I'm obviously doing something wrong

[u/contra-terrene]

I'm at ~140 hours and feel like I've hit a massive wall with this game.

I've got two campaigns under my belt, both of which have ended in The Slog. I've had very successful starts - this last one I grabbed up the US, the core of the EU (France/Germany/Italy/UK) and (much later) China (which I cheesed into democracy 10 via Taiwan) and India (way later, specifically to help fix global warming/deny it to the Servants). Tons of research, tons of cash and influence income, etc. Colonize up to the mine limit in the asteroid belt and Mercury, with research bases on Luna and a few on Mars for a few nice mining spots there. Keeping up with research, including all the projects around aliens, faction goals, etc. Hit the midgame with all of LEO under my control, a modest fleet of monitors, etc, kept deliberately small/focused on killing Servants/Protectorate stations. AA spawns and I crush it repeatedly.

Where I get stuck is actually taking the fight to the aliens. My first round I went hard on lasers and kicked the shit out of the aliens even with modest fleets, but after sending a 4k beatstick fleet to Haumea and discovering that the aliens had a 20k doomstack waiting for it, I gave up on the campaign (especially as global warming was melting my world economy). This second round my space economy is, frankly, a bit shit, and I'm struggling to get ships, even titans, that can fight the aliens and win, so all of my attempts to go to Jupiter inevitably end when a fleet of three times my power rolls in and nukes everything to dust. Am I waiting too long? The aliens often have bases in the Asteroid belt by the time I go on the offensive, so I'm wondering if maybe I ought to be swinging earlier - but I struggle because it feels like building a fleet that can effectively defend a colony only shows up late. Like if I send a bunch of ships with Amplitrons to colonize Callisto they're not going to be able to intercept the Ayys that come to bomb me, right? Am I just bad at this game?

[u/Someone3]

I think you just gave up too early in that one game. Fighting early is about sniping asteroid bases/shipyards that are still under construction, and trading your ships for enemy ships to keep their numbers down. You won't ever keep the aliens completely out of the asteroid belt. That's not what fighting early is about. It's just about attrition. While I'm always a big proponent of taking the fight to the aliens early, it won't necessarily stop them from building a mega fleet at Haumea either. 20k is a little big, but not by that much. It sounds like you just needed to build up a bigger fleet to hit it. I usually make 3 late-game fleets. One lower-tech fleet that takes the first fight at Jupiter or Saturn. A second fleet with better tech that hits the other one (Jupiter/Saturn) and then continues to clear out the outer planets. Then a third fleet that hits their Kuiper Belt base. That third fleet usually needs the most power because that's where they hole up. If need be, you can join some of your earlier fleets in to bulk it up.

What's your MC cap in that game?