AI War:Fallen Spire Walkthrough

Fallen Spire Walkthrough

Warning: this article contains a lot of spoilers, the low-spoiler overview is here.

Our intention is that winning a "Fallen Spire" game should be roughly as challenging as winning a normal game, assuming you know what is going on. If you don't know what's coming, an FS game can be much harder. Therefore, our intention is that it be much harder the first time you try it ;)

Also, note that we said "winning". "Playing" a FS game can feel a _lot_ harder in the early/mid game because so much of the challenge is shifted from the late-game into those earlier phases. It's more of a "showdown" style confrontation with the AI. The AI knows that it needs to stop you _before_ you can build up your true strength, and that struggle will feel pretty intense.

If you'd like to tone down that "unknown" challenge factor, though, feel free to read this walkthrough and/or the article on the more technical details of how the FS stuff works. It's not cheating, it's reconnaissance ;)

Game Setup

We've heard of brave souls starting their first FS game on difficulty 7.6+ with Advanced Hybrids on and stuff like that. More power (and bandaids) to them.

We suggest, however, going with something closer to a game with 2 Diff 7 Vanilla-type AIs with no large-challenge-increase factors like hybrids or whatnot. It's up to you, of course.

Map-wise, you'll have a much easier time if you can get a closed-in territory of decent size that can be guarded by 3 or fewer chokepoints. Also, plan on having to take more territory than a usual game requires.

The First Local Signal

When you start the game, you will be notified of a subspace signal on your homeworld.

If you build a Survey Ship (it's right next to the normal science ships on the build menu) it will scan for the signal and locate another signal, on another planet.

• Advice: the survey ship itself isn't cheap, it's not intended that you start on it immediately. Taking a couple planets first wouldn't be a bad idea. But you may want to leave at least one AI planet next to your homeworld (more on that later).

The First Remote Signal

Note that this signal tries to spawn:

• 2 hops into AI territory (away from human or neutral planets).
• 2 hops from your homeworld (so if you've expanded 4 planets along one line from your homeworld but not at all in the other direction, it picks that other direction).
• Not requiring hopping through a mkIV+ AI planet (even if that means not being 2 hops into AI territory).

This is why it's a good idea to not completely seal off your homeworld. Or if you take all planets neighboring your homeworld (not a bad idea), try to leave a path to AI territory from one of those homeworld-neighbors.

If you send a survey ship to the indicated planet, it will scan the signal there and find a strange artifact called a Shard.

The shard (once found) is basically a normal unit under your control. You want to get it back to your homeworld.

• Advice: as soon as you find the shard, save your game (having a backup from before is good too), give it a move order to get back to your homeworld, and prepare to cover it (and your homeworld) with everything you've got.

The First Shard, Chase, and Recovery

Why do you want to get it back to your homeworld? Because as soon as you find the shard the AI starts spawning special strike-forces to destroy it and/or you. These spawns happen about every minute, and stop once the shard is on your homeworld (or destroyed, but you don't want that). Ships already spawned will stay on target, so you'll have to deal with them.

This first "chase" shouldn't be terribly difficult. The Shard itself is very tough to destroy (300 million health, Neutron hulltype). You do want to have a fairly strong fleet and defenses, though. Those AI strike forces can include mkV ships and tons of other unpleasantries. That's nothing compared to what comes later.

• Advice: you may have to try again several times (i.e. savescum). Be creative, you have lots of tools you may not be used to using (at least in the early game). Engine damage (spider turrets, riot starships), staggered tractor turrets putting "no entry" forcefield caps on wormholes, EMP warheads (won't disable the mkV stuff, but will generally separate it from the rest), Grav Turrets, staggered-tractor-turrets-and-grav-turrets-under-forcefields, etc.

The Subspace Receiver, and the Second Local Signal

Once you've recovered the shard, you can use it to build a Subspace Receiver on your homeworld (don't send it to another planet, or the AI spawns start again). The Receiver's purpose is to scan the signal that just popped up on your homeworld.

• Advice: there's no rush to build the receiver, the AI isn't doing any kind of ongoing FS-related assault. Yet.

The Second Remote Signal, Chase, and Recovery

When the receiver finishes scanning it will find another remote signal (again, the game tries for 2 hops out).

This survey and recovery mission functions almost exactly like the first except that this time the "chase" strikegroups will be over twice as strong and the uncovered object is a "Refugee Ship" instead of a shard.

