From the Ground Up Remnant.

[kucsidave]

This thread is going to be the first of a series (one for each faction). The reason why i do this is because I heard from lots of people that the FTGU is impossible in Admiral and stuff.
I hope these Threads will help many people who are trying fruitlessly to beat the FTGU.

GC

You start at Carida and have 60/week income. Pause the game as soon as possible. I know 60 isn't much but you have to build 5 Tax Collection Agencies(TCA from now on), because you need that income. At the same time start building a Victory I. The reason why VSD I instead of the II is they are a bit cheaper and their rocket launcher makes them able to serve multiple purpouse what you really need. This way, you don't have to build lancers too, since those rockets are quite effective against fighters too.
Unpause the game and immediately launch your fleet to Farrfin and your ground forces too, before your fleet arrives there since you have no time to lose. Take the planet without losses. If you lose even 1 unit be it in space or ground then better start again, since you don't have the luxury to replace them.
While waiting for the VSD to be done build this planet full of TCAs too and nothing else. don't even build a space station. just move on to Champala and repeat. DO NOT Build anything there for now just leave it empty. 30 with 30 income it does not worth to spend your precious credits to TCAs either. By the time they would bring your money back it would be too late.
Go back with your fleet and army to Farrfin and wait for the VSD. After it is done, immediately repat this with Noquizor. This will be harder since the NR holds the planet, but with the VSD you can do it without losses. The ground will be hard to win without losses, but possible.

Noquizor

Main thing is you have to move careful and watch out for your AT-STs. with their barrage ability it is easy to destroy the NR T2-Bs one by one. Your main goal is to push to the other side of the river because there are build pads there. make sure that your stormtroopers are close by and start building a repair pad ASAP so you can heal your AT-STs.after they are fully healed send them forward to the crossorad. bring your E-WEBs and bloc the main route to the enemy base with them while you send 1 AT-STs up north to scout and call in a bombing run or orbital bombardment to destroy the enemy units there. (or both)
Now you can push down to the enemy base, but first if you need to repair your AT-STs bring them back and do so.
If not or if you did , just sell the Repair pad. that is credits back to you.
Push down to the enemy base to the small passage and wait for the bombing run to fill in. Bring only one of your AT-STs in there and call in the bombers to finish up the enemy base.

GC

Build the Planet full of TCAs. 50 income is not good, but it is barely in the limit to build them up. If you have extra credits start building VSD Is. Wait for at least 1 and unite it with your fleet. As soon as it is done take Obroa-Skai and Gravan VII. At gravan quickly build up a Heavy frigate yard and 2 Hypervelocitygun(HVG) ASAP. with the income you get from the 2 conquered planets should be enough to kickstart the constructions while your income shold be enough to keep em going. Make sure constructions never stop, or if it does make it to the minimum so if you see the first HVG is not yet complete, but your space station is, then stop the second HVG so you surely have the creds to build up the second tier. In the meantime in champala build up a light and a heavy factory ASAP. Take Brorleais too and keep your ground forces there while moving your fleet back to Gravan. Also when the Heavy factory on Champala is done start building IDTs there and pump them to Borleais.
keep building up your forces and when you have 4 VSD Is in your fleet (a Modular Taskforce Cruiser is also recommended) you can try to take Bilbringi.

Bilbringi

Just bring in your Escort Carrier
If there is no Raid fleet:
Place your other forces quickly around it. Make sure that the VSDs are on ethe front and wait. The enemy will come to you.

If there is Raid fleet:
Just get out it's way, and when you are in a safe distance bring in a VSD just to protect your escort carrier.


Wait for the enemy to come to you. Bring in your whole fleet and make sure the VSDs are in front.
Focus your fire and try to take out their weapons first. If only the shield and engine or maybe a hangar remains leave the ship be, it can't harm you anymore, focus on something else. Also make sure to destroy the Turbolasers first. they are the most dangerous. Ion cannons can cause no phisical damage. If the ISD II comes fucus on it's four Octuple Turbolaser Batteries first, then every other TLs and only then the ion cannons. Shield, engine and tractor beam can be left alone.
When their ships are done, you can carefully destroy the golans. It's range is not as good as VSD I's so there is a small gap where you can shot it, but it can't shot back. Use it to your advantage and before you know it, you won.

GC

Buikd two TCAs to Bilbringi and build up to Capital shipyard. Don't spend your credits and wait until you can build a Sovereign. As soon as it is done, send it to defend (and most possibly retake) the orbit of Borleais.
Save your credits again and build the second one and send it to defend Gravan VII. You have secured your territory. Even if a Viscount comes, you can one shot them. If there is more in one fleet then oneshot a Ciscount, retreat and then return with your Sovereign only, oneshot one and retreat. Repeat until there is no more Viscounts.
Sell 2 buildings you had on Borleais and build them to be HVGs(if you didn't had them there) and build up your space station too. Do the same with Obroa-Skai and build it up to Heavy frigate factory to make a second line of defense, just in case. Then you can hold this small territory and build up your forces. When that is done, it is recommended to go to Garos IV then Wayland then Comkin 5 then Selaggis IV and Dathomir. You only have to hold Comkin, do not press further. the EotH will take care of every NR holding there afterwards. If the hand already took a few planets ther, don't care and take them. You have to get Dathomir since it is a Shipyard planet with relatively good income, safely away from the fronts.


