at the very least one way of fixing the abussive way in which they're often used is to let the orbiting ship engauge them (makes sense since they're the last line of defence) . . .

Any thoughts on that idea? This would be so exciting, especialy if the AI knew how to use TSs as well . . .

[Message Edited]

I like to use TSs in the very end game to end the boredom of the end game.

Ginata-I have had several games where I was flipping planets left and right without trying then a few others where I couldn't flip anything to save my life. It's very strange. Maybe more weight is given to the empire's actual influence % than before? I'm not sure.

here is a dumb question I am sure , but how exactly do you destroy a star system with a Terror Star?

~SDC~

Influence resources make a HUGE difference in flipping.



just move the terror star over the star system. Just like when you're attacking a ship with another ship.

I finally used Terror Stars in the game I posted yesterday...and also discovered several ways NOT to use them. The first "oops" was when I discovered that I couldn't take over a resource with a Terror Star, because "only constructors can move over a resource." So I ended up with what looked like an extremely-well-guarded resource.

The more embarassing one involved a Terror Star with an escorting stack. I clicked the TS and then right-clicked the target...and the escorting stack attacked (I forgot there were a couple of transports in the stack). So there I was invading the system I meant to destroy, and there's no "call it off" button, only "Attack." Oh, well...so I took the system instead of destroying it. That left one lone Arcean system opposing my juggernaut...but I got so bored waiting for the TS to get there that I invaded that one too, just to end the thing. (That'll teach me to play on "painful" when I can beat "maso" -- which also means I'll get my butt kicked in my next maso game!)