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[Draco18s]

Awww... that's kind of... I don't know, but I'd personally prefer it to have to warp in it's own ships from a planet

That's what we call a "Cross Planet Attack."

Enough units "freed" from their guard duty (say, by killing a system/guard post/other structure) and they escape through a worm hole, they're still active threat.  Once the AI has about 1500-2000 of them (or more, depending on how strong it thinks you are) it'll move them to the front lines, then warp to one of your planets.

You do get a notifier about it, though.

[forsaken1111]

Awww... that's kind of... I don't know, but I'd personally prefer it to have to warp in it's own ships from a planet

I don't think you understand the premise.

You are a lone human faction fighting an AI which controls the ENTIRE GALAXY as well as OTHER GALAXIES.

If it notices you, it will crush you.

You must expand your influence while remaining beneath the AI's awareness threshold at which it will utterly crush you until you gain some better technology and can actually take some of its better ships on in a straight fight.

[Singularity-SRX]

Ahk, I think I was trying to play it too much like a normal RTS...

Thanks for the info

[forsaken1111]

Ahk, I think I was trying to play it too much like a normal RTS...

Thanks for the info

No problem. Just remember that the AI operates under entirely different rules than you. The main difficulty of the game is in expanding without being noticed. If you simply raid every system around you and conquer everything you see, you will piss it off before you're ready and it WILL kill you.

Deep raids on important structures are common in this game, and necessary. I often go around less important AI systems because taking them wouldn't be beneficial, and would just increase the AI's progress. If you can get a good chokepoint and defend it heavily that helps.

Also: Astro-trains are bastards.

[Mandaril]

Hello! I'm sorry to necro this thread like this, but I just bought the game (and all of it's expansions)!

I love it, I've played it solo for a while, but I'd got recently an itch to start a co-op campaign. Would anyone here be interested? I have only played vs 7 AI's (but with lots of options/factions) enabled, but I'm willing to go with as hard settings as you want to. I also have a mic and I know how to use it, if you need or want to. I'm GMT +2, and as long as it's not office hours at my time zone (monday-friday 8-16), I'm available for play. Also, I don't chicken out or leave things unfinished no worries about that > : )

Add me on Steam (atte_ is the account name, Karma is the visible name, not sure which one works) or PM me here for some AI Wars -games!

[Draco18s]

I haven't been playing recently due to my opinion that they ruined the charm the game had.

[Pandarsenic]

I haven't been playing recently due to my opinion that they ruined the charm the game had.

How so?

[Grishnak]

Probably because they made the beginning faster and less tedious so you can get to the action (fun stuff) faster?

Oh and an alternate, AWESOME way to win (crush the ai).

OH wait, those are improvements.

[Draco18s]

No, they kept removing strategies to make the game "more like how we intended for people to win."  I.e. disincentive deep striking.  They also attempted a anti-fleet blob mechanic (but stupidly gave the AI more ships when it had its own fleet blob!  Thus leading to a cyclic reinforcement of AI systems, so while not in any more, they are going to revisit).

They also ruined leeches/parasites.  Like completely ruined them.  A blob of Mk4 parasites reclaims more ships by itself than a blob of Mk4 + Mk1 ships (how is that logical?)  They fixed leeches repeatedly to make up for it, but they're still not "useful."

The difficulty curve over time is also supra-linear, due to the fact that at higher AIP the AI gets more ships.  But it's a linear relationship and +10 ships in the early game is trivial, but +10 ships in the middle to late game can be enough to overwhelm you.

Right now the middle-game is too difficult on difficulty 7-7.6 because you don't have the time between various waves to rebuild and attempt a hit on the AI.

[Mandaril]

Right now the middle-game is too difficult on difficulty 7-7.6 because you don't have the time between various waves to rebuild and attempt a hit on the AI.

I try to rely on automated defenses as much as I can to prevent this one. I need large turret numbers, but with military command center mk. 2 or higher, dealing with AI random attacks becomes a lot easier. Teleport delays any small ships while your turrets target down bigger ones that don't get teleported.

Also, with golems or spirecraft, depending on your settings, you can leave the AOE dmg ones sitting inside your CS force field (that sits on the wormhole leading deeper into your territory). If I play more defensively I may unlock some extra turrets and/or fortresses.

I'm not an Ai War veteran, but you get the idea: if you are in a highly hostile galaxy you need to have defenses that can deal with them. I for one have learned that I can not just ignore static defenses and rely 100% on a fully mobile fleet. Ofc I need to bring the fleet in when big punchers come at me (carriers, large enemy fleets or golems, hybrid hive swarms, beachheads, bomber fleets, etc.), but most of the time I have time to clear out new planets if I want to.

If your static defenses get crushed for whatever reason, you can always EMP the enemy fleet so that your main fleet can return from the assault mission. A couple of progress points is a small price to pay for not dying.

---
*edit* Also, I haven't tested this myself,  but apparently you can use the space/time manipulator turret things to make a "speed highway" for your fleet. It would help with the "not enough time" -problem.

[Pandarsenic]

I.e. disincentive deep striking

Explain? I thought deep-strike missions were always supposed to be important.

[Draco18s]

I.e. disincentive deep striking

Explain? I thought deep-strike missions were always supposed to be important.

And they still are, but doing them is dangerous.  The deeper you are past the front lines, the more and stronger ships the AI gets for free.  They spawn at the AI homeworld and are "free threat" ships, IIRC, although they will attempt to intercept your deepstrike.

Hence why I call it disincentivized.  I.e. there's a Really Good Reason to not Deep Strike.

[Mandaril]

Hence why I call it disincentivized.  I.e. there's a Really Good Reason to not Deep Strike.

http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_5.000_Release
New behavior for the AI! When the player goes on distant deepstrike runs -- defined as having any human military ships more than four hops away from any human or neutral planet -- the AIs both goes on high alert and starts spewing out ships from their home planets (or a random planet if their home planets are destroyed).

I think that is intended to be a mechanic to prevent a player from ending the game too early. "Over 4 hops away" is a long way, most of the time my transports die after passing 1-2 enemy worlds.

I do not think "deep striking" is something to avoid. Notice the keywords "from any neutral or human planet", if you really want to make deeeeeep strikes of 5 or more hops, I guess you'll have to take out an AI planet at 4 hops and make it a temporary beachhead.

[Draco18s]

Uh huh.  And how often do you win (diff 7+) when you've encroached within 4 jumps of (i.e. not deep striking) the AI homeworld?
What size are your galaxies, are they smaller then the "standard expected 80 planets"?

[Pandarsenic]

When they say spewing out ships do they mean GENERATING ships from outside or DEPLOYING ships they have?