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AI War / Re: Try beachheads + cross-planet waves
« on: March 29, 2012, 07:12:51 AM »
In my role as chief defense officer of my team I was thinking about implanting such defenses, if you support their effectiveness then i'm even more interested.
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AI War / Re: Defense Supply Mechanic
« on: March 28, 2012, 11:56:18 AM »
The current discussion raises a very good point: the games currently favour a unique whipping boy and having a single defensive choke point. Additionally, it was also suggested that the relative cost of turrets relative to fleet ships make them not as efficient unless you strongly focus them into a few or a single defensive point.
Even if I often have a single whipping boy and strongly focus my defense I do see the need to add diversity and have deeper guerrilla warfare tactic which would be fun. But as a matter of good game design, I strongly believe we should build system that reward alternative strategies and not simply punish curent strategies, after all the beauty of AI War lies in its depth of very interesting choices and strategies.
Hence, I really like the idea of a tower attack booster as proposed by Hearteater, I think they'll really bring the point accross that deepnening of defenses is good especially if the bonus is big and if other bonus can be latched on as well such as parasite, engine damage, armor damage and etc..
I also agree that taking the time to rebuild everything once the ennemies have passed your initial defenses is really annoying and is the main reason why I favour unique strong choke point. For guerilla tactic to be fun the mechanic to retake control of a given system need to be alleviated to become faster. Mechanic such as command station cloaking would not be bad but having simple thing, such as simplified or easier way to rebuild lost comand stations (such as having a destroyed command stations leave remains to rebuild instead of requiring a colony ship each time) would make the game smoother, faster and more enjoyable.
Finally, the "Eye of Sauron" idea is kind of interesting as well and really make sense, if you cap the bonus (let say 20% or 25%) its give enough incentive for the player to diversify their defenses but does not really force you into such a diversification. If the cap is too high players will try all srorts of shenanigans to avod the bonus and still use a single defense points, a lower cap give you just enough incentive to push you into trying something different and not neccessarily make your previous strategies useless while avoiding giving you too much incenctive to bypass the mechanic completly.
Even if I often have a single whipping boy and strongly focus my defense I do see the need to add diversity and have deeper guerrilla warfare tactic which would be fun. But as a matter of good game design, I strongly believe we should build system that reward alternative strategies and not simply punish curent strategies, after all the beauty of AI War lies in its depth of very interesting choices and strategies.
Hence, I really like the idea of a tower attack booster as proposed by Hearteater, I think they'll really bring the point accross that deepnening of defenses is good especially if the bonus is big and if other bonus can be latched on as well such as parasite, engine damage, armor damage and etc..
I also agree that taking the time to rebuild everything once the ennemies have passed your initial defenses is really annoying and is the main reason why I favour unique strong choke point. For guerilla tactic to be fun the mechanic to retake control of a given system need to be alleviated to become faster. Mechanic such as command station cloaking would not be bad but having simple thing, such as simplified or easier way to rebuild lost comand stations (such as having a destroyed command stations leave remains to rebuild instead of requiring a colony ship each time) would make the game smoother, faster and more enjoyable.
Finally, the "Eye of Sauron" idea is kind of interesting as well and really make sense, if you cap the bonus (let say 20% or 25%) its give enough incentive for the player to diversify their defenses but does not really force you into such a diversification. If the cap is too high players will try all srorts of shenanigans to avod the bonus and still use a single defense points, a lower cap give you just enough incentive to push you into trying something different and not neccessarily make your previous strategies useless while avoiding giving you too much incenctive to bypass the mechanic completly.
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AI War / Re: Armor is not that important currently
« on: February 21, 2012, 04:20:00 PM »Quote
2. Keep armor, but make it limited in scope (aka, most ships would only have 0 armor), but buff the armor of the few units that keep armor, to make it more obvious in the cases where it does come into play. Possibly rename armor (like to deflectors or something)
* This does give the question of what to do with armor piercing, armor boosting, and armor rotting. One suggestion is to allow armor rotters to take allow armor to go to "negative effective armor", to some sane cap of course. This way, it has use against even the now majority of ships that have no armor
* The few ships that have armor may be subject to the changes in the armor mechanic proposed above.
To make armor rotters or booster effective one of the base ship need to have a large armor rating. If bomber had, let say 1200 armor instead of the current 600, then armor related mechanic ship are always revelant no matter how the armor mechanic is rolled out or modified since at least one ship on your side and their side have a good armor rating. This is at the core of the problems I believe, making sure the mechanic is always relevant and this have to go through a base fleet ship or, alternatively, a massive modification of all guardian and turrent but so much easier to change a single fleet ship.
