Arcen Games

General Category => AI War Classic => AI War Classic - After Action Reports => : Fruden June 25, 2010, 09:59:03 PM

: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 09:59:03 PM
 Hi, i recently completed a game vs two level 10 AIs. Since i kept a journal as i was playing i decided i'd post about it in case other players would be interested. Long story short, it was quite a challenge, but i learned so much i could probably do it again much faster if i played on the same game version with the same parameters.

 This game took a large portion of my hobby time for many weeks. The actual time taken must be roughly double the game time since i had to pause so much to handle multiple fronts, make precise maneuvers, tab out of the game to refer to data export, or decide on strategies.

 The most useful units in this game were turrets boosted by starships, force fields, leech and raid starships, transports, cloakers, and mobile repair stations. Everything else was accessory to the main team as you'll see in the following posts.

 I'll be posting setup details for the game right in this post, and then i'll make a post for each of the game sessions it took me to get to the end. Posts will be accompanied by a map picture and a save at the end of that session.

Setup
-----
AI War + Zenith 3.1.2.0
120 planets with all player planets towards center, 1 random planet for player
Special Forces Captain AI 10, Raid Engine AI 10
Realistic map, Complex ships + all ship types
Normal combat, Full fog of war, Do not show unexplored planets
All minor factions, Schizophrenic, No wave warnings, Cross planet waves, 1 AI Progress per 30 minutes
Avenger on both AI
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:02:28 PM
___Part 1___

- First 10mins: turrets between wormholes and base + fighters + starship constructor + second force field on base + basic scouting
- 10-20mins: more turrets, more fighters, first mobile repair station, boost turret groups with light starship
- next ~hour: make more light starships, improve defenses, make first leech starship

 The first 20mins were pretty intense, had to reload the game at 1min ~5 times until i could repel the first few waves without wasting too many resources. I use equal number of missile, laser, mlrs and basic turrets in my groups, and light starships to boost them.

 The 2 force fields on main base are initially used to tank when required (one is being shot, the other is being healed). Once i have the trader pass my system, a level 2 ion cannon is built a bit outside of the main force field and the second force field is moved over it but turned off to manipulate the AI. All enemy ships will lock onto the ion cannon as soon as the force field is down, so it is useful to force enemy ships to ignore resources and run right through turret groups. Force field is turned on when enemy ships make it past turrets, but can be turned off for a few seconds during assault to force ships not locked on ion cannon to do so.

 The worst thing to happen in the first hour are speed booster trains since it makes it almost impossible to out maneuver the AI. Out of ~10 passages of speed boost trains, 3-4 resulted in reloads.

 Once the leech starship is built, the first part of the game is won. I can finally reclaim some bombers to kill the frigates, no more locking them on the ion cannon's force field and have fighters+light starships take 10mins to take them down. And on top of allowing me to build a free army leech starships make it possible to harvest the AIs ships for resources (capture/heal/scrap). Since there are waves every 5-10minutes that makes for a lot of resources and ships. If i get impatient i can also trigger some raid engines but likely wont do it for a while to avoid bad surprises. Hopefully, these few game loads in the first hour will be the only ones in the entire game.

01:20 - Planets: 1 AI Progress: 13 Kills: 2,809 Deaths: 446 Reclaimed: 0 Scrapped: 20
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:03:54 PM
___Part 2___

 Next ~2.5 hours are spent improving defenses, making a second leech ship, scouting, making a transport, killing most inconvenient raid engines, research raiding and finishing the ion cannon 2. If i had found a nearby dead end (or a dyson sphere) i probably would have delayed (or maybe even skipped) the ion 2 but there wasnt any easy to defend land to be picked up in the immediate vicinity.

 After almost 4 hours, although i still only have 1 planet, things are looking extremely good. I'm very very tempted to build a zenith generator, make mad turrets, and feed off those reclaimed doubled waves. The AI has raiders, beam frigates, shield boosters and electric shuttles. That made for a challenging start, but at this point they make for rather easy to harvest resources.

 Regardless of the temptation, i probably won't go this way unless i can't find 2-4 planets i can hold with a single chokepoint. The resources required for the zenith power would take a really long time to get and the double waves could be problematic when i have to let the ai progress go up.

 Had to reload once after i raided a raid engine and as i was leaving rebels arrived to help out... but instead they triggered 3 waves of the neighbouring planet mk4 raid engine. I managed to get a good number of those ~1300 mk4 ships... but those i didn't definitely were getting me.

