Double Godlike

[keith.lamothe]

Nonononono.  The boatmurdered analogy would be a couple of your scouts meeting a bad end in a system 3 hops out, and all of your ships hearing about it and immediately rushing out to that same spot to claim the salvage for themselves, and getting slaughtered by a herd of elephant-devourers.

And I guess there would have to be some sort of lever involving a large number of nuclear devices.

[ShadowOTE]

And Lava! Uhh... I mean, solar plasma. 

[keith.lamothe]

That would make a great endgame plot as your massive fleet rolls into the AI homeworld.

"AI 2 - Legenedary Mechanic has pulled the lever."

[ShadowOTE]

Heh, sounds like the next AI plot has already been decided

[Kjara]

Waves aren't nearly as difficult as you make them out to be.

In fact, I was fighting the hardest waves ever - 2000 threat of core ships, with no turrets unlocked, because of the backwash of nuking and killing the AI homeworld, with 6+ zenith starships.

Not even cross planets are that tough - and this was without unlocking any turrets.

Thing is, you were fighting the hardest waves ever, on your time, on your terms.

Waves individually are not supposed to immanently break your game, then the game would be broken! Waves are about the ebb and flow, the constant threat, the slowly wearing down of your defences until they snap.

Fighting 2000 core ships when you have lightning warheads prepped and ready is one thing.

Fighting 1000 IV ships when your lightning warheads have been vaporized by your fight with the 2000 core ships, and you haven't had time to build them back up is another thing.

Fighting the second 1000 IV ships after that first wave you barely held off because you got lucky.... that's the point of waves.

It's not as easy as you think. It's only easy because I told you how I did it. I had to figure out how to beat 2000 core ships with nothing but a pitiful turret cap. You only say it's easy after I told you I lightning warheaded them, but it took some great thinking on my part to figure it out, because no one here had ever discussed fighting a wave of that magnitude with such a pitiful resource/knowledge base.

And like I said before - waves are not nearly as difficult as you make them out to be. What wave do yo not fight on your own terms? Being at 500 AIP doesn't spawn 1000 MKIVs. Hint, it doesn't even spawn MKIIIs, and not nearly 1000.

What makes you think waves are so difficult?

First, to correct a mistake:

At diff 8+ the waves start a level higher, thus at ai 10, at 200 or so aip, the ai will use mkIII ships in its waves.  Have you tried waves on diff 8+ yet(esp with a couple of wave heavy ai types, say vicious raider + mad bomber or so)?  If you haven't, there was a aborted game of the month where the goal was just to survive a pair of raid heavy ai 10's a bit ago.  A few people by abusing lightning missiles were able to survive till they got bored, but were pretty much unable to mount any offensive.

To answer your question from the other thread, yes, I have lost to waves before.  Nothing like 300 mkII bombers at the 20 minute mark if you aren't prepared completely for them for a quick loss.  At the very high diffs, even if you "survive" the first few waves, if you have too many wormholes to defend(for example in this game where you had 9 wormholes), the ai's ability to take down your extractors can cause you to lose if it can attrition you down by denying you resources and forcing all of the resources you have into defending from waves(or force you to use exo-shields which costs a chunk of your starting resources and more importantly cuts your initial resource income by about 1/6th).  I'm not saying they aren't beatable, but they do still add a significant challenge to the game at the higher diffs.  Waves do become less dangerous really as time goes on, at least until you hit obscene ai progress levels and they start spawning with multiple spires and such.

Is it still beatable? Probably, but I don't agree with your statement that it won't really change the game at all.  Not having to invest resources in defense against waves makes offense easier, which lets you strike faster and keep ai reinforcement time down, etc.  It all tends to snowball.

[superking]

lol no waves?

no waves sounds sort of like beating doom on the 'yay mommy I can win' difficulty 

[Rod Serling]

It's not as easy as you think. It's only easy because I told you how I did it. I had to figure out how to beat 2000 core ships with nothing but a pitiful turret cap. You only say it's easy after I told you I lightning warheaded them, but it took some great thinking on my part to figure it out, because no one here had ever discussed fighting a wave of that magnitude with such a pitiful resource/knowledge base.

