[WON!] - Alarming Vengefulness (10RaidEngine/Vengeful // 10Vanguard/Alarmist)

[Toranth]

Awesome.  Pop goes the first AI.

If you weren't playing with a Vanguard AI, you'd probably see more units by count in the CPAs, but less total strength - and it'd still drain the Reserves by the same amount.  Core CPAs can be a great way to empty the reserves, if you can handle it, which makes the AI assault so much easier.

Unfortunately, you've still got the hard Homeworld left to go, but I think you (or your Warhead fleet) is well prepared to finished things off.


Also, this:

+20 AI Progress From Death Of Cmd(AI Home)
Alarm Post triggered on Calais

Really, AI?  Really?

[Cyborg]

Going well. Kahuna, can you post your CPA timings that you expected?

[Kahuna]

If you weren't playing with a Vanguard AI, you'd probably see more units by count in the CPAs, but less total strength - and it'd still drain the Reserves by the same amount.  Core CPAs can be a great way to empty the reserves, if you can handle it, which makes the AI assault so much easier.

Yeah I think Vanguard is actually really easy. The Guardians are too fragile and consume too much strength when they get picked for CPAs and waves. I also didn't remember how easy Alarmist is. It's also a pushover. Should have taken something like Quadratic/Vanguard, Sledgehammer/Vanguard etc. Unfortunately TheCore/Vanguard doesn't actually work. TheCore should make all AI ships to be Mark V but it doesn't seem to work with Vanguard. Actually I'm not sure it works like that with other AI types either.. I think a lot of the ships are Mark IV even if the AI is "The Core".

Going well. Kahuna, can you post your CPA timings that you expected?

I always expect them to be announced at xy hours and 00 minutes where y={2, 4, 6, 8, ...} so every 2 hours.

In this game CPA timings were roughly as follows:
The first CPA was announced around 02h06m. (Expected: 02h00m)
Second around 04h12m. (Expected: 04h00m)
Third around 06h13m. (Expected: 06h00m)
Fourth around 08h15m (Expected: 08h00m)
And fifth around 10h27m. (Expected: 10h00m)

So quite precisely every 2 hours. Although the fifth one was already almost half an hour off. It seems like the longer the game goes on the more the time starts to differentiate from the 2 hours so I think you can change your expectations accordingly. It probably has something to do with the AIP increase and in this game AI having to convert thousands and thousands of ships into fewer bigger and nastier ships.

If I remember correctly the AI has a certain budget for CPAs and waves etc. If the AI goes over budget when it picks ships for a CPA the time until the next CPA will be towards the upper end of the spectrum to compensate.

Also, this:

+20 AI Progress From Death Of Cmd(AI Home)
Alarm Post triggered on Calais

Really, AI?  Really?

Yeah the homeworld is under attack.. oh reeaally?? You don't say?

AI: "They must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel when they hired you commander" as I destroy an Avenger with a tactically placed beachhead planet before it gets to my core planets and I lose the CS because of the nuclear explosion.
or
AI: "How stupid do you think we are" after my fleet gets destroyed after I've destroyed AI's homeworld. Yeah..

For some reason whenever the AI does/says/announces something stupid it reminds me of Microsoft Sam. I imagine the AI saying things with Microsoft Sam's voice.

AI: "Microsoft Sam I am, winning double 10 is a scam, my arch nemesis is the Super Cat, against him there's no chitchat nor being diplomat, I need my secret weapon, the ship of armageddon, the zenith siege engine, Super Cat's cryptonite, no sleep for him tonight, send the ZSEs with the speed of light, blow up the CS like dynamite,

look behind your back, make the Super Cat wear a tinfoil hat, drop the beat like a DJ as I launch the CPA, they must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel when they hired you commander, as I destroy the CS, the Super Cat is a bystander, how stupid do you think we are, beat you up like a noob you are, we know you have tricks up your sleeve, cheesy shit and salvage to receive,

as your defenses break, you're filled with disbelieve, time to save scum or take sick leave,  oh look you're alive, he's back, building warheads and ready to attack, unaware of the Raid Engines and Blackhole Machines, come in by all means, I can already hear your screams, we shall sell your babies as snacks, looking for our homeworld with the help of stellar parallax,

but the AIP is already too high, waves are pounding and the end is nigh, not reading player A, retreat, abort, fail, looks like I sent you a hell of a coctail, Zenith Shield Engines and Shield Bearers too, how does that sound to you, checkmate."

