Best way to play Advent

they are considerably awesome defenders. they can even render assault cruisers fairly worthless with mass disorientation + meteor on the SB.

you have to keep in mind that advent abilities aren't simply straight fleet enhancements. try repulsing some enemies into your mines.

Fleet wise, in the original and with entrenchment, the advent are all about shields and using their ships (especially caps) to support each other to make the group far stronger than the sum of its parts. In the civilian tree, its all about culture.

In entrenchment, a lot of these same factors apply. Advent defensive structures can be upgraded to support each other, as the hanger will give a layer of shields to nearby structures, and beam turrents grouped together get an additional damage and shield bonus. While the advent is the only race to not have an anti-strikecraft structure besides fighters from hangars, its defenses seem to be the strongest and some have argued over powered.

Its starbase as mentioned has some awesome abilities. Mass disorientation causes ships to stop whatever they were doing and just float in space powerless. Meteor control allows for meteors to impact the target causing quite a bit of damage, and both abilities can target enemy anti-structure ships. They also start with two strikecraft slots that the other races do not get. Other unique abilities include spreading your culture (at a very much increased rate) and increase the maximum alligence (+30% full upgraded, allowing your homeworld to reach a maximum 150% alligence).

Also of note the advent deploys homming mines from strike craft, can allow them to quickly create minefields that are quite effective even against faster frigates.

In simple terms what you are advising is to first setup a defense with ships and bases, then slowly move forward?

In detail it would be closer to;

  First build something like the Advent Carrier or Colony Capital ship, build a small force of five or so Disciples to go with it and head to the outer ring of empty worlds around my Home World.

  From there defeat the "pirates" and then immediately start building those worlds up.  First buy doing Civic upgrades and from there performing Defensive upgrades such as the tier one Hangers.  From there I would immediately start building a Broadcast Tower to gain the culture bonuses within the systems I control.  Once all of this was accomplished I would build a small force, for me I guess it would normally be about 5-6 Illuminators, and send them in as a planetary defense force and then move on to the next ring.

  The real questions I guess I’m asking are;

1.) Is that how I should approach the games (i.e. a defensive stand point)?

2.) How should I be building my research?  Should I be going for military and then after all is said and done start working on economic tech since the Broadcast Tower is earlier and effective?

The overwhelming majority of the time you should build the mothership as your first cap as advent.  There are exceptions of course(e.g. if its a small map and you know you are going to be 2 jumps away from your only enemy then you should build a radiance to help nullify enemy cap abilities).  The mothership is still going to be a respectable first cap in any circumstance though.  You should not go with civ/harmony stuff unless your enemy is a good distance away or you have enough to fight him off if he decides to attack.  Do as much econ stuff as you can safely get away with.  You have to keep an eye as to what they are up to.  Your fleet should be tailored as to what your enemy has to counter it.  If you see that he has a lot of LRF then go for carriers with fighters or if he has a lot of carriers with fighters then go for some flak and disciples.  Culture tech is nice but you shouldn't worry about it too much if you are actively fighting.  If you got a bit of time then its worth it to get the 10 percent allegiance boost and increased shield mitigation.  Trade is also nice if you aren't threatened too much.  As advent, I only go farther than 3 hostility temples if I am needing repulse on my guardians or HC(5 temples) or I am wanting meteor on my starbases(6 temples).  Hope this little bit was helpful

[_]-Greyfox

I would never recommend a mothership for the first capital.  It's fairly weak, has a terrible lvl 6 ability and is only decent as support with the shield renewal, which you are going to skip early for the planet colonization probably.  Youw ill also need to build the colony ship anyways to get neutrals, meaning you just wasted the capital ship choice. 

Take a Radiance or Carrier capital ship.  Radiance is just all around good offense and defense, very similar to a Kol, and it's lvl 6 is devestating later on.  It'll keep smaller ships alive early on if you go with the taunt ability and antimatter is never a problemw ith the armor/dmg to antimatter ability. 

The carrier ship is nice simply because of the passives to the energy weapons cooldown, which a lot of ships use.  The 5th ship (cant remember the name, like a Marza, but not as powerful bombing abilities) is also great for strike crafts (aura boosts strike craft) and the mind control like ability at lvl 6 can be huge for resource tight smaller maps.  With how many strike crafts the drones and star bases and hangars and so on use, it's never a bad thing to boost them. 

