It's Quiet...Too Quiet

[Faulty Logic]

AI War is the single best computer game I have ever played.
Even the forums somehow managed to actually be nice and helpful, which is why I have decided to join them.

Now for the report:
Midway through my first 10/10 game with waves

Map: Spokes 50
Seed: 1414816952

Starting ship: Shield Bearer

0 AIP/time
AI 1: Vanilla
AI 2: Entrenched Homeworlder
Plots: Avenger

Minor Factions
Resistance 10 (I will need them)
Marauders 4 (What was I thinking?)
Dyson Sphere 10 (One of two reasons I haven't lost yet)
Fallen Spire 4
Human Colony Rebellions 6
Golems Hard 6
Spirecraft Hard 4
Neinzul Preservation Wardens 4
Neinzul Roaming Enclaves 4
Zenith Miners 1 (wanted to try them)
Zenith Traders

For about 40 minutes, I stay at home, looking for a data center and fearing for my life (a symptom of 10/10...it is like some kind of paranoia-inducing disease) and building up my mk1 fleet, as well as homeworld fortifications. Not losing on the first wave required pause and extensive micro, after which I multiplied my turret numbers by about 5. Now waves are only a problem, rather than a big problem. Frustrated with the mk1 scout range and terrified of provoking any AI ships with a transport, I unlock scouts 2 and 3. The increased range reveals that data center I have been looking for, as well as the dyson sphere 3 hops away, 2 golems (armored: meh, doesn't actually open up new tactical options/solve an important problem, and
botnet: I have always wanted to try one of these, especially with Shields to offset their fragility), and two ARSs. Also an Spire Blade Spawner V with the armored golem.

I need to pop that data center. This is my first non-scout foray into AI territory. Lets see how that goes.
Observation:Transports with raid starships vs Spire Gravity Drains/Gravity Guardians=dead transports.

Observation: The AIs really don't like it when you shoot at them. Figured it out myself.

The released threat combines with a double wave for about 700 total ships.
Riot Starships save my bacon. This will not be the first time.
One rebuild later, the data raid is a success. The names of the brave Raid Starship pilots who gave their lives will be remembered. If we win.

Observation: On occasion, the AI will decide AIP is more of a guideline.
Case in point: 230 ships on AIP 2. TWO! That wave had a Raid Starship. Close one.
It's like the AI is saying "this is me at 2. Would you like to give up now?"

Time to take the first planet. Always a nightmare.
I decide to take the botnet golem world, thinking if I can defend it long enough to rebuild it, it can defend me, allowing me to attack with impunity (or, given the difficulty,slightly less caution than normal. I load half my fleet +engis +all five colony ships, and realize that there is no way a mk1 fleet is going to cut it.

I burn the remaining 10,000 k I have on mkII triangles and Shield Bearers. This leaves me with 250. Is there anything I can buy with this (other than the useless advanced warp sensor ("Where will the AI wave come from? Could it be the ONLY wormhole on the planet? If only I had an advanced warp sensor, then I would know.)

Build the new ships, then load half the fleet +engis +all five colony ships again, and watch as they majestically leave the homeworld, and fly through the first of two intervening planets (which I scouted, to make sure no gravity was present). That's when the AI spawns a gravity guardian on top of my transport, destroys them, and eats their soft candy centers.
AI: Gravity: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.
My Face: Please stop stabbing me.

The released threat combines with another double wave (is this coded to happen?) and once again the Riot Is save the day. With a lot of micro.

After another rebuild, we try again, and it works.
Two planets, AIP 10.
While rebuilding the Botnet golem, the human marauders decide to show up at that world. At the same time as an AI wave. With 52 ships. Against half a mk1-2 fleet.

IOU: Riot Starships, my bacon, quantity 3.
The Riots hold the wave at bay while my fleet focuses on the marauders. I still would have lost the system and golem without engineers and shield bearers though.

Botnet golem rebuilt after 40 or so minutes. Waves are quite manageable at AIP 10, but my next wave of scouting found another data center (closer than the first one, DOH) and popped it, leaving effective AIP at 6.

I know a CPA will be coming soon, and I am not comfortable on two non-contiguous planets, with their very limited resources. I would also like Dyson Gatling support for the CPA, which will be possible at the cost of three worlds, and 60 AIP.

Dyson Befreinded.
AIP=53 (stupid spec forces guard posts)
Uh oh.

Waves are actually being converted into zombies quite easily. The Shield Bearers definitely offset the "Glass Cannon" aspect of the botnet golem.
The Dyson Gatling and zombie defences network (hereafter the defence net or D-net) is very nice, at least while I have the luxury of continuity.

