Core World approach

[TechSY730]

Well, the Teuthida post is one of what is called a "brutal pick", among which Core Raid Guard posts, core eyes, and a few other are a part of.

They are supposed to be more threatening than the already threatening core guard posts. In return, the AI gets only a limited number of "picks" from that set of "brutal" structures.

So it being much tougher than the other posts is intended, though I will admit the description doesn't do a good job explaining this reasoning and this mechanic.

Now, it could be that the Teuthida post is OP even by brutal pick core post standards. I don't know; I haven't fought enough of them to be able to make a judgement yet.

[Ragnarok]

If i upload my save, would anyone of you guys (good players) take a look and tell me how they beat the homeworld ? I cant think of a way at all.

[Kahuna]

If i upload my save, would anyone of you guys (good players) take a look and tell me how they beat the homeworld ? I cant think of a way at all.

Sure. Just upload it.

[Ragnarok]

Here is the save.
For the galaxy map, look at the top right border. There i have my outpost w/ all kinds of gates, my fleet and the homeworld I'm referring to.

[Diazo]

Hmm.

I took a look at the save and have one question.

I've never faced a Teuthida post myself yet so I can't test this myself, but it is ammo type Railgun with a 999,999,000 range. That sounds awfully lot like a sniper.

Does the Scout Starship's sniper protection work on it?

If that does not work, my next suggestion would be Spirecraft Rams. I see asteroids in some of the adjacent systems so I'm assuming you have spirecraft enabled.

I would then use cloaking to get the rams in range. It will take a while, and probably heavy losses, to kill all the tachyon guardians to allow the rams to sneak in under cloak but you should be able to get them into range that way.

The trick is that if a ship is powered down so it does not fire, as long as you send a cloaker starship through the warp point first a ship can travel through the warppoint and not take any fire as it gets instantly cloaked.

Note that this does not always work. Sometimes it takes the game engine a frame or two to enable the cloak so the ship might take a little bit of fire.

You need a second cloaker starship that stays behind in the first system and travels the warp point after all other ships to maintain the cloak in that system for this method to work.

D.

[chemical_art]

I've never been a fan of them.

If I didn't have a battleship that used radar dampening to shrug off the distant damage, I wouldn't know what to do.

All the tactics I see involve using cloaking, which is impossible when there is an AI eye (which is very likely, and then outright given, for higher difficulties)

[Diazo]

Looking at the save file I don't see an eye or any other source of system-wide cloaking.

You would lose a lot of ships killing the tachyon gaurdians on the wormhole in the AI's homeworld system, but once that is done you should be able to sneak the rams in under cloak.

Note the Teuthida does have a short tachyon range of 2000 so if that is enough to allow the teuthida to fire before the rams hit you'll need to bring along meat shields in transports.

This all assumes my quick 10 second look at the AI homeworld in question did not miss something though.

D.

[Kahuna]

The new Core Guard Posts in Ancient Shadows are ridiculously overpowered. People haven't been complaining (except me) about Teuthida because no one has got that far without getting frustrated. Everyone plays with Ancient Shadows disabled. Spire Railclusters are overpowered, Tackle Drone Launchers are ridiculously overpowered, Zenith Siege things are op in AIs hands.

All of that combined with the respawn rate of core reserves and special forces makes destroying AI Homeworlds completely impossible even with all available super weapons. Dunno how the hell anyone is supposed to beat the game without super weapons now. Even if Ancient Shadows is disabled. Losing is fun but not THAT fun. Oh.. and that damn "RAID" thing on the AI Homeworlds that magically destroys ALL certain types of ships needs to be removed. Could as well add a middle finger shaped AI Ship that is as strong as the Devourer Golem. Arcen needs to fix Ancient Shadows. It's broken. They're working on Valley Without Wind 2 at the moment though. I'm sure Keith will find a way to balance the homeworlds.

