Heroes of Skill and Patience 3: K's Personal AI War Blog.

[_K_]

Yeah, I'm not actually dead yet, just have been busy with other stuff.
Actually, one of the reasons i have not been playing AI war is that I kept giving up on it for like 2-3 weeks after realising what I'm supposed to do next after completing one of the FS onjectives.

The screenshot in my previous post is at 5:21, and right now its 11:58. So what have I done in those 6,5 hours?

Quite alot in fact. Apparently, FS is pretty much all about incredibly slow processes. First you gotta escort a fat-ass shard over 5-6 systems, and then spend ~3 mil resources fully build a Spire city. Rinse and repeat.
It all takes quite a while, during which pretty much nothing happens. I mean, waves and exos come, sometimes they even hurt, but thats still not very much action.
And the "Oh so now i have to haul a shard from THERE?" were the main reasons i have been giving up on AI war for long periods of time.
And that is the point at which i am right now.
Hauling those shards was not too difficult, though having to split forces between defence and escorting is a little problermatic. Actually, my 4'th and 5'th shards were located in Masenan, so the 5'th shard was the easiest.

After building the 5'th city, i got my quest to grab what i understand is another damn shard. Yeah, its in a system i have not yet scouted. And given that i havent scouted one of the AI homeworlds, i expect it to be either a homeworld or coreworld. Either way, its so damn far away that i just have no will to get it. But i want to win the game by building the transceiver, so there are no othwer options.

The exos are really annoying, as they keep coming to my homeworld through Wiwep or Sworoadgen. I wish they just went for the Spire cities, which have their shield stacks and railguns and HBCs. The homeworld has lots of turrets and a huge swarm of ships i reclaimed with my leeches, so the waves dont actually deal much damage there, but they keep damaging the systems they pass through, which annoys me alot.

Also, one of my concerns are the Core Shield Gens. If i manage to finish the transceiver quest and get my super spire fleet, will it be able to kill the AI homeworlds if the stuff there is shielded by those shield gens?

Update: Yeah, there it is. 7 hops away from the my home, right in the AI home system. Seriously, why should i even bother getting that damn shard if that basically requires me to neuter the AI homeword and a coreworld? I mean, at that point i probably could just go and kill the other AI home.
This whole "The last shard is in AI home" also probably means i will have to kill finish off the core shields (Apparantly, only the B-network is still functioning), and play with the SuperTerminal a bit. And then yeah, go neuter systems all the way up to the AI's home.

[thelonecarrot]

Also, one of my concerns are the Core Shield Gens. If i manage to finish the transceiver quest and get my super spire fleet, will it be able to kill the AI homeworlds if the stuff there is shielded by those shield gens?

It won't matter. Seriously; what happens at the end of the campaign will nullify anything. It might take a bit longer if core shiled gens are still up but their presence is ultimately moot.

[PokerChen]

The shard spawning logic forces it to spawn X distance from player held territory, so what you've encountered tends to happen on a well-connected realistic map.  That homeworld is the only planet more than 4 jumps away, I think...

[_K_]

After scouting the AI home, i have decided to go soften up the AI and get some knowledge to research Spire Battleships on the way. The ST is on zorcaveonno, by the way. 2 jumps away form my territory, and with a adv. fac in between. Adv. Fac is of course useless to me as i dont research MKIII ships anyway.

Holding a SuperTerminal when you have spire ships backing up your fleet is... not very hard. By the time my fleet and static defenses finally started getting overwhelmed, i already got the AIP down to 200 from ~380.

The next step is to clear all the systems all the way up to the homeworld. I grab my fleet and get to it. It all proceeds quite smoothly until i reach the coreworld. At that point, i trigger the core raid engine. Or exo-wave engine, whatever the thing is. The point is i am about to get some serious dicking in my face. I rush in the AI home, intending to destroy the engine. And right as finish it, i see a huge wave coming at me from the home command station. It says sometihng like "22 massive ships (3800 FP)", so i realise i need to GET OUT FAST.
Seeing the huge wave nom-nom my slower ships while the rest of my fleet flees is fun to watch, but i have to quickly get everything i have to the Phipira, where my forces will make their stand.
Once the AI arrives and the battle begins, i notice this nice little fella.