There is also a Black Widow golem on the dyson planet. I capture it and start repairs, hoping to get it before the first CPA. I don't know how I missed it, though I suspect sleep deprivation due to excessive AI War was involved. There is also an ARS with Zenith Sentinel/some Youngling/etherjet
as a spoke of the dyson system, so I take it without a hack.

CPA declared: 691 ships.
*blink*
OK, I will suspiciously accept this small mercy from the AI.

No black widow yet, but the CPA is easily converted to zombies.

Black widow completed. I love these. They are like Riot Control Golems.

Exo-galactic strikeforce at 50%

I take the next hub and the intervening system, and the ARS single-spoke and feel the paranoia again at AIP 136

The new wave of scouting reveals:
2 Data Centers
4 Co-Ps
2 Advanced Factories
3 New ARSs (thats all of them)
2 AI homeworlds (not too bad, but taking the last hub will put a core on alert)
6 Golems
    Artillery, Regen, and Cursed: for free. ie on an ARS world
    Artillery, Regen, and Cursed: on otherwise unremarkable worlds
4 free fabricators (bomber starship IV, Spider V, Microparasite on ARS worlds,
   and exp engi on Fact IV
5 fabricators on otherwise boring worlds (Youngling Vulture V, Sentinel Frigate V, Beam
   Starship,   Armor V, Spider V)

Took the ARS with the Arti golem, cloakered it back to friendly space, endured first exo (HKs are scary... Unless you have an artillery golem. Most satisfying one-shot yet), killed the DCs and Co-Ps, unlocked Riot IIs and IIIs.

Up-to-date status as of this post:
Planets 8 (+one dead one and the dyson world)
Knowledge 3250
m/sec 1021
c/sec 1201
AIP 66

10/10 survived so far, not even a savescum required, so I say again:
it's quiet... too quiet.

(I would have liked to include map images, but do not know how. Help would be appreciated.)

[rabican]

from bottom of the text typing box click additional options, attach, find the picture.

Sounds like you have this well in hand. Victory shouldn't be too hard to archive with that many free golems.


Although , 6/10  4/10  Exos will be brutal if you don't win moderately fast....

Also couple of other points: Debending on your planetary setup  and AI ship types the botnet = god mode.

10 Resistance fighters is probably more of an hindrance than help, at least if you don't clear threat fast. They will go after it and blow special forces guard posts. In my current game that has gotten me +10AIP which is kinda big deal.


Good luck! Although i suspect this might be suprisingly easy win unless something drastic happens.

[Faulty Logic]

Still not dead…

Just survived the second exo-wave.

Now have control of 16 planets, a strong economy, an armored golem, another artillery golem, a Spire Blade Spawner Fabricator, 2 new advanced research stations, (impulse reaction emitter and vampire) and… 212 AIP.

I just learned that a new update causes wave sizes to increase exponentially with AIP. This would explain the regular waves of over four thousand ships. Still not anything the D-net + botnet can’t handle though.

I need to take the third hub, which will put a core world on alert. I debate taking advantage of the Warp Jammers new alert-supression ability (thanks to Keith for pointing it out) to take the third hub, then the core world. I decide to. Nothing really exiting happened in the last 2 hours or so, just building golems/ starships and repelling waves. A rebel colony just decided to rebel, it is a single spoke off the third hub. Will probably take that next, after popping an inter-p munitions booster (Inter-Planetary Munitions Boosters. Don't talk to me about Interplanetary Munitions Boosters).

Edit: ignore screenshot, accidentally took one in lobby. Thanks rabican for attachment procedure.

[rabican]

Post screenshot of the current progress?

Also uhoh, 200-300 AIP  that you have might make end fights... horrible with the new semi guranteed core raid engines on the home planets...

[keith.lamothe]

Glad you're enjoying the game

For about 40 minutes, I stay at home, looking for a data center and fearing for my life

That sounds quite appropriate.

Observation: The AIs really don't like it when you shoot at them. Figured it out myself.

A costly scientific experiment

Observation: On occasion, the AI will decide AIP is more of a guideline.
Case in point: 230 ships on AIP 2. TWO! That wave had a Raid Starship. Close one.
It's like the AI is saying "this is me at 2. Would you like to give up now?"

Hahaha, yea, there are moments like that.  In this case I'm guessing you're playing with non-schizo waves and the "always send at least one cap's worth of ships if only sending 1 non-starship type" rule kicked in.  If your curious you can turn on advanced logging in the settings screen and check out the wave-calc text files in the game directory to see how it did the math.

