16
After Action Reports / Re: My latest attempt...
« on: December 12, 2012, 07:27:50 AM »
you got maxed resources and you haven't suffered much losses so far. You sure you're making the game challenging enough for yourself? 
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17
After Action Reports / Re: My latest attempt...
« on: December 11, 2012, 10:11:30 PM »
lucky that you find 2 ARS so close by. You don't need to neuter Martho if you're not actually taking Peudon. But if you take it then yea go ahead. I'd leave Zipperex alone for now since it's bordering that nasty mk IV world. Capturing that mk IV world would be unwise since you would have a lot of wormholes to defend then. The ARS at Asnoco is a good target to go to though. You can scout further from that and make new plans.
I might just be telling you stuff you already know though
Funny side fact: If you have CSG's on, all ARS worlds will have an A-type CSG. No exception. 5 ARS in a galaxy (always 5) means you have to take at least 4 of them to take out the A-type network. Just like B-type CSG's only appear on worlds with an Advanced Factory.
Good luck =) Curious to see how this goes.
I might just be telling you stuff you already know though
Funny side fact: If you have CSG's on, all ARS worlds will have an A-type CSG. No exception. 5 ARS in a galaxy (always 5) means you have to take at least 4 of them to take out the A-type network. Just like B-type CSG's only appear on worlds with an Advanced Factory.
Good luck =) Curious to see how this goes.
18
AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: Newb with some strategy issues...
« on: December 11, 2012, 06:30:16 PM »
That reminds me. I think someone should make a guide about all the "lingo", what they stand for and what it does. Would help new players a lot. Took me ages to figure out the meaning of all of those when I first started.
19
AI War / Re: Can't repair a broken golem
« on: December 11, 2012, 04:54:18 PM »
glad you found a way to repair the golem. Still odd the engineers didn't repair it though.
20
After Action Reports / Re: 1/1 Chaos Rules the Galaxy
« on: December 11, 2012, 08:11:40 AM »
haha yeah, better safe than sorry 
The AI's themself have become completely irrelvant already, after just 1 hour and 20 miutes. I don't know how far the Dark Spire got, but I think they killed everything, everywhere. Maybe just a few mk III forts alive somewhere but that's pretty much it. Most of the hybrids and their hives are dead too. Only the super hybrids still roam the galaxy.
I think my threat is dropping because there is simply nothing left to kill for the Dark Spire. Except me, but I'm better prepared.
The AI's themself have become completely irrelvant already, after just 1 hour and 20 miutes. I don't know how far the Dark Spire got, but I think they killed everything, everywhere. Maybe just a few mk III forts alive somewhere but that's pretty much it. Most of the hybrids and their hives are dead too. Only the super hybrids still roam the galaxy.
I think my threat is dropping because there is simply nothing left to kill for the Dark Spire. Except me, but I'm better prepared.
21
AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: Late-game advice for a newb?
« on: December 11, 2012, 08:03:49 AM »
7/7 with fallen spire can indeed be decent challenge. Will keep you entertained for a while
congratz on your win ^^
congratz on your win ^^
22
After Action Reports / Re: 1/1 Chaos Rules the Galaxy
« on: December 10, 2012, 09:16:09 PM »
You already seem to be 2 hours in your attempt Chemical... that's longer than I will last for sure. I'm so not used to complete chaos. And I don't even have trains runnning in and out of my systems yet.
1 hour 4 minutes: While I'm getting ready for the doom strikeforce, I notice that the Dark Spire threat stopped increasing. In fact, it's getting less and less. I look around and notice the mk III fort at Hail. It's killing a lot of Dark Spire, but is slowly dying. We'll see how long it lasts.
1 hour 6 minutes: The wave of doom has spawned. 3 Massive ships with a total of 3866 Firepower are on their way to my planets. Awesome. Well, that's gonna get ugly. I ty to make a few more bombers, but I doubt it will be enough to stop this. Also used last knowledge to unlock mk II forcefields and stacked em deep over my home command. I only got 3 mk II Implosion Artillery, hope I can take down the H/K far enough with them. I also got 11 enclaves. I hope they provide the H/K with enough units to kill.
