AI War Beta 4.043, "The AI's Revenge," Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2010/12/ai-war-beta-4043-ais-revenge-released.html

Uh oh.  The name pretty much gives away what this one is about.  A lot of various AI behavioral changes (all as part of the base game) in this one make the AI smarter and more fearsome.  Additionally, a new set of five units have been added to the base game: Core Shield Generators Group A-Primary and Groups B-E Secondary.  These are scattered around the galaxy and now must be destroyed before you can even dent the AI's home planet guard posts or command stations.

The purpose of the Core Shield Generators is to provide a more multi-stage game, where it's not all-or-nothing at the AI home planets alone.  It also makes you take a bit more territory than some players might have previously done, but for many players it actually won't impact their playstyles at all.  For details, be sure to check out the release notes, which also include a lot of the rationale behind that.

On the flip side, the AI waves have had yet more fixes, and so the schizophrenic waves aren't so overblown as they recently have been, even in the prior release.

And beyond the above, a pretty huge array of bugs and balance tweaks have been put in.  It's several page's worth, so pretty difficult to summarize.

Oh, and there is a new "Mobile Military (Firepower)" filter option in the galaxy map.  That's a pretty cool addition that makes it much easier to size up your forces versus an AI opposing force.  Unit counts only go so far, especially with all the supersized units around these days.

This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.  If you don't have 4.000 or later, you can download that here.

[Echo35]

A lot of various AI behavioral changes (all as part of the base game) in this one make the AI smarter and more fearsome.

Ugh, I just got done bandaging the wounds from my last defeat...

EDIT: Speaking of which, Spire Civilian Leaders are a HORRIBLE idea.

[Wingflier]

Impressive update, to say the least.  It's good to know that you aren't afraid to implement fairly radical changes for the sake of making a deeper and more enjoyable game.  One question I have is how you plan to explain this new "Core Shield System" concept to new players.  Has it been added to the tutorial?  Otherwise, I can't imagine people would understand it.

On a related note, I love your constant references to Ender's Game.  That was such a great book, and it tickles me that it has been such a huge inspiration in the creation and direction of AI War.

[Invelios]

Interesting new concept with the core shields. You will need a way to introduce these to new players tough, otherwise they might just try to attack the homeworld and not know why they can't kill anything.

[dumpsterKEEPER]

As I haven't seen it posted anywhere, how are existing saves affected by Core Shield Generators?

[KingIsaacLinksr]

The Ai gets harder?  Man Chris, you just don't want anyone to win this game do ya?   

King

[ShadowOTE]

Wow, more crazy patch notes. Yay for the honorary mentions though

There is still the question of how save games will be treated? Will these key structures spawn if possible, or will save games be left as-is for building placements? Also, now that counterattack posts give the same bonus to ai defense as ai command shield guard posts, are the latter still kicking around? Not sure if you plan to make counterattack GPs a menu-enabled feature, but if so maybe make it so they have a % chance of replacing command shield GPs when enabled?

[wyvern83]

An additional question would be how does difficulty level factor into the new core shield's spawning. My older games have no A, B, or C core shields, but they are both level 6 games.

They seem to be spawning fairly sparsely on level 6 however the release notes didn't elaborate on this point. It could be an intentional scaling factor for difficultly so I'm holding off on putting this in Mantis. In a new level 6 game I saw one B and two C's and a handful of D's and E's but not very many.

Edit: Made a test level 10 game and it was just as bad, they simply aren't spawning in the manner described in the release notes so I put it in Mantis.

[Winter Born]

Interesting new concept with the core shields. You will need a way to introduce these to new players tough, otherwise they might just try to attack the homeworld and not know why they can't kill anything.

Working on several new wiki section(s) to address this:

AI_War_-_Prerequisites_to_Winning
(will inform players that some things need to die in a given order before attacking the AI home world comm station is possible)

AI_War_-_End_Game
(contains the 4.00 end game overhaul text, info on Core planet unique structures, and cross links for the prerequisites page)


Will also have links to the Fallen Spire alternate path to victory for owners of LotS

[Lancefighter]

the AI clearly has gotten revenge on me already... 

[Ozymandiaz]

Do you think there will be any major changes in the emergent behaviour of the AI with recent changes?

I am not 100% savy in the coding of teh AI, but with the scouting ability it seems like a very drastic change the previously?

Not meant in a negative way or anything like that, just curious

[Mithror]

On a related note, I love your constant references to Ender's Game.  That was such a great book, and it tickles me that it has been such a huge inspiration in the creation and direction of AI War.

I agree with this man!

I'm also interested to know if/how this new mechanic will influence existing saves?

[HitmanN]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2010/12/ai-war-beta-4043-ais-revenge-released.html

Additionally, a new set of five units have been added to the base game: Core Shield Generators Group A-Primary and Groups B-E Secondary.  These are scattered around the galaxy and now must be destroyed before you can even dent the AI's home planet guard posts or command stations.