Well that explains the insane FP value of the wave. And its a MKIV too!
doesnt matter though. The rest of the AI force quickly dies, and then the HK dies under focused fire of what remained of my fleet. Which is like 30%, so i have to spend a while rebuilding it.

Once the fleet is done, i start my Second Holy Crusade. This time i completely clear the coreworld and leave the homeworld with just the Command center fort+shields. I waste some time getting the survey ship to the Homeworld and then not getting it killed in there. The AI got sentinel frigates unlocked those MKV bastards keep harassing my fleet from under the shield.
I finally get the shard, and get it moving. The whole process ends up being surprisingly easy and uneventful. Waves come here and there, get destroyed, come again, die again.
When i get the shard home, i have 999k of each resource, so i basically have the transceiver 50% complete almost instantly. I spend some time reinforcing my home, expecting it to get attacked heavily, and then finish the construction.

Well, okay. I cant say i didn't expect serious waves. But, i am still seriously surprised. 3 armored golems, regenerator golem, loads of siege towers and other stuff, and probably other things i just havent noticed.
How is the size of those waves even calculated? It really felt liek they depend on the total AIP before the reductions are applied. Only that would explain those horrible spawns on a 6/7 difficulty.
During the battle, one of the AI forces meets the Devourer, which conveniently consumes a nice chunk of AI ships.


I try my best to hold the AI forces off, mostly inside my home system. Yeah, at some point there were 3 armored golems there, but under the focus fire of my fleet and all kinds of spire ships, they go down fast enough, leaving my home system shields at ~40% power.
With my main fleet away, the AI kills some of my systems, and i dont have neither resources nor time to rebuild them.
At 20:00 on the transceiver timer the next wave approaches. This time the AI has brought some Black Widow golems and Artillery golems.

Thanks for buffing arty golems, Keith. Now they take only a minute and a half to completely obliterate a fully grown spire city.
Spire cities are starting to pop, and with them my resource income. And i need that income to rebuild my dying fleet.
Well, the AI forces are overhwlming, and I'm only at 18 minute mark, with a CPA coming soon. I barely hold off the homeworld against the waves that just keep pouring in, until a Black Widow golem finally arrives and finishes whatever is left of my shields.


Seriously, how are those waves even calculated? Are they supposed to be that strong at 6/7 difficulty with 220 AIP?
Eh, whatever, not like i would try doing the FS campaign ever again anyway. Sucks that i couldnt see the spire mega-fleet thing though.

[Wanderer]

Just a note: The H/K wave was from the 'defender budget' the AI gets on Fallen Spire.  It fires up when you head into the homeworld.

They are particularly built for Fallen Spire defense, so the AI ends up with at least one comparable superweapon.

Exos in FS are based on the # of spire cities built, and they go up FAST.  The more Spire Structure (from the campaign) you've built, the more force the AI starts to chuck at you.

[_K_]

The more Spire Structure (from the campaign) you've built, the more force the AI starts to chuck at you.

Yeah, I've even seen the equations.
But right now I'm asking about the final waves that appear once you have the transceiver running.

[Wanderer]

The more Spire Structure (from the campaign) you've built, the more force the AI starts to chuck at you.

Yeah, I've even seen the equations.
But right now I'm asking about the final waves that appear once you have the transceiver running.

Oh, the galactic Tranciever, that calls in the Spire Fleets from outside the galaxy?  I don't know the equations but they're MASSIVE.  It's basically a forced running retreat as you get pushed back further and further while sacraficing everything except the transceiver.

Without solid bottlenecking it's roughly impossible, and that's at reasonable AI Diffs.

[PokerChen]

As far as I know, transceiver spawns work exactly the same as other fallen spire spawns, except that the budget now fills up exponentially (fallen spire walk-through on the wiki, endgame section). Since the individual wave sizes also increase by 25% each time until the cap is reached, you'll be looking at a lot of ships about 15 minutes in (note that this is entirely independent of AIP).