03:50 - Planets: 1 AI Progress: 40 Kills: 12,225 Deaths: 1,651 Reclaimed: 4,761 Scrapped: 3,364
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:05:00 PM
___Part 3___

 Next hour was about making raid ships, neutering a couple planets, destroying another raid engine and a data center, upgrading most of my fighters and bombers to mk3 and mk4 (by capturing them, i still havent produced anything from my docks besides scouts and fighters mk1) and preparing a path to an mk4 factory. Can't wait to get the scout mk4 and get more info, scouting has been an expensive affair so far this game. Unless of course i change my mind before my next session.

 Anyway, plan as of now is to make a cloaker starship and sneak in builders and troops once the raid ships are done cleaning up the mk4 factory system, then speed build base, power, force fields and turrets. Saved up enough resources to get some things done, and hopefully i'll have time to do it all and also fetch more troops from main base before the mk3 raid engine neighbour overwhelms. There's also a devourer golem close by and if it moves in the right direction and i can time things properly it might make things a whole lot easier.

 Had to reload once when i didn't pay enough attention and my first 2 raid ships decided to move too close to a special forces guard post. I really dont understand why they decided not to shoot from max range but rather suicided on the post, guess i'll have to be more careful next time. "At least", when i reloaded, i got hit by some serious numbers and lost a couple buildings in my base, but the home base and ion cannon 2 survived so kinda works out in the end.

 Also i wish it was possible to load a transport while it is unloading. As it is anything that enters a transport after an unload command is issued but before it is completed will get unloaded, meaning its possible to keep a transport indefinitely in unload mode, but more importantly, its difficult to safeguard wounded units by putting them back in the transport if it isnt done unloading.

04:49 - Planets: 1 AI Progress: 35 Kills: 16,742 Deaths: 2,099 Reclaimed: 6,861 Scrapped: 5,171
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:06:12 PM
___Part 4___

 Next hour and a half was all about taking the mk4 factory planet. It was impossible to hold it at first because of the neighbouring raid engine and alarm post, but before the inevitable wipe the scout mk4 was built and the engine was taken care of. A bit later it was possible to fully build it back and now i finally have 2 planets, both well protected. Scouting is also proceeding very well, and all planets within 3 hops have a scout on them so i can see what's coming on the map. I'm also almost certain i've found the neighbour of one of the AI core planets.

 Had to reload 6-7 times and replay that first half hour to finally be able to hold on to the second planet. Would probably not have needed to reload at all if it wasnt again for the speed boost trains, the reloads were done until i found good timing between them. I wish those trains increased by a certain percent the speed of enemy ships rather than by a flat 70.

 Anyway, next time will probably be about resource gathering, so i'm probably gonna shake up some raid engines. Havent decided yet if i'll unlock raid ships 2 or turrets. I'm thinking with raids mk1 and mk2 + cloaker + mobile repairs i could get some really neat things done, possibly even skip lots of planets and colonize far from home.

 And since i'd really like to finish the ion 2 on my second planet and the mass driver on my homeworld... it might be time to see just how much i'm able to farm.

06:15 - Planets: 2 AI Progress: 77 Kills: 25,332 Deaths: 3,013 Reclaimed: 8,736 Scrapped: 6,352
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:07:58 PM
___Part 5___

 Did some tests and... turns out transports can contain light starships, raid ships and mobile repair stations. Wish i had figured that out earlier but this info is definitely gonna get used from now on.

 Anyway, 1h15 used to produce raids mk2, cloaker, take down another data center, neuter many planets, scout, and recover from 2 back to back massive waves on my second planet. Lost my 10% done ion 2 and 1 force field. And i thought i was gonna be farming resources. Still, reclaiming is responsible for a significant portion of my income and it allows me to rarely build fleet ships so its totally worth it.

 Now i also have a mining golem ~5 hops from home, i intend to save the ai planet but i'll have to take a planet on the way. There's one with a black hole machine and ion cannons on a crossroad, i'll most likely take that one. The mining golem shouldnt be too much of a problem since i've got impulse ships but thats another bunch of resources i'd rather use differently.

 I have also found the second ai home world. They are soooo far however... i hope some of the many planets left to explore offer shortcuts. As for the ai progress, its really difficult to keep it under control with all that stuff everywhere. After the next couple turret unlocks i might have to make raids mk3 to be able to get some data centers with minimal losses, unless i successfully creep up to them with cloaker+raids+mobile repairs.

07:30 - Planets: 2 AI Progress: 63 Kills: 33,101 Deaths: 3,528 Reclaimed: 10,999 Scrapped: 8,530
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:08:57 PM
___Part 6___

 Well, i managed to take the planet, clear its raid engine mk4 neighbour, and destroy the mining golem but i didn't know it would just respawn with a 4-5 minute timer at the other end of the galaxy. Such an exciting fight too, i lost all my fleet ships and transport but finished it with my raid ships with 30 seconds to go. Not too happy about the respawn since that gave me another 30 ai progress from all the stuff over there. Considering the resources i dumped into taking it out i really felt like reloading and just letting it take its first pick. Especially considering i lost my 25% completed mass driver on my homeworld from a combo wave + many of the freed ships from my new planet and its raid neighbour.