The purpose of the Core Shield Generators is to provide a more multi-stage game, where it's not all-or-nothing at the AI home planets alone.  It also makes you take a bit more territory than some players might have previously done, but for many players it actually won't impact their playstyles at all.  For details, be sure to check out the release notes, which also include a lot of the rationale behind that.

First, I love the general idea. Having stuff that needs to be taken out in order to assault the AI home, is a good thing.

Secondly, I HATE that FIVE new unit were introduced to solve ONE problem. It's confusing and unnecessarily complicated. You could just as well get identical results by having only one kind of Core Shield Generator and let the Difficulty dictate how many you need to destroy, or how many there are in total on the map. The only difference I see in the current setup is that you're required to constantly remember which networks you've taken care of and which you haven't, which generators are part of which network, etc, which is a chore, and not entertaining. In the end, you still need to destroy a specific number of CSG's in a game. Why can't all those CSG's be the same kind of unit? I'm going to need a notepad to make notes about what networks I've taken care of in the game at this rate, because I certainly can't remember these things when I continue a game after a few weeks.

Granted, I haven't tested change this yet, but I don't like the sound of the multiple types of CSG's at all.

Maybe if the secondary CSG's were an AI Plot, and having only the primary CSG's were mandatory in a game (above Diff 4)? That way you were forced to have some, and could choose whether you want to complicate things with additional CSG's if you so desire.

[edit]
You could, for instance, just make all games spawn 10 primary CSG's and make the Diff of the highest Diff AI in the game the number of them you need to destroy to disable the AI Home shields.

[superking]

^ I agree with this, for a mechanic requiring 5 different kinds of unit it dosnt actually seem very interesting!

When I browsed over it I assumed cool, dispersed targets across the galaxy that weaken the AI in various ways. In reality its just a compulsory duckhunt that must be fully completed in any order before taking a homeworld with no element of player decision... there is so much more that could be done with this!

eg.

each generator could spawn in two or more places (two halves), one on the AI homeworld and one or more elsewhere in the galaxy. The ones elsewhere in the galaxy provides invincibility to the AI homeworld half, but if destroyed also scraps the AI homeworld & other halves; the AI homeworld half provides a planet wide effect such as

• Regeneration - Has a large but finite bank of HP that must otherwise be depleted)
• Speed Booster - until destroyed, AI units in system move at 2x speed
• Hive Beacon - when the planet is alerted, all hybrid hives receive an immediate waypoint back to the AI homeworld
• Zenith Portal - as long as the planet is alerted, the Zenith Portal receives a steady stream of BP. When the BP reach a high enough number, it produces a random (freed) AI golem and resets
• Gaurd Station - as the zenith portal, but instead produces random MK V AI gaurdians
• Counterattack Node - AI ships become enraged when player units enter the system
• AI Command station invincibility
• Reclamation - functions like a stationary, very long ranged leech starship (eg, firing large numbers of weak projectiles that tag player ships)

with such effects, an attack on the AI homeworld can realistically be attemped without destroying all of the other halves, but hunting them down first will make it easier. this could lead to situations where the player has to decide whether to press on, or delay and hunt for more CSG halves. this is all throw away ideas but it's just one of numerous more interesting applications of a treasure hunt mechanic

[Wingflier]

^ I agree with this, for a mechanic requiring 5 different kinds of unit it dosnt actually seem very interesting!

When I browsed over it I assumed cool, dispersed targets across the galaxy that weaken the AI in various ways. In reality its just a compulsory duckhunt that must be fully completed in any order before taking a homeworld with no element of player decision... there is so much more that could be done with this!

eg.

each generator could spawn in two or more places (two halves), one on the AI homeworld and one or more elsewhere in the galaxy. The ones elsewhere in the galaxy provides invincibility to the AI homeworld half, but if destroyed also scraps the AI homeworld & other halves; the AI homeworld half provides a planet wide effect such as

• Regeneration - Has a large but finite bank of HP that must otherwise be depleted)
• Speed Booster - until destroyed, AI units in system move at 2x speed
• Hive Beacon - when the planet is alerted, all hybrid hives receive an immediate waypoint back to the AI homeworld
• Zenith Portal - as long as the planet is alerted, the Zenith Portal receives a steady stream of BP. When the BP reach a high enough number, it produces a random (freed) AI golem and resets
• Gaurd Station - as the zenith portal, but instead produces random MK V AI gaurdians
• Counterattack Node - AI ships become enraged when player units enter the system
• AI Command station invincibility
• Reclamation - functions like a stationary, very long ranged leech starship (eg, firing large numbers of weak projectiles that tag player ships)

with such effects, an attack on the AI homeworld can realistically be attemped without destroying all of the other halves, but hunting them down first will make it easier. this could lead to situations where the player has to decide whether to press on, or delay and hunt for more CSG halves. this is all throw away ideas but it's just one of numerous more interesting applications of a treasure hunt mechanic

I agree I like this idea a lot more.  Assuming all the "benefits" were equal in power, the player could make the choice of attempting to attack the AI Homeworld against possibly insurmountable odds, or go around the galaxy taking out "generators" that presented the highest amount of threat towards the player's force.