Author Topic: How to find out what path AI is using?  (Read 10659 times)

Offline tommy71394

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How to find out what path AI is using?
« on: December 21, 2016, 04:49:49 am »
Hello! New to the forums but has been playing the game on and off for a couple of years now.. (But still can't at all for the life of me figure out how to beat 7dif)

Anyway, how do I find out which path the AI would take to get to my homeworld?
Example:


Say if I capture Bangslov, Ijilik, and Murdoch, and if Likchu decides to attack. Assuming Murdoch was not strong enough which way would the AI go next? Would it be Bangslov or Ijilik before jumping to Nobark? I notice that the line would be highlighted from one point to another if I wanna hop my units, but will that be the same path used by the AI?

Another side question(s):
-How do I mass-upgrade turrets?
-How I see some people's Galaxy tab here shows intel without hovering over like ARS and all those.. How do I do it here as well?

New question:
Many guides say to ignore low value planets and aim for high value ones, but.. How do I get there? Do I just clear CCs in the way or anything?
« Last Edit: December 21, 2016, 02:41:00 pm by tommy71394 »

Offline dotjd

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Re: How to find out what path AI is using?
« Reply #1 on: December 25, 2016, 12:15:12 am »
Hi, welcome to the forums.

There's a couple different mechanics you could be referencing when you talk about the path the AI takes and where the attack comes from, so let me give you a couple answers here.

The question might be "say a wave takes out my planet, where will it go next?" If that happens, the ships that overran your planet will revert to being threat. They could immediately attack a neighboring planet if they think they can take it, or they might congregate on nearby AI planets until they spot a weakness or opportunity to capitalize on. They use the same mechanics that AI ships use if you enter a planet, tick everything off, and then leave without killing them. You can see the total # of ships in the galaxy released as threat in the top status bar. It's worth actively clearing threat ships out if the # gets too big.

On the other hand, you might be referring to exowaves. Exowaves are targeted strikes spawned at the AI homeworlds (usually; fallen spire exowaves can spawn from any warp gate) that have a specific target (some structure) and travel straight towards it. These happen if you have a superweapon (broken golems, spirecraft, etc) enabled. I believe the path highlighted on the galaxy map is the path the ai would take? Someone will let me know if I'm wrong. However, depending on the source of the exowave, they can have targets other than your home command station.

As for your other questions:
You don't mass upgrade turrets, that's not how the game works. If you unlock higher mark turrets, you can then build those in addition to your existing turrets. All marks coexist, basically.

As for the galaxy overlay thing, a lot of those screens in AARs are photoshopped (alternatively, I need to learn a few things). But the game does give you some options. Bottom-middle of the screen, where it says Displaying:, you can click on that box and then the game will show whatever you select. Some of the most useful display options are ARS, fabs, threat, science collected.

Also, if you look at the left bar, however, you'll see P0 through P9, right? You can click on those and then assign them to planets, and that will show up on your map. So you can mark all planets that you want to capture P9, and all planets that you want to neuter and clear P0, or whatever.

As for your last question: it really depends. You're gonna have to decide whether it's worth taking the planet(s) between you and what you want to capture. The decision typically revolves around factors like how often you're going to be sending ships along the path (will it be a chokepoint? a staging base? or do you not care if you hold it once you get the ARS or whatever you captured it for? things like that), how many planets you'd have to take to cut a path, are those planets in the middle themselves worthwhile and defendable, etc.

If, in the end, you decide not to slash and burn, you have a couple options. You can just right-click to get there and fight your way through. As you do so, you can destroy guardposts along the way to neuter the AI planets and keep the path relatively free of reinforcements. You could also use transports (assault transports have cloaking & fast movement, they're really good). As you play more you'll get better at doing surgical strikes far outside your territory.
« Last Edit: December 25, 2016, 12:21:15 am by dotjd »

Offline tommy71394

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Re: How to find out what path AI is using?
« Reply #2 on: December 25, 2016, 12:44:50 am »
Thank you so much for replying and answering my questions! About the waves, I was actually referring to the normal waves (seeing as to how exo ones literally ignore my CCs most of the time unless it blocks the wormhole that they want to go into). But, what about CPAs? Do ships in those act as a normal wave or do they act as though it is an exo?