• Advice: like with the shard it's a good idea to have a save from before the end of the survey operation, and to give the refugee ship a move order to your homeworld as soon as it is found (the ship can actually fight, unlike the shard, but that is not its purpose here).

The Refugee Outpost, and the Third Local Signal

Like the shard, the refugee ship can build something once it's on your homeworld. This time it's the Refugee Outpost. Note that it must be placed fairly close to a resource point (metal or crystal deposit), but it doesn't occupy that point or anything like that.

The outpost is basically the first "payoff" for going through these various ordeals. Specifically:

• It has the equivalent of a MkIV Heavy Beam Cannon. That's a _really_ big gun. If properly placed it can greatly assist with defense.
• It can construct Spire Frigates, which are fairly sturdy starships with a longish range continuous beam weapon (which is different from zenith beams or human heavy beams) that can do quite a lot of damage when it gets a good shot. The outpost can support 4 of those frigates.

The outpost will also begin scanning the next local subspace signal for you.

• Advice: again, no rush to build the outpost, it is a fairly costly structure. But this one has benefits. One strategy is to get to this point in the FS progression and then switch to playing the game "normally", and you've got the "free" HBC-IV-equivalent on your homeworld and the 4 continuous-beam-weapon frigates to throw around as you desire. This walkthrough assumes you're going to continue with the "campaign", however.

The Third Remote Signal, Chase, and Recovery

This recovery mission functions like the first two (with a shard this time, not a ship) with a few important differences:

• The game will try to spawn the signal 3 hops out, instead of 2.
• It will no longer care about passing through MkIV AI planets (nor will it intentionally try to do so), though it will avoid AI Homeworlds and core planets (those next to an AI homeworld).
• The AI "chase" forces will be over twice as strong as the last time, and will split into (generally) three groups: one to go after the shard, one to go after the refugee outpost, and one to go after your home command station.

• Advice: again, having a save from before is a good idea. Having built all 4 of the Spire Frigates that the outpost can support is a very good idea. Those continuous beam weapons are a bit tricky to get the hang of, but are very effective if used properly. One suggestion is to place the frigates on the line between two wormholes you know an attacking force will use, so that they fly into the line of the beams rather than across them.

Starting The First City

Once the shard is back home, you can use it to build a Spire Colony Ship. This colony ship can in turn build a Spire City Hub, but there are a number of rules:

• A city hub cannot be placed on a planet with a Home Command Station.
• A city hub must be placed on a planet with a (non-home) human Command Station.
• A city hub cannot be placed within 2 hops of another city hub.

The AI will not react to the colony ship in any special way, but once you start construction on the hub it will send a very large strikeforce against you. Roughly 6 times the size of the initial set that came after this last shard. The difference is that those chases had new AI strikeforces spawning every 60 seconds, and this city-building-response is a one-time spawn. But since the strikeforces will be more concentrated you will see bigger and more powerful ships. If you're on a high enough difficulty and/or have enough human homeworlds (via multi-hw start or multiplayer) you may even see Golems (if TZR is enabled).

• Advice: no rush to build the colony ship or city hub. Bear in mind that both cost a very large amount of resources, and that you'll want to have a full cap (999,999) of both metal and crystal on hand before you start building the hub. Definitely save before starting to build the hub. Another very important question is where to put your city hub. We heavily suggest placing it near a wormhole that invading AI ships have to go through to get to your homeworld. You see, later on, the city will be quite the defensive powerhouse.

• Special Note: Once you build a city hub, you've irrevocably escalated the AI's concern about you and the Spire refugees, and the AI will continue to send strikeforces after you throughout the game. You don't have to build the city, you can just play the game normally. But, assuming you want more pain...

Building Up The First City

Once the hub is complete, it can build 3 other kinds of structures:

• Spire Shard Reactors.
  • Supports Hab Centers and Shipyards.
  • Can mount a variety of defensive modules (produced the same way the Riot Control Starships produces their modules).
  • Has a fairly big main gun (same sort of continuous beam weapon as the Spire Frigate).

• Spire Habitation Centers.
  • Require at least one Shard Reactor in the galaxy somewhere for each Habitation Center.
  • A city must have at least one to advance to the second level of development.
  • Provide a pretty hefty amount of metal and crystal.
  • Can also mount defensive modules.
  • Also has a fairly big main gun.

