high AI Progress

[Ruges]

Ok so me and my brother got the game the other day after he tried out the demo and said it was worth playing. Its pretty fun in MP. Now we did not look at any stratagies, or even play the tutorial. Heh I think I was like an hour into the game before I realized you need to press S to spend your research points on new stuffs. Plus I was building both crystal and metal manufactories. Now we started out this game with lvl 5AI, with the Tank and Fortress builder or somthing like that AI on a 40 map planet. Now we went along like any other RTS conquring every planet we came along ever moving up our defenses. We get about three quarters to the map and I am trying to figure out what all this AI progress is about. I mean we are at like 800, so I come here to figure out what we should be at, at this point in the game. Heh, was I suprized. I just cant seem to get the concept of leaving other planets behind leaving holes in your defenses, not to mention loosing out on those resources, even if it is only a 1 or 2 node planet. But anyways after discussing we decide to continue our ways of conqure everything in site, its been working for us. Well once we brok 1200 AI progress we decided no sence in holding back so we authorized nukes. Now I did not read the discription so well (does not kill core or mrk 5 ships). Now I lost a major fleet battle on one planet, So with most my fleet down I decided I would nuke the 3,000 ships they had there. And while I was at it I would nuke the planet next to it too. Now unfortunatly like I said before I did not realize they did not destroy cores and mrk 5 ships. Which is what the AI had there. So all I did was destroy the command center. which pissed them off. and they sent 6,000 Cor+MK5's after me. Now so far all we have had to defend against is a scattered 2K attack. which has been easily defeatable with our decent frontline defences. These defenses where not adiquate for the masses that where sent, Ontop of my fleet being destroyed a bit before. Yea they really tore threw me. Although I did suprizing well. But we knew we would loose the battle there. I left what forces I did have left there to hold them out a bit. and we pulled back about 6 planets and setup a new defense. And by the time they got us our new defense line was able to hold them back. From there I was able to advance my forces and reclaim all I had lost. (except I lost an advanced constructor).

Now I am rebuilding my forces at this point in time. and my brother is attacking anouther line of planets suposedly towards the other AI's homeworld. As he is getting closer and closer he comes up against a IV planet too. knowing what they are going todo he sets up his navy to destroy the attackers and sets off a nuke on the next planet to get them to come to him. which they do. Except instead of staying to fight his fleet they take off and run towards his planets. 3,000 of them are the lazer gattlings. which are pretty fast. so his fleet must then run back to his defensive frontline. which causes his fleet to spread out and be easily picked off by the advancing enemy ships. Of course they destroy two nukes on the way taking out two more planets and some of his fleet. we try and setup a defensive postion but his poorley placed command centers are quickly taken out and we loose supply making our defenses worthless. Just one big fubar after anouther. So then we setup anouther major defense a couple planets inwards which evenauly defeats this force. And he puts his forces to reclaim what he has lost.

In the meantime I am building one trueley defensive position with 4 of my lvl 3 shields hundred and hundreds of turrets, enginers, repair stations and tugs two jumps for one of the AI's homeworlds. they have a crapload of core and mrk5's there. Now I know my nukes wont destroy them but my plan was to set off a nuke and make them come at my defensive postion with my entire fleet there too. Ohh yea it should have been a beutiful killing spree. Guess what? yea the nuke does not destroy there command station. so they dont send an attacking force. So I have to send my fleet in there to attack. I have around 2,000 ships all mrk 2's and greater with every capital ship I have. Now I am thinking this is a force that will destroy them. However once again this was not the case. they defeated my first wave, I built up again and sent anouther one this time with mrk 1 ships too. This time they call in reinforcements. somthing like 60 spire capital ships. Yea...... while I did do a bit of damage I still lost my fleet. So I build up again this time my plan was to go in and put down a forcefield, constructor repair stations and put up turrets. However upon going in for the attack I discover that they dont work there becouse it has been nuked (oh we also found out that we dont get research from these planets either so that is 12,000 points lost each). so I have to pull back and regroup, I call his fleet over and we are going todo a joint strike on this planet. in the meantime while he is bringing his fleet over and my going crazy with the lighting missles. just one after anouther. taking out the remaing turrets. oh yea I am doing awsome.

