Any downside to aggressively raiding border worlds?

[laughingman]

In my usual games, I usually only attack a planet if I'm planning on taking it or destroying its warp gate. I work slowly but deliberately through the map and rarely lose the engagements I choose. However, the AI worlds bordering my planets tend to build up impressive numbers of ships by mid-game. When a large wave or CPA hits, these built-up forces come swarming through the wormholes and overwhelm me more often than not.

I decided to change tactics this time, aggressively raiding the AI's territory and destroying as many ships and guard posts as I can on border worlds. It's been an exciting way to play, and at least for now my territory feels more secure. I only have to worry about defending against waves and that makes it much easier to plan and execute the rest of my strategy.

I'm about four hours in and have taken 7 planets so far. Because I had to destroy a couple of Raid Engines and a lot of Special Forces Posts, my AIP is a little higher than I would like. There are also more planets on alert than in my usual games, including some Mk IV worlds that make me nervous. So far it has been more than manageable.
Are there some downsides to how I'm playing that I can't see, or won't for a couple of hours? I'm worried that the AI will start to get tired of this constant attrition and send a world of hurt my way soon.

[x4000]

Well, if you look in the wiki and search the forums about "neutering" planets, you'll find a lot of discussion about just this sort of thing.  Opinions vary.

I think that it can be a good thing to neuter some of the AI planets (kill all the guard posts but not much else), but if done to excess then it winds up working against you.  The number of reinforcements that the AI gets are primarily a factor of time (as well as how many planets they do not control).  So if you're burning lots of game hours on killing reinforcements on some planets, then that just means that the AI has more time to build up elsewhere.

Well -- that's referring to actual reinforcements, which don't count as threat/attack value.  All those guards at guard posts, is what I mean.  Reading your post a bit more carefully, I see you're actually referring to threat ships, which see you under attack and convert themselves into attackers when you're most vulnerable.  THOSE guys tend to be clustered around the other side of your wormholes, not in low power mode even while waiting, and killing them is a whole other matter.  My opinion: go for it.

If you've got a threat count that is spiraling sky-high, especially on particular planets (there's a galaxy map filter for that, if you have scouts in place), then you want to defuse that.  That's really different from neutering, and it's not something that you'd need to engage the entire planet in order to deal with.  You just want to kill those threat ships that are hanging out by your wormhole waiting to skewer you.  Pop in, kill them, watch the threat number go down, and get out.

When it comes time for a CPA, the same number of ships are going to get turned into threat no matter what you do -- so neutering planets won't defuse that at all.  But if you've already got a high threat count, and then the CPA adds tons more on top of what's already there... that's when you're getting steamrolled.  And it's those high concentrations of threatening ships before the big waves or CPAs that you can more easily defuse.  If it's just a few ships scattered here and there, it doesn't matter -- if there's hundreds of ships stalking you from one planet, that's just a ticking time bomb.  It's not like you want to go over there and sweep every hour, but it is a good idea to make sure you're not routinely in mid triple digits on multiple hostile planets.

In terms of what you're doing now, there are definitely downsides to that, but it's also very possible to win that way -- but you have to have a rock-solid defense.  At some point, yeah, the AI is going to come smack you really hard, and you've got to have a bottleneck ready where you can crush them before they get you (or whatever other strategy you prefer, but I'm a bottleneck sort of guy).  The main thing not in favor of your current strategy is the time and resources your spending on neutering entire planets  at a go.  It can work really well if you do it right, but it's a longer form of game and it's tricky because that's going to make the AI reinforce that much more away from your border worlds, which can cause you problems later on when you find those non-border planets more built up than you expected.

Bottom line: play how you like, and what you're doing is definitely valid.  But my personal preference is to do those sort of aggressive raids only on some planets, while raiding the threat ships specifically on the majority of border worlds, and then focusing more on actual expansion and offense for the remainder of my time.

Hope that helps!

[laughingman]

Thanks for the detailed, clear response!

