Shield Ninny 7 + Entrenched Homeworlder 7 (random easier both). I quickly take nearby worlds, build main line of defense in the worlds around my homeworld and start scouting for interesting things nearby. This includes stealth detection, forcefield, fortress and masses of turrets sitting on each of the wormholes leading to my homeworld.
I scout, see and take an advanced research facility. But then I hit jackpot: Factory IV! I capture it and build scout IV, with which I scout the galaxy. I capture rest of the advanced research facilities and pick up a botnet golem along the way. My fleet is now 1500 ships strong, and in addition I have several spire ships. Only 4 hours or so has passed since start of the game (my starting position was GOOD, allowed a quick capture of all ARS's) and I feel invincible. I decide it's time to go destroy AI homeworlds. The Shield Ninny is annoyingly well defended: AI Homeworld has an "AI Eye" on it, and so has 2 worlds leading to it. Meaning, I'd have to destroy all 3 eyes before mounting any kind of assault. Also, only world leading to these worlds has an AI Co-Core, and there is one on the shield ninny homeworld. Also there is a raid engine in there. Sounds like trouble, so I decide to go to the other one first.
I enter the world next to the other AI's Homeworld, where the first V ships are located with fleet of 1000 ships + botnet golem (my only one). I left 500 ships to defend my network of worlds, because there was a cross planetary attack just few minutes ago, which still had left ~500 ships as "threat". I enter the world and... "Immune: reclaim". Looks like my golem is useless. But I still have 5x the numbers of AI's ships! Time on game clock is 5 hours 22 minutes. Oh boy I was wrong. The guard posts are tough bastards, and the V-class ships are very tough too. I destroy several guard posts but eventually my fleet gets destroyed, before I could get to the fortress III that sat next to the command center, which on turn sat near the wormhole leading to AI homeworld.
This is when AI decides to strike back. Just as my fleets last ships are dying on enemy world, AI decides to attack 3 of my worlds almost at the same time. To add to the fun, there is a wave incoming. Before I can rebuild or regroup, AI takes out the 3 worlds he is on, and continues on to the next worlds. I retreated to my main line of defense, sent golem to guard my only IV-factory and 200 ships to the human settlement I had to capture to get one of ARS's (human settlement, +100 AI progress on death). My core infrastructure survives, homeworld defensive line holds, but I lost most of my worlds.
Oh well, live and learn. Next time I won't underestimate the power of AI Core Worlds
Oh yeah, and the offer will stand as long as these posts can be found here. I'll be sure to edit it these out,
if the day comes when AI War isn't an option anymore.