In my current playtrough with the IR I am at week 155 and have all this, but I have good forces and it looks like I can expand.

After that the best course of action is to go down the Duskhan Planets, then Galantos and finally take Byss, since that planet can be built up as a Fortress World and it can defend on it's own or with minimal defence forces. Then take Corulag so getting a safer border planet instead of Borleais.
Also this means you can sell the HVGs from Borleais to get back some credits.


Good luck, Admiral

[Weaver]

I've beaten FTGU with EVERY faction on Admiral. It's not that hard.

The key is to be very aggressive and micro-manage everything. That means raid fleet after raid fleet. You need to be as quick as possible in taking planets.

The strategy you outline here is maddeningly overcomplicated, and it appears to take a long time. "Saving up credits" for 100 weeks is not challenging nor stimulating, and is really just cheating.

[tlmiller]

I've beaten FTGU with EVERY faction on Admiral. It's not that hard.

The key is to be very aggressive and micro-manage everything. That means raid fleet after raid fleet. You need to be as quick as possible in taking planets.

The strategy you outline here is maddeningly overcomplicated, and it appears to take a long time. "Saving up credits" for 100 weeks is not challenging nor stimulating, and is really just cheating.

Ummmm, what?  At no point does he mention saving credits for 100 weeks...did you actually read his post?

[kucsidave]

before I start this, please read this to the very end Supreme, because I don't want any misunderstanding... You will understand.

"Saving up credits" for 100 weeks

I never said that. I said that I was at week 155 and had all that done. I also said I have good forces at the moment and ready to expand as a status report of the GC. But by that time I also consumed the whole EOTH region. I just did not have to complicate things that much, since the forces and territory I said there should be enough for anyone to start building an empire from, no matter how new he is to the game.(though I think a total greenhorn would never go straight to FTGU on admiral)

The key is to be very aggressive and micro-manage everything. That means raid fleet after raid fleet. You need to be as quick as possible in taking planets.

Had you read the beginning of the guide? It is a guide on micro-managing with the best results.

I've beaten FTGU with EVERY faction on Admiral. It's not that hard.

It's not that hard for you, but look around the forum for a few hours and you will find many posts about people who are struggling with it. If FTGU is easy for you, then good for you. Then edit your files to up the difficulty a bit for yourself and good luck.

The strategy you outline here is maddeningly overcomplicated, and it appears to take a long time. "Saving up credits" for 100 weeks is not challenging nor stimulating, and is really just cheating.

If you are so much better let me see your strategy guide on all the factions since it is "easy" on admiral. Really, I seariously want to know your strategies too.
Oh, and by the way if I would want to save credits for 100 weeks it would not be cheating. It is simply an Economyst playtrough. I know because in SoaSE and in it's mod Ascendancy I am a hardcore economist normally. I keep away from conflicts as long as I can saving up resources, focusing on resource techs and... wait, who cares about this crap? Point is: that is simply an economist gamestyle and just as legit as a rusher or a turtle or a guerilla tactic.

I don't mean to offend you any way, but for me it seems you have those "googles" on you which sees everything bad or cheating what you don't use.
There are multiple ways to adress every single problem and these are my ways. I respect that you have a different solution and I ask you that next time you do the same. If you have a good solution next time comment it down telling this is good too, not say the other people's solution as crap because they can be just as good as yours.

[Weaver]

I interpreted your post as meaning 155 weeks had gone by and you still had not expanded!

Even so, I typically have beaten the campaign by 120 weeks. I do remember once having a very extended playthrough with the EOTH past that, but freezes stopped me from continuing.

I just think "economist" playthroughs are not very exciting. It is more challenging to be aggressive and attack early and often.

The difficulty with the Empire is that the Sovereign is so overpowered, and makes playing as them too easy. I would like to see a game version where the Sovereign does XXX amount of damage, rather than a 1-hit KO.

Also would be nice if the AI were smarter and could use fighter raids, hit and run, etc.

[kucsidave]

I interpreted your post as meaning 155 weeks had gone by and you still had not expanded!

Even so, I typically have beaten the campaign by 120 weeks. I do remember once having a very extended playthrough with the EOTH past that, but freezes stopped me from continuing.

I just think "economist" playthroughs are not very exciting. It is more challenging to be aggressive and attack early and often.