The mother ship capital can come in later in the game, maybe your second or third ship to expand on the fringes while the first ship pushes forward / defends a key point.

I completely disagree with Kirby. The mothership is a great first cap. Shield regen keeps your ships alive, especially in the beginning when you're taking neutral planets and need to not waste resources building ships to replace the ones that were destroyed, and at level 3 its a great addition to your battle ball, multiplaying the strength of the guardians ability. It's level 6 ability is actually one of the most powerful as well as one of the least usable. Building your progenitor first and keeping it alive the whole game means that all the caps you build after that are resurrectable. Being able to build a capital ship and boost its level instantly is arguably one of the best abilities in the game, especially in Multiplayer when people will target your caps in the outset of a battle. You just need to know how to use it. THe colonization ability of the progentior has the best bonus in the game, reducing planetary upgrade costs by 20, 40, and 60 percent, which in the beginning of the game, 20 percent cheaper infrastructure, logistics and tactical upgrades means you save a lot of precious resources

Resurrection: First make sure autocast is turned off on this ability. When one of your capital ships is destroyed in the same gravity well as the Progenitor, it's dying level is recorded. Simply cast resurrection on another of your caps, at any time, anywhere, to instantly boost it to the same level as the one that was destroyed. And viola! you can turn a level 1 to a level 10 instantly.

Personally I always build a progenitor first. Then a Halcyon to help manage enemy strikecraft with Telekinitic push, and then the Revelation to protect my ships against powerful lvl 6 enemy cap ship abilities like Missile Barrage and the space eggs Vortex. Plus the Revelation has the Provoke Hysteria ability at lvl 6 making planet bombardment much quicker.

You couldn't be more wrong about the mothership.  It is the backbone of any Advent fleet.  The colonize part of it discounts planet upgrades.  It is a key part of Advent econ.  Advent don't get easy neutrals or combined resource extraction research like Vasari.  They don't get early trade and cheap ships like TEC.  The mothership discounThe shield regen is a hugely important thing to have especially as you get a bigger fleet with guardians in it.  With a mothership and a half dozen guardians, you can weather damage from fleets twice your size.  Malice is meh and resurrection is hugely situational but shield regen and colonization discount is what you have a mothership for.  With it you can withstand a marza missle barrage.  If you built something other than a mothership as your first cap in a decent sized map, you have gimped yourself greatly.  The radiance is nice to have against enemy caps like I mentioned above but cleansing brilliance isnt that great especially compared to a marza and missle barrage.  The Halcyon carrier cap is nice for telekinetic push against strike craft and for its energy weapon boost and is a good 2nd pick.  The rapture is the name of the cap that boosts strike craft but strike craft aren't near their previous strength so boosting them isnt what it used to be.  It has some other nice abilities too though.  If you look at online play, the majority of advent will use the mothership for their first cap and with good reason.

[_]-Greyfox

If you ever get on the defensive, make sure to get shield bestowal for your hangar bays.  This will give any nearby structures shields and a 4 point regeneration rate.  The regeneration is nice, but the important thing is that it gives all yuor structures mitigation.  The hangar bay is the key to an advent defense's durability.

Kirby, do you play the game in online multiplayer (aka "the real Sins game") against real human opponents and not feckless AI?  If not then it's difficult to take your advice, which seems very questionable, seriously.  You want the mothership for its shield restore ability which is not trivial.  Also, the colonization bonus is nice too.  When I go Advent I always start out with the mothership.  I might go on to build a Halcyon later, but people should almost always go with the mothership first.

Anyway, consider yourself cordially invited to come join the online multiplayer community where you can find more challenging and interesting games with human allies against human opponents and where you can enjoy the camraderie of other people and make online friends.  It's the "Ironclad Online" button and not the "Multiplayer" button.

Mothership kicks butt against AI.  Mothership should be the first Cap regardless if its AI or human opponents IMO.

Hmmmm....If you ask me, the mothership lv 6 capability is one of the best in the game, it essentially gives you free levels on a cap ship if another one of you cap ships get destroyed