And like I said before - waves are not nearly as difficult as you make them out to be. What wave do yo not fight on your own terms? Being at 500 AIP doesn't spawn 1000 MKIVs. Hint, it doesn't even spawn MKIIIs, and not nearly 1000.

What makes you think waves are so difficult?

Firstly, my numbers and ship classes were made on-the-spot for that post I made with my Droid, but yes, they do spawn MKIIIs at higher difficulty. That compounded with the fact that you simply don't have to worry defense pretty much at in the beginning, and allowing you to mount faster and stronger offenses near the end. Kjara put it nicely, it all snowballs.

I never said that beating 2000 core ships is easy. I said not having waves makes everything easier. It's basically taking every offensive capability the AI has away from it. The only time the AI will attack you without waves is a CPA that is announced VERY early and gives you plenty of time to prepare for, or the backwash, that you control completely.

That, and you played against a heavy-raid type, Mad Bomber, and then cut off the main point of that AI type, the raids. You talk about the difficulty increase on small maps due to lower resources, but completely fail to realize increased strain on resources that waves create when you are on difficulty 10.

[allmybase]

If your point was simply that not having waves makes it easier, then yes I agree with that.

But you attempted to exaggerate it to the point where it would make it impossible, so no I don't agree with that.

You did not simply try to say that having no waves makes it easier.

Also, the coder guy keith says he's going to allow turtle AI, so that's going to allow no waves too....of course I'm going to do whatever it takes to make my life easier outside of hacking the game. That's why people don't allow astro trains, or try lesser AI types, or abuse transports or other mechanics like that. As long as the designer permits it, you do whatever it takes to win. I hate to say it, but I think all of this criticism stems from jealously at not having figured it out sooner.

Yes I have played at difficult 10 a lot, so I was off by one mark a mistype, but you were off too by a mark. Your 1000 MKIV ships is clearly incorrect was my point, and my point was still right.

I'm very surprised that no one here has actually played at difficulty 10. The real reason why 10 is hard is because there is a huge increase of MKIV planets (on 80 maps anyways), and they have up to 3 ion IIs. People keep exaggerating the problem is the waves or something like that, when the problem is having to try to take out so many MKIVs. Have any of you actually played at difficulty 10?

[RCIX]

I actually don't care too much about getting the Godlike achievements; it would be nice someday but i don't have a particular priority to get them. And with the turtle AIs, they specifically get reinforcement points to compensate for no waves, so it's not much if any easier.

[Rod Serling]

I actually don't care too much about getting the Godlike achievements; it would be nice someday but i don't have a particular priority to get them. And with the turtle AIs, they specifically get reinforcement points to compensate for no waves, so it's not much if any easier.

+1

If I really was concerned about achievements, I'd play xbox.

[superking]

I actually don't care too much about getting the Godlike achievements; it would be nice someday but i don't have a particular priority to get them. And with the turtle AIs, they specifically get reinforcement points to compensate for no waves, so it's not much if any easier.

I like acheivments as they direct where to apply skill next

for competetive rts players (like myself), the enjyment is the feeling of beating a challenge. run out of challenges and the game gets dull.

so, for example, trying to play without unlocking new ships, or using turrets or winning within x time limit, is more interesting than just playing normally and winning

[keith.lamothe]

for competetive rts players (like myself), the enjyment is the feeling of beating a challenge. run out of challenges and the game gets dull.

so, for example, trying to play without unlocking new ships, or using turrets or winning within x time limit, is more interesting than just playing normally and winning

If you have to resort to that sort of thing to get satisfying difficulty out of AI War, I'll be happy to make more nintendo-hard options for you

"Battletoads mode"...

[Draco18s]

There's Nintendo hard, then there's Nintendo Hard

[keith.lamothe]

"120 Avengers to Murdoch in 02:35"

[superking]

If you have to resort to that sort of thing to get satisfying difficulty out of AI War

not yet I dont, but once I beat the double godlike 80 planet simple map...