Does AI capture planets?

[zespri]

Hello,

first of all sorry for a question with obvious answer. I just haven't played game yet, just read about it, so this is is why I'm asking.

The wiki says "the AI never recaptures planets from human players". My question is whether AI captures planets (builds stations/command posts) at all? When UI reinforces to an neutral planet what happens? Does it reinforce around wormholes? Or does it build command stations/posts?

Wiki also says that AI doesn't re-build command posts when distroyed, does it build them on neutral planets to start with?

Thanks,
Andrew

[x4000]

Welcome to the forums!  To start out the game, the AI controls everything in the entire galaxy, except for the (usually 1) planet that you control.  The story goes that the AI has already won, and now it's your turn to take the galaxy back via essentially guerrilla warfare.

For very detailed information on how reinforcements work, see the wiki -- though, honestly, if you've never played the game that's going to seem more complex than it really is.  That's really geared more towards advanced players.  But basically your suppositions are pretty much right, it reinforces at wormholes, guard posts, and its command stations.  And then offensively it launches either waves at you, cross planet attacks, (new in the latest betas) border aggression, special forces ships, or general Threat meter ships that maybe escaped a past battle and are coming back for another try somewhere else, or similar.

The best way to get a better feel for the game, by far, is to play the basic and particularly intermediate tutorials in the game itself.  You can get access to those in the demo of the game to try before you buy, in essence.  The intermediate tutorial is a simulated campaign that takes you through a lot of what makes the game unique, but while keeping the scale at about 1/8th of what you'd see in a real game, and keeping the AI really hobbled and stupid (but still surprisingly dangerous in the context of a tutorial) to give you time to learn and explore yourself.  The demo also lets you play the first three hours of as many real campaigns as you want in order to get a better feel for how it works when the AI is actually fully enabled, etc.

Hope that helps!

[zespri]

Thank you for quick response. I actually did "play" the demo campaigns. But this is not really a play, just tutorial. On this basis I understand very well what is described on the wiki. It's just a few points that I don't understand.

You say that most of the planets belong to AI at the beginning, I understand this. However the wiki says "There are two basic determinants to how an AI player reinforces: how many planets does the AI player NOT control (so, unclaimed planets and player planets), and what the AI Progress is."

Could you please give me a bit of information of what these unclaimed planets are?

Does AI ever build new stations/command posts on unclaimed planets or otherwise?

Thank you in advance,
Andrew

[x4000]

Ah, I gotcha.  To your questions:

The unclaimed planets would just be if you kicked the AI off and then didn't take it back (or if the IA kicks you off a planet, and you don't take it back yet).  Basically, at the start of the game there are no unclaimed planets at all, they all belong to someone (mostly the AI), and then it's a matter of the destruction that happens over the course of the game.

But no, the AI never rebuilds command stations or anything of that sort -- if they did, it would be pretty impossible, given the current mechanics.  There is some talk here on the forums recently about adding in a capability of that sort, but it would be more for experienced players.  As it is, you're launching guerrilla warfare on the AI over an extended period of time, and you basically get to set the tempo aside from its waves, etc, against you.  It's such a challenging game, in fact, that on difficulty 7 (where the "true" AI begins), most people lose half a dozen or more games before ever winning.

Granted, you can play on easier difficulties and have a much simpler time of it, but I get the feeling from your questions that you may be worried about the challenge level; if that's the case, you may be one of those players who quickly graduates to difficulty 8, even, but the game should be plenty challenging for you either way.

Let me know if you have any other questions (though I'm going to be off for the night, shortly), but hopefully that helps clear things up.  The game is basically very asymmetrical.  As one person described it, "the AI plays Risk while you play AI War."  So while you're out trying to kill them and take over the galaxy using your mechanics, they use an entirely different set of mechanics to defend, enact various sorts of aggression on you, and ultimately try to snuff you out completely.  And they can sure do it, too -- I designed and coded the game, and I'm on a grand losing streak of having lost the last 5 out of 6 games I've played with my three alpha testers.  It's okay, we've had a blast on each one, but there's definitely plenty of challenge there.

Chris

[zespri]

Chris,

thanks a lot for the most informative answer. This aspect of the game is clear for me now.

Andrew

[zespri]

Another one. Planetary summary.

1) what is a pictogram in the top right corner of each icon mean? For example I can see one that is like a tiny diamond and another one that is like three bar chevron point up. Some of those are green and some are orange.
2) when hover over an icon some has green outline and some orange. As far as I can see this colour may or may not be the same as the colour of the pictogram. What does this mean?

[x4000]

My pleasure on the other, glad that helped.

To your questions on the planetary summary, the pictogram and colors are just for differentiation of the broad different types of ships. This was a player-requested addition, and makes it easier to find certain ships at a glance when you are far into a large game. The categories are:

military mobile
military immobile
nonmilitary mobile
nonmilitary immobile

It's just a convenience thing, really, to aid in visually parsing the planetary summary.

[zespri]

Does it matter for you where the game is purchase from? I usually buy games via Impulse, but if it's cheaper for you if I buy directly from the Arcen Games site I'll do that.

[x4000]

We are always happy when someone buys the game from any of our partners, and we'd also never recommend one over another.  In general indie developers will get a bit higher percentage when you buy from them directly, but when you buy from another partner you boost the popularity and sales rank on that platform, which is also worthwhile to us (especially if you rank us up or give a user review if it's a site that has that sort of thing).  So go with the platform of your choice, for sure.  Thanks for asking, and thanks for your support!

[Frozen Critical]

whaaaat? the AI doesn't Recapture Planets?

oh well , so much for my idea of starting a "Kurkov" over a planet

[zespri]

Bought the game and the expansion via Impulse. Now I'm a happy owner! Thank you for putting your effort for designing and implementing this very interesting concept of a game! Special thanks for the absence of DRM, this was an important factor for me.

[x4000]

My pleasure -- many thanks for your support!