This situation is where I personally think your choices become sorely tested. I would expand more on a realistic map like yours and warpgate-raid some more so that you can funnel the galactic transceiver exos into a limited number of lanes. You'll want the extra knowledge - your maximum number of planets is about 26? (Could do with a few more planets... fortresses to supplement spire-cities, reconsider on mark-III/IV bombers, since you can always do with more things that gets bonuses to spirecraft, golems,*and* hunter-killers... that kind of thing.)

The transceiver end-game ~requires more knowledge and associated firepower, while knocking-down-the-front-door is much more compatible with low AIP, I've found. When I explored the transceiver I had 35+ planets worth of knowledge, every fleet-ship to mark-IV (minus vultures, I think?), and possibly a sixth city to defend a rebel colony  that popped up somewhere inconvenient.

The game tried to warn you about AI retribution.... :p

[keith.lamothe]

A valiant stand

As far as how the calculations are done during the transceiver phase... well, numbers are descriptive, but "without a drop of sanity" is probably a better way to put it.  The game has no harder boss fight.  I've done it on 7/7 with two chokepoints on opposite ends of the map and maybe 18 planets worth of knowledge (but only about 10 worth of held territory), but that was before H/Ks were added and Golems were buffed, etc.

For more detail: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_How_Exogalactic_Strikeforces_Work

== How is the timing of an Exogalactic Strikeforce determined? ==

* Each game-minute (not necessarily on the :00 second, but once a minute), an amount is added to the "AccumulatedEventWaveCounter" for each active source of exogalactic strikeforces.  When that counter is greater than or equal to the target raw budget (calculated above), the strikeforce is spawned with the counter's value as the raw budget (meaning that the raw budget is generally at least slightly higher than the actual target) and the counter is zero'd out.

* The amount added to the counter depends on the source:

(...)

* For "Fallen Spire":
** The counter is incremented by 1000 * the number of spire cities plus 1,000 if the galactic capitol has been built.
** If the exo-galactic transceiver has been built (not during the building of it, but after it has been fully constructed) then the counter is *multiplied* by 1.5.  Since this happens every game minute, that means the strikeforces will be coming in really rapidly.

The bit about 1000 * cities is actually not precise any more: it's based on the individual structures such that a fully built city causes 1000, but if you've lost part of one (or are still building one up) it doesn't count as much.

[_K_]

Alrighty, after a quite long hiatus, i have come back to play some more AI war and feel the changes. The first challenge is simple - a 7.6 + 8.6 AIs with nothing overly special. A few minor factions and plots for extra flavour, and here we go. The usual "no scumming" and "no rerolling anything" rules apply, obviously.

But before we get to it, lets list the changes that occurred while i was away. I have been occasionally reading the update notes throughout those 2 years, so i have a good idea of what has changed, at least on paper.

• The energy rework: from the old MKI-MKIII reactors to the new Collector+Converters. A buff to humans.
• The resource merge: from Metal+crystal to Meta. A buff to humans due to easier management and no losses to conversion.l
• The entire scavenging mechanic. A buff to humans, reprisal waves are not too difficult to deal with, and scavenging gets you huge amounts of metal. Makes baiting the enemy into attacking your systems greatly superior to fighting on the enemy territory.
• The hacking rework: A buff to humans, as there arr more options, some of which are extremely useful (but accordingly priced). Since scaling is per hack type and not global, by combining different hacks you can get more utility per hacking points than you used to be able to in the past.
• The turret per-planet limit. A HUGE buff to humans, although i like how it favours the expansion style with multiple entry points.

The first game before i even remembered that i kinda write about my games, so no screenshots or anything remain of that game. But it didn't take long anyway. I dont think i even set up my HW defenses properly, mostly due to all energy being spent on the fleet. One of my attacks suffered some serious losses and as i understand, unleashed a bunch of special forces that took me by surprise.

The second game is the current one, and the clock is at 2:34:58 . Which was yesterdays evening and when i remembered about this thread.