• Spire Shipyards.
  • Require at least one Shard Reactor in the galaxy somewhere for each Shipyard (they do not compete with Hab Centers for this, each Shard Reactor can support one Hab Center AND one Shipyard).
  • Can build Spire Frigates and larger Spire ships.
  • Increases the ship cap of Spire Frigates (by 4 for each shipyard) and larger Spire ships.
  • Cannot mount defensive modules.
  • Also has a fairly big main gun (noticing a trend?)

Initially the hub can only support a total of 3 structures. Since the other two structures require a Shard Reactor, the first one has to be (you guessed it) a Shard Reactor.

For the second one you could build a hab center or a shipyard (or another reactor, but that's probably not the best choice). If you're struggling economically (quite likely with these massive m+c price tags) the hab center is probably the best. You'll need one anyway and it produces quite a bit of resources. If you're doing well resource-wise you may want to jump to the shipyard because it will let you build more Spire Frigates and also a Spire Destroyer (more on that later). Either way, you'll want one of each.

But you may have more serious things to worry about during this time, because as soon as the hub is completed the AI begins "charging up" an exogalactic strikeforce to go after you again. The first one is released about 10 minutes after the hub is completed, but it will be fairly small (roughly 1/6th the total force thrown at you when you started the hub). It then charges up again for about 12-13 minutes to send another force about 25% larger than that first small force. The time interval and size will increase by about 25% each time.

So once you have the Shard Reactor online you may want to prioritize building its defensive modules instead of the next main structure. Or, particularly if the AI is coming at you from many directions (and thus you can't count on a large percent of the attackers having to go through the city), you may want to prioritize the shipyard so you can get more Frigates and a Destroyer. The destroyer and larger ships use the same kinds of modules as the city facilities, so let's cover those now:

• Laser Cannon Modules.
  • These are generally the weakest weapons, but also the cheapest.
  • You start with the MkI version unlocked, and can unlock the MkII and MkIII versions by researching the MkII and MkIII Laser Turret techs, respectively. Having those extra laser turrets around is also not a bad thing. The MkIV version cannot be unlocked until later.

• Rail Cannon Modules.
  • These are also on the lower end of power for Spire weapons, but they're sniper weapons.
  • You start with the MkI version unlocked, and can unlock both the MkII and MkIII versions by researching the Spider Turret (which is a great thing to have when playing FS anyway). The MkIV version cannot be unlocked until later.

• Heavy Beam Cannon Modules.
  • These are basically the same as human heavy beam cannons except strapped to the side of a ship (or city structure). They're the mainstay of the Spire modular armament in terms of overall power, though they lack the ability to focus strongly on distant targets unless those targets are fairly large.
  • You don't start with any of these unlocked, but you can unlock the MkI, MkII, and MkIII versions by researching the MkI, MkII, and MkIII heavy beam cannon techs, respectively. The MkIV version cannot be unlocked until later.
  • Note that the Destroyer can only mount MkI HBC modules (and a single MkII at the expense of its shield generator) and the city structures can only mount up to MkII (and a single MkIII at the expense of the shield generator).

• Plasma Siege Cannon Modules.
  • This is basically like bolting a siege starship onto another vessel. Sounds like fun, doesn't it? They're much like siege starships in that they can only hit large targets, but they hit like a freight train. Note that, unlike siege starships, these siege cannons do not suffer from an inability to hit forcefields (or other stuff immune to antimatter bombs).
  • You don't start with any of these unlocked, but you can unlock the MkI and MkII versions by researching the MkII and MkIII Siege Starships, respectively. The MkIII version cannot be unlocked until later (there is no MkIV version).
  • Note that the Destroyer cannot mount these at all, and a city structure can only mount a single MkI at the expense of its shield generator. Basically, don't worry about these until later.

• Shield Generator Modules.
  • These project a forcefield to protect the capital ship or city structure. In the case of capital ships these can basically double the hp of the ship (but are permeable to enemy movement). For city structures they're significantly weaker than that but can cover an enormous area (and block enemy access). Neither variant has any adverse impact on the offensive power of ships protected by them, as a normal ff gen would.
  • You start with the MkI version unlocked. The MkII capital-ship version is unlocked with the MkII Forcefield Generator tech. The MkIII capital-ship version and the MkII city version are unlocked with the MkIII forcefield generator tech. The MkIV capital-ship version and the MkIII city version cannot be unlocked until later.