1 hour 12: The Cargo Strikeforce is finally in sight. I still think the sprite of the H/K is too small. It doesn't look threatening enough and is actually easy to miss in a crowd. Unless it's meant to be a sneaky Assassin.
Also got an Artillery golem, Armored golem and a bunch of core starships heading my way. That Arty will be the first to munch through my forcefields. To be honest, I had hoped both Golems were Artillery ones. They have less health and are therefore easier to kill with my rams. Now I will have less rams left to deal with the core starships.
1 hour 13: The strikeforce is getting awfully close. I notice none of the ships have mines listed in their immunities so I figured I'd quickly build a whole bunch and hope it works.
30 seconds later they arrive. Rams do their work excellently and the Golems die within seconds. The mines will hopefully take care of the core starships and guardians. Then all that's left is the H/K.
In reality the Enclaves took care of the starships, while everything else (especially Implosion, Bombers and Zombards) took the H/k out. The poor bastard only managed to kill 1 of the 12 forcefields protecting my home.
Well that proved to be quite effective. I guess defending against a H/K is indeed possible at less than 1 hour and 15 mins in the game. Granted, I had lots of friendly enclaves.
Allright, I think I got about 10 minutes until the second Cargo Train Strikeforce launches. I better get some more asteroids and pump out some rams. I actually even have the time and resources to do some scouting.
1 hour 16: I scout my first ARS, located at Aska. Also with a Broken Regenerator Golem on it. It's got Dark Spire too though, so I'll have to leave it alone at least for a while. The Dark Spire destroyed every single tachyon guardian in a wide area, so scouting is even easier than normal on 1/1.
It's funny to see that the threat has dropped below 100 now, while it was over 500 first, mstly from the Dark Spire. I guess that one mk III fort (maybe there were others) did it's job well.
Data Center and the Dyson Sphere found at Cannon. Magnificent find really. One I'm done setting up a nice set of coreworlds, this is where I will go to, smoothly bypassing the Dark Spire along the way. Intensity 10 Dyson Sphere could really boost my defense big time I think. I just gotta destroy whatever the super hybrid is going to build.
1 hour 17: I forgot that I'm dealing with nuclear command and accidentally blew up my whole fleet when taking Fizz. Better rebuild it quickly. I gotta build those Rams too. Silly rookie mistake really, but I guess it's late.
1 hour 20: Data Center, Broken Artillery Golem and Broken Botnet Golem on Doomsayer. And of course also Dark Spire. Hmm. The Botnet is going to be useless in this game anyways, so I might just destroy that Data Center at some point but leave the rest of the planet alone.
Anyway, I realize I should just go to bed to prevent any more newbie mistakes. I'll probably continue somewhere tomorrow. Now that I survived the first Cargo wave, I'm curious to see how far I can get. Still alive so far.
1 hour 4 minutes: While I'm getting ready for the doom strikeforce, I notice that the Dark Spire threat stopped increasing. In fact, it's getting less and less. I look around and notice the mk III fort at Hail. It's killing a lot of Dark Spire, but is slowly dying. We'll see how long it lasts.
1 hour 6 minutes: The wave of doom has spawned. 3 Massive ships with a total of 3866 Firepower are on their way to my planets. Awesome. Well, that's gonna get ugly. I ty to make a few more bombers, but I doubt it will be enough to stop this. Also used last knowledge to unlock mk II forcefields and stacked em deep over my home command. I only got 3 mk II Implosion Artillery, hope I can take down the H/K far enough with them. I also got 11 enclaves. I hope they provide the H/K with enough units to kill.
1 hour 12: The Cargo Strikeforce is finally in sight. I still think the sprite of the H/K is too small. It doesn't look threatening enough and is actually easy to miss in a crowd. Unless it's meant to be a sneaky Assassin.