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AI War / Re: Nominations for Worst Ship Ever (II)
« on: February 20, 2012, 08:50:28 AM »
I remembrer once getting both armor and spacetank unlock and totaly went for it, the created fleet was very tough and with enough support and repair lasted a very long time on the battlefield.
I would have to agree with Bognor:
any changes should focus on these ships strength, increasing their DPS would just make them more average and hence not interesting by definition. Both ship need to stand out for being really and insanely tough, living up to their name of Amour and Tank.
I really thing the Vampire Claw should be next to get an upgrade. Following the Vorticular Cutlass upgrade it make them sad little vampire. However, they have the possibilities of being interesting because of the theme and mechanic. Increasing their lifesteal and buffing their speed to match (or at least approach) the cutlass would go a long way to make these guys dangerous.
The spider are not horrible but not the best either; not my favourite ship and I never got the mkIII (which may prove the point of them being underpowered) but I often end up using the mkI and mkII version in defense to avoid any serious spillover passing my defensive system.
The teleport battlestation used in defense are also great in that regard and can clean up any ennemy ship lucky enough to pass my defense (such as cloaking ship or stuff immune to tractor beam and mine) but don't leave them in a system that will take a direct attack they will die quickly as they'll be the first to get in the action (they need to be micromanage a bit and keep in reserve).
I would have to agree with Bognor:
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Anyway, if armor ships or space tanks are to be buffed, I'd rather the buff affect their durability than their DPS, thus enhancing rather than diminishing their distinctiveness.
any changes should focus on these ships strength, increasing their DPS would just make them more average and hence not interesting by definition. Both ship need to stand out for being really and insanely tough, living up to their name of Amour and Tank.
I really thing the Vampire Claw should be next to get an upgrade. Following the Vorticular Cutlass upgrade it make them sad little vampire. However, they have the possibilities of being interesting because of the theme and mechanic. Increasing their lifesteal and buffing their speed to match (or at least approach) the cutlass would go a long way to make these guys dangerous.
The spider are not horrible but not the best either; not my favourite ship and I never got the mkIII (which may prove the point of them being underpowered) but I often end up using the mkI and mkII version in defense to avoid any serious spillover passing my defensive system.
The teleport battlestation used in defense are also great in that regard and can clean up any ennemy ship lucky enough to pass my defense (such as cloaking ship or stuff immune to tractor beam and mine) but don't leave them in a system that will take a direct attack they will die quickly as they'll be the first to get in the action (they need to be micromanage a bit and keep in reserve).
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AI War / Re: Poll: Consensus on the New Plasma Siege Starships
« on: February 03, 2012, 08:17:20 AM »
I really liked the old dreadnought with ton of range but I understand they where a bit overpowered, even if not so sure now considering how much more aggressive AI get when you start attacking their stuff.
I'm not going to try the new version in my current game (I'm playing against an AI with ton of Bomber Starship shreding all the Capital ship I produce so not really worth it) but I'll say I like the idea of having a ship that is especially good against force field: they are common enough and key enough for the final assault against much shielded AI or human defense that it would make sense that both side have a ships that specialize at hitting stuff underneath them.
Making them an AoE weapon all the time, as proposed by the designer, would also be interesting if the damage is low enough considering how problematic this type of damage can be in large quantity against a lot of the swarmer ship type which already, more often then not, struggle a bit.
I'm not going to try the new version in my current game (I'm playing against an AI with ton of Bomber Starship shreding all the Capital ship I produce so not really worth it) but I'll say I like the idea of having a ship that is especially good against force field: they are common enough and key enough for the final assault against much shielded AI or human defense that it would make sense that both side have a ships that specialize at hitting stuff underneath them.
Making them an AoE weapon all the time, as proposed by the designer, would also be interesting if the damage is low enough considering how problematic this type of damage can be in large quantity against a lot of the swarmer ship type which already, more often then not, struggle a bit.
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AI War / Re: AI Ships Aggro
« on: January 23, 2012, 10:08:45 PM »
Hello,
Now I understand some of the AI response a little bit better, thx.
I started sending down troop in small group via transport taking away the guard post one by one which have been very effective and reduced the AI fleet to a more manaegable size for my final all out attack. Thx for the advice,
Philature
Now I understand some of the AI response a little bit better, thx.
I started sending down troop in small group via transport taking away the guard post one by one which have been very effective and reduced the AI fleet to a more manaegable size for my final all out attack. Thx for the advice,
Philature
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AI War / AI Ships Aggro
« on: January 23, 2012, 08:53:54 AM »
I have noticed that all ennemy ships at wormhole attack me as soon as I come in, is that a normal behaviour I remember it was not like that in the past and the behaviour had little to no impact early on but really stopped me in the later games where the AI ammassed larger amount of ships around each wormhole.
