A Beginner's guide to AI War(AKA How not to die in five minutes)

[Ktoff]

It is a good idea to ignore the command station at first if you are not ready for the backwash of ships. But to ignore the guard posts....

[Cyborg]

It's a legitimate playstyle to ignore the command station, just eliminate the guard posts, and be selective about eliminating warp gates, but there is a methodology to it. I play that way. If you just eliminate everything, your progress goes UP

[Ktoff]

Comic sans? Really?

[Cyborg]

I am fully aware that people make fun of comic sans, but here is the beauty of it: it can be monospaced and the letter i, l, and the number 1 look different. If anything, we should be vilifying fonts that make those look the same. Like Times New Roman.

Times new Roman:
il1IL

Comic sans:
il1IL

[Ktoff]

Times new Roman is no beauty, but your example shows nicely that only 1 and l are similar.

Sometimes Comic sans can be OK, but I find it hard to take anything seriously set in that font...

I like Garamond...

Also: way to go Off-topic

[Echo35]

Times new Roman is no beauty, but your example shows nicely that only 1 and l are similar.

Sometimes Comic sans can be OK, but I find it hard to take anything seriously set in that font...

I like Garamond...

Also: way to go Off-topic

Off Topic: What are you guys, art students?

On Topic: You should ALWAYS be auto building ships. If your economy can't handle it, then pause your ship queue and fix your economy. There are bigger problems with your setup if your economy can't handle an auto queue of triangle ships.

[Flatline]

Science Points are extremely important, the game only has a limited resource(unlike Metal or Crystal, or Energy or AI Taunts), so spend them after thinking about their worth and value : Scouts are not important, the first Tier already does the work that a 3 does, only difference is the cloak, but really? who needs cloak when you can send lotsa scouts to their death?, Fighters are once again, slightly unimportant, there are rediculous amounts of other ships out there that does the work of the Fighter, maybe even better(Like the Ammunition Booster),Bombers are only useful if you are planning to Charge at the Main AI command at 2000 Miles a Second through 20-30-40-50-60-70-80-90-100-110-120-400,000 AI planets, Frigates are pretty great, Allows for Sniping, and very few other ships surpass it's capabilities, Z-Frigate? Limited numbers before Efficiency Goes down the drain, Snipers? Low damage

                  

I won't bother to respond to Critical Frozen previous post directed at me, some people you just can't reason with, and also others have responded sufficently anyway..

[keith.lamothe]

Times new Roman:
il1IL

Comic sans:
il1IL

Actually, in both of those examples all 5 glyphs look different to me.  Maybe my browser lacks a sense of a humor.

[Cyborg]

Off Topic: What are you guys, art students?

Off-topic:
My major was computer science, but I had a minor in arts. I love art history in particular, enjoy foreign and domestic museums; it's one of my favorite topics! Most people don't care about that stuff, but art is a way of documenting the human race, and the medium is one component of that. If you are interested, or want to be interested, start reading about Hieronymus Bosch and go backwards/forwards from there. No matter what you think of his paintings, you can't help but have a reaction.

on-topic:
Fighters are not useless. They are the best triangle ship. Frigates and bombers have better substitutes at the starship factory than fighters do.

[zoutzakje]

I still remember when I first started playing this game (because it wasn't all that long ago ) and back then I was completely overwhelmed by the complexity of this game. But I have a thing for complex games so I started playing, making mistakes and learning my way into the game. If I would have read this "guide" , I would most likely have just ignored it. Because even a beginner can see that some of the stuff in  here just doesn't make any sense at all. So I'm curious Frozen Critical... what dif/Ai Types/ other settings do you usually play with? And does the stuff you wrote actually work for you? Can you win games (or at least survive a couple of hours)? This might be good enough for the lowest difficulties, yes. But if a beginner, who has followed your advice, decides he wants to try out a dif 7 game.... he'll get his ass handed to him very quickly, of that I have no doubt.

On the other hand, I also do believe that it is quite impossible to write a good and effective guide for this game. There is just to much stuff to find out and to remember at once. Any succesful guide would be way to big. I read the entire wiki before I started palying my first game after the tutorial... and by the time I had finished it I had forgotten most of it already.
Best way to learn how to play this game is through your own experience.... make mistakes (lots of em) and learn from them.

[Ktoff]

Actually, in both of those examples all 5 glyphs look different to me.  Maybe my browser lacks a sense of a humor.

Yeah they do, but without knowing what is what it is kind of difficult knowing if the thymes roman glyph : l is a 1 or an l without having access to a direct comparison.

Also, more offtopic: physicist here, no arts connections but I enjoy typography and good design

And more on Comic sans: while it has it's uses, stuff like that is why some people think it should be abolished :-)
http://butschinsky.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/cigar-box/

[Wanderer]

I'm tempted to write up an accurate beginner's guide for the current build.  I've done them before but there doesn't seem to be much joy for the game anymore in the IRC and the like.

I don't see an easy way to get a request for this outside of this thread, but would anyone find something from a recent beginner to a beginner valuable?

[Cyborg]

I'm tempted to write up an accurate beginner's guide for the current build.  I've done them before but there doesn't seem to be much joy for the game anymore in the IRC and the like.

I don't see an easy way to get a request for this outside of this thread, but would anyone find something from a recent beginner to a beginner valuable?

If this thread didn't deter you, I'm sure it would be an interesting read. But this time, I think it should be put in a wiki so it can be edited. A beginners' guide on some random thread that is not stickied would get lost and out of date really quickly. I actually enjoyed this guide- even though there were some inaccuracies- mainly because it brought about some discussion on the mechanics of the game.

[Ktoff]

Have you seen the Wiki on this site? It even has a beginners section (not very extensive)

http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Starting_Out