Also got an Artillery golem, Armored golem and a bunch of core starships heading my way. That Arty will be the first to munch through my forcefields. To be honest, I had hoped both Golems were Artillery ones. They have less health and are therefore easier to kill with my rams. Now I will have less rams left to deal with the core starships.
1 hour 13: The strikeforce is getting awfully close. I notice none of the ships have mines listed in their immunities so I figured I'd quickly build a whole bunch and hope it works.
30 seconds later they arrive. Rams do their work excellently and the Golems die within seconds. The mines will hopefully take care of the core starships and guardians. Then all that's left is the H/K.
In reality the Enclaves took care of the starships, while everything else (especially Implosion, Bombers and Zombards) took the H/k out. The poor bastard only managed to kill 1 of the 12 forcefields protecting my home.
Well that proved to be quite effective. I guess defending against a H/K is indeed possible at less than 1 hour and 15 mins in the game. Granted, I had lots of friendly enclaves.
Allright, I think I got about 10 minutes until the second Cargo Train Strikeforce launches. I better get some more asteroids and pump out some rams. I actually even have the time and resources to do some scouting.
1 hour 16: I scout my first ARS, located at Aska. Also with a Broken Regenerator Golem on it. It's got Dark Spire too though, so I'll have to leave it alone at least for a while. The Dark Spire destroyed every single tachyon guardian in a wide area, so scouting is even easier than normal on 1/1.
It's funny to see that the threat has dropped below 100 now, while it was over 500 first, mstly from the Dark Spire. I guess that one mk III fort (maybe there were others) did it's job well.
Data Center and the Dyson Sphere found at Cannon. Magnificent find really. One I'm done setting up a nice set of coreworlds, this is where I will go to, smoothly bypassing the Dark Spire along the way. Intensity 10 Dyson Sphere could really boost my defense big time I think. I just gotta destroy whatever the super hybrid is going to build.
1 hour 17: I forgot that I'm dealing with nuclear command and accidentally blew up my whole fleet when taking Fizz. Better rebuild it quickly. I gotta build those Rams too. Silly rookie mistake really, but I guess it's late.
1 hour 20: Data Center, Broken Artillery Golem and Broken Botnet Golem on Doomsayer. And of course also Dark Spire. Hmm. The Botnet is going to be useless in this game anyways, so I might just destroy that Data Center at some point but leave the rest of the planet alone.
Anyway, I realize I should just go to bed to prevent any more newbie mistakes. I'll probably continue somewhere tomorrow. Now that I survived the first Cargo wave, I'm curious to see how far I can get. Still alive so far.
23
AI War / Re: Help with Mark-selection filter
« on: December 10, 2012, 08:21:40 PM »
haha yeah I was lucky enough to see this implemention happen, otherwise I'd have no idea of it's existence. Now I use triple click all the time.
24
AI War Meeting Grounds / Re: Looking to co-op with others! (all DLC packs, GMT)
« on: December 10, 2012, 01:13:24 PM »
to bad fox :/ I would like to play with a few old-timers at least once. Playing with new people is a lot of fun, but games usually don't go that smooth (nooo don't put that Coreworld on alert!!, etc). Almost everyone I have played with so far start out as a newbie and when they finally get the hang of it I never hear from them again -.-
Mujo, I added you on Steam btw. It's been a while since I played co-op and I would like to try it again. I'm at GMT+1 and have a lot of free time.
Mujo, I added you on Steam btw. It's been a while since I played co-op and I would like to try it again. I'm at GMT+1 and have a lot of free time.
25
After Action Reports / Re: 1/1 Chaos Rules the Galaxy
« on: December 10, 2012, 01:00:13 PM »
yup, I noticed that in my previous game. Was kinda confusing at first really. Not to mention the bug the botnet can cause right now. Play botnet with hard and golems on medium and you'll still get exo's AND +100 AIP for the botnet. It shouldn't matter if both factions have the same difficulty though.