All this needs is a beat.

[keith.lamothe]

The cookie monster eating warheads ("They looked just like chocolate chips! How I hate Warhead Reflux...")

A deliberate, and successful, strategy involving a nuclear warhead (and 400,000 threat).

And now rap.

I don't know if the AI is feeling humiliated, or wondering "How do I get this guy on my side?"

[Kahuna]

So the first AI Homeworld has been destroyed. Now I have to find a way to destroy the Avenger before it gets to any of my core planets. There's also another problem. The AI Homeworld I destroyed has 2 Raid Engines next to it that are now on permanent alert because the homeworld is destroyed. Both of the Raid Engines are protected by Shield Guard Post or Force Fields too so getting rid of them will be difficult. I'll probably have to use a Mark I Armored Warhead for both of them. Building Armored Warheads takes quite a while so I need to be able to survive the waves.

I hope the Avenger passes through my beachhead planet (Meinos Predex) so I can destroy it with turrets and a couple of Lightning Warheads..

..And it doesn't. I need to beachhead it's path from Meinos Predex. If that doesn't work my last chance is to beachhead LV-3615 and stop it there.

Going to build an Assault Transport and Mobile Builders in order to bechhead Blue Danube.


The Avenger arrives with almost 200 Mark IV Zenith Electric Bombers and some Mark V EMP Guardians. Thousands of ships and some Mark V EMP Guardians are also attacking Meinos Predex. The 2 permanently alerted Raid Engines are pumping out more ships all the time. Luckily I still have some Warheads on Meinos Predex.




I'm focus building a Mark I Armored Warhead with 65 Engineers. 45 seconds left. I'll send this first one to destroy the Raid Engine on AS17174 (AI Core planet). In the meantime I'm trying to get the other one on LV-1429 with MSDs and NTigers.



Yep this beachhead wasn't strong enough. A lot of that has to do with it getting permanently EMPd by the Mark V EMP Guardians. Avenger's shield are still at 65%.

I need to beachhead LV-3615 before it gets flooded by threat..

..Actually it looks like the Avenger is now heading towards Meinos Predex. Ok good. I need to rebuild all the defenses and some extra Force Fields immediately and get the warheads in position on top of the wormhole..

..Like this. Looks like the Armored Warhead is already here! Great. I've already started focus building another one. Although I'm starting to run out of metal..


..It immediately destroyed the Warheads with it's Mark IV HBC module. And wow, it's shield only went down to 49%. Well then. I hope the turrets do their thing.



In the mean time my homeworld is under heavy attack by dozens of high mark level Guardians and Mark IV Carriers. I think I'm going to send a Warheads from Tranatos to help out. Better safe than sorry.



Also everything has been built on Meinos Predex and I just have to wait for the Avenger to get in range of the Needler and Laser Turrets and hope the Force Fields hold long enough. I'm moving most of the Engineers from there to my homeworld to help focus build the second Armored Warhead. The threat is already at 6646 and 5961 ships have already been announced. I think they're all Mark IV since they're from those 2 Raid Engines that are adjacent to the AI homeworld.

As soon as I order all 69 Engineers to start building the Armored Warheads it's construction time drops from 7 minutes 2 seconds to 2 minutes 30 seconds.


The first Armored Warhead still has 1 hop to the first Raid Engine. MSDs are 2 hops away from the other Raid Engine. Avenger's shields are down to 37% and it's now in range of my Missile Turrets but now it has started to focus fire the Force Fields. The attack on my homeworld has been repelled. The second Armored Warhead has 52 seconds of build time left.



Ok NOW the Avenger is starting to drop!

And boom it goes. Ok, only the Raid Engines left.

"AI: Tedious"


Wow.. you got to be kidding me. It wasn't enough.. Ok I need to bring the MSDs here to finish this up. They were unable to do anything on LV-1429 anyway because of the Tachyon Command Station. Surely the Tachyon Command Station will decloak the Armored Warhead too but it has 2 million health so I'm sure it will get in range to destroy the Raid Engine. However here is a Warhead Intercept which insta kills Warheads.. however Armored have immunity to being insta killed. The Warhead Interceptor does only 20000 damage per shot and has a reload time of 10 seconds so there's no way it's going to destroy the Armored Warhead..

