MAR - Tortoise Human versus Rabbit AI ;-)

[carlosjuero]

Well, I figured I would finally post some sort of AR here - I was not playing the game for quite a while and came back a week or so ago. In addition to finding a bunch of things changed (no more K-Raiding ) I also decided to start fresh with a brand new game.

The settings are 2 x Random Easier/Moderate Lvl 6 AI; Realistic - Hubs, 90 Planets; Simple Ships; No Astro Trains, No Mines, 0 AI progression auto; Map Seed 1764160156, MLRS starting ship.

The game started out pretty standard, but pretty soon I started realizing I was surrounded by Mk III & IV worlds - the first 5 planets I took were within the first 6 hours of the game... the next 3 have taken over 13 hours O.o. In that time I have lost multiple 2,000 ship+ fleets, suffered serious setbacks (lost 2 command stations on border colonies), and held off an ever more angry AI with in depth defenses [and run up a score of over 1,000,000 points].

Attached are screenshots of the world according to me as of today.

According to the High Scores screen I am running against the Backdoor Hacker and Feeding Parasite - the Parasite is annoying, but I am not sure what Backdoor Hacker's big gimmick is.

The fact that I am only as far as I am 18+ hours in means its only going to get more difficult, the AI is upping reinforcements on worlds at a rate that I can barely manage to keep up with offense wise. If you look at the system south and east of Qubo you will see a system with one scout in it and ~700 AI mobile ships - that system was, as of a few hours ago, a MK III world w/ over 2,000 ships that I took out with judicious use of lightning warheads and a deep strike (MK II bombers in a transport) on the command station.

I figure, at this rate, it will take me another 60+ hours to even find one of the AI home worlds... never mind defeat it. Being the sucker for punishment that I am, I am going to continue this game until either I or the AI give in

(Note - while this post was saved in Notepad before getting ready to put up here I had a CPA of > 2000 ships come after me. 30 minutes of tough defense and I wiped almost every single ship added to my threat meter out - I guess I can say that my defense in depth is working.)

Edit:

My starter system, by the way, is the one selected in the Galaxy Map screenshot - it had an Exo-Wormhole in it from the get-go

[Frozen Critical]

What? you don't find the Backdoor Haxor Annoying?

[carlosjuero]

What? you don't find the Backdoor Haxor Annoying?

Not really nope

24 hours in and I just captured planet # 9, fought off ~15 invasions and a 2500 CPA. Finally unlocked Leech Starships and it has helped keep my incursion fleet alive, need more K to unlock MRS though. I did find a MK I world to resume my "easy" raiding through though, and it only has ~300 ships on it [poor poor AI, they need to learn to communicate better - they thought that MK III world would keep me penned up I guess... they didn't count on me being a sucker for punishment and willing to throw away thousands of human ships :p]

The MK III Lightning Warheads are a godsend - the extra damage can completely wipe a SF Outpost/Guardpost with one hit - making it easy to channel the AI into waiting wormhole traps

I am not seeing much benefit to the different type of Command Stations - military cs has an attack, yes, but it is long recharge and middling damage. Personally the benefits do not, at MK I, outweight the loss of resources that an Econ CS gives you.

[superking]

I am not seeing much benefit to the different type of Command Stations - military cs has an attack, yes, but it is long recharge and middling damage. Personally the benefits do not, at MK I, outweight the loss of resources that an Econ CS gives you.

I have to say, I agree with this.

if you look at the extra resources generated by the economic type, translate it into energy generated at MK II/MKIII generator rates, it works out as A LOT of turrets you could be supporting instead of the military station with its relatively weak attack and defence. the military stations would really need to be a defensive powerhouse (and probably not be missle type and thus useless against the primary bane of the command stations, vampires) to be a legitimate choice. Similar applies to the logistical station- in what situation would I rather have the effect of a zenith time manipulator- which costs less than 120k energy- instead of just building the time manipulator and having lots of resources left over?

[wyvern83]

It's been a while since I've played or posted but if I remember correctly a Zenith Space Time manipulator comes with a wave multiplier penalty. I would assume the logistics command center would help you get around that if it was a concern.

[carlosjuero]

Another update on my very very long term game

I am at just about 33 hours right now and have gotten up to 10 planets taken. It is becoming more of a war of attrition right now with how much the enemy worlds are getting reinforced, and the waves/border aggression are keeping me from mounting full on offensives (most of my resources go into rebuilding defenses).

I think I might be at a stalemate, I have 2 data centers located and have a raid plan to get to one (it involves a MK III "gate" world w/ a Wave Guard Post) but every time I start building up the resources and fleet to a point where I can go on the offensive the AI hits me.

It really isn't helping that most attacks are MK III & IV ships now (Waves are MK II like my AI Progress says they should be, but the III and IV worlds are releasing like mk ships against me at regular intervals). It takes a long time for MK I & II defenses to work down high health MK IV targets :/.

I am going to give this game a bit longer (at least to unlock the 36 hour achievement I guess) but I believe the AI might have thrown up a brick wall I can't penetrate right now. It doesn't help that this game has gone through multiple updates that have changed core mechanics

Attached are some screenshots. First one is what typically happens to AI fleets who attack - they get stranded by my multiple blobs of Spider turrets [though those bloody vampire claws wreak havoc on my economy - they have started targetting just my power stations lately]. Next is an overview of scouted systems and my little strand of humanity. As you can see I probably have too many "open fronts" that I need to defend, all of which are connected to MK III or IV worlds [one of them is adjacent to 3 MK IV worlds ].

Can't believe I am still alive this long in, but it is going to be a stalemate until the AI takes down enough of my infrastructure fast enough that I can't rebuild it. When I cant support my defenses anymore the game is basically lost.