26
After Action Reports / Re: 1/1 Chaos Rules the Galaxy
« on: December 10, 2012, 10:32:01 AM »
what's that then? Dark Spire can attack mining golems? meh, that's not gonna help me. Miners have never been an issue for me. To be honest, I find them the easiest to deal with compared to other minor factions.
27
AI War / Re: Can't repair a broken golem
« on: December 10, 2012, 09:32:54 AM »
welcome to the forums =)
could you give us a bit more details? like, do you have the proper amount of resources (botnets are very expensive)? And did you put your engineers in defend mode or did you actually order them to repair? Engineers in defend mode (v+click) don't automatically repair high cost units like the botnet, unless you change that in the settings.
maybe you could upload a save so that we could take a look at it? AI War: Fleet Command - RunTimeData - Save is where you should find your save files, which you can upload here with additional options, in case you didn't know =)
could you give us a bit more details? like, do you have the proper amount of resources (botnets are very expensive)? And did you put your engineers in defend mode or did you actually order them to repair? Engineers in defend mode (v+click) don't automatically repair high cost units like the botnet, unless you change that in the settings.
maybe you could upload a save so that we could take a look at it? AI War: Fleet Command - RunTimeData - Save is where you should find your save files, which you can upload here with additional options, in case you didn't know =)
28
After Action Reports / Re: 1/1 Chaos Rules the Galaxy
« on: December 10, 2012, 09:10:30 AM »
yup pretty much. Hmm, I wonder... Can Dark Spire ships attack trains and their stations? If they can, there might still be some hope left for me...
29
AI War / Re: Barrier to (multiplayer) entry?
« on: December 10, 2012, 06:47:22 AM »
heh yeah, this is pretty much the reason why I usually play AIW solo only. When I first got this game, I had no idea how to play multiplayer. I asked how port forwarding works and Chris explained well how it worked, gave me a few links too. So the next few hours I spend reading the links, learning everything I needed to know about port forwarding. Only to find out there's a password on our router which my dad was not willing to give. I just use Hamachi ever since. It generally works. Still a lot of trouble though.
I'm all in favor of steamworks, even though I'd feel kinda bad for the people who don't have steam. But stil, that's only a minority of our community (I think).
If I didn't have steam, I wouldn't mind either. It would be a reason for me to get steam, which is a free application anyways.
I'm all in favor of steamworks, even though I'd feel kinda bad for the people who don't have steam. But stil, that's only a minority of our community (I think).
If I didn't have steam, I wouldn't mind either. It would be a reason for me to get steam, which is a free application anyways.
30
AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: Newb with some strategy issues...
« on: December 10, 2012, 06:16:43 AM »
First thing to keep in mind is that not all Carrier forces will attack you. I suspect a lot of it is from Special Forces, which move around the galaxy to protect planets the AI considers important.
AIP influences wave size, wave tech, enemy world reinforcement size or speed, or maybe even both. I think that covers the most important things of what AIP does. To keep AIP low you could only take the most valuable targets (ARS, Factory IV, expansions bring more goodies on worlds too), neutering worlds along the way. Just make sure you don't attack anything further away than 3 or 4 hops from one of your planets or you will cause deepstrike threat. Having a fragmented empire can be hard to defend, but the low AIP can work in your advantage there. Defending with turrets will be easy, because you'll have plenty, but defending with a mobile fleet will be difficult. Warp Jammers would make this scenario a lot easier.
Or you could do what I always do, and take everything along the way to a nice a target, placing logistics commands everywhere and relying heavily on my fleet to both defend and attack. Economy won't be much of a problem, but AIP will get high enough to send powerful waves to you and worlds reinforce quickly, forcing you to keep enemy numbers on bordering worlds low many times. Still, destroying all but 1 bordering warp gates and massively defending the one left alive proves to be working quite good for me at least. Regular waves usually won't be much of an issue (unless you're up against teleporting units, but I don't know if the base game has any). If your grav turrets there die to fast for your HBC's to handle the AI ships, simply build more. Build more and more until your turretball can handle the waves.
