Topics

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AI War / thoughts on marauders, resistance fighters, and roaming enclaves

« on: April 06, 2013, 11:31:19 AM »

I've spent about twenty hours this week playing games with all these three factions on. I wanted to see how they work together, and whether they combined to make the game fun or frustrating. I've played with them all at intensities of 6 and 8, in different games. What follows are my observations and suggestions about them. I played at 7.6 difficulty for each AI, and AIP in mid to late games was 100-150. I'm not sure how each faction is affected by those factors, but I include them nonetheless.

The short answer is: these are very fun to mix together. You should try it.

I think Marauders are in a very good spot right now. At intensity 6, they show up every half hour or so, or when I'm being overwhelmed by, or overwhelming, the AI. They are truly equal-opportunity bandits: they'll happily wipe out AI forces as long as I don't engage them, and just as happily turn on me once they're done. They never allowed me to rest for long, and forced me to have at least a light defense on all of my planets.

At intensity 8, it seems like the only thing that changed was the frequency of attacks. I had to deal with them on average every 15-20 minutes. They still came in small groups of 40 or less, and caused the same kind of havoc that they would have, had I set them to 4 or 6. The only change I would suggest is that they come in larger groups on higher intensities, although this may make it frustrating rather than fun.

Resistance Fighters are hard to evaluate at the different intensities, because I could not figure out what made them decide to show up. In one game at intensity 8, I think I saw about 15 total, while in another at intensity 6, at least 50 over the same amount of game time. They seem to be the most random of the three factions I tried out. I would really like to know more about how they decide to help you: is it completely random, or do they come when you are suffering heavy losses? Are they more likely to come when you are further away from your own territory?

The Roaming Enclaves I tried mostly at intensity 6, and don't have much experience with them at 8. These are a lot of fun to have in my games. The hostile ones came about as often as the Marauders, and sometimes both would show up within moments of each other. In the early game, I needed to keep a small fleet in reserve to defend against these, but near mid-game I had sufficient defenses on each planet to hold most attacks at bay.

The Friendly Enclaves are a great help offensively and defensively. By default, they tend to cluster on your homeworld and not do much unless something attacks it. By the time they respond to a threat on a bordering world, I've usually dealt with it already. If you use the chat commands to disallow that, they become much more effective at defense. In fact, the chat commands allow a great degree of flexibility in how you use that fleet. I would like to see those implemented into other friendly factions like Resistance Fighters.

The fleet can get impressively large, too. After 9 hours in one game, I had 36 Friendly Enclaves ready to defend my planets, assist my attacks, or act independently. I would like to see something similar happen with the Hostile Enclaves in order to balance this. I rarely saw more than one of them attack my planets, and never more than two. If they could be made to cluster into fleets like the Friendly Enclaves do, that would make for more interesting, and frightening, scenarios.

I'm continually impressed with how much depth there is to this game, and how much effort goes into supporting it.

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Marauders, Resistance Fighters, and Colony Rebellions

« on: April 01, 2013, 09:08:49 AM »

I'm thinking of starting a game with these three option enabled, and setting their intensity from 6-8 each. I'm interested in other players' experiences with them.

I usually use, and quite like, the Colony Rebellions at an intensity of 4. Their fighter/bombers and frigates are some of my favorite units to use in the late game: they're fast, tough, and lethal. I assume that the higher intensity will mean that there are more rebellions, and that they will start earlier. I'm also assuming that the ship caps don't rise with the number of colonies you free. I'm looking forward to a fairly hectic mid-to-late game, as I struggle to split my time between making progress against the AI and managing the rebellions.

I can't remember using Marauders much at all. I do remember that their ships were durable and had a significant range advantage over most of my ships. They can show up anywhere, and probably will at inopportune times. I can imagine them causing a significant amount of frustration for the AI as well as me.

Resistance fighters should help to mitigate the Marauders slightly. I've rarely used this option so I don't know what to expect from it. I can't expect it will make the game any harder, though.

Has anyone else had experience with these settings and options?

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AI War / My first victory!

« on: March 25, 2013, 10:33:35 PM »

I've been playing for over two years, and today I had my first victory! I can't believe how good it feels to be able to say that, finally.