So whats the AI do? they send in reinforments. couple thousand units with 140 spire capital ships. yea..... an odd thing happend thow most of those spire ships despawned. why? none the less we where thankful. we launced a massive joint strike on the planet heading strait for there main forcefield. we took heavy heavy losses but evenualy we won. leaving nothing in the planet except for that unbreakable wormhole.

which gave us the opportunity to move all our forces to the other side of the galaxy and focus on the remaining AI, which only had 2 planets left. One being a IV and the other being a V. we launced a missle strike on the IV clearing out the reinforment structures. then moved our fleet in and captured the planet. Finaly we got a supply base next to the AI homeworld. In which we build up anouther massive defensive line. From there we begin our missle attack on the last planet. This place has so much crap on it. and it just keeps coming . But we just keep sending in missles to take out the structures. So we get to the point where the AI only has a couple thousand ships left there. 3 of the forcefields, the Ion cannon, command station, worm hole and special buildings. We send an EMP in and warp our fleet in (we have over 6,000 units combined). take out the ion cannon before it has a chance to fire. setup formation around the gate call in several shields, repair stations, tugs enginiers. start building up turrets. Then the AI once again calls in more reinforcmetns (we are still not totaly done with the units that where there to begin with). But we exspected it. And yes once again they send in 160 spire ships with the reinforments. But we are holding our postion. we have ships being constantly rebuilt and inbound ontop of the ones getting repaired. It looks like we are going to be able to defeat this wave. hopfully we can attack the shields after we defeat this wave before the next wave comes threw the galatic wormhole. Becouse I doubt we can advance and defend at the same time.

So far we are about 30 hours into the game and have somthing like 4500 or 5500 AI progression. Now is it true that AI progression at this stage does not matter? Or are they still continueing to get harder? with more ships? Do many others use the conqure all stratagy? In this game we really only encountered difficulty on the last few planets. Is it becouse of the AI progression or are the last few planets just that sucky? I mean on our next game we plan on doing a 80 planet map with difficuly 8 AI. Now say we get to 1200 AI progression on the 50th planet, are the remaining 30 planets going tobe as tuff as this one or are they going tobe just like normal with only the last couple being the difficult ones?

[eRe4s3r]

4500-5500 progress, on 40 planets DIF 5 ;P 

The average progress to win such a small map is 300-400 

However thats an amazing report, and a bug is there too, the Zenith ships should not de-spawn at all. It seems you tried the capture all approach and that is immensely impressing, have you won the game or are you still grinding through the last homeworld? Whats the average raid size? How can you survive cross planet raids?

Well the ai reinforcements are based on progress and how many planets you own multiplied by player count - so yes, the waves will get much more massive without limit, theoretical - i think you are the first to ever play with such high progress ,p

However, DIF 5 means that the ai gets much less reinforcements than Dif 7 - and the ai types you play against are not the most dangerous ones. I don't know what kind of reinforcements you are seeing but on DIF 7 you'd see exclusive core raids and ship composition on all enemy worlds, basically every world would be a core world, and you seem to be lucky not to have a raid engine anywhere.

Well its an amazing report anyhow, i can only speculate on anything beyond 800 progress

[Ruges]

We are fighting the last homeworld now. Still need one more night to complete it. Just ran out of time to play tonight.  There are no cross planet attacks. There where some early on. But then we got aggressive and attacked them before they could mount an attack. Probly becouse we destroy all of there gates. And yea we pretty much just see core reinforments. They love there core lazer gattlings. I am not sure what a raid engine is thow. We did have some trains. But now that all of the train stations are destroyed the trains just sit and do nothing. We took 2 of them out becouse they stoped in bad postions. but becouse they take so much to destroy them we left the other 3 just sit there as they are out of the way. I attached a .sav so you can look at it.

