Thematic Play-Vengeance of the Spire

[Wanderer]

The mysterious Hybrid-thingy is still under production, but the Dyson sphere has been freed! Yay!

Not for long....

FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. Dyson Gatlings trigger raid engines, eh? Well, this is a little unfortunate.

Gatlings?  No.  I've confirmed this against Homeworld Raid Engines.  The now neutral world?  Oh yes, yes indeedie.  Kill the engine with FIRE!

[Coppermantis]

Oh, neutral worlds set it off? I see. In any case, it's a little annoying. a few Raid starships should do the trick though.

[Wanderer]

Oh, neutral worlds set it off? I see. In any case, it's a little annoying. a few Raid starships should do the trick though.

Yeah, anytime the Raid Engine is not completely surrounded by AI Cmd Centers and is completely free of military units in both its and the surrounding systems, it'll fire up its waves.

[PokerChen]

In this case, the AI is launching a strike force to investigate what happened to that planet. However, due to an unforeseen bug in their code no ships can communicate with HQ, and the AI resolves to keep sending new strike-forces to "discover what happened to the last one".

[Coppermantis]

Quick questions: The Super-Hybrid is currently sitting on Agria, apparently constructing some sort of device. Does this not appear until it's completed? Because I'm not seeing anything on the Planetary Summary. Also, I know that whatever it does involves the dyson Sphere. If I have freed it, will this still happen?

[keith.lamothe]

Quick questions: The Super-Hybrid is currently sitting on Agria, apparently constructing some sort of device. Does this not appear until it's completed? Because I'm not seeing anything on the Planetary Summary.

It's attached to the hybrid until it is complete.  So to stop it, kill the hybrid.

Also, I know that whatever it does involves the dyson Sphere. If I have freed it, will this still happen?

Yep

[Coppermantis]

Haven't updated this recently; distracted by Starcraft and AVWW. I'm taking the whole south arm through Xil then I'll rescue my fallen Brethren on Agria. Their Armor Rotters will be a nice addition to my fleet. The Dyson Antagonizer finished and now the Gatling fleets are duking it out. I'll take out the Antagonizer while I'm capturing the Fabricator on Agria.

[Coppermantis]

A massive AI attack catches me off-guard A thousand ships to Moatbiqui and five hundred to my outpost on Kuu. My main fleet is more than enough to defend Moatbiqui but Kuu only makes it thanks to some well-timed Resistance fighters showing up.

Next on the list is to eliminate that antagonizer. The Dyson is slowly destroying its old underlings, time to put an end to that! However, as my fleet moves into position, Hybrids attack my rear and bring my home command  to half health before they are destroyed. Worse, as soon as I defeat these, a second hubrid warning comes from the other end of my territory! I rush to defend and again only arrive just in time.

And so the battle for Agria begins. My fleet easily cuts through the two planets along the way, but as soon as we arrive at Agria we hit a little snag.



An eye. Curses! In this picture I'm in the process of scattering my fleet to eliminate guard posts ASAP. Eventually the eye and Zombies fall but I lose a quarter of my fleet, including some Mk. III Blade spawners. Oh well, Agria is ours!

I notice that I've picked up quite a few polarizers. Leeches FTW I guess.

[Coppermantis]

Um. Two Super Hybrids? Uh-oh. A second warning keeps flashing onto my screen at times. This can't be good. In other news, Vanadia has been assimilated. With it comes Mk. V Space planes. The Spire's fleet is growing. Soon we shall rescue a small group of our survivors on Agria. Their Armor rotters will come in handy.

[Coppermantis]

Getting back into AI War once again. This time determined to actually finish a game, win or lose.

However, I need opinions. Given the theme (Playing as the Spire, not Humans) would it be appropriate to produce Mercenary ships? I have fully maxed resources and a full ship cap of Mk. I-II Spire vessels (Plus reclaimed stuff from the Teleport Leeches) and could make use of Merc ships, but I'm unsure if it would be appropriate. Would the Spire have mercs available to them? I don't know.

[keith.lamothe]

I don't think you should let unrevealed lore get in your way

It depends on which particular group of Spire you're dealing with, though I don't think any of them would object to mercenaries in the face of incredible odds unless those mercenaries were obviously really really untrustworthy people.

As for actual availability, hmm; I doubt Spire themselves would be interested in being mercenaries (for the "good" ones because they wouldn't really want to leave their community, for the "bad" ones because they wouldn't be interested in working with "lesser" races merely for financial gain), but presumably if it's the Milky Way galaxy and the humans and zenith (and even neinzul) have been bopping around for however many years, there'd be somebody to hire.

[Coppermantis]

It's just that I have this colossal pile of resources and nothing to do with it. I need to take Agria to rescue my fallen brethren but with a CPA in nine minutes I'm not sure if I'll be able to fortify it in time. So to play it safe I'm just building as many defences as my energy budget will allow.

[Wanderer]

Getting back into AI War once again. This time determined to actually finish a game, win or lose.

However, I need opinions. Given the theme (Playing as the Spire, not Humans) would it be appropriate to produce Mercenary ships? I have fully maxed resources and a full ship cap of Mk. I-II Spire vessels (Plus reclaimed stuff from the Teleport Leeches) and could make use of Merc ships, but I'm unsure if it would be appropriate. Would the Spire have mercs available to them? I don't know.

Those aren't humans.  They're the best damned ships the humans ever figured out how to build and we STOLE IT.  Damned shame we couldn't borrow a few humans too to pilot those boats.  Guess we'll just reconfigure the cockpit.  Soooo expensive though....

[Coppermantis]

The survivors on Agria are going to have to wait for now. A much larger band of Spire refugees has been rescued from Adia along with one of their powerful warships. Pleased to find more of our own species, we welcomed them and constructed an additional habitat on Moatbiqui. It seems that these survivors held on to some blueprints for our advanced craft. Sixteen Frigates, a mere fragment of our former glorious fleet but it is better than nothing. A good compliment to our Siege towers, in any case.

The AI response was severe, but nothing that Blade Spawners couldn't handle. I expect it to get worse in the future.

Also complicating the situation is the recent change in the Dyson's attitude to the Spire. The AI did something that ticked it off and now it's become hostile to our forces. A few gatlings are no match for sever heavy beam cannons and laser turrets, but it should be high priority to destroy whatever the AI has constructed. Easier said than done, however, as our advanced scouting network has not detected the exact location, other than that it is "somewhere in the galaxy." Very helpful.

These new refugees are looking into maybe finding some of our old reactors, if they're still floating around somewhere in Space.

[keith.lamothe]

other than that it is "somewhere in the galaxy." Very helpful.

It's a whole lot better than it being in the other galaxy