So no there's no way you can win that game. Not when Ancient Shadows is enabled. Also you "fix" your defenses. I downloaded that save file, loaded it and few minutes after that a wave of 600 Missile Frigates destroyed your Advanced Factory. You need to decide which planets are your "whipping boys"/battlegrounds and fortify those. When wave sizes get to ~1000 you can effectively defend 3 planets. Depends on how much defensive stuff you have unlocked. You also had more than 16k knowledge left. You could have unlocked more MarkIII and IV ships before you attacked or Modular Forts, turrets or MarkIII Riot Starships. I also noticed you had not destroyed all Data Centers and Co-Processors. I recommend you destroy all of them before you attack the homeworlds. Otherwise you seem to be in a good spot. The AIP and number of planets you have are good.

[Ragnarok]

I realize that i have too many open wormholes and a lot of knowledge spent. But Area Minefields can be constructed quickly and so far i was able to repel all warpattacks without my fleet.

Just like i said earlier, i feel like AS is not balanced at all, like it did not receive the proper beta-ing.
There either arent enough players providing feedback with this 4th expansion or they simply dont care ? Regardless, this subforum is awfully quiet, i cant remember a time when there were so few posts over several days.


Off the top of my head, the following things are either complete broken or largely OP.
- Dyson Gatling
- Railcluster
- Teuthida (i feel)

In addition, i have the strong impression that most of the AS nebula quests didn't receive proper testing. Especially the one with the 600m hp golem ship comes to mind.
the whole concept of AS messed up AIW pretty bad. The early game is so much easier considering you get dyson gatlings (insta-pwn) and the champion. If you play with AS, the entire ai wave construction should be altered.

[chemical_art]

Part of why there is so little interest is that there hasn't been an update for a month, and the result is just in general a lack of interest.

I for example of tons of ideas I want to try but cannot for I need a fix, and after 2 weeks of not playing AI War I'm bored with it.

[Kahuna]

rams

Spirecraft Rams and MarkIII Riots with Gravitational Turret modules MIGHT do the trick.

i cant remember a time when there were so few posts over several days.

Yep. The whole Arcen forum has become quiet. Also Keith has "disappeared".
Is Arcen Games dying?

[Diazo]

I'm more likely to attribute it to christmas.

I would not blame chris or keith if they just want a break for a couple weeks.

Having said that, I do have some ideas along the lines of this thread but I want to think on them some more first.

D.

[chemical_art]

I'm not exactly sure what is up.

Christmas does account somewhat.

But on the other hand, LotS had the forums filled with more buzz months after 6 months of being released then AI War does right now, and that was with months of Arcen's time mostly being tied up with AVWW (1).

[Hearteater]

Arcen is on Christmas Holiday, as mentioned elsewhere I believe.  They are also focused on getting AVWW2 done, including Keith if I recall.  As for Ancient Shadows not being balanced, keep in mind you are comparing that to all the other expansions that has been part of massive patch changes over years.  Relative to that, Ancient Shadows will of course feel less balanced.  Arcen Games is so good at patching and communicating that we can get spoiled when they work on a different project than the one we are interested in, or when a holiday comes up.  But it will all work out.  They've got a pretty good track record stretching back years of getting their stuff nicely balanced.

As for RAID, that affects only a single Super Weapon (Hive Golems).  It was added because getting a Hive Golem meant you didn't need to fight the home worlds because the Hive Golem would auto-kill them, the Wasps were so effective.  So instead of nerfing Wasps, a counter was added to Home Worlds.  Maybe the new Brutal Picks, especially in Ancient Shadows means Hive Golems aren't the home world killers they used to be before RAID, but I wouldn't bet on it.  On top of that, you can trigger RAID intentionally to counter Spawners, so Hive Golems are still useful on home world assaults.

And from personal experience, Ancient Shadows is winnable on 9/9.  Of all the balance tweaks, I feel Astro Trains need the most as I don't even think they are workable at 4.

[Ragnarok]

Hearteater, would you be able to waste 10 minutes of your time with my save game ? Attached in post 18.
Disregard the incoming wave, just focus on the homeworld (top right).
Please. thank you.