You have the right of it, it's the buildup of threat ships combined with everything else that usually dooms me mid- to late-game. I'm probably swinging a bit too far in the other direction now, but it's a refreshing change of pace from my usual "turtling" approach. It's a measure of how well-designed the game is that I can use such wildly differing tactics and still have success and fun. I'm already thinking about how I might change it up next time.

I did read the wiki sections about neutering, which is what inspired me to change my early game tactics. To be clear, I wasn't completely neutering every planet.  I would pop into the wormhole, destroy the closest two or three guard posts, then retreat to repair and plan the next raid. I was concerned that if I over-did it then I would get into an even more difficult slog later in the game, since proportionally more reinforcements would go to other planets. I still don't want that to happen, so I'll probably slow down and focus on more targeted raids from here on in. I'll keep an eye on the threat ships and take measures when necessary. Maybe I'll walk away with a win this time!

[x4000]

Good stuff -- and my pleasure!

And thanks for the kind words on the design. I'm a natural turtle myself, so the game is intentionally nudging people like me (and you) to be a little more aggressive while still feeling reasonably safe.  It does sound like you've swung to the other extreme, whereas I prefer something more moderate in this game, but there are people that play a waaaaaay more extremely aggressive game than you are and win a lot of the time.  But usually that involves uber low AI Progress tactics, and extremely low planet counts -- that makes it so that the AI doesn't have time to build up, etc.

Of course, then there's the slow but steady sort that have an amazing defense and yet slowly go out and take over every planet of the AI, defeating all the mark V waves and CPAs that eventually get thrown their way.  Those tend to be like 60+ hour games, and tend not to be over difficulty 6 from what I've seen so far.  So... there's certainly extremes all around, and you're still in the ballpark of the median of them.  Whatever works for you and seems most fun/rewarding as a strategy, I say go for it.

Another thing you can do to defuse that late-game extra-reinforced effect of your current strategy is to play on really large maps.  The more planets there are in the map, the less you have to worry about overflow from your border planets.  I play 80 planet maps pretty well exclusively, and that's a pretty balanced affair between needing to pay attention to overflow but not being desperate about it.  If you get down into the 40 planet map range, though, then it gets a lot more important a lot faster, because there's only so many places the AI can go.  And don't get me started on the 10 planet cage matches, that's not even the same game as the main body of AI War.

Anyway, good luck to you!

[laughingman]

There's an extraordinary information density in your posts., x4000. I appreciate you taking the time to put it all down.

One of the reasons I like this game so much is that there is no optimal way to go about winning. I'm forced to think dynamically, with imperfect information in a rapidly changing environment. The only sure way to fail is to do nothing.

I got pretty far this time, and progressed to the endgame much faster than I usually do. I'll definitely use elements of the strategy in my next game. I'll probably limit harassment to the higher mark worlds, just to keep those dangerous ships to a manageable level.

I didn't mind losing this time because it made for a good story.

There was a world three hops from my homeworld with eight incoming wormhole connections that I decided to use as my chokepoint. I took three of the adjacent worlds, gate-raided three others, and left two alone to funnel waves through since they were close together and I didn't feel like spending the time to destroy their AI Eyes. I set up a truly impressive turret defense there, left a cap of Mk1 fighters and turned my attention elsewhere. For hours it drew constant attacks that were quickly and ruthlessly crushed. Once waves started to hit the 700-900 range I got nervous and started to send part of the fleet there as backup. Only then did I notice what had presumably been happening for a while before.

Some of the wave was attacking as usual, destroying turrets and resource points. The rest was fleeing through three other wormholes. I didn't think much of it, except to congratulate myself for setting up a defense that scared even the AI. I saw it happen three more times, thought it was weird but not unexpected. I had put a tremendous amount of firepower on that planet, hundreds of turrets supported by 300-600 ships at any one time. Why wouldn't the AI decide to retreat rather than face annihilation?

Oh, how naive I was. I forgot the lesson of the Maginot line and paid the price for it.

I kept scouts in all of the hostile worlds adjacent to mine in order to keep track of how many ships were massing around my borders, so I noticed when hundreds of them started disappearing. I started to get nervous and recall the fleet when those missing ships reappeared, pouring through three lightly defended planets I had assumed were safe because they were far from the front I had established and had only one hostile wormhole that had been completely neutered.