As you see, not much progress has been made. Thats probably because i am playing too cautiously, and also because it has taken a while to scout all those systems.

Currently, i havent found a single MKIV factory yet, but there are plenty of interesting things in North-west: ARS in Wepicdic, Cehag, Edges, and the botnet golem in Osra (Middle-north). The fabricators you can see on the image.

The small cluster directly to my south, while cute and fairly isolated, doesnt contain much of note, so i will probably just stay out of it. Which is made even more likely by the fact Raeliu has a Black Hole Machine.

So right now the plan is to carefully neuter the MKIV world on the north-west and then quickly take over the entire region before reinforcements make it difficult. The turret change makes my playstyile much, much easier, as i have a love for multi-layered defences, which is much easier to do when you dont need to spend all your turret caps at one chokepoint system.

At 2:40:00 A neutering attack on Jobangtether triggers a reprisal wave to Savboatsuo, which surprisingly gets to around 1400 Zenith Polarizers. Apparently, fleetballing into a MKIV system and then mindlessly FRD'ing it there does result in casualties that feed the AI quite well. While the biggest wave so far, it does get repelled without any serious losses. 400 enemy ships flee, i have lost 80% of my attack fleet and some defences at Savboatsuo. With the first MKIV neutered, its time to repeat the process with Plumi, so that when i am ready, i can take entire region in 30-40 minutes.

At roughly 3:00:00 my entire fleet suffers a terrible fiasco at the hands of this.

An AI Transolcator Command station, huh? That's new. And it also has all of the guard posts and 2 ion cannons right next to it, behind 2 MKIII shields and a MKIV spire shield. Not only that, but this whole thing is located on the outskirts of the system, so just getting there costs me half my fleet because of that sniper post and the railcluster.
So, the question is, what do i value more, my time or AIP? Shall i just waste the next 1-2 hours slowly grinding at those shields, or should i just EMP this little thing? I have the +1AIP/30min, so wasting 2 hours is equal to using a MKII EMP warhead. I think i will just use it, 70 seconds should be more than enough to bring in the transports and murderboner the helpless guard posts.  But that's for tomorrow. First we need to repel that level-4 reprisal wave we got for losing the fleet. Its a good thing we have some reserves, turrets and solid economy. 2400 fighters certainly are gonna be a pain to deal with, but nothing to serious. Certainly more serious than an incoming 249-ship CPA.

[Zair]

I think you just ran into an AI "Rude Gesture" planet.

Lucky you, they used to cram a pile of Warp Counterattack posts under there too.

[Kahuna]

I think you just ran into an AI "Rude Gesture" planet.

F3 to find out

[_K_]

F3 to find out

The F3 told me it was a "bunkerer" subcommander. Well, he wont like when i show him my rude gesture, cause its gonna be so rude this forum will filter it into a picture of kittens.

Anyway, before i can do that, i have to deal with reprisal wave. As expected, it deals some damage, but mostly just feeds me metal. I send my fleet to camp Wepicdic while i prepare the transports and the EMP. But while there, they meet a fine group of AI special forces, and to my surprise my fleet gets almost wiped again. I assume that's what Hunter plot does? The special forces column consisted of a huge group of Riot Starships, along with a bunch of guardians, Railclusters and Sentinel Frigates (both are AI's unlocks).
After retreating, and more preparations, i finally find a moment to attack.

3:53:05 The EMP is finally sent in the system and promptly detonated, time to kill everything. The transports somehow die when halfway through the system. Wait what killed them? Wait why are my ships getting killed as well? WHY IS THE TRANSLOCATION station KILLS my ships with its railguns? And oh boy it kills them hard. This planet doesnt even need other defences, this MKIV station alone can demolish half my fleet. Luckily for me, half my fleet is not enough. I rush the station and quickly demolish it. Now time to kill the guard posts and the guardians before they wake up. Yeah, i am very, very glad i didn't go all greedy and not grabbed a MKI EMP. By the time the stun wears off, i have already killed a sniper post, probably another post or two, some minor unit escorts, and a guardian or two. But then i notice that my fleet is mostly ded. Well, time to refleet and deflect that level3 reprisal wave then. But at least the bunker system is almost taken. Some of my starships manage to retreat, leaving the local AI forces to deal with some dark spire spawns.