..Ok so I'm going to try to get this one with these MSDs. First I'm going to build a cap of Fighters and Missile Frigates to kill the EMP Guardian and to work as cannon fodder for the Widow Guardian. The Mark V Widow Guardian can tractor (and paralyzes) up to 150 ships. So the Fighters and the Missile Frigates will fill up all the "tractor spots". Then I'm going to build NTigers and Bombers to counter the Force Field and destroy the Raid Engine..



..At the same time on my core planets I'm transferring Lightning Warheads from Hephyrus to my homeworld while distracting the hybrids with my ships. All of the warheads made it to my homeworld alive.



..Meanwhile on AS17174 where the first Raid Engine is. All Mark V EMP Guardians on that planet were freed and are now probably heading to my homeworld. Great. And of course they EMPd my MSDs and ships too. They got minutes worth of EMPs because there were like 8 Mark V EMP Guardians so I just scrapped the MSDs and rebuilt them on my homeworld. Going to send the MSDs over there again as soon as I've rebuilt all of them.. Destroying these Raid Engines is going to be slow and painful. And the threat is already at 12591..

..Yeah my homeworld is going to get EMPd for 3 minutes very soon.


Luckily the Mark V NTigers are still alive and working on that Mark III AI Force Field! Looks like they're going to get it! Dooo eeeettt!!

Also the second Armored Warhead will soon put an end to the ship spam from the second Raid Engine!

Meanwhile on my homeworld I destroyed over 3000 ships with a Mark III Lightning Warhead and am sending some warheads to LV-3615 to "meet" the EMP Guardians before they get to EMP my homeworld. There's 3 EMP Guardians on LV-3615 coming to my homeworld. I can only hope I make it in time..


ALL of this is happening at the same time! I'm constantly pausing and checking various planets and seeing how things are going and reacting accordinly.


AAAAAAAAAA YES! They broke through the Force Field! One more reload will do it!

And shortly after it was destroyed! ..
..At the same time on my homeworld only one of the three warheads made it to LV-3615 and I managed to destroy only one Mark V EMP Guardian so there's still 2 on the way. I'm going to send one more warhead, a Mark II EMP Warhead and hope it destroys the last 2.


Oh the other 2 were still on their way to LV-3615.. both of them got instantly killed. At least they destroyed one more EMP Guardian. I still have the Mark II Lightning Warhead on it's way. I hope it gets the last one..

..I no longer have vision on LV-3615 because it got EMPd and then destroyed so I'm going completely blind now..

..And the Mark II Lightning Warhead gets destroyed pretty quickly but it does get to move a little bit towards the EMP Guardian. The EMP Guardian was also moving towards the Lightning Warhead (wormhole) so it might have gotten into range of the warhead. I just have to wait and see if the EMP Guardian comes through the wormhole and EMPs me..
..After waiting for a while there's no sign of an EMP Guardian. Not even after more threat comes through LV-3615 wormhole so I guess the warhead got the last EMP Guardian! YES!


But there's also bad news. Very bad news.. Armored Lightning Warheads aren't immune to insta-killing from the Warhead Interceptor even though Armored Warhead has immunity against insta killing and on Warhead Interceptor's description it says it "insta-kills warhead". Welp. Ok then. I sent MSDs and NTigers to destroy the Warhead Interceptor and I also focus built yet another Mark I Armored Warhead with 80 Engineers.




The downside of building the third Armored Warhead is that now the Missile Silo is on cooldown so it's going to take a while before I can pump out another Mark III Lightning Warhead to help defend against this threat. All the Zenith Siege Engines and Bombers are on that same blob. I'm now focus building all the HBCs one by one. I also unlocked Mark III HBCs for even more firepower. I hope this is enough.



Meanwhile on LV-1429 NTigers were caught by Spire Gravity Drains so I'm trying to focus them down one by one and then just fly to the Warhead Interceptor and destroy it.



This kind of waves the Raid Engine keeps pumping out over and over and over again. Threat is 8054 and yet another wave has been announced. Geez..

Good thing the cooldown on building warheads is now over and I can pump out another Mark III Lightning Warhead with the help of 79 Engineers. It's going to take only 10 seconds. I'll save it for the absolute last moment though. The HBCs made quick work of the Zenith Electric Bombers, Bombers and Carriers.

...............ok never mind the warhead I just pumped out got destroyed because I had set the Missile Silo to rally everything to the Raid Engine planet.. oh well.. I hope it at least destroyed some threat when it exploded on LV-3615. Great..