They had Zenith Bombards and Electric Bombers in each fleet that ripped through my heaviest defenses easily and made their way to my homeworld before the bulk of my fleet could get there. The AI slaughtered my Home Settlements and Cryogenic pods in one volley after my forcefields were destroyed, and my Command Station in the next.

The AI is constantly surprising me, but this one left me shaking my head. Using ships from waves in a cross-planet attack? That's devious, even for it.

[Nalgas]

Some of the wave was attacking as usual, destroying turrets and resource points. The rest was fleeing through three other wormholes. I didn't think much of it, except to congratulate myself for setting up a defense that scared even the AI.

[...]

Oh, how naive I was.

[...]

The AI is constantly surprising me, but this one left me shaking my head. Using ships from waves in a cross-planet attack? That's devious, even for it.

And that is exactly how I learned to always, always, always keep an eye on the "threat" level and never let anything escape alive if at all possible.  If the threat does get up to a non-trivial amount, I take time out from my busy schedule of pillaging AI worlds to hunt it down and kill it before it can come back to haunt me, because whenever I get cocky and think I can get away without it, it sneaks up behind me like that.  Hundreds (or worse, thousands) of "loose" ships that the AI can redeploy anywhere it wants to attack you whenever you're not paying attention are nothing but trouble.  At this point, we use tractor beams in our honeypot deathtraps in our multiplayer games just as much to prevent the ships from the waves from escaping as we do to keep them from being able to attack stuff.  Heh.

[GeneReyva]

Escaping ships dispersing throughout the galaxy is one thing, but having an enemy planet or 5 build up about 1K ships... then a cross planet attack happens... talking 3k threat. Seeing that 1K enemy ship world become a 900 threat and 100 enemy ship world was terrifying, especialy since that was my expansion front and I had no defences in that area except my inadequet fleet that was outnumbered 3.5:1

One piece of advice I can give is keep the number of ships on worlds you have eyes (scouts) on low. And another is to have eyes in as many places as you can. Also, if you see a planet gaining reinforcements stupidly fast then look at it carefully. If you see something that looks remotely similar to a V with a gear on top, it's a troop accellerator and it causes that planet to be reinforced twice as much. Destroy it regardless, even if you have to use a warhead.

[laughingman]

Nalgas, I learned my lesson this time. Those galaxy map filters aren't there just for show, you know?

GeneReyva, that's exactly the kind of problem I'm running into regularly and the reason I'm trying out different strategies. I may mix this last one up with a more layered defense, moderately fortifying a few worlds rather than creating a turret farm on one. With gravity and tractor turrets and well-placed defenses I've managed to hold off large attacks long enough for my fleet to counterattack or get rebuilt on more than one occasion. I might lose one or two planets on the periphery, but colony ships are cheap to build.

Regarding having eyes everywhere: I unlock Mk II scouts about 10 seconds into every game. I like knowing what's going on around me.

[chemical_art]

And that is exactly how I learned to always, always, always keep an eye on the "threat" level and never let anything escape alive if at all possible.  If the threat does get up to a non-trivial amount, I take time out from my busy schedule of pillaging AI worlds to hunt it down and kill it before it can come back to haunt me, because whenever I get cocky and think I can get away without it, it sneaks up behind me like that.  Hundreds (or worse, thousands) of "loose" ships that the AI can redeploy anywhere it wants to attack you whenever you're not paying attention are nothing but trouble.  At this point, we use tractor beams in our honeypot deathtraps in our multiplayer games just as much to prevent the ships from the waves from escaping as we do to keep them from being able to attack stuff.  Heh.

I hope we never play, I'd annoy the snot out of you. I routinely have hundreds, if not thousands, of threat built up because I always just pop command stations rather then clear out guards first. I only clear them out once they finally come to my world (although I do prod them time to time).

This usually happens in later games with fallen spire though. The exo-waves love to escape and add to that threat meter.