 Anyway, that's just too bad i suppose, at least i've finally found a dead end planet after scouting my first 100 planets and it even has a zenith generator. Looks like this planet and its neighbour could be good candidates for taking once i'm done fortifying my 3 planets and i take out more data centers. However since i found a shortcut to one of the ai's home, it would probably be more reasonable to start going that way.

08:32 - Planets: 3 AI Progress: 107 Kills: 37,413 Deaths: 3,887 Reclaimed: 12,250 Scrapped: 9,687
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:10:24 PM
___Part 7___

 Short session this time. Got 2 data centers, fortified planets... and thats pretty much it!

 Did notice something unusual though. My captured ion 1 can tank bombers like they were fighters, but my built ion 2 gets crushed in no time at all. What's up with that?

 Next session... cant really decide what i'll do yet. Of course i'll continue fortifying my main bases but cant decide how to go about taking down the first ai. I've got 3 paths to it each with their own (dis)advantages, while there's only 1 reasonable known path to the second. I'd like to do them in this order since most of the remaining data centers are around the first, which would hopefully allow me to stay under 200 aip until i take down the second ai.

 Rather worried about the avenger though, havent faced one yet and its description says it has a built in nuclear bomb that detonates on death, sooooo gonna have to be careful with those.

 Maybe i'll tickle a raid engine and farm mk3 bombers and frigates, they seem to be the best money makers.

09:00 - Planets: 3 AI Progress: 68 Kills: 40,585 Deaths: 3,962 Reclaimed: 12,692 Scrapped: 10,153
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:11:31 PM
___Part 8___

 Soooooo, i decided to experiment with raid engines... and it didn't go quite perfectly! Well, i did make a bunch of resources, except for that one time i received help, and the rebels triggered 2 extra waves. That made for a fun pack of 1500 mk3 ships, but i managed to pull them into my system in 2 batches, so i survived. My turrets didn't though. Think i lost ~250 turrets total, that made a big hole in my budget. My mass driver is at 90% and my second ion 2 at 30%. Starting to think maybe those arent worth that much in a low progress game, now that i've unlocked more turrets i don't really need their help much. Still gonna finish them just in case, but all i could have done with those resources! And if only my turrets (and mass driver) could be bothered to shoot all those trains, i suspect by the time the game is done a few would go down.

 Anyways, i finished scouting the galaxy, but too tired now to make big plans. Next time.

 Also, dont know if its intentional, but the devourer golem wasnt firing on the anti starship arachnids. Since there's a fabricator for those maybe i'll capture it and see if i can catch the devourer in a turret system. Although... i probably wont feel like it in this game, maybe later.

 I also wish the electric shuttle's attack graphic was less extreme. It's annoying when i get to fight 20 at a time, but when i get ~75 then i can't see much at all. They werent very scary in the beginning but those large batches sure are now. To make things worst they really ruin a lot of perfectly good newly reclaimed units.

 It's also annoying ship caps arent indicated in the data export for things that have to be captured. Humm... i guess i wish there was an encyclopedia available within the game with the normal stuff and all the hidden numbers.

 I might try something crazy next time. Hopefully i'll forget before i play again.

10:50 - Planets: 3 AI Progress: 74 Kills: 50,401 Deaths: 5,038 Reclaimed: 15,522 Scrapped: 11,959
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:12:35 PM
___Part 9___

 After studying the paused map for like 20mins, i finally decided on a course of action. I'm taking the path that will allow me to take the fewest number of planets to get to the 2 ai homeworlds. I'm a bit worried the avengers will choose different paths, but i'll prepare for them later.

 During this session i cleaned up my next planet, repelled some pretty serious numbers of ships, got another data center, finished my mass driver, almost finished my second ion 2, and replaced all my lost stuff. I'm suffering rather light losses (except the low health reclaimed units i keep losing before they get repaired) but every last resource counts!

 Anyway, the crazy idea was to setup an mk3 raid engine farming emplacement. After some though it would be pretty silly to test this out in this game, there's enough challenge already and i hope i won't have to reload anymore. So i finally unlocked command center mk2, this is gonna help a bunch now that i'm soon gonna get a fourth planet.

 I also realized i made a pretty bad mistake on my current 3rd planet. I placed it so a third of my turrets dont reach the wormhole they should be covering. Feel like kicking myself right now. It's still very well defended, but if(when?) the avenger comes those mk2 mlrs would be more useful if they were shooting at it.

 I got lucky with the ai unlock when my total progress got over 200, they got microfighters. I'm definitely gonna use them to help defend my next bases against the large bomber waves i sometimes get. I really wish there was a turret that could do some real damage to bombers. I also wish basic turrets mk2 were 500 knowledge instead of 750.