The Spire Gravity Drains have been gotten rid and and I've made new NTigers. I put them to stand down mode and am just flying them next to the Warhead Interceptor. In this situation nothing else matters but destroying the Warhead Interceptor and the Raid Engine. Even Mark V EMP Guardians have lower priority. I'll destroy the EMP Guardians after the Warhead Interceptor..

..The Warhead Interceptor is destroyed and the EMP Guardians are freed as threat. I immediately order the NTigers to go after them and I manage to destroy the other one but the NTigers get caught by Spire Gravity Drains again so the other one gets away. We'll see if it EMPs my homeworld or some other core planet later.

Armored Warhead is now 3 hops away and the defenses on my homeworld are fully rebuilt.


WHAT?! The third Armored Warhead gets destroyed by the Warhead Interceptor on the other AI Core world EVEN THOUGH IT WAS CLOAKED. I can live with doing mistakes but this is just cheap.


Tranatos gets EMPd for 5 minutes. Luckily that amount of AI ships has absolutely no chances of breaking my defenses. Also my homeworld has proven to be an absolute brick wall so far.



Trying to get the Raid Engine with NTigers is absolutely desperate. And the Force Field gerenerates health too...... Oh it's Force FieldS. There's a mark V and a Mark III.



Focus building a fourth Mark I Armored Warhead. Going to take 54 seconds. In the meantime I order the MSDs to destroy the Warhead Interceptor on the other Core planet so this one doesn't get cheap shot like that. Too bad the Warhead Interceptor is protected by a Mark III Force Field and there are a lot of Mark V Guard Posts nearby. There's also a lot of threat moving through that planet.

The Armored Warhead is built. I also have 2 Assault Transports filled with ships going to help with destroying the Warhead Interceptor but I doubt they're going to make a difference.


Time to get some sleep. Will continue from here tomorrow... this is getting intense. This aftermath is way harder than the AI homeworld assault itself. I think I got this though since my defenses are so strong even the continuous non stop Raid Engine waves are unable to break through. This has to be the most epic thing I've encountered in AI War.


11h27m.sav attached

[Kahuna]

The cookie monster eating warheads ("They looked just like chocolate chips! How I hate Warhead Reflux...")

Getting the lightning reflux.

A deliberate, and successful, strategy involving a nuclear warhead (and 400,000 threat).

It's the only way to be sure and it worked.

Although in the end I actually did the hack the normal way. It actually proved to be more effective to stop the hack early and then deal with the threat without nuking. Pity.

And now rap.

We don't stop being dorky because we grow old, we grow old because we stop being dorky.

I don't know if the AI is feeling humiliated, or wondering "How do I get this guy on my side?"

I guess we have to wait for AI War Reverse. 

[keith.lamothe]

Armored Lightning Warheads aren't immune to insta-killing from the Warhead Interceptor even though Armored Warhead has immunity against insta killing and on Warhead Interceptor's description it says it "insta-kills warhead". Welp. Ok then.

Immunity War: Fleet Command. Who is more immune to the other's immunities?

(I'm really looking forward to trying to get rid of immunities in AIW2; we'll see how far it can go)

[Atepa]

I go on holidays for a few days and come back to a dead AI missiles going off everywhere, and what sounds like a constant stream of thread just bashing it's face against your homeworld.

Best. Christmas. Ever!

[Kahuna]

O.K. .. So I need to somehow get rid of the last permanently alerted Raid Engine.

I'm trying to destroy the Warhead Interceptor with NTigers but it's proving to be very hard with the amount of threat moving through that planet. Once again the biggest problem are the EMP Guardians, surprise surprise. My MSDs have 1 minute 34 seconds of EMP left so they're probably going to get destroyed. Especially with that many Laser Guardians nearby. Even the Mark V NTigers are dropping like flies since Laser Guardians counter Polycrystal..

..yeah I'm just going to scrap the MSDs and rebuild them and send them over there again..
..And the MSDs get EMPd immediately as soon as they enter LV-3615.. really? Reeaalllyy?!


Thanks to the non stop Raid Engine waves I have more income from salvage than I've been able to use. I'm going to take advantage of that and build an Armor Booster on Tranatos. It's going to double armor on all of my turrets, ships and structures on that planet.



WHY DOESN'T THE ARMORED WARHEAD GET INSTA KILLED THIS TIME?! The last time when it got insta killed even when it was cloaked was definitely a bug..



