by Creamsteak
I was able to beat the scenario I set up for myself as humans and hydrans, took four attempts each time to get it. I didn't score things. The human win came down to morph shield cruisers and taking the last three systems out at once. The hydran win was perhaps easier, but they failed sooner until eventually I drew the right research tiles to get them to progress. I overwhelmed the final battle by an order of magnitude.I also allowed the ancients with distortion fields and point defense to apply their bonuses to all the ships in their space, and on the hydran win I ended up drawing an ancient hive that moved into the last world which wasn't consequential but could have been interesting.
It was less fun after I figured some things out... but I did learn a little bit about how to "make due" with being trapped behind a wall of ancients early on to a great degree.