12:00 - Planets: 3 AI Progress: 90 Kills: 56,099 Deaths: 5,405 Reclaimed: 17,639 Scrapped: 13,383
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:13:08 PM
___Part 10___

 Put everything in place for my fourth planet, filled transport + mobile repairs + cloaker, wait until waves have hit my main bases and current speed train leaves to decloak and start building, everything's going smoothly, then another speed train comes in just before base completes, small group of random enemy ships suddenly run right through my defenses, with more than enough bullets to destroy them all, but they go faster than the bullets, so they manage to get 1 shot in. Repeat 2-3 times and new base lost. Force fields wouldnt work here since I'm out of supply, so only option would be to cover with riot shields, but it hasnt been possible to unlock them yet.

 I need a break.

12:15
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:14:05 PM
___Part 11___

 Ok, took and fortified that 4th planet, i finally have good resource income now. Reloaded once since i got sloppy and didn't pause to build and assign construction priorities, and my new planet got hit by a speed trained wave and lost my base seconds before the force field came online. Really shouldnt have loaded but tooooo impatient tonight. Oh well.

 Otherwise, i unlocked riots to cover next bases and flagships to boost next turret groups. After i'll probably unlock raids mk3, turrets mk3, and then end game ships.

 Also i further figured out how the ai chooses target, but sadly only after finally building a force field on third planet. Being covered by a force field lowers priority of target, but also number of ships in firing range. Looks like they only lower priority of closest important target in range, so by putting defenders on right side of base and playing with force fields i can generally force ai ships to choose my prefered target.

 Next time should be fun, second cloaker is almost ready and then it will be time for some raiding.

12:45 - Planets: 4 AI Progress: 92 Kills: 58,557 Deaths: 5,498 Reclaimed: 18,225 Scrapped: 13,800
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:15:10 PM
___Part 12___

 Another data center and the coprocessors are down. I'm now at the aip floor of 54 with some room before my progress will increase. Good thing too, i got a wave when i was at ~130 and it was really big. And, uhhh mining golem again. Learned my lesson might not fight it this time, although it is on a neighbour planet with an advanced research so i might ask it to go play elsewhere.

 Next time i'll clear my fifth planet.

13:20 - Planets: 4 AI Progress: 54 Kills: 62,682 Deaths: 5,650 Reclaimed: 18,524 Scrapped: 13,892
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:16:16 PM
___Part 13___

 Another unexpected bunch of events... mostly triggered by me though. Firstly there was a pack of ~1000 mk4 ships that decided they wanted my fourth planet. I initially thought they were the usual mk2 waves, ouch big mistake. So reloaded and put up some force fields and it seems the ion cannons become vulnerable to bombers after being covered by force fileds. My 2 ion cannon tanks got exploded in no time so another reload, and just moved all my ships from everywhere to deal with the threat since there were 500 mk4 bombers to deal with. 150 mk2 turrets + almost 1000 ships, including 500 fighters, boosted by light starships and flagships, took ~3mins to destroy the bombers. They really scale better than the rest it seems.

 Sadly the reloads completely confused me and i thought the save was after i had destroyed the raid engines surrounding my fifth planet but oups, wasnt the case. didn't realize it until way too late so triggered 2-3 mk4 raid waves and 4-5 mk3 raid waves. Kills stat may have increased as a result.

 Rest of the session was partly about actually clearing the fifth planet and its neighbours, so next time i should take that new planet. But mostly it was about cleaning up that big mess. Overall i lost one of my tanking ions and the second got to 130k health at one point, i was very worried. But all worked out in the end, i even unlocked raids mk3 and built 1, and also finished building my flagships and riots.

 If all goes well i wont be scraping many more ships but rather start building up my end game fleet, i just might have enough energy to do so.

14:15 - Planets: 4 AI Progress: 62 Kills: 72,895 Deaths: 6,439 Reclaimed: 20,614 Scrapped: 14,620
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:17:34 PM
___Part 14___

 Turns out the ion weakness to bombers only happens when it was recently shielded by a force field. My ions 2 both take normal damage from bombers if i dont shield them. If only i had realized earlier... oh well.

 Anyway, took 2 planets, the one i was working on and the mining golem one as well. Were exciting fights all around, lost lots of ships, killed a lot more, and got help from the rebels for the golem. Would be fun if i could play with a computer ally vs the ai since my unstable schedule makes it unlikely to complete a multiplayer game and its fun to have allies.