Finally Hephyrus gets it's fair share of this war against the AI. It gets flooded by over 2000 Mark V and Mark IV ships and EMPd by 2 Mark V EMP Guardians. I'm going to scrap all the Engineers and rebuild them to workaround the EMP. I'm also going to build a new Missile Silo and focus build a Mark III Lightning Warhead and I'm going to build 5 Space Docks to spam Neinzul Nanoswarms with. One of the very few counters to EMP and it's not even a counter per se.




The last Armored Warhead has finally made it's way to the last Raid Engine. I don't have scouting on that planet because of the Tachyon Command Station so I'm going blind.
Before:

After:

I kind of knew it wouldn't destroy the Raid Engine. Good news is that it got rid of the Mark V Force Field, the Fortress and put the Mark III Force Field down to only 24% health which is 408931 health. I think I can drill through that with NTigers. Just need to get those MSDs in position and hope I don't get EMPd again. MSDs are only 2 hops away so wont be long until that Raid Engine is done with. Yet another Raid Engine wave passing by the MSDs..



I rebuilt all Force Fields on Hephyrus to counter the EMP. I also scrapped all HBCs on my homeworld and am focus building them on Hephyrus to make sure the threat doesn't get to destroy the Fabricators. If I really had to I could rebuild all the EMPd turrets too.



FINALLY the ship spam will end! Again I focus fired all the Spire Gravity Drains on the way to the Raid Engine. Then put the NTigers on stand down mode and one shot the Raid Engine. Luckily the Force Field was so damaged it didn't cover the Raid Engine at all anymore. Couldn't have done this without the Armored Warhead.

That was tough.. really.

Just have to deal with the 8000 threat now..
..But that's not a problem since the AI kindly sent those ships into this meat grinder of mine. Talk about perfect positioning for Turrets and Force Fields! AI's ships are being blocked by those Force Fields while also getting hammered by HBCs and all other turrets. And those Guardians are being one shotted 20 at a time by my Sniper Turrets.



This was a good benchmark to see how strong my defenses really are. And now Droch gets attacked too. The defenses had already destroyed over 800 Mark II Bombers, a Carrier with a couple hundred ships, 23 Mark II Spider Guardians and Mark II 20 Implosion Guardians. I'm a bit worried about those 62 Hybrids though.

Taking into consideration the amount of Force Fields I had protecting the CS and the ZPG the AI did pretty good damage. 5 Mark III Force Fields, 1 Mark II Force Fields and 2 Mark I Force Fields.


Now I've just been building Armored Warheads and getting things ready for the next AI Homeworld assault and for the next CPA. It's no 12h02m so I assume the next CPA is going to be announced in about 20 to 30 minutes.

I also captured Gradian and am hacking the Core Needler Turrets on Kiwiina. I figured the additional 20 AIP from capturing Gradian isn't going to make much of a difference at this point. The AIP was already 287 and is now 307.

Hundreds of threat ships and dozens of guardians came to defend this planet as soon as I set my foot on it. The beachhead also got EMPd for a couple of minutes but it survived thanks to the Core and Gravitational Turrets. EMP also seems to stop the hacking process. I've never seen that before. I think this was actually the first time when my hacking beachhead got EMPd. But yes EMP stops the hacking counter but the hacking responses don't stop. I don't think hacking points are consumed during that time though..
..WOW! That's only one spawn from the hacking response. 140 Mark II Guardians at once? Holy cow.. good thing I have Core Missile and Sniper Turrets..

I'm focus firing those Laser Guardians with my Sniper Turrets so my NTigers don't get completely obliterated.


And since the hacking was easily completed I immediately started a knowledge hack as well. Built the Mark V Needler Turrets to make this beachhead even stronger..

..However I started to run out of metal and there was too many Missile Guardians so they obliterated my Force Fields and shortly after the Hacker. The hacking responses are starting to get serious now. Dozens of Mark IV Guardians on every spawn. I managed to get 1452 knowledge..
..And at the same time 6000 Infiltrators attack my homeworld. There was 3 Carriers but since they were filled by Infiltrators they were quickly cleaned up. Hundred Guardians and hundreds of other AI ships joined the fight too. They were all destroyed in a couple of minutes. This gave me enough salvage to rebuild everything on the hacking beachhead and continue the hack. The hack was stopped by tachyon and Missile Guardians again but I started the hack third time and finished it.

With the knowledge I unlocked the Mark IV Heavy Beam Cannon. Ooohh yyeeeaa, bring it on now AI.


The sixth CPA has been announced and it's 39676 ships and will spawn in 9 minutes 43 seconds.

