AI War - A Guide to Golems

[Orelius]

Artillery golems being bad rated?!  I think you should definitely try:
- Sniping AI eyes and fortresses. With 4 shots to kill the former, it's faster unless you can take all the guard-posts in under two minutes. Under 1 minute if you power up two golems. I find the ability to take down spire shield guardposts and high level forcefields at range to be very useful in exposing defenses.
- Firing finishing blows in combination with implosion artillery. Wormhole guardposts and all the big ships. They ignore radar dampening.

The artillery golem is rated poorly because it has so little general use and pales in comparison to the other golems.  In any case, AI eyes are uncommon enough with non-turtle AI's that it's possible to deal with them on a case-by-case basis.

[Hearteater]

Yeah, but at least the Arty has a role, however infrequently you might need it.  Which reminds me, in my current game I have a pair of systems that both have AI Eyes.  One has an Attritioner, and the other a Gravity Drill.  I assure you, if I need to go through those systems I would love to have an Artillery Golem.  I don't think I can think of a circumstance where I'd be like, "Dang, if only I had a Black Widow Golem."

[Orelius]

Hmm,  I think I'm probably going to have to reorganize the ratings pretty dramatically, as there isn't much of a way to put it into one single value due to the great amount of diversity between the golems.

Namely, I think the ratings should be something more along the lines of:

Usefulness in Raiding
Usefulness in Straight-up Combat
Usefulness when Retreating
Usefulness when Defending
... and plenty of others, of course.

Is this a good idea, or is it too complex/simple?

[keith.lamothe]

Usefulness when Retreating

Bravely, Sir Robin ran away.

[BobTheJanitor]

I don't think I can think of a circumstance where I'd be like, "Dang, if only I had a Black Widow Golem."

Too true. I think I've probably posted this argument before, but I'll repeat it for fun: The Black Widow fails hard as long as the Botnet Golem exists in the same universe. On a meta level, they both do the same thing: handle lots of fleet ships at once. But where the Botnet instant kills hundreds of ships quickly and for a bonus, turns them all into free zombie drones for you, the Black Widow just grabs a few hundred and then nearly dies under their combined fire. I love getting giant waves when I have a Botnet nearby. I just pull all my other ships back and send the golem in, usually putting an FF over the wormhole to prevent the wave from running in fear when they see it. And then I let the golem make some friends. There's just no comparison between the two. To make the widow at least reasonable compared to a botnet it would need to be able to handle hundreds of ships all at once without any risk to itself.

Stunning the ships while they're captured is probably the best idea, at least that makes it somewhat useful. And it fits the spider theme of webbing and poisoning their prey so they can't move.

[Cyborg]

I have a black widow right now. It's not the best one, sure, but it's doing pretty well through the first few spire stages. Better than nothing.

[PokerChen]

I think the ratings could be split instead into:
- Usefulness
- Frequency of said usefulness
- Frequency of abuse (namely hive golems for its burst damage and botnet golems for its siphoning)

Unfortunately, botnet golems' utility drop drastically when the Devourer is around.

[Wanderer]

Unfortunately, botnet golems' utility drop drastically when the Devourer is around.

Cookie Monster must die.

If we're going to rate them, we should rate them according to true factors:
- Amount of micro needed for effective use (Artillery and Black Widow, I'm looking at you)
- Amount of micro needed for survivability ( Black Widow, Cursed, and Regenerator, ahem...)
- Amount of micro needed for intelligent defense (Hive (needs to be set off and watched for maximums), Black Widow, Armored (it can get itself in over its head during waves))

These are the things that are the most important to us.  They die when we're not watching, they're not strong enough to be left alone to do their jobs, and get thumped too easily in front of the strong fleets we want to use them against.

[zoutzakje]

A complete description of all the possible things and tricks you can do with each golem would be best. Every golem has it's uses, it's just a matter of finding them. Even the black widow and arty golem have saved my butt occasionally. Yes, some golems might be less useful than others, but that's why the botnet costs 40 AIP on medium and the artillery golem only 10 or 15 (I forgot).

[PokerChen]

I've loaded the 5.022 patch  - black widows now have paralysis. This golem has become 10x more useful, and potentially overpowered in combination with the botnet golem. An example tactic would be to run the two of these into an enemy planet (one without a mass driver), and harvest the enemy forces with >95% efficiency (converted enemy ships / convertibles originally in wormhole.) The black widows stuns the enemy and protects the botnet while it does it job.

This tactic was also useful with the non-stun version of the golem, although repairs must be done more regularly. It works best if one sets up a couple of 'milking' planets, preferably mark III or IV, which have been partially neutered to keep it at a manageable level.

Granted, I haven't played Fallen Spire yet - perhaps a collection of those caps outshines anything the golems can do.

 = = =
 Oh, and I also noticed that normal tractor beams have stun too --- maybe it's a bug? This was on a game created before 5.021 though.

[Wanderer]

Oh, and I also noticed that normal tractor beams have stun too --- maybe it's a bug? This was on a game created before 5.021 though.

Yeah, it's a bug right now.  ALL tractors are paralytic at the moment due to a bad default setting.

[zoutzakje]

yup, that's pretty much the reason why I haven't patched yet. In one of my current games the enemy has tractor platforms... don't think I need to explain why playing with this bug would be impossible early game

[keith.lamothe]

yup, that's pretty much the reason why I haven't patched yet. In one of my current games the enemy has tractor platforms... don't think I need to explain why playing with this bug would be impossible early game

Yea, that's about when the AI pops up a helpful tutorial message explaining how to start a new game.

[BobTheJanitor]

I've loaded the 5.022 patch  - black widows now have paralysis. This golem has become 10x more useful, and potentially overpowered in combination with the botnet golem.

Well that's sort of intended, as I understand it. Golems are basically supposed to be overpowered units. Two golems working in tandem should be doubly so. If you're playing on hard golems, you'll need the help anyway. And yes, the full spire campaign does have enemies that eat golems for breakfast with a sprinkling of all your fleet ships on top.

[keith.lamothe]

Well that's sort of intended, as I understand it. Golems are basically supposed to be overpowered units. Two golems working in tandem should be doubly so.

Yea, that's the basic idea.  They're supposed to be somewhat-over-the-top-hilariously-useful, but in very finite quantity, not-a-renewable-resource, and balanced by the costs/threat involved (unless you play on broken-golems-easy, where the point is to just make your game easier).  And certain combos of golems will be even more significant.

That said, there are limits to how good they should be, or else they diminish the game by making a lot of other choices seem insignificant.  Some time of playtesting by the community is usually the best way to tell whether a nerf is needed