I played a fairly simple game, 80 planets realistic, 7/7 vanilla AI, with only Zenith Traders and Human Colony Rebellions enabled. I usually play with Golems on medium but I wanted to see how I did without them. Because I like starships a lot, I decided to play a game where I didn't spend any knowledge on fleet ships. I let the RNG pick my bonus ship and ended up with laser gatlings. They became the primary escort for my starship fleet for most of the game.

I spent the first couple of hours scouting and building up my starship fleet. There were two ARS three hops away from my homeworld, which I quickly took. I received vorticular cutlasses and Stealth Battleships from them. I had never used cutlasses before today, but I may choose them again in another game. I used caps of them, along with the Laser Gatlings, to clear out border worlds and cheaply defend against waves. They were useful right until the endgame.

I found and captured a few Fabricators: Gravity Rippers V, Electric Shuttles V, Heavy Bomber Starship V, and my personal favorite, the Spire Starship V. The Mk V Spire Starship: for when you want it dead, real dead. The Gravity Rippers were underwhelming, combining slow movement with short range. They were moderately useful on defense, not so much on offense. I enjoyed using the electric shuttles a lot. They were particularly useful at clearing out threatballs and trapped waves.

The planet with the Mk V spire starship fabricator also had an experimental engineers fabricators. They were amazing. That is all.

I got Blade Spawners, autobombs, and Neinzul nanoswarms to round out my fleet. By the time I was ready to assault the AI Homeworlds, I had unlocked Mk III of every starship and captured a Starship IV factory. I had also built up a substantial mercenary fleet. One of the side benefits of using primarily starships for offense is a lot of extra resources that build up quickly. I felt confident but had a few problems.

The first AI Homeworld had a core raid engine, while the second had a core CPA post. I decided to go for the one with the raid engine first, since I thought it might be easier to deal with. It was, to a certain point. There was an Ion Eye on the Homeworld. I couldn't get close to the Raid Engine it with Raid Starships the first two times I tried, so in the end I took the entire starship fleet in and destroyed it. In the process, I destroyed most of the other guard posts and about 300 Mk V ships while losing about a fourth of the fleet. After spending some time rebuilding, I went back and finished destroying all the guard posts, before moving my fleet into position to assault the other homeworld. This one didn't have an Eye so I just brought in the entire fleet.

I destroyed the first AI command station with about 6 minutes left on the CPA timer and packed what remained of the fleet into transports. I had to get to the other homeworld quickly, to finish the job. As you can see from the screenshot, I made it just in time.

Whew. I think I need something strong to celebrate.

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AI War / Back to AI War after a long hiatus

« on: March 18, 2013, 10:01:54 PM »

I'm coming back, as the title suggests, after a while. There's been an expansion and a whole lot of balance changes since my last serious game, and a lot of the recent changes intrigued me, so I started up a new game. I play 7/7 Vanilla AI, with Medium Golems, Zenith Traders, and Human Colony Rebellions enabled. Usually I pick a bonus ship, but this time I let the RNG pick for me.

I get Neinzul Scapegoats, something I've never used before. Not only that, I'm not sure how to use them very well. They're more expensive than anything I can build at the beginning, so they're not very cost-effective to use. However, I do like to use mercenary fighters in the mid- to late-game and Scapegoats fit well into that strategy. It's been pretty effective, but I wonder if I would pick them if I had the choice. They're underwhelming considering the ships I got from the ARS': Autobombs, Etherjet Tractors, Armor Ships, and Neinzul Fireflies. I also captured  Spire Railcluster V fabricator. I'm glad I did.

The combination of Autobombs and Fireflies makes two jobs very easy: clearing the enemy side of a wormhole, and defending against incoming waves. Once upon a time there was a threat fleet of 700 camped on a wormhole, and in 45 seconds or so, there wasn't any more.

I usually play very starship-heavy games, so I wasn't sure about how the recent changes would affect my strategy. I've been using them for about 10 hours, and captured a Starship IV Fabricator about four hours in. I like just about every change that's been made to them. The combination of lowered K cost and caps, plus the ability to manufacture Mark IV in the same way you do with fleetships, makes for a lot of interesting strategic choice. That Mark IV Zenith Starship is a beast, by the way. You're going to want it on your side.

