Topics

1

AI War / How does the AI choose ship unlocks?

« on: June 14, 2012, 05:55:55 PM »

Hi! In the midst of all the fun with the Spire Hammer CRE's, Brisebonbons and I realized we had a question about the what ships the AI gets. Based on the ARCEN wiki, it says:

"Which ships are unlocked here are based mainly off the map seed (with the added requirement that it not have already been unlocked by the AI team, of course), which again is the same as how the Advanced Research Stations work for the human team." (http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_AI_Techs#Bonus_Ship_Types_For_AI)

That said, we've found that that in the last 10+ games the AI always gets [and abuses] Spire Stealth Battleships. Which are my most hated unit at the moment.

Are the AI ship unlocks pure RNG as the wiki suggests, or since it's almost a year old, is there some underlying code mechanism for choosing "strong" ships?

Sorry if this an obvious question, but I'm still very new at the game and I'm trying to understand how the AI works. Thanks!

2

AI War / Who's Sadistic Idea of Fun... (Spire Hammer)

« on: June 14, 2012, 12:30:32 AM »

To continue my pain-train of thought, who's sadistic idea of fun was it to have the Spire Hammer's home world?:

1) Have such a thing as a core mark raid engine at all.
2) Have said raid engine spawn 500-550 mkV ships per tick.
3) Have it *additionally* spawn a spire DREADNOUGHT per tick.
4) Have said home world, with said engine, spawning said uber-nasty ships — and this is the key part — have 2, yes TWO, of these ******* raid engines on opposite sides of the same home world with an army's worth of gravity turrets, forcefields, a core fortress and the AI home command between them.

Which, in simple terms, means an aggressive wave that comes with 4 Dreadnoughts & 1100 core mark ships, spawning right next to you a mere 60 seconds after you enter the tech IV buffer world.

That QQ aside, Brisebonbons and I actually did manage to figure out how to survive and beat this mess. (The short answer: It's complicated.) We died and had to save scum a good number of times, but still, that was one of the more hair-pulling, face-desking, keyboard-throwing moments I've had in a video game in a LOOOOoooooonnngggg time.   

3

AI War Strategy Discussion / Crazy CPA

« on: May 07, 2012, 12:25:05 AM »

My friend and I were playing a game against a 7 and 7.3 (starship commander and spireling decedent). We're pretty new to the game, but have beat 7/7's before. We had a bit of a slog for the first few hours, since we had lots of dug-in worlds near our homes and constant harassment by the computers (often getting 3-4 waves only a minute or two apart at the same worlds). But got our caps up, expanded and started to get some momentum.We did a pretty decent job keeping the AIP low and digging in hard and deep at all our worlds. We were just about to settle in to the transition from mid game to late game  when we got a CPA. We doubled down on defenses, filled our caps with ships (we each had 3 or 4 tech IV ships and fortresses at every planet etc). Our AIP was about 210 to 220 here (previously was about 180-190 for the last couple hours). Then the CPA hit. 600 Mark V ships. 500 mark IV ships... and another 1000 mixed starships and other ships. Yes. you're reading that right. 600 core tech and 500 IV's unit at 6 hours in. Wow. GG. They nuked everything we had in a couple of minutes without even stopping. Anything we could have done to weather this? Is this a bug?

4

AI War Strategy Discussion / One-Way Doormaster and AIP

« on: March 24, 2012, 02:59:11 PM »

Hi! I'm a new player and this is my first post here. My friends and I recently picked up AI Wars and have been really enjoying learning the game despite/because we're being beaten fairly evenly by the AI.  However, in a recent 80 planet, realistic, 7 game I've been working on I randomly got the One-Way Doormaster as one of the AI's (Tank as the other) . When I was learning at lower difficulty levels, Black Hole Generators normally weren't even a concern, but now that I'm getting a feel for how AIP works I'm stumped as to how to win this game in an efficient fashion.

My main concern is the mounting AIP from +10 AIP from killing a BHG. I've scouted about 5 jumps out (as far as I can get with Scout IIIs owing to a bazillion Tachyon IVs and Ion IVs) and I would say about 80%+ of those worlds around my home have one. I've seen a few that even have 2 BHGs each. There is a single data center within 5 jumps, no factory IVs, no Dyson Sphere, and no Fabs.  My guess, based on the map, is that the home worlds are each about 15 jumps in different directions away from my home.

Any advice on how to beat this without it turning in to a high AIP fleet-ball grind fest? Or is that pretty much how games against a One-Way Doormaster roll?