And.. What is considered as neutering a planet? Do we kill all posts? Destroy the Warpgate only? Or destroy absolutely everything in that planet?

Offline dotjd

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Re: How to find out what path AI is using?
« Reply #3 on: December 25, 2016, 01:19:07 am »
CPAs just release all the ships as threat from wherever they are. The main difference between them and a wave is the size - CPAs are much bigger - and that the ships don't all immediately start attacking one particular planet like a wave does. They instead run their logic to look for holes in your defenses.

Neutering mostly just refers to taking out guard posts. see here: https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War:AI_Reinforcement#Neutering_AI_Planets It may not be worth hunting down /every/ guard post depending on the planet's layout and how long it would take, of course. A lot more mechanics are detailed on the wiki, by the way, so it's worth a look through.

Warp gates are often taken out at the same time, if you don't want that planet launching waves, but that's a separate topic b/c warp gates don't affect the reinforcements that planet gets.
« Last Edit: December 25, 2016, 01:22:58 am by dotjd »

Offline tommy71394

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Re: How to find out what path AI is using?
« Reply #4 on: December 25, 2016, 03:49:50 am »
So generally, a CPA is a super-wave of sorts and if the AI for each planet completes their objective, they become Threat like a normal wave?

Thanks for the link, I've read it and it's interesting, I might incorporate it into my next game (JUST lost a Dif 7 3-player game.. Haha!)

Offline dotjd

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Re: How to find out what path AI is using?
« Reply #5 on: December 25, 2016, 11:52:47 am »
nah, I was unclear about CPAs, I think. now that I'm rereading the post, it seems... incomplete. Lemme try again, from scratch.

So a regular wave is an attack against one of your planets, launched from a neighboring AI planet with a warp gate. Standard so far, right?

A CPA is different. It has a large # of ships, but they don't all just get warped onto one of your planets. Instead, the AI takes a bunch of ships from across the galaxy and frees them from guard duty (the key phrase for this is 'releases as threat'). Say a couple hundred from this planet, another couple hundred here, etc. It's as if you took a potshot at dozens or hundreds of guardposts at once: you've got a bunch of angry ships spread out over the galaxy.

So when the ships are freed, the first thing they're gonna do is consolidate. A couple hundred ships here and there isn't a huge problem, but big bunches of them are. So they'll spend the first couple minutes after the CPA hits bunching up. Once enough ships gather, they'll decide on a target. iirc, they give higher priority to planets with interesting things on them -- advanced factories, fabs, constructors, etc -- and less priority to heavily defended planets. When enough ships are together, they'll attack, and more ships will likely catch up and trickle in behind them. This process can happen repeatedly: multiple groups could gather at the same time and target different things.

Now, a CPA doesn't care in the /slightest/ about warp gates. Threat ships can launch attacks from planets without warp gates, no problem. So the planets you most have to worry about when a CPA hits are the planets that you left lightly defended b/c you took out all the neighboring warp gates to prevent waves. If you have adequate defenses across your entire front line, that helps, but I've never seen a CPA not actually attack at all. The end result of adequate defenses is stronger attacks on a lower # of planets, so be ready for that. If you're not confident in your defenses, pull your mobile fleet back to assist.

so yeah, to tie back into what I was saying before: a wave of sufficient size, if it wiped out the planet it was initially targeting, would regroup and act like a CPA from then on, and could coordinate with all the other threat ships in the galaxy, etc.

i really wish this kind of thing was made more clear ingame. but that's what AI war 2 is for, i guess. Anyways, if you want to know more, CPAs and threat have pages on the wiki as well.
« Last Edit: December 25, 2016, 11:55:24 am by dotjd »

Offline Timerlane

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Re: How to find out what path AI is using?
« Reply #6 on: December 25, 2016, 10:22:28 pm »
In regards to normal waves, it's random(though only from planets with an active Warp Gate), AFAIK, but once the wave is 'announced' as incoming, any ship on the planet with an Advanced Warp Sensor will highlight the wormhole that the wave will emerge from.