Your idea of gate raiding all gates in a galaxy except one won't work. Reinforcements still happen regardless of warp gates, and wave compositions are influenced by AIP, not warp gates. Doing this will just give you more AIP from destroying all those warp gates and it'll bring you little advantage. It does help slowing down ExoGalactic Strikeforce waves (since those are the only waves that actually spawn from the warp gates), but those are expansion stuff.
I'm still sticking to my idea of grav turrets and HBC's for defense. Put tractor turrets around the wormhole too. And if your defense can't hold, just build more and more. If you use the leave one bordering warp gate alive tactic, you're going to have to keep upgrading your turretball there over time. Put a bunch of Lightning Turrets there too. They don't do as much as the HBC's, but they'll soften the enemy ships up for sure.
Here's the thing about coreworlds... neutering them is pretty much pointless, because they reinforce fast and with mk V ships too. What I usually do is take a planet that is 2 hops away from a coreworld (so no alert) and wait till I'm ready to attack. Once I am, I destroy the planet in between, then take on the Coreworld and destroy it completely (maybe place a warp jammer) and then move on to the homeworld. I don't even bother with any of the other coreworlds, I just attack one of them and then move to the homeworld. Of course this could alert other coreworlds if you don't use a warp jammer, but at this stage it shouldn't matter. You're at the endgame and it's an all or nothing battle that usually doesn't last long enough for the other coreworlds to reinforce badly. I never even stick my head into a coreworld if I'm not planning to beat the game very soon.
So basically, when you are ready, destroy one coreworld, ignore the others, then keep sending attack after attack to the homeworld until it is down, leave everything there alone and move on to the next homeworld. Make sure you have already captured a planet 3 hops away from the second homeworld before attacking the first, so you can quickly move to the next once you're done with the first HW.
Also, always start with the toughest homeworld. That way the easiest one can be finished quickly as second. If you do it the other way around, AIP might be so high that it's impossible to take out the tough homeworld.
About your strategy.
Destroying guard posts reduces the total number of reinforcements allowed for that planet, but only to a certain degree. I believe I heard Keith once saying that it's no longer effective to destroy guard posts once the guard post count for that planet is below 10 (wormhole guardposts included). After that it simply means the command station gets more reinforcements than it would otherwise. This means most of it's force will be concentrated at the command station, but given long enough time, it can still become overcrowded and release ships as threat.
The only reason Carriers are created is when there are too many ships on one planet. This is to prevent massive lag people could get otherwise. Keep numbers low on enemy planets and you won't see many Carriers.
Coreworlds and homeworlds already do get reinforcements, whether you do try to do something about it or not. When the AI picks it's reinforcements locations, homeworlds, coreworlds and worlds bordering yours are always their priorities. Whether destroying guard posts increases reinforcements elsewhere I do not know. But even if it does, neutering is still often your key to survival. How you deal with the core/homeworlds is a concern for later. Having at least 4 of the 5 ARS before your assault on the homeworlds is generally a good idea. And if you manage to get mk IV of at least a few ships, then you're really ready to go.
Hope any of this makes any sense to you. I haven't looked at your save yet, because I'm hoping this will help ^^ If it doesn't, I'll take a look at it.
AIP influences wave size, wave tech, enemy world reinforcement size or speed, or maybe even both. I think that covers the most important things of what AIP does. To keep AIP low you could only take the most valuable targets (ARS, Factory IV, expansions bring more goodies on worlds too), neutering worlds along the way. Just make sure you don't attack anything further away than 3 or 4 hops from one of your planets or you will cause deepstrike threat. Having a fragmented empire can be hard to defend, but the low AIP can work in your advantage there. Defending with turrets will be easy, because you'll have plenty, but defending with a mobile fleet will be difficult. Warp Jammers would make this scenario a lot easier.