Meanwhile, the Exo force is sitting at 63%, reminding that i should hurry up and get myself ready for some big things running quickly to my home. I refleet,  and deflect some reprisal waves. Once again, this takes a bit longer than expected, this time because of a level 3 reprisal eyebot wave. While not too threatening, some slip through my defences and kill my command station at Savboatsuo, causing the shark AI to follow up with a bunch of extra ships. Once that is dealt with, i quickly
go to Wepicdic and easily demolish the heavily neutered command station.

This results in AI saying "look behind you", and suddenly there are like 200 MKIV-V ships rushing to Savboatsuo. I quickly start retreating my fleet, but apparently the scale of attack is not just 200 ships, but more like 400-500, of mixed ranks, but certainly including many high-mark ships. The fight quickly gets out of control as my fleet loses strength way faster than the incoming AI force, and not even the turrets can help enough.

Luckily, my homeworld contains a "control group 9" - a special group of reclaimed units i cannot build directly, and it counts roughly 230 ships, mostly polarizers and eye bots, but also some sentinels, and high-mark triangle ships. Realising how dire the situation is, i also recall my enclaves and riots from their guard duty at the southern border (Yefo). While the turrets at my HW are enough to stall and slowly wear down the enemy fleetships, the AI starships rush to my home command center. By the time my riots arrive, there is also a spire starship, a flagship, and a zenith starship pounding at my shields, with a... MKI siege tower also on its way.

The 3 starships are not grouped tightly enough so i fail to push them off my command station, and the damn things have insane health. The home command station shields drain way faster than their health, and there is nothing to help because my main fleet has been destroyed earlier when trying to defend Savboatsuo. Boom, game over.

This was certainly another loss due to carelessness, as this counterattack was certainly possible to hold if i took it with all seriousness immediately. But the AI ships kept slowly pouring into the system, and their counts were low enough to make me not consider this attack such a major threat. I look at the AI types - Assassin/Vengeful. Well, at least that explains where this counterattack wave came from. Dont know why i havent noticed it earlier. I guess the previous vengeful counter-wave was much earlier and wasnt nearly as strong.


Welp, time for another restart.

[motai]

not a criticism but i stongly endorse hardened force fields for homeworld defense. also since you didn't mention it on version changes i will remind you. the human home forcefield now has a gravity field and so is ussually better redployed to slow advanicing ships over actual defense. hope this helps.

[_K_]

the human home forcefield now has a gravity field and so is ussually better redployed to slow advanicing ships over actual defense. hope this helps.

Oooh, that's new, didn't know that!


So i have started another playthrough. Decided not to give up on my last challenge, so i generate a new seed and start the game with the same settings as before. This time i also have finally grabbed some altplanetnames. They may be a bit verbose, but at least they have actual words.

The first hour is relatively uneventful. Just as usual, i unlock MKIII harvesters and MKII fighters and scout the area around me. MKI scouts alone arent very potent so i also do some raiding to get rid of the tachyon posts. I notice a nice relatively isolated area to my south-east (Brain Fingerprint, Omoikane's Brain, Moonlight Wall). My plan is to first expand there, getting decent economy and gaining knowledge, and then start working towards the CSG's and homeworlds. The only real problem is Possessed by Phoenix, as it contains a CoProcessor. I will probably have to just kill it's gate and keep it neutered once i take adjacent systems. I first take Howl of the Horned Owl, and use the extra energy it provides to build some raid starships, transports and cloakers, and clear two data Centers - one in Red Magic and another in Nightbug Tornado.
Next step is taking Omoikane's Brain, as it contains an ARS, and it is my first priority to get a decent fleetball. Then back to Brain Fingerprint and slowly start working on Royal Flare and then Flower of Edo.