I like most of the changes to guard posts. They affect the game in more important ways than they used to, and interact more interestingly with guardians as well. I've had a quite a few difficult battles as a direct result of this. Try getting close to an MLRS guard post when two Laser Guardians and a Gravity Guardian are hanging around it, for example. Oh, and don't buzz an MLRS post with your Raid Starships unless you like rebuilding them.

I've just captured a Spire Corvette V factory and am looking forward to putting it through its paces. The idea of having more modular starships like the Riot intrigues me and I've got some knowledge saved up. I think I'll get as many modules as I can and experiment. I would love to hear how other people have used them.

I'd love to play some Shattered Haven, but AI war is taking up a lot of my time right now. Maybe I'll get to it in April...

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Neinzul Enclave Starships are very interesting now

« on: July 22, 2012, 09:29:10 AM »

I have not played around with Neinzul Enclaves since the most recent changes, so I started a game in order to find out just what they could do. I was particularly interested in their new drones, so I unlocked all the Mk II turret tech I could and the Mk II Enclave and put them to work. A few hours in and several planets conquered, here is what I learned:

1. Two Mk I and two Mk II Enclaves, put on free-roaming defender mode and constantly producing drones, can overwhelm most Mk I or II worlds pretty easily. If you want to clear Mk III and IV worlds, you'll need to micromanage a bit more. Set the Enclaves to Attack-Move and use shift to set a course to the various guard posts.

2. Mk I and II Drones can destroy fortresses in just a few minutes. I was surprised, too.

3. When I added Mk III Enclaves and Drones, I was able to take Mk IV planets with 200+ defenders, using FRD.

4. Drones work very well for wave defense, especially since I have so many turrets to support them.

5. I can defend a lot of planets, quite heavily, when I have mk I-III turrets. It lets me focus on attacking without much fear of counterattack. Yet.

6. I'm not going to have much more knowledge to spend, and I'm considering getting Mk IV Enclaves because I'm having so much fun with them. I don't know if that will doom me on the Core and Home worlds, though.

I'm interested in other people's experiences with Enclaves. What have you used them for?

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Neinzul Viral Enthusiast homeworlds or Dear God Make The Pain Stop Please.

« on: April 02, 2012, 12:50:57 AM »

This might be a special case, but it was pretty brutal. I wonder if anyone can give me some advice on how I might proceed next time.

I was playing against a Peacemaker and a Viral Enthusiast and doing quite well against both of them. At three hours I had scouted the AI homeworlds, by seven hours I had all but one ARS, a Factory IV, and fabricators for Youngling Tiger V, Speed Boosters, and Spider Bots. Eight hours in and one CPA later, I still had the Tigers. I'd started with Stealth Battleships, and found Tractor Platforms, Microfighters, MLRS's and Autocannons from the ARS. I felt pretty good about my chances for the first homeworld, but there were several problems.

The two coreworlds both had AI eyes on them, and there was a raid engine on the homeworld. AIP was low, 262 when I first started the battle. This mean that the waves were only 400-500 strong, but they were still mark IV and coming every couple of minutes. I used hit and run tactics and tried to minimize the time I spent alerting the homeworld. I made progress, but slowly, and took a more or less continuous beating the whole time, but eventually the AI eye fell. I withdrew to regroup and rebuild my fleet.

The Raid Engine was about as far away from the wormhole as it could get, and in between were a Mark V Viral Swarmer Colony and a Core Guard Post that spawned about 1700 Neinzul Cockroaches when I got within striking distance of it. Between that and the hundreds of swarmers already released, it was a massacre. The fleet I had sent in was destroyed in seconds, and the cockroaches and Core ships from the homeworld destroyed the remainder of the fleet, and the rest of my empire, mere minutes after that.

I've never seen anything like it. It was beautiful and terrifying and impressively lethal. I just can't see how I could have avoided it. I wasn't playing with Golems or Spirecraft on, or I might have used Artillery or Penetrators. The Neinzul Spawner post was right by the Raid Engine, so as soon as I fired on it I would trigger that wave of doom. Any thoughts on what I could have done better in this situation? I'm sorry I didn't think to get a screenshot, but I was preoccupied.