The difficulty with the Empire is that the Sovereign is so overpowered, and makes playing as them too easy. I would like to see a game version where the Sovereign does XXX amount of damage, rather than a 1-hit KO.

Also would be nice if the AI were smarter and could use fighter raids, hit and run, etc.

I agree with you on the Sovereign. I also mentioned it in my reply about the difficulty levels of GCs.
I understand you like to attack, I like to not to lose even 1 ship. Ground forces? I don't care but if I lose 1 ship I want to throw off... That's why I take it slow. Because I want to make sure I have no losses in space.

[Pali]

That's why I take it slow. Because I want to make sure I have no losses in space.

I used to play just about every strategy game with that mindset ("don't lose anything!"), and I am quite thankful to the Total War series for forcing me to abandon it.

[Weaver]

I used to play just about every strategy game with that mindset ("don't lose anything!")

It's a terrible mindset. Reflects scarcity and usually hampers your strategy (in life and in the game). I'm glad I, too, grew out of it.

[Weaver]

I was curious, so I went back and played FTGU Remnant on Admiral. It was actually one of the easiest compaigns, but that may just be because I have a lot of experience with FTGU in general.

I spread out very thin and took as many planets as possible, putting up velocity guns in strategic places and leaving the natural fortress pirate worlds to cover my other borders.

One thing that made the game very easy was that the Hand and Pentastar could not get to me since for some reason that one planet on the left that I forget the name of in the Duskhan cluster does not connect to Hand territory.

I, too, built a bunch of Victories to take Bilbringi and then built a Sovereign.

LOL. My first Sovereign is at 99% and then BOOM a giant whale comes and takes out my key border planet. I was very "lucky."

From there my Sovereign licked the galaxy clean, and I brought in another one to tagteam all the harder planets.

When I reached the point of no return--(the point where winning is inevitable and losing is not possible)--I was at 150 weeks.

I then got lazy and took my time and didn't bother with military efficiency whatsoever, just auto-ed everything, so I finished the entire campaign at 180 weeks, with a lousy military efficiency of 51%!

It was very fun and sneaky. The New Republic ended up all over the map, and beleive it or not the very last Hand planet in their territory--miraculously--was a New Republic world, instead of a Hand world.

They created this random bunker deep in Hand territory.

If there was a connection into Duskhan territory, the game would have been much much harder--a proper challenge keeping the Empire at 4 borders instead of 3.

The #1 thing I am most disappointed with is how disadvantaged the PA is.

The PA always loses, it disappears, it cannot compete.

It's sad. Hopefully the addition of the Bellator can help amend this, in fact 2.2 is going to be very different and FTGU is one of the things I am most looking forward to.

Anyway that's all for now. Not a bad guide, Kucsidave, I am not as conservative as you and don't mind losing ships, but I have to admit the Sovereign is a necessary evil to win this campaign quickly unless you want to spam Tie Defenders to take out whales.

Whale hunting....

*shudders*


As far as the mod itself goes, I had 3 main problems that may need looking at:

1) Entry into PA and Hand territory is through just one planet and throws their factions out of balance
2) The PA always loses quickly
3) I only had 2 raid fleets in 180 weeks of playthrough (in my last FTGU I had ZERO).

[kucsidave]

The #1 thing I am most disappointed with is how disadvantaged the PA is.
The PA always loses, it disappears, it cannot compete.
It's sad. Hopefully the addition of the Bellator can help amend this, in fact 2.2 is going to be very different and FTGU is one of the things I am most looking forward to.

They are only there if you are the PA...
If not, the PA is not even present in the GC.

1) Entry into PA and Hand territory is through just one planet and throws their factions out of balance
2) The PA always loses quickly
3) I only had 2 raid fleets in 180 weeks of playthrough (in my last FTGU I had ZERO).

1)The only thing that throws the Hand out of balance is the fact that 3 of it's original 4 planets(Nirauan, Oristrom and Kariek) is in the same bunch, and quethold being the odd one out the bunch is facing NR from Wistril(starting with 9 planets no less) and a BAC present there from the beggining.
2)I think I adressed this already...
3)You were lucky/unlucky, whatever you felt like. I for one got lucky once and got a raidfleet when attacking Bilbringi, taking out most of the defenders

[Corey]

FTGU was originally made when the PA was not a thing yet; when they did become a thing, we made their own version of it, but decided against adding them to the other factions' versions because of the EaW selection freeze and how bad the FTGU is for that. So they might seem less competitive but, as Kucsidave points out, that's mostly caused by them not being there at all.

[Weaver]

I stand corrected.

Hadn't tinkered with the GC file itself. Might have to foray into a few edits and see what disastrous scenarios I come up with.

[StarBornMichaelh165]

Ok I try out the strategy when I can thank you.  But I would like to fight all of the Factions in the mod at some point. (Or Watch Andrew Hester play this and Scream WHY the whole time. LOL)