 Finally decided to assault the golem after thinking that maybe if it repopped last time it could have been because of a regen train. Can't figure out why an ai train would rez a mining golem but since it didn't respawn this time i suppose that's what happened. And impulses were indeed very good to destroy the golem that fast last time, didn't use them this time since i had so many reclaimed ships, but i should have, golem lasted forever even vs mk3/mk4 bombers/frigates/beamers.

 Turns out i got shredders when i took the advanced research, they look like they may be good to deal with bombers, however those won't help vs the avengers booooo. But finished the raids mk3 yeeahhhh. Also unlocked the resource shields since i had some extra power and knowledge, and really, i was getting pretty tired of the crazy amount of micro, and even with lots of micro i still lost resources. This should help a bunch.

 Sneaked by the devourer to get the last data center that's not next to ai homeworlds. Next time i'll probably start clearing my next planet, which will be in range of an ai world, and i'll finish building up defenses on my 2 new planets. Also gonna have to research and unlock turrets and force fields mk3 since i'm almost out.

 Oh, and wish time, i really wish my mass driver would shoot things. I think it shot 1 bullet so far this game on a wave with a starship. I actually thought it would be perfect to finish the ships with dead engines. Sooo many things i assumed without testing before starting this game...

15:15 - Planets: 6 AI Progress: 66 Kills: 77,378 Deaths: 7,086 Reclaimed: 20,919 Scrapped: 14,672
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:18:44 PM
___Part 15___

 Little quickie, went to get the 4 data centers at the second homeworld, built up defenses on my 2 newest planets, finished researching available knowledge, and captured a whole bunch of ships.

15:45 - Planets: 6 AI Progress: 67 Kills: 80,387 Deaths: 7,330 Reclaimed: 21,552 Scrapped: 14,679
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:20:02 PM
___Part 16___

 Almost ready to take down the first ai. Settled a base of operations, finished the data centers, removed the raid engines and guard posts, took care of the fortresses and ion cannons, and prepared a large attack force. Next time i'll be losing a lot of ships, but that base and avenger are going down.

 Reloaded 3 times when i got impatient and tried to skip formalities. I'll try to learn my lesson now. Really.

 Btw, the game seems to have a memory leak. If i leave it running for a long time it consumes very large amounts of memory, and starts to skip instead of being smooth, one time it finished in a crash. Save + quit + load seems to fix it. (edit: i have reproduced the high memory use + crash by loading lots of large games in a row)

17h30 - Planets: 7 AI Progress: 81 Kills: 91,049 Deaths: 8,155 Reclaimed: 23,935 Scrapped: 14,757
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:21:57 PM
___Part 17___

 Ugh, the avenger is tough.

 Sooo, i  quickly killed the ai base with my 2000 ship force to check out what the avenger looked like, and i thought i could take it with those troops. Sadly, i was wrong. After reloading and with a plan, i did a super nice assault on the ai's station, losing only 100 ships. I figured with all my good stuff i'd give the avenger a good whooping buuuut 600 million health is a lot of health. It escaped with 115 million health left on the branch that leads to my third planet.

 I did a test to see how long its gonna take it to reach it, and thats a good while it seems. I can either take a planet between or sacrifice my third. I think that's what i'll do, and take the ai's homeworld, that will show it. Sucks that it's impervious to missiles, that's 2 out of my 3 turret types i can't use on it.

(edit: i included a screenshot i had taken a bit before i destroyed the command station with all my ships in position. Transports in front to take the first volley, electric shuttles and shield boosters weakening incoming ships, bombers aiming at command station, impulses at shields, frigates and beamers behind providing long range support, raiders and (micro)fighters providing close range support, raid ships in front taking down shuttles and beamers before they do too much damage, and 2 mobile repairs under a cloaker in the back. That's how i did so well with so few losses against the base and then the avenger, by keeping the repairs under cloak and also cloaking raid ships that needed repairs)

17h55 - Planets: 7 AI Progress: 101 Kills: 94,068 Deaths: 9,607 Reclaimed: 24,117 Scrapped: 14,759
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:25:27 PM
___Part 18___

 More like very tough. I threw a lot of stuff at a first ambush but couldnt finish it. Finally got it a few minutes before it hit my homeworld. Now i have a dead planet neighbour. Booooo. And it had so much stuff, AI had even built a black hole machine on it, i gained almost 40 progress from it blowing up. I'm still at the progress floor, but it's getting uncomfortably high. But good news! The nuclear blast took out 2 trains, including a speed train!

 Since i set myself up some good spots to farm an army from mk3 and mk4 raid engines, rebuilding shouldnt be too long, even with my limited economy and tech unlocks. Gonna have to think a bunch before moving forwards, the avenger difficulty is a lot higher than expected. Really wondering if the game will be won once i beat the second ai or if i'll have to beat another of those. Maybe i'll make a quick save and try and see. Althought it feels cheap, the only other options i can think of to deal with it reliably this game would prolong the game by something like 2 hours, maybe even more if i go settle the first ai homeworld for additional power/research.