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AI War / Why you should always keep fighting

« on: March 18, 2012, 11:44:08 AM »

I just started up a new game last night, a 7.3/7.3 against some random moderate/easier AIs. It's a realistic 80-planet map and I started with Teleport Battle stations. I've never tried them before, and I was interested to see how they worked.

I scouted the immediate vicinity and found two ARS two jumps away from my Homeworld. That's the good news. I also discovered that one of the AIs likes Zenith ships. All of them. Half of the nearby planets are Mark III and IV, and are crawling with Bombards, Electric Bombers, Beam Frigates, Shredders, and other things that make me want to abandon humanity to the AI and find a nice quiet corner of the galaxy to retire to.

Instead, I build some leech starships and send the fleet to battle. I capture the two planets leading to the ARS with moderate casualties and get a few Zenith ships for my trouble. The first ARS is on a Mark I world and lightly defended, and I capture it easily. I get the Teleporting Leech, another unit I have never had much experience with. I'm happy to have another reclaimer, though. I build a cap of them and set my sights on the other ARS. It's Mark IV, a tough nut to crack. I do several raids to whittle down its defenses, coming away with a few more Zenith ships every time. It eventually falls, and the ARS gives me....

Parasites.

All of a sudden, high-mark worlds don't look like difficult obstacles so much as resources to harvest. A few Parasite/Teleporting Leech/Leech Starship raids later and I have caps of my favorite Mark III and IV Zenith ships and I'm happily laying waste to the planets around me. My biggest concern now is building enough reactors to power my ludicrously large fleet.

I'm really enjoying how this story is playing out.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Finding other settlements

« on: October 23, 2011, 10:07:10 AM »

How common are other settlements? My civ level is 29 and I have yet to find one. I've scouted every tile on the world map with my citizens and none show up. It's not keeping me from enjoying the metagame (I have 30 people in my first settlement, rescued from Wind Shelter sites or caves with neutral Ilari), but it seems strange not to find any yet. Is this normal or just a function of the RNG?

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / some ideas for stash rooms

« on: October 08, 2011, 06:33:28 PM »

I really like how the stash rooms have been implemented. They cut down considerably on the grind and make the early game much more fun. I found three or four stashes in my first half hour and used what I found there to make it through several commodity towers. I still have more light scrolls and wooden platforms than I will most likely ever use, but that's a minor quibble.

I didn't explore many buildings after I built up my stock of potions, though. There just wasn't much of a need to when my time could be better spent elsewhere. I started thinking about the kinds of people who would put these stashes together. Some of them would be survivalists, stockpiling the kinds of things that are there already: potions, scrolls, platforms, and so on. Some people would want to preserve cultural artifacts. Others would want to make sure that important scientific knowledge was saved for the survivors of the cataclysm. Each of these kinds of stashes could contain an item that would give a small benefit to your growing civilization.

For example, cultural artifacts like songs or plays could give a temporary happiness benefit to the settlement you bring it back to. Stashes of scientific knowledge could allow you to upgrade a farm or other building at a reduced cost, or give some other benefit in the strategic phase. Maybe they should just give XP to the civilization when they are returned.

I don't know how easy something like that would be to implement, but I think it would be a good incentive to explore more of the buildings past the point when your potion stock is full. What do you all think?

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / invisible desert burrowers?

« on: October 04, 2011, 09:03:04 PM »

I've been playing and loving the game for a few days now, and I'm generally quite happy with it. I can't wait to see how it improves throughout the beta. I'm not very far (only civ level 6) but I can see myself putting far too many hours into it, like I have with AI war.

The latest update seems to have turned desert burrowers invisible. I used to be able to see a plume of dust above them so I could attack or avoid them. Now, I just see my health bar decrease. They can still be attacked and destroyed, just not seen. Is this intentional, or a bug?

Thanks for continuing to develop unique and entertaining games. I hope you all are around for a good long while.

11

AI War / Human Colony Rebellion-ever seen one?

« on: September 22, 2011, 11:38:43 AM »

So the title pretty much speaks for itself. I've been playing with Human Colony Rebellions on for several games now, but have yet to actually see one happen. I usually play 80 planet maps, Vanilla AI at 7.3/7.3. I've never gotten a message that says they are rebelling, and I can't remember actually finding a colony while exploring. Of course, my games usually end before the 8 hour mark. Maybe I need to get better at fighting the AI so the colonies feel comfortable rebelling? 