I also notice that ship defending guard post also tended to have a larger aggro range then I remember. I played with it early on against but this made the game progression much harder later as suddenly the forces were stronger and better reinforced, making all planet attack all out drawn out battle. It now impossible to end the game as well because I don't know how to counter large amount of core AI ships running at me when I attack the core AI homeworld. Is my only option is to run very specific raids but how I will i'll be able to run up enough forces to destroy the fortress and last shield at the ennemy AI which will still have a large amount of mark V ships around.
I'm playing with the latest beta patch. I'm wondering if the changes in the aggro rules were caused by one of the beta patch; does the official version 5.x versions have these issues as well and if not how do I roll back my version? Or is it only the choice of the ennemy AI, i've been doing a few test and it does seem consistent with most moderate AI that I've tried but not all easy AI (i've never really played against hard AI, I play difficult 7.0 or 7.3).
Philature
I also notice that ship defending guard post also tended to have a larger aggro range then I remember. I played with it early on against but this made the game progression much harder later as suddenly the forces were stronger and better reinforced, making all planet attack all out drawn out battle. It now impossible to end the game as well because I don't know how to counter large amount of core AI ships running at me when I attack the core AI homeworld. Is my only option is to run very specific raids but how I will i'll be able to run up enough forces to destroy the fortress and last shield at the ennemy AI which will still have a large amount of mark V ships around.
I'm playing with the latest beta patch. I'm wondering if the changes in the aggro rules were caused by one of the beta patch; does the official version 5.x versions have these issues as well and if not how do I roll back my version? Or is it only the choice of the ennemy AI, i've been doing a few test and it does seem consistent with most moderate AI that I've tried but not all easy AI (i've never really played against hard AI, I play difficult 7.0 or 7.3).
Philature
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AI War / Re: Dear Christopher Park
« on: August 04, 2011, 07:00:39 AM »
What do you mean by 4x because AI War got a lot of the Xs except one. If you meant a turn based strategy games, yeah that a whole different games.
AI War got 3 of the 4 Xs:
Explore
AI War have so much scouting, a lot more than many classic 4x and it play a bigger role in the medium-term game.
Expand
You do expand in AI War, and you expand in more interesting ways than classic 4x for two reasons: i) getting to specific points is very important for special ressource and essential for victory (advanced research station, advanced factory, fabricator, core shield generator and anything else that your expansion has activated). ii) This phase is less boring in AI War than classic 4x because your expansion is actually part of a war right at the begining while 4x you usually start by expanding in empty unoccupied space.
Exploit
This is were AI War is not really a 4x. You do have technology and technology points as a 4x games but I think the major elements is really your planet economic development in 4x; building factory and research center for increasing your prodution or research output, improving your tax income and etc.
Personally, I found the Exploit to be one of the most problematic aspect of 4x games. In modern 4x, you can sometime win just by doing a lot of exploitation. In fact, having a well refined and powerfull economy could mean that the last X, exterminate, is often done through pure economic dominance and large number. A good example of this problem come from the Total War series; they got this pretty nice combat and intense combat mechanic but if you are really good at the Exploit part of the game you can make so many more units then your opponent that the combat mechanic become pointless, you just overrun your ennemies with very large numbers.
By not getting into the Exploit, AI War is kind of avoiding this problems and focus more on the the three other Xs and that the strenght of the games.
However, Exploit is a very interesting mechanic in itself and in fact many games, especially board games, solely use this mechanic to create truly outstanding and fun games. Settler of Catan, Puerto Rico, Agricola, Dominion and Caylus are all extremely popular board games that only focus on developping stuff in a turn based environment. If the guys at Arcen Games want a good design for an Exploit games that where they have to look and truly making them a bit real-time would do them good as well. Now that I'm thinking about it I'll try to come up with a board games that include AI War procedural and deep Explore and Expand mechanic into an actual board games (or maybe I should finish my other design about a cooperative board games closer to AI War concept but I feel the later would make me more money, board games is really all about Exploit these days).
Exterminate
Well you don't exterminate everyone as in many 4x, AI War follow the more plausible scenario of taking the leader and central forces which more accurately ressemble an actual war (nobody ever conquered every bit of an ennemies empire, they get the big important chunk and the rest surrender).
AI War got 3 of the 4 Xs:
Explore
AI War have so much scouting, a lot more than many classic 4x and it play a bigger role in the medium-term game.