18:59 - Planets: 7 AI Progress: 111 Kills: 102,574 Deaths: 11,487 Reclaimed: 25,497 Scrapped: 15,991
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 25, 2010, 10:26:18 PM
___ Interlude ___

 The initial plan was to farm an army, settle the second ais neighbour, clear the second homeworld and neuter the other neighbour, and then build lots of turrets (including all beams) right by its final command station to help my army deal with the second avenger. With all the things to do i figure that would take 3-4 in game hours (so ~6 real hours considering all the pausing).

 However, after checking the forums i found out the game would be won as soon as the station would go down, so i probably would have tried to take one planet to hop right into the final world and rush the command station for a quick win, then close the game and imagine the second avenger threw itself into a sun or something.

 This game was quite fun, and really challenging for the most part, but it also came with some annoyances. Considering how tight my income was, i had no choice but to manually turn on/off the factories and power generators, and that happened about every 10 minutes because of the way i was capturing ships and then scraping them or dumping them in transports to put them in low power mode. After 19h this was really tedious.

 The speed trains also reeeeaaalllyy got on my nerves since i had no reasonable way to deal with them while settling new planets, and early on i had no good way to deal because of the high power needed. So i was stuck waiting for all of them and those on neighbour planets to head away, but if i stopped playing and picked up the game again, the trains choose a new destination on load, so sometimes i'd have to wait again another bunch of time before being able to move if they backtracked through my targets.

 I'm also left wondering how peeps are supposed to deal with the avenger without impulses (or i suppose polarizers). They seemed to have the undocumented feature of shooting through force fields since i managed to destroy the modules on the avenger very fast and before taking its force field down. Or was that the beamers? I still had to destroy the shield before taking the ship out. Weird. But anyway, since the avenger was immune to blades and missiles, that was about half my available firepower i couldnt focus on it, and with its high shields, about half of my remaining firepower had little effect on it.

 Lastly my biggest gripe is the amazing number of hidden numbers. Those are the reason my friend isnt playing his game and my other friends dont want to pick it up. With no in game way to know that bombers take 1% damage from fortresses and they do like 10 times damage to it, my friend lost a game with capped fortresses on defense vs a wave of bombers and didn't scratch them at all, although it says on the tooltip fortresses are strong vs bombers (or rather... vs 1 bomber). He then quit and never played again since he wasnt interested in nerding out about it like i did.

 The other things are all mostly only applicable to a challenge game, but there really needs a better way to let the player know about all the hidden numbers. I'd suggest either an in game reference or basic armor and damage types so x armor takes y% damage from z damage type. Anything really to make it more accessible, i think this game is a gem, and i'd really like my friends to pick it up.
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Frozen Critical June 25, 2010, 11:17:00 PM
didn't bother to read such a big wall of text , but how many times did you restart?

i completed my game which has two Raid AI , both Diff 10 , without restarting , but ignore that : just pretend it ain't there , kay?

still , Good work for winning a two diff 10 AIs
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: superking June 26, 2010, 07:11:06 AM
good read! two difficulty 10 AI on 120 planet map, i salute you sir
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Diazo June 26, 2010, 05:56:46 PM
I see you have Wave Notifications turned off, can you still guesstimate how big the waves that were hitting you were?

And what was your warp point defense?

I'm trying my own game vs. diff 10 AI's and I'm not sure how I'd go about it if wave notifications were off.
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 26, 2010, 07:00:43 PM
 Hi!

 If you want to find out the size of waves at an ai progress of your choice, you can take one of my save games at that progress, put it on fast forward, and wait for a min or two, when the threat meter suddenly jumps up that's the wave spawning somewhere. Since it's been a while that i played the beginning of the game i'm not 100% sure, but i think they were in the 200-300 range or something like that. Probably a bit lower actually, since i had a special forces captain opponent the numbers werent perfectly reliable. Don't rely too much on the numbers you see on the map pictures in the posts, some of those came from something other than waves (rebels triggering raid engines, cross planets, maybe other stuff too).