("Where will the AI wave come from? Could it be the ONLY wormhole on the planet? If only I had an advanced warp sensor, then I would know.)

Sometimes it's nice to have the tactical flexibility of not having to gateraid all the other connected planets to establish that certainty, but yea, adv warp sensors were mainly imagined as a candy tech for newer players.  I've seen them get more serious use than expected, though.

AI: Gravity: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.

Black widow completed. I love these. They are like Riot Control Golems.

Pretty much, though the Riots actually came second, and when I made them I was thinking roughly "black widow starship"   The paralysis on the tractors was added a few months ago, though, and transformed the widows from "Good Engine Damage, if you like that sort of thing" to "Agggh My Face Is On Fire And I Cannot Even Feel It!".  I recall a recent AAR where the player had 3 widows in the final fleet.  Brutality.

The new wave of scouting reveals:
(...)
2 AI homeworlds (not too bad, but taking the last hub will put a core on alert)

Ah, but what is on those homeworlds?  Specifically, core raid engines and/or core cpa.

10/10 survived so far, not even a savescum required, so I say again:
it's quiet... too quiet.

Indeed.  I'm wondering if it's just the golems being too buff and/or the exo response (for golems-hard) being too light.  But eventually you won't be able to keep that AIP down and we'll see what happens   Probably lunch for botnet+widow+arti

I just learned that a new update causes wave sizes to increase exponentially with AIP. This would explain the regular waves of over four thousand ships. Still not anything the D-net + botnet can’t handle though.

The AI probably feels like it's walked into a cheese shop and doesn't even know which variety

[Wanderer]

A warning: Botnet defense: When it goes wrong, it goes suddenly horribly, HORRIBLY wrong.
"The hell am I getting a homeworld alert?  Isn't the whipping boy and Botnet... oh... OOOOOooooohhhh....  Crap."

Regarding AIP, Golems, Exos, and balance... it's utterly and completely dependent on AIP.  If you can do it nearly perfect, the AIP (and thus exos) never catch up to golem power until the last few moments of the HW assaults.  I know y'all are trying to avoid the treadmill but a 50/50 between AIP and captured golems wouldn't be amiss.  If you can't GET a golem for a while, a bit of a breather would be nice... and sitting on 5 golems at 15 AIP (I managed that once in a 'lets have fun!' game) is just overkill.  Golems will give you a tremendous advantage if you can defend your satellite systems.  Keep a high speed 'delay' fleet available and you should be able to deflect roughly everything that isn't packing an artillery golem.  Yeah, they're that mean now.

On the flipside, I really like running around with Voltron and eating the universe.  It's just damned fun on occassion.  However, you'll note, none of my serious 10/10 AARs run with golems, and I only play them on hard.  Just a head's up.  Use 'em and abuse 'em.  Your first win on 10/10 (no handicaps) is done under 'any means necessary'.  If that means you eyebot the AI HWs to death for 20 hours... well... load a few movies into Netflix.   Sometimes that means parking a BotNet in front of the AI HW Cmd Center and eat every raid that dares come out.  I recommend a mobile builder and a massive stack of FFs for it though.

[Faulty Logic]

Most exciting ending I have ever seen.

I just finished, and am feeling really good about my cheesemaster status.

The report:

Researched warp jammer cmd station, took third hub, then rebel colony and advanced factory spokes.

Finished repair of a captured regen golem.
Built mkIV fleet and added resistance ships.
Build assorted low-level spirecraft.
Decided to conquer the AI coreworld next to me and capture the spire archive.
Did it.
Now for the first AI homeworld attack...

This is when things start to go wrong.
after scouting the homeworld next to me, I notice it doesn't have an Eye, so I send in the entire fleet to kill all guardposts and forcefields, including a core cpa post. It takes about four minutes and 60% regen golem health. What I didn't notice (newbie mistake) was the black hole machine.
Mildly annoyed, I soak up ten additional AIP.

The cpa from the post overlaps with a normal cpa and a double wave. About sixteen thousand ships.

This is when bad things really start to happen.

I lost the Spire archive and a human settlement for +180 AIP.
A quick look around my empire shows that there is no way for me to survive this progress for long. So I decide to crush the two planets between me and the final homeworld.

Just one problem: the Core world has an eye, and more importantly, a raid engine.

Here is the only necessary mistake to make things spiral out of control:
thinking : I am already conquering a HW, I do not really care about the piddly wave.