Going to build a few beachheads and as many Lightning Warheads as possible. After it has been repelled I'll build the rest of the Armored Warheads and destroy the second AI homeworld.

I just flied an Assault Transport filled with Engineers and Remain Rebuilders and started building Turrets despite of threat.


And vast majority of the CPA ships get converted again. I guess that's because of 10/10 preemptive on both AIs.

Shortly after that hundreds of Guardians attack Droch and Tranatos.


Now there's 5200 threat camping next to my homeworld. Apparently there's too much firepower on my homeworld for them to attack..
..Oh never mind they were just waiting for the 4 EMP Guardians. Right. Of course.

Apparently that threat was mostly Mark II Fighters so it wasn't a big deal. The Carriers were quite squishy too. Especially when hammered by full caps of all Mark I to IV HBCs. All destroyed in a minute or so.


At the same time the beachhead next to my homeworld on LV-3615 stopped probably about 2000 AI ships. It's getting overrun now but it fought gloriously.

3098 threat left now so I consider the CPA to be repelled. At this point that amount of threat has absolutely no chances of breaking through any of my planets..
..And now the rest of that threat (including the 120 Tractor Guardians) is kindly sacrificing itself to my meat grinder to boost my economy and help me build those expensive Mark III Armored Warheads.


Threat is now under control, metal income is still 8310 metal/s (it's negative because I'm focus building Armored Warheads) and SHC-2511 has been rebuilt to help with the AI Homeworld assault. I still need to build one more Mark III Armored Warhead and 2 Mark IIs.

This is how I'm going to handle the Core planet before the Homeworld.

And this is how I'm going to spread the Armored Warheads and my fleet on the AI Homeworld. At the moment I have reclaimed 96 Mark II Fighters, 95 Mark III Fighters, 17 Mark IV Fighters, 96 Mark II Bombers, 96 Mark III Bombers, 14 Mark II Zenith Electric Bombers, 19 Mark III Zenith Electric Bombers, 18 Mark IV Zenith Electric Bombers and a lot of Grenade Launchers, Missile Frigates and Infiltrators.

I'm considering Mark II nuking Ascs J114 after the Raid Engine waves have spawned. Then I'd have to capture Krazel as a staging ground since SHC-2511 would also get nuked. Mark II nuking would increase the AIP by 500 so I'd have to be 100% sure I would be able to finish the game after doing that. Luckily Mark II nuking wouldn't trigger any additional Raid Engines.



I'll finish this game tomorrow. One way or another. It will be tough.


13h14m.sav attached.

[Kahuna]

I go on holidays for a few days and come back to a dead AI missiles going off everywhere, and what sounds like a constant stream of thread just bashing it's face against your homeworld.

Best. Christmas. Ever!

Hope you had a great Christmas, and it sounds like you did! And happy new year too!
I'll make sure to give the AI some fireworks too!

[Kahuna]

2201:st post here we go!


Time to move everything to SHC-2511 and get ready for the last AI Homeworld assault. I'm escorting the Armored Warheads to SHC-2511 with MSDs. The last Mark II Armored Warhead is currently under construction on SHC-2511



There's literally hundreds of Special Forces Guardians going to place to place 2 hops away from SHC-2511. They're no doubt going to come help defend the last AI Homeworld when I attack. The question is how am I going to deal with that many Guardians. There was some Hunter/Killers too. Can't warhead all of them unless they all come as a one big blob, which is very unlikely. I actually probably can't use normal Lightning Warheads at all because I've disabled Starships so I don't have Cloaker Starships. So the Lightning Warheads would probably just get destroyed instantly...
...Actually I think I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to use Ascs J114 as a EMPing and nuking ground to destroy the Special Forces and the Raid Engine waves. I don't necessarily have to use a Mark II nuke, although I think that would be really cool to do and pull off. I could easily keep sending nukes and EMPs through the Ascs J114 wormhole on SHC-2511. I could build a Missile Silo and Force Fields on top of the Ascs J114 wormhole and keep focus building them with 80 Engineers. Then just drop one through the wormhole whenever needed.

I can destroy Raid Engine on Teufelsspitze by first attacking the AI Homeworld (Vootaq) and then simply send NTigers to Teufelsspitze  from there since the Raid Engine is very close to the wormhole. And it's not protected by Force Fields either.