 For defense, on my first planet i used 50 each of mk1 basic, mlrs, missile and laser turrets, boosted by a light starship (it gave them a 40% damage bonus) for each of my 2 paths from wormholes. Or actually i think i put 60 on the side that had 2 wormholes to defend and 40 on the other. You may want to load one of the saves to check out the specifics. Pretty much only bomber waves could get through the wormhole defenses (when not speed trained, with single or worst double speed trained stuff got by anyway) but since i had to keep turrets for my second planet, i used fighters to finish off anything that made it past them until i had the knowledge to unlock mk2 turrets, and then i put some of those close to my base.

edit: for wave notifications off and cross planet waves options, leaving a scout on every planet within a few hops from my planets that meant that by looking at the map i would always see them coming once the threat meter went up. And schizo made it so i couldnt just make a transport of fighters and one of bombers and one of each counter and just fling them at the right spot when needed. Tell the truth i think this was a ton more fun and interesting than otherwise, i don't think i'll play solo without those settings again.

edit2: here's a screenshot of one of my wormhole defense points after 1h20. You'll notice the mobile repairs in the back to fix up the frequently damaged turrets and soon to be captured ships (the leech ship was just finished and was about to come in position, the light starship by the wormhole was there to tank for the leech, it takes way more damage than the leech since its not immune to missiles but its inexpensive to remake if it dies). At that point that wormhole had 40 of each turrets, it was the side that was protecting from 2 wormholes, the second was just a bit offscreen at the bottom. Also of note is the single tractor beam to help deal with small batches, but more than a very few of them would be unrealistic on this difficulty because of power and repair costs and wave sizes.
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 30, 2010, 08:52:29 AM
___Part 19___

 Well... i wasnt sure i'd finish this game but.... it's hard to stay away... especially with an unexpected vacation day!

 Anyway, settled the first ais homeworld, cleaned up some neighbours, captured lots of ships, and fortified many planets. Sadly i lost all 3 of my raids mk2, these things take forever to make. At least it wasnt my mk3s i suppose.

 Noticed something rather peculiar. The resource shields heal very rapidly while building but very slowly while repairing. Soooo, they seem to tank better while building... would have thought build and repair speeds would have been more similar.

 Next time i'll be sciencing my new areas, try to build my raids and riots mk2 (i intend to use those to cover my beams/flagship booster/lasers when i'll face the second avenger) and start clearing a path for my final assault.

19:45 - Planets: 8 AI Progress: 114 Kills: 109,242 Deaths: 11,859 Reclaimed: 26,359 Scrapped: 15,999
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 30, 2010, 08:54:08 AM
___Part 20___

 Ok, so i had some issues with a large wave of ~1500 ships hitting two of my planets. Might have been a wave + a cross planet, can't really tell. Reloaded so i could try something, and yep, electric shuttles vs large groups are hilariously strong. Just waited till all the enemy ships were locked on an ion canon and emptied the transport and whooosh. Looks like their damage isnt reduced by shields too, the shield boosters melted like everything else.

 Besides i've been researching, replacing my raid ship losses, reclaiming a bunch more ships, and also preparing the area around the second ais homeworld. I'm keeping a raid engine on an mk3 planet intact in case i need to trigger 1 or 2 waves when i destroy my last planet's command station, i should have most of my mk2 and mk4 ships soon, so that way i can get my mk3s too.

 Also had a third mining golem pop up. It's really easily accessible, so when i have to take care of it it shouldnt be too much of an issue.

20:15 - Planets: 8 AI Progress: 117 Kills: 113,225 Deaths: 12,069 Reclaimed: 26,832 Scrapped: 16,016
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 30, 2010, 08:55:50 AM
___Part 21___

 The ais arent too happy about the fact i've got one of their homeworlds it seems, again had some large groups attacking, but with the speed train my traps didn't work and i lost a bunch of stuff, most notably my tanking mass driver. I hope they don't send a massive speed trained bomber wave right at my command station next time... but if they do i made a cloaker and a colony ship, so i'll tough it out.

 Besides, i'm done building my starships and almost completely done preparing to take over my last planet right by the second ai homeworld. Took care of almost everything on the homeworld and its neighbours, just need to capture some mk3s, clean up a few things, wait for more resources, and i'll be ready to move. Gonna start to have serious waves now that i'm off the progress floor, so i'll have to be careful.

 Also i finally realized that lasers always have super accuracy, even vs shields and at max range, so i switched all my riots to lasers. I thought it was 2-3 times better, but rather they have 100% hit vs 5x boosted shield boosters at max range, while machine guns have 1% hit chance.

21:00 - Planets: 8 AI Progress: 127 Kills: 117,775 Deaths: 12,252 Reclaimed: 27,099 Scrapped: 16,020
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 30, 2010, 08:58:09 AM
___Part 22___

 Wow, things are starting to get very extreme with progress this high. didn't help that when i got the mining golem rebels triggered a mk4 raid engine... again... but the waves are now much more frequent and large. Gonna have to try to finish as soon as possible, not that i wanted to mess around, but if i make it passed 200 aip i'm not sure if this will still be  winning battle.

 Anyway, i lost many starships, so i'm stuck remaking them, but at least i finished all the research i wanted to do, and i repelled all those nasty waves + mining + mk4 raid. I havent been able to finish clearing my newest planet of its turrets althought i've had it for over a half hour, too much action! If i can get a little break i'll clear it up and then move in to the ai's home. Looks like its gonna be a turret party over there.