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Strategies for using teleport raiders?

« on: July 18, 2011, 10:43:04 AM »

I don't have much experience with teleporting ships. I used the Battlestations once, and figured out their utility pretty quickly. They work great as a mobile defensive force and are pretty good in mop-up operations.

I just started a game with teleport raiders and can't figure out what their utility is. They seem to have tremendous firepower on paper, but not in practice. It seems like within moments of any engagement, I've lost a third to a half of my ships. They are ridiculously cheap to replace, and I have a dedicated space dock just for them with the rally point set to wherever the front is, but it still seems like they don't add as much to my offense as they should.

When I have used them to fight bombers and guardians that aren't immune to their ammo, it seems like they are pretty effective.

They seem to get chewed up on defense against any significant numbers.

I can't really figure them out, except to excessively micromanage them. Am I missing something? What role do they play for you if you use them?

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Any downside to aggressively raiding border worlds?

« on: July 13, 2011, 04:37:27 PM »

In my usual games, I usually only attack a planet if I'm planning on taking it or destroying its warp gate. I work slowly but deliberately through the map and rarely lose the engagements I choose. However, the AI worlds bordering my planets tend to build up impressive numbers of ships by mid-game. When a large wave or CPA hits, these built-up forces come swarming through the wormholes and overwhelm me more often than not.

I decided to change tactics this time, aggressively raiding the AI's territory and destroying as many ships and guard posts as I can on border worlds. It's been an exciting way to play, and at least for now my territory feels more secure. I only have to worry about defending against waves and that makes it much easier to plan and execute the rest of my strategy.

I'm about four hours in and have taken 7 planets so far. Because I had to destroy a couple of Raid Engines and a lot of Special Forces Posts, my AIP is a little higher than I would like. There are also more planets on alert than in my usual games, including some Mk IV worlds that make me nervous. So far it has been more than manageable.
Are there some downsides to how I'm playing that I can't see, or won't for a couple of hours? I'm worried that the AI will start to get tired of this constant attrition and send a world of hurt my way soon.

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AI War Strategy Discussion / capture an out of the way planet with two fabricators?

« on: June 28, 2011, 09:43:13 AM »

It's taken a while, but I have finally gotten to a point in a game where I am ready to plan the last stages of the campaign. I have mapped the galaxy and found both AI homeworlds. I've captured several ARS' and a mark IV factory and have Space Planes, Chameleons, Stealth Battleships, and Bulletproof fighters in my fleet. I have also managed to repair two golems (Black Widow and Armored) and build a few Spire ships.

There's a planet I would like to take because it has two fabricators: Bomber Starship IV, and Warbird. I haven't played with either of these ships before and would love more firepower, but the planet is about as far away from the homeworlds, and any other important planet, as it is possible to get. It's four hops away from my closest planet and only one of the intervening worlds is Mark III. I could probably take a large force of Mark IV ships and rampage my way through those worlds with little difficulty.

My AIP is already close to 200, and would probably be bumped to 230-240 after I'm done capturing the fabricators. Would it be worth it? Are those starships powerful enough to make a difference or is my time better spent fighting my way to the closest AI homeworld? I'm playing difficulty 7/7, Vanilla AI if that helps.

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AI War / Procedurally generated games are the best

« on: May 30, 2011, 04:43:04 PM »

The games I play the most are the ones that give me a unique experience each time I play them. I started playing Rogue and its variants in the 1980s, and still play and love them today. I got AI war and its expansions a couple of weeks ago mainly because it used procedural generation.

I started playing difficulty 7 games with random easier AI. As you can imagine, I got pounded into a grease spot, repeatedly, in many different creative and painful ways, before I started to get a sense of the strategy required to survive even a couple of hours. Each failure taught me something important. I'm still playing difficulty 7, and I'm getting smarter and more cunning each time.

According to Steam, I've played about 40 hours total. I'm still seeing things that surprise me, and still being educated on the finer points of war. I can see myself saying the same thing after 400 hours.

Thank you for developing such a rich, interesting, throughly challenging game.