Spreading specific ships into specific Assault Transports, destroying all Distribution Nodes I can find (found only one), building Lightning, EMP and Nuclear Warheads. Electric Bombers are going to go with Bombers and the rest of the ships will be split into 2 Assault Transports with the MSDs. I'm going to "prebuild" Mark V and some Mark II NTigers so as many NTigers are immediately ready to fight and work as cannon fodder when I need them. I'm going to have to be careful not to mix up those Assault Transports.



Leaving a scout on the Core planet to see what I'm up against. And what I am up against seems to be an impressive arsenal of Mark V Guardians. The amount of strength on that planet is absolutely monstrous. And as soon as I enter that I'm going to trigger 3 Raid Engines, 1 Core Raid Engine Guard Post and a CPA Guard Post. The Special Forces are also going to come after me. So I'm going to first go in with NTigers just to destroy the Tachyon Guardians. That's going to trigger all the Raid Engines. When the RE waves spawn/arrive on that planet I'm going to EMP them as long as they're all on that same planet. Then I'm going to nuke all of them. And then I'm going to attack the AI Homeworld and do what I described above. There's no way in hell anyone would beachhead something like that. Not that nor an AI Homeworld..

..About 3000 AI ships just attacked my homeworld so this seems like a good time to attack since I'm going to have tons and tons of metal income from the salvage. Just going to build this Nuclear Warhead and then.

"Saving 'Test 9.sav'..."


And sure enough sending the NTigers to destroy the Tachyon Guardian triggered all the Raid Engines. Those Guardians got freed as threat and are now heading to Crypto.

Now I'm going to go in with an Assault Transport filled with NTigers to get the other Tachyon Guardian. I'm going to try to go around those Guard Posts since they have Gravity Drains guarding them..
..And the Assault Transport got detected by the Tachyon Guardian and destroyed instantly before it got close enough for the NTigers to be in range of the Tachyon Guardian. The Tractor Guardians stopped all the NTigers which then got obliterated in a second or two. The Tachyon Guardian didn't take a scratch. I'm going to have to do another run. Let's see if I make it before the RE waves spawn. 23 seconds left.

The amount of AI strength on that planet is insane. But, VERY good new; at least there are no EMP Guardians! Thank lord..
..I load a new Assault Transport with new NTigers, send it in and rebuild the lost Assault Transport. 19 seconds left..
..Yes! The Assault Transport got close enough!

And so did the NTigers.

And YYEEES they get it just in time! The RE waves spawned immediately as the Tachyon Guardian was destroyed. Although I wonder why they waited a full reload before they fired at the Tachyon Guardian.. that was extremely close..


Looks like all RE waves spawned on that planet. So time for the nuke..
Before nuke:

After nuke:

Oh right. The scout was destroyed too. At least the threat went from 17957 down to 2594.
Sending more scouts and going in now..
..The whole planet is in chaos as all the guards were freed as threat.



Going into the AI Homeworld with an Assault Transport filled with NTigers to destroy the Tachyon Guardian, Warhead Interceptor and Raid Engine. As soon as I do so the CPA Guard Post is triggered..
..And this time AI has it's reserve...... yeah. Trying to kite them around a little bit and then send a warhead through the Wormhole to destroy some of the ships. Getting Lightning Warheads here is completely out of question. Or almost completely. Having to do that would increase the length of this game by at least 3 hours in-game time..
..A Mark III Armored Warhead got rid of a good chunk of the Reserve ships..
..Unfortunately I was too focused to get a screenshot..
..Almost wanted to reload to get one. Oh well. Although that's one less Mark III for the Guard Posts and the Force Fields..
..Am now spreading the Warheads and Transports.

Luckily there was only one Spire Gravity Drain from AI 2.. thank lord..


Ok things are going quite smoothly now. I focus fired the single Mark III Gravity Drain that was doing it's best to ruin my day with NTigers. At the same time Bombers were able to destroy the Leech Guard Post and Fighters destroyed the other Arachnid Guard Post. That means I don't need to send the Mark I Armored Warheads there. Instead I ordered the 2 Mark I Armored Warheads to return next to the Ascs J114 wormhole to prevent any EMP Guardians from leaving the planet and thus EMPing my everything. As soon as I see EMP Guardians leaving the planet I'm going to destroy them with the warheads. On right side of the planet the third Mark I Armored Warhead is already in range of that Guard Post and Mark V EMP Guardians so I'm going to pop it.

WHAT? How did it survive? Honestly seems like a bug to me. Welp. It's going to spawn another wave soon.