22:00 - Planets: 9 AI Progress: 166 Kills: 127,149 Deaths: 13,019 Reclaimed: 28,705 Scrapped: 16,076
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden June 30, 2010, 09:06:37 AM
___Part 23___

 Accction!! Got hit by some large bomber waves, and one of my tanking ion survived with 13k hp. Barely got my fighters there in time! As for cracking the homeworld, i sent my raid ships on heavy beam destruction missions followed by cleanup drones to make sure they werent rebuilt, and to draw out the hundreds of core frigates at the wormhole i jumped in a transport containing a flagship. Transport ate the first volley, dumped the flagship, mass driver shot, flagship back in transport to dodge the shot, transport back to my system, but just before warping i ejected the flagship again and told it to jump to my system as well. That way the frigates were convinced to follow in the wormhole and into my bomber trap. Took a couple tries to figure out the timing, but this is saving me sooo many resources I'm very happy with this plan.

 Slowly but surely this system is going down. Buuuuut, it was too slow and my income wasnt good enough for my initial plan, so i have made adjustments. Instead i'm making engineers mk3 and will use them to build a base right in the middle of their system without killing off everything else first. I won't be able to unlock all the beams but not like i could afford them this century anyway. With my last tech i'll unlock basic turrets mk3 to help defend and sorta make up for the missing beams.

 Well, most things worked out, although working through that fortified system was painful, i now own the area around their base. A few minutes ago however the ai launched a massive attack against their old homeworld and destroyed everything there. I was silly and moved a bit early to resettle and i wasted my cloaked colony. Not that it matters anyway, i'm about to end this in an orgy of destruction.

23:02 - Planets: 8 AI Progress: 168 Kills: 135,290 Deaths: 13,649 Reclaimed: 29,179 Scrapped: 16,080

 All done now. Man the avengers are tough. Guess i dreamed up the missile immunity on it.
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Mánagarmr August 20, 2010, 07:14:35 PM
I _did_ read the wall of text. *bows* You knows your AI:War-FU...I feel so...weak, powerless and stupid against your tactics. Thanks a lot for the writeup!
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Spikey00 August 20, 2010, 07:24:44 PM
(I almost swore when I saw this topic.)
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden August 21, 2010, 01:11:16 AM
 Hi and thanks for the kind words, i'm happy you enjoyed the posts! I was considering posting again in a bit when i complete my current games, wasn't sure, but since i kept a journal for the big one at least i probably will. For that game i'll just say this game was good practice... especially considering the changes to the game between 3.1.2.0 and 3.1.7.2 (lv10 waves suddenly twice as big :-\).

 It will probably take some time though my play time is rather limited these days. Here are some teasers in the mean time :)
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: keith.lamothe August 28, 2010, 05:35:02 PM
Wow.

Wow :)

I hadn't seen this thread before.  That's quite a victory, there are a few ways the game could have been more challenging in 3.120 but not by much ;)

And yea, there was a really longstanding bug preventing the higher difficulties from getting the intended wave multipliers, so diff 10 in particular was easier than intended.  Not that it made it easy, as you found ;)

Congratulations :)
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: Fruden August 28, 2010, 05:57:32 PM
 Thanks! I'm certainly having a lot of fun with your game, i only wish i had more time to enjoy it!

 As for increasing the challenge... yeah having waves twice as big vs technologists is about as hard as it gets without the cheaty things and made for a really rough first half, but the game is getting close to the end now. I just needed a break because of the amount of micro and the hours required for the new knowledge raids on a low income were getting to me.

 Anyway, my alternate more relaxed game with 6 homeworlds i used to test a bunch of things is almost done so i'll get back to the challenge shortly, i should be able to finish it within a month and post about it.

 Also, i gotta say some of the new stuff looks really interesting, it's good to know there is more to look forward to. This game provides very good value for the price!
: Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
: keith.lamothe August 28, 2010, 06:22:34 PM
Glad you're having so much fun :)  Beating two Diff 10 AIs in a fair fight is an accomplishment, actually having fun while doing it is a bigger one ;)

Also, i gotta say some of the new stuff looks really interesting, it's good to know there is more to look forward to.
Yea, Chris has been doing pretty incredible things with the base game, and the CoN micro-expansion has a lot of stuff intended to provide new kinds of challenges to advanced players (as well as more variation for the rest of us, in more moderate doses).  We've got some fairly significant balance issues yet to work out, but when we get to the official version it should be the stuff of new legends :)

This game provides very good value for the price!
Thanks :)  That is one of our big goals with our games: a ratio of dollar-cost to potential-hours-of-enjoyment (not just play, but enjoyment) somewhere between "insane" and "completely ludicrous" ;)