Expand
You do expand in AI War, and you expand in more interesting ways than classic 4x for two reasons: i) getting to specific points is very important for special ressource and essential for victory (advanced research station, advanced factory, fabricator, core shield generator and anything else that your expansion has activated). ii) This phase is less boring in AI War than classic 4x because your expansion is actually part of a war right at the begining while 4x you usually start by expanding in empty unoccupied space.
Exploit
This is were AI War is not really a 4x. You do have technology and technology points as a 4x games but I think the major elements is really your planet economic development in 4x; building factory and research center for increasing your prodution or research output, improving your tax income and etc.
Personally, I found the Exploit to be one of the most problematic aspect of 4x games. In modern 4x, you can sometime win just by doing a lot of exploitation. In fact, having a well refined and powerfull economy could mean that the last X, exterminate, is often done through pure economic dominance and large number. A good example of this problem come from the Total War series; they got this pretty nice combat and intense combat mechanic but if you are really good at the Exploit part of the game you can make so many more units then your opponent that the combat mechanic become pointless, you just overrun your ennemies with very large numbers.
By not getting into the Exploit, AI War is kind of avoiding this problems and focus more on the the three other Xs and that the strenght of the games.
However, Exploit is a very interesting mechanic in itself and in fact many games, especially board games, solely use this mechanic to create truly outstanding and fun games. Settler of Catan, Puerto Rico, Agricola, Dominion and Caylus are all extremely popular board games that only focus on developping stuff in a turn based environment. If the guys at Arcen Games want a good design for an Exploit games that where they have to look and truly making them a bit real-time would do them good as well. Now that I'm thinking about it I'll try to come up with a board games that include AI War procedural and deep Explore and Expand mechanic into an actual board games (or maybe I should finish my other design about a cooperative board games closer to AI War concept but I feel the later would make me more money, board games is really all about Exploit these days).
Exterminate
Well you don't exterminate everyone as in many 4x, AI War follow the more plausible scenario of taking the leader and central forces which more accurately ressemble an actual war (nobody ever conquered every bit of an ennemies empire, they get the big important chunk and the rest surrender).
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AI War / Re: New Turrets
« on: July 30, 2011, 10:24:57 AM »
After thinking about it more and reading other comments, I believe that AI War is full of keyword ability that the turret and defense are not currently using, engine damage is clearly one of them and so is parasite. I'm a big fan of mine myself and I'd be nice to have mine that would each of them, since both ability is clearly fitting.
I really love the idea of damage over time turret, that cool.
Capturing something that give access to new turret technology would be pretty cool, I don't know if it shoulde be an Advanced Research Stations since you might want more certainty upon what you are getting.
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Not the Nanite turret proposed earlier in this thread, but I love the notion of a turret that does "duration damage" where it only hits one ship at a time, but that ship will continue to take damage over the next 90 seconds (or whatever) as nanites go to work devouring the ship like termites.
I really love the idea of damage over time turret, that cool.
Quote
Maybe even have some Turrets that could only be unlocked by Advanced Research Stations?
Capturing something that give access to new turret technology would be pretty cool, I don't know if it shoulde be an Advanced Research Stations since you might want more certainty upon what you are getting.
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AI War / Re: New Turrets
« on: July 26, 2011, 06:02:35 PM »
Thanks for all the interest, this board is pretty cool.
I have to agree, Grenade Launcher Turret and Vampiric Turret migth be redundant.
You got it, I wanted the nanite turret to be some sort of an improved mine or alternative mine which I really love despite being just ok; it got a slight range and won't last long but will deliver a good punch but certainly will need to be rebuild. I guess to make it truly different then a mine you'll have to give it a medium range and then we'll have something interesting, maybe then it should be some sort of large single shot rocket pad that auto-destroy themselves on firing.
I personnally just love the Maw Turret concept, it trully hilarious. I was thinking that it would be a great last defense for your command station were usually only an handfull of ship successfully get there on very large raid or cross planet attack or from slipping by because of stealth or other tractor beam ignoring ability. If 20 or 30 ship get to your command station and your Maw Turret swallow 10 to 15 of them you'll be in a good position to avoid any significant damage.
These ideas are way better than mine...
Parasitic turret would be really cool and so is armor rotting/shredding.
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GL Turret == Lightning turret in that it does splash damage, no need for another splash damage turret
V Turret: I don't think there's a reason to have regenerating turrets when you have engineers to repair and remains rebuilders to rebuild turrets. Seems redundant.
I have to agree, Grenade Launcher Turret and Vampiric Turret migth be redundant.
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That seems like it might be more suited to a mine than a turret to me, possibly. Or more like it's more similar to the existing mines and could maybe be a variation on them instead.
