I've had more strategy gaming fun than I've had in years playing the Dreadlords campaign, so I just had to say it.

So here's the situation: it's the "Apocalypse" scenario.  I've upped the difficulty to "Normal".  The previous scenario, also at Normal difficulty, I got totally schooled, replayed, and thanks to a chance bit of luck invading a world the unstoppable Dreadlords had just taken from the Altarians, stole the Doom Ray and clobbered the Dreadlords.  During those periods of getting my a$$ kicked I developed some new theories on anti-Dreadlord tactics which were going to be put to the test ... quicker than I thought.

The initial colony rush saw the AI's doing their usual "Sooner" thing, but I was rush-buying 8-speed colony ships and theirs were I think 3 or 4, so I managed to swipe the planets closest to me.  I only put 100-300 colonists on my ships and sent them everywhere there were stars.  "Scouting" is for losers; the AI is rush-buying and sending colonizers, not scouts, so if you want your piece you have to do the same.

I tried to get what I could, but I was in the corner, so everything between the AI's and me was theirs.  I managed to grab up the 7 nearest worlds, the AI's built a circle around those 7, then just past Iversonia which got sniped by the Arceans I ran my farthest colony ship into the spheres of influence of the Drath and Korx, hooked East, and managed to nab a beautiful Class 11 paradise called "Florin".  But that's not all: now that I had Florin I would be lucky enough to be able to grab the last 4 worlds Stellar Cartography showed just past Florin!  Except if Dreadlord scouts were coming from that direction (showing ship facings on the map was an excellent design decision, thanks Stardock!) and there were only those 4 worlds ... uuh ... maybe Florin wasn't such prime real estate after all.

So the Dreadlords have this pattern: first they scout you out, then they destroy everything in space, then after a good long time doing that they invade.  I knew that from last game.  I also remembered they had a particular hatred of starbases and they tended not to escort their transports and constructors.  They had a ship for that, labeled "Escort" and everything, they're just lazy about using it.

What followed was a desperate campaign of tech-trading with the AI's -- giving away techs as fast as I could get them so there was never overlapping research -- and of getting engines and the critically important "Class V Laser" for my Interceptors and the unbelievably important "Eye of the Universe" wonder.  My gov't was Technologists so I also got a Sensor bonus.

My theory was to build the fastest possible tiny ship with the smallest possible weapon and hit their transports before they could land, and do this with zero mistakes long enough to tech up and beat the Dreadlords' other ships.

The Dreadlords would send out transports and constructors and those were the only ships I could engage.  At first I lost interceptors because they just weren't fast enough, but faster engines allowed them a higher survival rate.  The AI apparently wanted the Arcean's worlds on Iverson as badly as they wanted mine, and at the game's darkest hour they landed a transport the Arceans managed to fend off -- my interceptor was shot down by the Dreadlords' 11-speed "Fighter" class.

I teched up my beams but they refit their ships with shields.  I attacked a couple of their frigates while they were refitting but my ships were so pathetic that even with only 1 hitpoint the Dreadlord Frigates utterly annihilated my ships.

The DL's are sending their formidable Frigates (speed 5, attack off the scale, defense maybe) out into the galaxy wiping out everything that floats.  Luckily that means their home sector wasn't very "hot", so my interceptors could usually find a place to park between turns.  But sometimes the only ships left on the board would be my interceptors, then it was the Florin Frigate Festival and the heat would be on everywhere -- a dangerous situation if a transport comes out into all that.  I had to sacrifice an interceptor more than once to nail a transport.

But then I remembered they hate starbases!  I thought maybe if I built one they'd come running, and sure enough they did.  Nothing takes the heat off everything else like a starbase.  Unfortunately that brings us to the most evil ship in the Dreadlord fleet: the Fighter!

These nasty pieces of work have a speed of 11 and an off-the-chart alpha strike capability.  They are far more lethal than the Frigates because of their speed.  They are also killable -- if you know where they are and where they'll be.  If you build the Eye you know where they are, and if you build a starbase you know where they'll be.  But if you don't take them out, the starbase dies before it draws away the Frigates, the Fighters and Frigates put heat on the sectors surrounding Florin, you lose your interceptors, and the transports roll out unimpeded.  Deal with the Fighters or lose the game.

In practice I never nailed a Fighter on its way to a starbase -- only on the way back.  But you do that, you build another starbase, the Frigates go after it, and you can go back to nailing transports and constructors.  (And the Dreadlords go after others' ships, too, including the Drengin.  I LOL'ed at that, serves 'em right.)

On a related note, I never know when the Dreadlords can see me.  Sometimes a Fighter will chase an Interceptor halfway across the galaxy -- which I consider a good thing, as anything that gets the heat away from where the transports will be is good -- and sometimes a Frigate will chase an Interceptor for 5 squares then just stop and sit there.

In any case, despite massive losses of Interceptors I was able to tech up, keep the AI's teched up, and in the end when my last alpha-strike ships were gunned down the Alliance swooped in and killed the last few Dreadlord ships, paving the way for my Tirquanified soldiers to shut down the Dreadlords once and for all.

This game was so exciting I cheered out loud the first time I scored a kill on a Frigate.  The allies stepped in -- after crushing the Drengin and Yor -- just as I had spent my last ship and my last credit.  The entire game was a dramatic come-from-behind which I thoroughly enjoyed.  If you haven't played the Dreadlords scenario, I have just one thing to say: play it now!