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I have yet to play a game of DW2 past the emergence of the Rift Striders. They arrive far too soon, such as when I am in the middle of conquering my neighbors, and they move far too fast, and are far too powerful. This last game, they showed up before I researched light cruisers. This is despite me researching genetic rewiring so everyone of the 12 AIs on the map could research everything to slow them down.

In earlier incarnations of the game, the Hive would rarely appear before I researched multi purpose hulls / light cruisers, now the Hive attacks when I am working on improved destroyers.

I have tech trading off.

In the future, I will be taking the option to postpone the Return of the Shakturi storyline to "late" in the hope that makes the game playable again.

Am I the only one who is seeing this?

This is particularly bad as the AIs are all behind me in terms of technology and fleet strength.

This is in the 1.3.1.1(and 01) betas.

Xmudder wrote: Tue Jul 29, 2025 8:38 pm I have yet to play a game of DW2 past the emergence of the Rift Striders. They arrive far too soon, such as when I am in the middle of conquering my neighbors, and they move far too fast, and are far too powerful. This last game, they showed up before I researched light cruisers. This is despite me researching genetic rewiring so everyone of the 12 AIs on the map could research everything to slow them down.

During game creation at the Victory Conditions screen put Skakturi story to start late or very late and problem solved.
You will be much better prepared and have higher tech level and better ships to deal with them.

To be more specific, the game before last I remember researching things like Electromagnetic Beams, Nova Missiles, Hyperfusion Reactors, and Light Carriers around the time the Rift Striders arrived. This time they showed up 2 whole tech levels earlier, when I am researching planetary fighter bays and Light Cruisers, and was expecting a hive attack that never materialized. Game before last had a grand melee with a hive fleet of about 9 ships (3 of each) attacking my local pirate base that I had to send multiple light cruiser led fleets against before chasing them back to their medium space port to finish them off.

The change in timing between the 2 games is confusing me, and the only change I know of was 1.3.1.1 vs 1.3.1.1.01

Shakturi arrival is affected by a few factors, most notably the player's average tech level and the galaxy's average tech level. It's possible that in your game the galaxy tech level threshold has been reached. This can happen if a number of the AI empires are either research-centric (like Quameno) or grow quickly and get lucky with ruins and research station availability.

If you see a pattern across your games where something seems off with Shakturi arrival based on your game settings, please let us know and provide save examples from your playthroughs.

I'm seeing something similar in my game as well, and was thinking of asking a similar question to the above. I'm playing Humans, and have a good lead above the other empires, with good relations with a number of them. I have the most research generation, around double of any other empire, and the story-line started about the time I researched Light cruisers. I unable to build a fleets to challenge them as their fleets are essentially doom stacks, with fleet strength around triple my own.

While I want a challenge, it appears I'm over matched, and could use few good tips to deal with them.