The problem: piddly wave=6000 mkIV ships

solution to this problem: nuke mk1s.

Observation: carriers are immune to nuclear explosions.

Switching to turn-based mode.

I have three main problems:
1:5000 mkIV ships attacking me
2: an untenable position because of AIP.
3: in four minutes another wave of 6000mkIVs unless I kill the Raid engine (I nuked the planet between the core world and my empire.

Solution to problem 1: five sequential nuclear warheads.
Solution to problem 2: win asap.
Solution to problem 3: SC Jumpships full of hurt (where "hurt" here means four spire, zenith and bomber starships.

I perform the necessary steps: problems one and three are solved.

New Problem: double wave of about 20000 ships. This will overwhelm me when it arrives in two minutes.

I gather every ship I have into one massive fleet, and nuke the core world on the way to the HW.

By the time it has arrived at the HW, the wave has arrived. The botnet, engineers mkIII, exp engineers, and all the forcefields I can unlock are deployed to buy me some time. I also unlock gravity turrets I.

This will be over in minutes, win or lose.

The artillery golems take down the home forcefields and fortress mkIII before going down in a blaze of glory.

I split my fleet into three separately controlled groups to kill the guardposts as fast as possible.

nearest four out of eleven guardposts dead.
wave has arrived at my giant ff stack w/botnet guarding the sole entrance to HW.
Five guardposts left... ff stack at about 80 health.

three left, one of them a Spire ff.
ff stack at 40%

bombers in a transport deployed to finish off other HW.

Just the Spire ff at 60% now, botnet and ff stack just died.
Transport has arrived at other HW.

Spire post at 10%, impromptu new ffs around home (go teleporting engineers) at 40%
Spire post dead.
AI homeworld with my fleet dead, starting to get chewed up by an Avenger.

Problem: my bombers attacking the far HW died.
Solution: Jumpships

One second after game over:

[keith.lamothe]

Now that was a wild ride.

I just finished, and am feeling really good about my cheesemaster status.

I don't know if it was limburger or merely bleu, but there was a lot of it.

Now for the first AI homeworld attack...

This is when things start to go wrong.

Galactic-progress-towards-conclusion beginning asymptotic increase

The cpa from the post overlaps with a normal cpa and a double wave. About sixteen thousand ships.

This is when bad things really start to happen.

Um, yea.  5 digits is usually a bad number.

I lost the Spire archive and a human settlement for +180 AIP.

, yea, that puts a pretty definite cap on how much longer the game's going to go, on 10/10.  Unless playing FS, at least.

Just one problem: the Core world has an eye, and more importantly, a raid engine.

You're Welcome

Here is the only necessary mistake to make things spiral out of control:
thinking : I am already conquering a HW, I do not really care about the piddly wave.

Yea, it's not like that massive asteroid hitting the pacific is gonna make that big of a splash.

The problem: piddly wave=6000 mkIV ships

solution to this problem: nuke mk1s.

Now there's a bold move.  "300 AIP?  Pah, I see that and raise you 250."

Observation: carriers are immune to nuclear explosions.

Switching to turn-based mode.

Dun Dun Dun.

Yea, back when I first ran across this game (several months before I started working here) my suggestions were mostly things to make TBS-like play more feasible   Not that you couldn't do this sort of thing with pause;examine;unpause-give-order-very-quickly-repause, but it would get kind of harrowing.

Solution to problem 1: five sequential nuclear warheads.

If explosives cannot solve a problem, you are not using enough of them.

New Problem: double wave of about 20000 ships. This will overwhelm me when it arrives in two minutes.

Um, yea.  5 digit numbers that don't start with "1" are kind of a not-so-subtle-hint from the AI.

The botnet, engineers mkIII, exp engineers, and all the forcefields I can unlock are deployed to buy me some time. I also unlock gravity turrets I.

A simultaneous massive attack on the AI HWs and absolute desperate-last-stand-defense of the human HW.  I like


Congratulations!

I'm on the fence as to whether this win constitutes a "bug" or simply leveraging a lot of positive minor factions (resistance, rebellions, dyson sphere) and enormous refusal on the human's part to back down   The golems and spirecraft were an even bigger factor, but those were on hard (and golems was even harder than it needed to be at 6/10 instead of 4/10).  And you did have some purely negative factions on too.

Anyway, many thanks for telling us all about it

[Wanderer]

*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*

Nicely done.  I'm really impressed at the speed of the win.  8 1/2 hour win against the AI is pretty damned impressive.