[x4000]

The starships despawning is actually expected, the AI is only allowed to have a certain number per planet (usually 30-60).  That AI Progress is definitely the highest I have ever seen; I would highly recommend the tutorials as a way to get a fuller understanding of the game, as the strategies are very different from other RTS/4X games even if the basic mechanics are pretty similar.  I am guessing there has been a lot of warhead use, or a ton-ton-ton of golem repairs, or something of that nature, to lead to that high of an AI Progress.  If you play on difficulty 8 and use the strategies that led to that high of an AI Progress, expect the apocalypse -- of course, I would have said that about difficulty 5, too, but you managed it -- very impressive!

[Ruges]

Ok so tonight we pick back up with where we left off. The battle was going pretty good and we won against there main force. We then began sending our troops down to destroy the forcefields so we could destroy the command center. However at this point in time the AI sent anouther wave in. This was less then a game minute since we defeated the last wave of units. 140 starships was just to much for our current forces so we had to pull back threw the wormhole and regroup. we amassed an even greater force, around 7,500 ships in total. we also maxed out our resources. And then we hit. we knew it was going tobe a tuff battle. but we started throwing down turrets, all of our enginers where in the system too. and we where killing pretty fast, we whiped out the ships that where there, waited for the next reinforments which came during the fight and we destroyed those also. We then figured when this enemy fleet got near its death we would send our attack on the forcefields. So we loaded the majority of our fleet up in fortresses and sent them on there way down there. Then this happend:

Really? 250 starships..... C'mon  well we decided that our fortresses should continue on there way down, as it seems like they are sending a never ending stream of reinforcements. the battle should be decided in the next few hours. I am starting the think if the AI can cheat and get more starships like this we should too.

[eRe4s3r]

Well you are in a asymmetric war - the ai has access to an outside galaxy full of production systems and you have pissed it off pretty majorly now, to be honest i am surprised you can even survive a single attack on these progress levels (good teamwork it seems)

Also, the ai adapts to what attacks it and much faster at these progress levels...

Technically AI war was designed in such a way that the "capture all" strategy will lead to your destruction through attrition.

Heres something to remember, the AI is a sleeping demon with his army sleeping as well, and a billion brood chambers that are sleeping as well. Every progress increase, awakens the demon more, at 2000 progress you should surrender ;p At 6000 you are facing the Arch-demon himself and probably not even 10% of its production capabilities.

This is why i wanted AI War to have a deeper story by the way ,p

[Ruges]

Ok so the attack on the forcefields with our fleet was a bust. we got shreaded. sure we killed a few thousand units. But it seemed like they where getting constant reinforments threw the wormhole. where talking thousands of ships every minute. it was rediculous. I almost think the reinforments are coming just as fast as we kill them. So it seems we are at a stand still, they cant take us and we cant take them. or can we....

If I put all my ships in a fortress and set off an EMP, my ships inside the emp will not be affected right? Becouse here is our new plan. we go in and resecure the warpgate (will clear it first with a dozen or two lighting warheads). go in and start reclaiming our turrets at the same time building up 8 more fortresses. Once the fortresses are complete we load all our ships into the fortresses. well 4,000 of them atleast. set off an emp and move our forts down towards the shields. setoff anouther EMP. take our forces out of the forts and begin attacking the shield. once the 30 secounds are up, put our forces back inside the forts and setoff anouther emp. repeat over and over till we win. yea, I think thats the stratagy we are going to have to use. with them respawning as fast as they die its the only thing I can think of.

[Ruges]

Ok so tonight we went in with a new stratagy. we shot off 54 EMP's. bringing stoping them for a tad over 20 mins. we then sent in our fleet of everything. even the reclaimers rebuilt the turrets that we lost in previous tries. we also sent a ton of lighting and armor missles down to take care of the core ships that where by there command station. once we took care of the entrance we then moved our fleet down. the entire fleet except for a few missle boats. The final battle only lasted around 7 or 8 game minutes. but with our combined forces the shileds and command stations feel rather easily.

We finished the game at 37 game hours. and 5,431 AI progress. Man I am glad those EMP's stack else it probly would have been so much more of a fight there at the end. maybe even turned into a standstill where one side could not defeat the other. Well now its time to try this stratagy on a 80 planet world with lvl 8 AI.

[eRe4s3r]

You'll be dead by hour 3   But that was impressive of you!