At 1:03:57 i take Omoikane's Brain. Before going in, i check the ship options: Grenade Launcher, Spire Battleship, Zenith Bombardment ship. Both Spire Battleship and Zenith Bombardment ship are ok options. I am not entirely sure if the design choice is random or the option#1 is always picked, so i hope its random and forego the hacking - 2/3 i get somethng i want. But what i end up getting are the grenade launchers. And huh, i only get MKI from the ARS. That's also new, it used to give MKII as well. Well, that's a 2k knowledge nerf per ARS, considering it now gives 500 free knowledge. Not like i am complaining, humans got way more buffs over the years than the AI did.
After setting up the defences at Omoikane's Brain, i decide to neuter and gate-raid Possessed by Phoenix. It takes a little extra time as i have to deal with ion AI eye and the barracks, but by the time clock hits 1:23:00, the system is fully neutered. All that's left are the wormhole guardposts which i cant be assed to kill, the CoProcessor, and the AI Command station.

Next i go and neuter Royal Flare as i really dont want to deal with it when it gets on alert and gets decent defences. This takes longer than expected, as the two ion cannons deal quite a lot of damage to my fleet and i cant move quickly due to gravdrill. Once i kill a few guar dposts, a bunch of special-force guardians and heavy ships arrives, killing whats left of my fleet. I have to dealw ith level2 reprisal wave that consists of a huge swarm of vampire claws, and the bastards manage to kill one of my command stations despite the arrival of friendly human reinforcements. I deal with the shark wave aimed at my home, finish refleeting and then finish clearing Royal Flare.
Once that's done, i quickly kill the command station at Brain fingerprint and set up my own. The clock displays 1:55:55. The next goal is taking Royal Flare, then quickly taking Flower of Edo and Hallucinogenic Tuning as well.

2:30:00.  Royal Flare and Flower of Edo have been taken. I decide to keep the gravity drill at Royal Flare. While right now it is a bit of a nuisance, i dont think the system will be often traveled through by my ships, so its presence will only provide me with economical advantage and slow down the enemy.

3:00:00. The southern area is our now, and the AIP is now at 116. While not too difficult to handle, sometimes the waves get annoying, usually when its a level2-3 reprisal of some annoying ship type, like Spire Stealth Battleship or Vampire Claw. There is also a CPA, but it seems like for now the AI decides to just keep the ships as threat. I kinda wanna clean that up as it would be very unfortunate if that threat released during the inevitable exo strike.

3:03:05. Two Waves Hit, one containing around 1200 fighters hit the home, the other contained a bunch of vampires and hit Omoikane's Brain. Apparently, this advantage made the AI decide to move main forces in. I lose Omoikane's Brain because the little bastards are tractor and forcefield-immune. Meanwhile, AI attacks Brain Fingerprint with what seems to be arouns 100 Spire Battleships. My defences fall left and right. I send everything i got back to defend hope. Luckily, this includes a large force that was at Omoikane's Brain.

The Home shields get a bit damaged, and even the Home Command itself gets hit by a Raid Starship, but it gets focused down in time. 147 attack, 632 threat. I have 300 ships at home, 200 more on their way there, and 100 at Brain Fingerprint trying to hold of the enemy there. Time to unpause.

3:07:00. Threat is down to 398 and all my forces are now concentrated at home, friendy ship count is at 640. Remains rebuilders and engineers fly around everywhere reclaiming stuff, i micro my fleets to ensure no raid starships get through.
3:07:50. An AI Carrier gets popped in Royal Flare. It contains 11 Spire Blade Spawners and some triangle ships, with total count at 228. I feel relieved, as i'd rather see these ships there fighting my static defences and ion cannons, than destroying my home.
3:08:10. My homeworld seems almost safe. The shields around the Home Command are all almost destroyed. One of the last ships to die was a MKIV spire and it was REALLY pushing those shields. Luckily, it did not target the cryopods, as they were extremely vulnerable and could go down easily.
3:08:30. The shields have been swiftly rebuilt. Time to rebuild and refleet. Luckily, all those attacks maxed out my metal reserves, so it should not take too long. Time to retake lost systems and do some DC raids. These attacks are really getting out of hand, although it might be more due to the CPA than just the AIP and waves.