You got it, I wanted the nanite turret to be some sort of an improved mine or alternative mine which I really love despite being just ok; it got a slight range and won't last long but will deliver a good punch but certainly will need to be rebuild. I guess to make it truly different then a mine you'll have to give it a medium range and then we'll have something interesting, maybe then it should be some sort of large single shot rocket pad that auto-destroy themselves on firing.
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The maw ones would be potentially both hilarious and hard to make useful. You need to take a lot of ships out of commission to be worth your time. Just one here and there is usually not worth it, especially at higher difficulties or in multiplayer games, particularly as you get later into the game. We never see less than a few hundred ships at a time, even at the beginning of the game. Taking a couple dozen out of the fight would barely be noticed in terms of who wins and how easily, but in terms of being really funny and really satisfying to watch it would be great. I suppose the reason it's much more of a threat for the AI to swallow one of your ships than for you to swallow one of theirs is that you have a hard cap, and they don't; you're prevented from rebuilding/redeploying it until you recover it, while they are not.
I personnally just love the Maw Turret concept, it trully hilarious. I was thinking that it would be a great last defense for your command station were usually only an handfull of ship successfully get there on very large raid or cross planet attack or from slipping by because of stealth or other tractor beam ignoring ability. If 20 or 30 ship get to your command station and your Maw Turret swallow 10 to 15 of them you'll be in a good position to avoid any significant damage.
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there is definately room for some new turrets- parasitic, super-high damage long reload, armor rotting, riot tazer...
These ideas are way better than mine...
Parasitic turret would be really cool and so is armor rotting/shredding.
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AI War / New Turrets
« on: July 26, 2011, 06:22:30 AM »
All the expansions added a lot in term of fleet and capital ships but the defensive array remained the more or less the same. Hence, maybe we should get a few more new turrets in the next expansion. Here a few ideas:
Grenade Launcher Turret -- Similar to Grenade Launcher Ship, cause a small area of damage on impact.
Voidmaw Turret ---- A turret with a tractor beam that attract 1 ennemy ship that is then swallowed.
Vampiric Turret ---- The turret will have a short range attack that will heal/repair it, I would pair it with a tractor beam with a larger range as in the swallowing turret.
Nanite Turret ---- A turret that deal a lot of damage to a single target but in a short range, however it will be doing damage to itself in doing so.
Grenade Launcher Turret -- Similar to Grenade Launcher Ship, cause a small area of damage on impact.
Voidmaw Turret ---- A turret with a tractor beam that attract 1 ennemy ship that is then swallowed.
Vampiric Turret ---- The turret will have a short range attack that will heal/repair it, I would pair it with a tractor beam with a larger range as in the swallowing turret.
Nanite Turret ---- A turret that deal a lot of damage to a single target but in a short range, however it will be doing damage to itself in doing so.
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AI War / Re: Using teleport battle station
« on: July 22, 2011, 05:44:22 AM »
Thanks, i'll set them up as a defense force then and see what come up. So far they have been usefull against the small group of raider that passes my defense because of immunity to tractor beam.
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AI War / Using teleport battle station
« on: July 21, 2011, 07:14:06 AM »
I started a games and stumbled upon teleport battle station in a research center and i'm not sure how to use them properly? Should i keep them on the defense (it make a very fast response defense force) or should I try to do surgical strike with them?
It seem like a neat unit but I'm just not sure how to unlock their potential, I just never really toyed around with teleporting unit before so maybe I just don't get them
.
It seem like a neat unit but I'm just not sure how to unlock their potential, I just never really toyed around with teleporting unit before so maybe I just don't get them
.
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AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: How does scoring work in AI War
« on: March 31, 2011, 05:04:41 AM »If the system scoring is not so important (or even not clear), why make the spirecraft and the golem easy and moderate factions use the system as an offset? It seem to me like a contracdiction.
I wanted to use the moderate faction to try out the spirecraft but I didn't want to have the ennemy run around with them as in the hard difficulty (like Golem prior to the minor faction introduction). That why I wanted to raise other difficulty element and I was hoping to use the scoring system as a benchmark. I'll guess I'll increase the AI progression a bit and go enjoy the game.
Thanks for your reply,
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AI War Strategy Discussion / How does scoring work in AI War
« on: March 30, 2011, 07:11:11 AM »
I was thinking to start a new games with the spirecraft and reading the minor definition I saw it reduce your scoring and wondered If I can tweak other parameter of the difficulty to compensate (for ex.: faster AI threat progression) but then I realize that I don't really understand how the scoring system work and tried to look for reference on the wiki but found none. Do you guys know what the major element of the scoring system?
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