Author Topic: Thoughts on completion of first game  (Read 7494 times)

Offline Aotrs Commander

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Thoughts on completion of first game
« on: January 21, 2017, 08:16:17 pm »
Well, after 64 hours (though that included the tutorial, I didn't check what actual time in game), I finished my first game of AI War. (I bought it when it was on sale during the run-up to the first kickstarter to Ai War 2 (I backed both)).

It was an 80-planet map, with a vanilla 6 and maine enthusiats 5 AI (Golems, Spirecraft, Botnet golems, champion on easy, roaming enclaves, traders, dyson sphere, resistance on 4 as recommend by Supercat's guide, plus astrotrains).

I finsihed with at lest 35 worlds (since I got that achievement) and a progress of 710-ish before hitting th last homeworld. I'd gotten every progress reducer and fought a long bitter battle after ko'ing the first AI homeworld near the superterminal to drop the progress down by about a hundred. I could mabe have gotten lower, but I didn't want to lose the mark V fabricator on the planet and I was starting to lag by the end. So today, I pressed on and finally did it.

Some random thoughts then:

1) The biggest thing I took away was "should have listened to Supercat's guide and not enabled astrotrains." I thought they sounded jolly, so I ignored the advice and put them to 4. That proved to be a mistake. The tractor and widow trains were just hidiously tedious. Especially since the map was more or less divided into quarters, with the AI worlds on the right top and bottom. The warp-line to the top AI's choke point was also one jump away from the long, unbranched several world route to the bottom AI, so despite prioritisng on the stations, they remained a pain in the backside until the very end of the game.

2) The first AI homeworld retaining a warpgate was an unexpected snag. Even having nicked, like three zenith power generators off the AI, plus one I'd build myself I could barely manage to max-turret the four choke-points I'd got...

3) The Botnet Golem is amazing and hilarious. i ended up with three Artillery Golems by the end, and they were capable of dealing with most systems all by themselves.

4) Spider Turrets are also amazing and I don't know what I'd have done without them.

5) Astrotrain annoyance aside, that was plenty difficult enough for me. (I did lose planets several time and once even had to reload because something got through to the home commans, but damned if I know why...)

6) Winning was a bit of a let-down. A flashing green "You win!" and a couple of journal entries - not even end-game screen. Nearly as bad as (my otherwise gold stanard 4X) SotS and its uncerimonious "game over" screen. After some tens of hours, I was sort of expecting something a bit more... Anything. Statistics are always nice (and it must track them for achievements, so...) Something to suggest for AI War 2 maybe?

(Mind you, still better than the end of Mass Effect 3, but that's another whole rant...!)



Overall, it were a giggle, especially for basically the nothing I spent on it (and retroactiveky justifying me backing the kickstarters, which I did before even playin for the first time!) I think I spent two-thirds of the real-time of the game paused (my actual unpaused time was about 23 and a half hours*...) planning and often re-planning.



As/when/if I play again, trans will go off, and the exodia blade will go on, I think, since that sounds interesting (and I wnated my first game to be a "regular" victory).



*I didn't feel like I cared enough to span it out to get the 25 hour achievement...!



Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Thoughts on completion of first game
« Reply #1 on: January 21, 2017, 08:25:44 pm »
First game, and you got that much enabled? Damn, you brave, son!

Congratulations on your first win!
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Offline Toranth

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Re: Thoughts on completion of first game
« Reply #2 on: January 22, 2017, 12:49:50 am »
Congratulations on your win!
Was that your first game, period?  No lost or aborted games before that?  That is impressive.  Well done!

If you are interested in something different for your second game, I'd actually recommend the Fallen Spire campaign over the Exodian Blade alternate win condition.  There's a lot more substance to Fallen Spire, and it helps build up some of the game mechanics that the Blade's mini-campaign kinds of drops on you.

(and yes - avoid the trains.  Always avoid the trains  :( )

Offline Aotrs Commander

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Re: Thoughts on completion of first game
« Reply #3 on: January 22, 2017, 09:24:24 am »
First game, and you got that much enabled? Damn, you brave, son!

Congratulations on your first win!

Congratulations on your win!
Was that your first game, period?  No lost or aborted games before that?  That is impressive.  Well done!

Thanks.

Yeah, that was the first, aside from the tutorial.

But I am the sort of person who throughly reads all the manuals (or wikis in this case) and such first before jumping in the deep end. There was reloading involved at some points, but I only actually had the one time I lost (still not entirely sure how that happened, must have been an exogalactic strike force, but I can't remember why that one got through that one time alone). Reading Supercat's guide helped significantly with the defence set-up, I think. (And also with what to enable - and I should have listened more with regard to the trains...!)

(I started playing Paradox Grand Strategies last year - so I'm used to doing a lot of reading before and/or during; when I started on Crusader Kings 2, rather than doing a run as Ireland (which is often called "tutorial Ireland") like sane people do, I jumped right in as the Bzantine Empire with global domination plans, so...!)

If you are interested in something different for your second game, I'd actually recommend the Fallen Spire campaign over the Exodian Blade alternate win condition.  There's a lot more substance to Fallen Spire, and it helps build up some of the game mechanics that the Blade's mini-campaign kinds of drops on you.

I'd forgotten the Fallen Spire was seperate, I was conflating that with the Exodia blade. That next time, then, defnitiely.

(and yes - avoid the trains.  Always avoid the trains  :( )

It didn't really say WHY the trains were bad anywhere - or at least not the tractor and widow stuff directly that I remember (or if it did, I neglected to pay attention), which is why I was daft enough to try it. That said, other than the tractors, I didn't have any particular problems with them though, since I never had any static defences aside from minefields near my wormholes (and those were lined towards my command centres anyway). I think sans the tractor stuff, their effect would have been almost neglible.

Offline NickAragua

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Re: Thoughts on completion of first game
« Reply #4 on: January 25, 2017, 01:12:48 am »
Welcome to the club. I've beaten the game exactly once, as well. 7/7, but damned if I remember the AI types. I had a whole mess of stuff enabled, but, in the end, I just didn't have enough firepower to take on the AI homeworlds (especially with all the retaliation malarkey), so I did it the Fallen Spire way. That was pretty cathartic.

Did you have champions / nebula scenarios on? If not, I... can't say that I recommend standard champion progress. Those nebula scenarios are pretty tedious. Maybe I just don't like "MOBA" style gameplay.

Offline Kahuna

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Re: Thoughts on completion of first game
« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2017, 12:51:25 am »
If not, I... can't say that I recommend standard champion progress. Those nebula scenarios are pretty tedious
Yeah. Comparable to Astro Trains.
Alternate Champion progress + Nemesis is pretty good.

Also welcome to the forums and congratulations on your first win Aotrs Commander!
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