Or you could do what I always do, and take everything along the way to a nice a target, placing logistics commands everywhere and relying heavily on my fleet to both defend and attack. Economy won't be much of a problem, but AIP will get high enough to send powerful waves to you and worlds reinforce quickly, forcing you to keep enemy numbers on bordering worlds low many times. Still, destroying all but 1 bordering warp gates and massively defending the one left alive proves to be working quite good for me at least. Regular waves usually won't be much of an issue (unless you're up against teleporting units, but I don't know if the base game has any). If your grav turrets there die to fast for your HBC's to handle the AI ships, simply build more. Build more and more until your turretball can handle the waves.
Your idea of gate raiding all gates in a galaxy except one won't work. Reinforcements still happen regardless of warp gates, and wave compositions are influenced by AIP, not warp gates. Doing this will just give you more AIP from destroying all those warp gates and it'll bring you little advantage. It does help slowing down ExoGalactic Strikeforce waves (since those are the only waves that actually spawn from the warp gates), but those are expansion stuff.
I'm still sticking to my idea of grav turrets and HBC's for defense. Put tractor turrets around the wormhole too. And if your defense can't hold, just build more and more. If you use the leave one bordering warp gate alive tactic, you're going to have to keep upgrading your turretball there over time. Put a bunch of Lightning Turrets there too. They don't do as much as the HBC's, but they'll soften the enemy ships up for sure.
Here's the thing about coreworlds... neutering them is pretty much pointless, because they reinforce fast and with mk V ships too. What I usually do is take a planet that is 2 hops away from a coreworld (so no alert) and wait till I'm ready to attack. Once I am, I destroy the planet in between, then take on the Coreworld and destroy it completely (maybe place a warp jammer) and then move on to the homeworld. I don't even bother with any of the other coreworlds, I just attack one of them and then move to the homeworld. Of course this could alert other coreworlds if you don't use a warp jammer, but at this stage it shouldn't matter. You're at the endgame and it's an all or nothing battle that usually doesn't last long enough for the other coreworlds to reinforce badly. I never even stick my head into a coreworld if I'm not planning to beat the game very soon.
So basically, when you are ready, destroy one coreworld, ignore the others, then keep sending attack after attack to the homeworld until it is down, leave everything there alone and move on to the next homeworld. Make sure you have already captured a planet 3 hops away from the second homeworld before attacking the first, so you can quickly move to the next once you're done with the first HW.
Also, always start with the toughest homeworld. That way the easiest one can be finished quickly as second. If you do it the other way around, AIP might be so high that it's impossible to take out the tough homeworld.
About your strategy.
Destroying guard posts reduces the total number of reinforcements allowed for that planet, but only to a certain degree. I believe I heard Keith once saying that it's no longer effective to destroy guard posts once the guard post count for that planet is below 10 (wormhole guardposts included). After that it simply means the command station gets more reinforcements than it would otherwise. This means most of it's force will be concentrated at the command station, but given long enough time, it can still become overcrowded and release ships as threat.
The only reason Carriers are created is when there are too many ships on one planet. This is to prevent massive lag people could get otherwise. Keep numbers low on enemy planets and you won't see many Carriers.
Coreworlds and homeworlds already do get reinforcements, whether you do try to do something about it or not. When the AI picks it's reinforcements locations, homeworlds, coreworlds and worlds bordering yours are always their priorities. Whether destroying guard posts increases reinforcements elsewhere I do not know. But even if it does, neutering is still often your key to survival. How you deal with the core/homeworlds is a concern for later. Having at least 4 of the 5 ARS before your assault on the homeworlds is generally a good idea. And if you manage to get mk IV of at least a few ships, then you're really ready to go.
Hope any of this makes any sense to you. I haven't looked at your save yet, because I'm hoping this will help ^^ If it doesn't, I'll take a look at it.