You can unlock a basic structure with an Advanced Warp Sensor at your Science Lab with knowledge, but IIRC, the Logistical Command Station and Sentinel Frigate(a bonus ship) also come with them.

Offline tommy71394

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Re: How to find out what path AI is using?
« Reply #7 on: December 26, 2016, 05:54:38 am »
nah, I was unclear about CPAs, I think. now that I'm rereading the post, it seems... incomplete. Lemme try again, from scratch.

So a regular wave is an attack against one of your planets, launched from a neighboring AI planet with a warp gate. Standard so far, right?

A CPA is different. It has a large # of ships, but they don't all just get warped onto one of your planets. Instead, the AI takes a bunch of ships from across the galaxy and frees them from guard duty (the key phrase for this is 'releases as threat'). Say a couple hundred from this planet, another couple hundred here, etc. It's as if you took a potshot at dozens or hundreds of guardposts at once: you've got a bunch of angry ships spread out over the galaxy.

So when the ships are freed, the first thing they're gonna do is consolidate. A couple hundred ships here and there isn't a huge problem, but big bunches of them are. So they'll spend the first couple minutes after the CPA hits bunching up. Once enough ships gather, they'll decide on a target. iirc, they give higher priority to planets with interesting things on them -- advanced factories, fabs, constructors, etc -- and less priority to heavily defended planets. When enough ships are together, they'll attack, and more ships will likely catch up and trickle in behind them. This process can happen repeatedly: multiple groups could gather at the same time and target different things.

Now, a CPA doesn't care in the /slightest/ about warp gates. Threat ships can launch attacks from planets without warp gates, no problem. So the planets you most have to worry about when a CPA hits are the planets that you left lightly defended b/c you took out all the neighboring warp gates to prevent waves. If you have adequate defenses across your entire front line, that helps, but I've never seen a CPA not actually attack at all. The end result of adequate defenses is stronger attacks on a lower # of planets, so be ready for that. If you're not confident in your defenses, pull your mobile fleet back to assist.

so yeah, to tie back into what I was saying before: a wave of sufficient size, if it wiped out the planet it was initially targeting, would regroup and act like a CPA from then on, and could coordinate with all the other threat ships in the galaxy, etc.

i really wish this kind of thing was made more clear ingame. but that's what AI war 2 is for, i guess. Anyways, if you want to know more, CPAs and threat have pages on the wiki as well.
Hmmm... I think I get it now.. Thank you so much for such in depth explanation!

In regards to normal waves, it's random(though only from planets with an active Warp Gate), AFAIK, but once the wave is 'announced' as incoming, any ship on the planet with an Advanced Warp Sensor will highlight the wormhole that the wave will emerge from.

You can unlock a basic structure with an Advanced Warp Sensor at your Science Lab with knowledge, but IIRC, the Logistical Command Station and Sentinel Frigate(a bonus ship) also come with them.
Aye, I understand the concept of the waves, though not so much as to what they would do if they do re-capture a planet from us. However, dotjd had explained really in depth as to how this works, so I think I understand as well how the waves, CPAs, and maybe how threat works as well.

Offline Timerlane

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Re: How to find out what path AI is using?
« Reply #8 on: December 26, 2016, 04:06:42 pm »
The AI never 'retakes' planets in AIWC.

If the AI succeeds in destroying all your stuff on a planet(or you intentionally do it yourself), it can only become a 'neutral' planet, just like when you first destroyed the AI Command Station(despite what the Cleanup Drone description implies, the AI currently has no ability to replace destroyed structures).

Naturally, then, since there can be no active AI Warp Gate on a neutral planet(as the Gate dies with the Command Station), no waves can be sent from that particular planet through any adjacent wormhole connections.

The only possible exception would be if a Warp Gate Guardian happens to wander onto that planet, but AFAIK, the AI doesn't try to do things like that on purpose.