[Mánagarmr]

Aye, I was going to say the same thing. It's very impressive indeed.

[Faulty Logic]

I do not think this was a "bug" (best bug report ever, and congrats to Wanderer for causing it).

The cheese arsenal from least to most important:

The resistance: never saved my bacon, and killed spec forces when I didn't want them to.
(could you make spec force guardposts manually targeted, like every other AIP structure?)

Exo-waves are too easy. Even on golems 10/10, where I normally play, they are not that difficult.

Jumpships: the only spirecraft to make a difference, but that difference in the very end was the difference.

The Dyson sphere: helpful early, but irrelevant later.

Golems themselves: particularly the Botnet, are a little too strong. I would be happy if golems were something like half as strong, and if botnet zombies had some kind of limit, like half-hour self-attrition, costing energy, having a separate zombie cap, or immediately attacking AI worlds. Other golems could be (roughly) half as good, and I would still often capture their worlds. Except the armored. Leave that almost useless hunk of metal as it is. Alternatively, you could have exos scale with the number of golems the human player has captured.

Riot Control Starships: these things were well worth it when they cost 10500 k for the line and before their buffs, I think these are too awesome to overlook; the tactical flexibility is staggering.

The map: spokes has got to be one of the least difficult, at least for a mobile defense strategy (otherwise gate raiding is too expensive), only two brutal posts (on core cpa on the first AIHW attacked, and one raid engine on the second HWs Core world), and golems were in convienient spots. To offset this, however, only 4 each of DCs and Co-ps, no superterminal, and taking the third hub required researching warp jammers to avoid putting a core on alert. All in all, an easy map.

Shield bearers: Increase fleet effectiveness far more than any other ship.

Last and least, zenith miners at 1 did not show up at all for 8.5 hours, is this normal?

Not a ship...but: the pause button: keep this, but man did I need it (I think it represents subcommanders). Also: turn-based mode means I play this game like Frozen Synapse, a minute or more of planning for every five seconds of game time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other comments:

Raid Engine situation analogy:
"Forward, and damn the torpedoes!"
"Sir, those are nuclear torpedoes!"
*blink*
"That... changes things."

Definitely a mistake, but it changed the game from "fun" to "epic."


8.5 hour win... let's just say it was not my intention.

So *that* was why nukes are in the game, I have never used one before this game.

What would you veterans consider a serious 10/10 attempt?
No golems/spirecraft, realistic hubs, good but not Shield good starting ship, other factions as is is what I am considering, with random-easier AI.

I guess I deserved this failure spiral after I named this thread...

Thanks all for reading or replying.

[Hearteater]

Just to comment, Special Forces being manual target only is abusable sadly.  They count as Reinforcement Gates, so you could effectively bleed off one (or more) reinforcement waves permanently.  Currently it is nearly impossible to micro that so it isn't a problem.

[Wanderer]

Just to comment, Special Forces being manual target only is abusable sadly.  They count as Reinforcement Gates, so you could effectively bleed off one (or more) reinforcement waves permanently.  Currently it is nearly impossible to micro that so it isn't a problem.

I'd personally like to see the AIP increment just removed from them.  You get +50 AIP over the course of a game from SF posts alone, and have no significant control of if they're destroyed or not, particularly with allied factions.  No free bleed, fine, but can we get rid of the AIP cost?

[Diazo]

Congrats, all these 10/10 going around are an interesting read.

What would you veterans consider a serious 10/10 attempt?

Because I've been playing the game since before the first expansion pack, my personal 10/10 setup is without any of the toys on.

80 planet realistic or lattice map
The AI varies, some times I pick it, sometimes I random it depending on my mood. (Reveal AI types is enabled however.)
All ships available, all minor factions and AI modifiers off.
So no golems or spirecraft or any of the other toys.

It's just me and the AI fighting over the galaxy.

I also get my face smashed in a lot more then these AARs currently going up, I think I need to go on a 10/10 spree here, it's been a while since I've seriously tried.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

Just to comment, Special Forces being manual target only is abusable sadly.  They count as Reinforcement Gates, so you could effectively bleed off one (or more) reinforcement waves permanently.  Currently it is nearly impossible to micro that so it isn't a problem.

I'd personally like to see the AIP increment just removed from them.  You get +50 AIP over the course of a game from SF posts alone, and have no significant control of if they're destroyed or not, particularly with allied factions.  No free bleed, fine, but can we get rid of the AIP cost?

Taking AIP off them would make sense, yes, but where else is the AI going to get that 50 AIP?