Ok the other Raid Engines triggered again too. I think it's ok though since my plan is working pretty much perfectly. Already managed to destroy most of the Guard Posts and only 2 EMP Guardians left. The Special Forces are now starting arrive though. I already warheaded a Hunter/Killer (with some EMP Guardians).


I'm now going to focus fire that CPA Guard Post (Hull type: Composite) with Missile Frigates and then split them into 2 Assault Transports. The other one is going to go for the Raid Engine Guard Post (Hull type: Neutron) and the other one will go for the Electric Guard Post (Hull type: Composite) under the Barrack. I forgot about the Electric Guard Post. Gj hiding it with that Barracks AI. At the same time I'm ordering NTigers to go to the adjacent Core planet to destroy the Raid Engine. Although I think destroying that is unnecessary since I'm going to win the game soon.


Oh what's that.. a lot of AI ships suddenly spawned on top of the Electric Guard Post. Good thing I have positioned these Warheads perfectly.

I waited for the Hunter/Killers to get out of range so the firepower isn't "wasted" on them.



HAHAHAHA so much for destroying the Raid Engine on that planet.. wow.. look at the amount of Widow and EMP Guardians. That's absolutely hilarious.

..I hope I didn't free too many of them..


In the mean time AI breaks through my defenses on Droch and destroys the other ZPG. All the Missile Guardians obliterated the Force Fields and then the ZPG. This happened while I was focused on attacking the AI's Homeworld. That could have been easily avoided by using a warhead earlier but I was too focused and didn't remember to check my own planets. Good thing I've used most of the Armored Warheads so I didn't run out of energy even though I lost the ZPG (600000 energy).

My homeworld and Tranatos are also under attack but their defenses are holding strong.




And the last Core Guard Post has just been destroyed..

..and I can finally target and destroy the last AI Home Command Station. Fire everything!

Unloaded the Bombers and waited for them to reload. Almost done!



Mean while on MY homeworld..

..The Exogalactic Strike Forces and the waves in response to destroying the Guard Posts have accumulated into a massive blob that has just destroyed most of my Mark III Gravitational Turrets and are now going after my Home Command Station. Honestly this is like a base race! Luckily I have that Mark III Lightning Warhead ready to be detonated. I also rebuild some Engineers so I can focus build another Mark III Lightning Warhead..

..fraction of a second later..
DDIIIIEEEE! (Get your bug reports ready!)

BBBOOOOOMMMMM!!!

..(Funny how I got the achievement "First victory" and some other ones. Apparently deleting all game files resets the achievements in-game.)..

And on my homeworld at the same time.



And on Tranatos. There's over 90 high Mark level Missile Guardians ready to do their thing.

Not anymore.

Yes I'm continuing to play after I've won. I want to survive the aftermath too.


Let's see how Armored Warheads work against Avenger..

..didn't do a thing. Well it did destroy the Shield Module.



Focus building all the HBCs on my homeworld with 74 Engineers.



Time to warhead the Avenger again.

Oh it prioritized the Hunter/Killers. Ok then. At least the Bombers have done a lot of damage.



What??? Hahaha what the heck is this. I've never seen this kind of response before. Where did these come from. Oh well I've already won the game.

BWAHAHAHA that's absolutely hilarious.. yeah yeah AI I understand you got angry because I won. Yes I won. I won the game. Nice base race though! Happy new year to you too AI.
*closes the game*

"I WIN.sav" and "WTF.sav" attached. In "I WIN.sav" the AI Home Command Station is at 33% health and in "WTF.sav" is that ridiculous AI response.. I have no idea what the heck is that..

[Cyborg]

Congratulations! Great job.

[carldong]

Nice series of episodes! Or should it be bug reports?

Lessons learned from reading: I should really build all warheads available before a homeworld assault.

I am still curious whether a MkIII(or any) nuke will be actually useful in AIW II. Hmmm.

[Atepa]

Huzzah!!

I'm not even sure how the AI could have been tweaked to stop you other than making warheads less effective... but considering you had several duds that wouldn't really make sense.

Great fight, and awesome victory. That response at the end... Wow... did they like empty the galaxy of all their ships to send them after you or something? lol

[keith.lamothe]

Congratulations! We'd do a forty-gun salute, but they're all EMP'd so we'll use this MkIII Nuke instead. It seems more appropriate.

You've definitely continued the 10/10 saga of "Warheads ARE Superweapons"

That AI response is what happens when you take out the HCS of a Vengeful AI.