AI War sale mentioned on Reddit and Steam.

[x4000]

If any of you has a reddit account and wants to comment (or upvote): http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/bkmiu/ai_war_is_50_off_on_steam/

Or a steam forums account and wants to comment: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1208595

That sort of thing really helps us out -- the impact on sales from word of mouth is really visible to us, and really notable.  Only say what you really believe, obviously, but if you have time to weigh in (or upvote people on reddit that you agree with), that's super helpful.  Thanks!

[TheMachineIsSentient]

Supported, on my other name.

[x4000]

Thank you!

[durzagott]

Just wanted to say this is how I found out about the game. Some friends and I bought the original and the expansion during the Steam half-price sale.

We played it this weekend in two 12 hour sessions, it was immense. We got our butts handed to us though. Overall I think the game is excellent and a triumph of indy gaming. However, it is so damn hard and quite possibly the only game I've played where you are penalised for success.

From what I can gather while reading the wiki, the idea is not to take every planet but to skip the majority of them. This seems to be the only way to win the game. Not only does this go counter to everything I know about strategy games, but there seems to be no clear information on how to actually do this! Only by reading this forum am I beginning to understand how to possibly, one day, win a game...

Keep up the good work.

[x4000]

Glad you have been enjoying the game, and thanks for your support! The difficulty of the game can be varied quite a lot -- the "real game" with the full ai starts at 7, but if that is too hard then you will want to
play more at 5 or so. Did you do the four tutorials? If you just jump right into the game, then there is a ton you miss about all sorts of strategies, including how to skip planets. The fourth tutorial guides you broadly through a small campaign, and teaches you a ton of that sort of thing. There are other strategies, of course, but a lot of that is covered in our extensive wiki (also linked from the game), and a lot of that gets into"strategy guide" territory rather than "manual" territory. So, I think some people prefer to figure out some of those more advanced strategies on their own.

Anyway, thanks again for your support, and I hope that helps!

[Blahness]

You don't *have* to skip planets if you're good, though.  60/80 planet full grabs with 1300 AIP isn't too impossible if you've maintained and built up your forces well.  120k knowledge is quite a lot, you know.

[x4000]

You don't *have* to skip planets if you're good, though.  60/80 planet full grabs with 1300 AIP isn't too impossible if you've maintained and built up your forces well.  120k knowledge is quite a lot, you know.

That is true, but leads to immensely, ridiculously long games.  And I don't think that's compatible with all map types and difficulty levels, though.

[keith.lamothe]

Taking 60 planets will make for a displeased AI

And depending on the map layout, you can get that 120k knowledge with far fewer captures via knowledge raiding; just capture planets with lots of wormholes and you get supply to the neighboring worlds.

[Blahness]

That is true, but leads to immensely, ridiculously long games.  And I don't think that's compatible with all map types and difficulty levels, though.


Hehe, true.  My recent snake game was a totally ridiculous game because of it.  dif 7,

Case in point:

[x4000]

5 hours?  What size map?  That's not ridiculously long at all.

[keith.lamothe]

  It's full of ships...

[Blahness]

Oh, that's about a sixth of the way through the game.  I got lazy taking pictures. =P

100 planet 7 diff snake.
Once I got the 7 zenith generators on that planet complete (took about 5 hours), I built up my forces (11 ship types, all marks maxed) for a few hours (oh, and about a hundred dreads/raids), and proceeded to run through the AI planets (100 planet game) until I reached the dyson sphere.  Then, it was breaktime to move up my construction facilities and rebuild part of my monstrous fleet, and off to the mark IV planets (which were basically full, but that doesn't stop a dedicated invasion) that I had to attrition out of existence (by this point I had about 80 planets fully under my control).  The AIP was through the roof, but when you have forces and invasions like that, honestly, it's not too unmanagable.  Just a hundred lightning turrets at the invading hole, and the fleet tends to fry quickly no matter what mark it is.

And yes, I run games with 20k ships on the same map with relatively little FPS lag.  Go me. ^_^  (Although giving commands is... difficult, to say the least.  10 second wait times)

That particular 11k ship wave was a product of my idiocy.  I built 7 zenith generators on the same planet without clearing adjacent wormholes of warp gates... that's the result.  Weirdly, I didn't lose any of the generators; they just broke my command station and moved on to the next two planets (before I stopped them).

[keith.lamothe]

Oh, thanks for reminding me about the large-group command lag, I think I know of a way to cut that down a lot...

[Blahness]

Oh, thanks for reminding me about the large-group command lag, I think I know of a way to cut that down a lot...

If you do, I could run supermassive stress-test-like games like this no problem.  That's the only thing that really gets to me is command lag.  And I'd love you forever, as a side note. =P

That, and... isn't it a bit silly for the AI to send 3000 of its 11k ships at... a harvester across the map?  The AI needs a sense of proportion =P

[keith.lamothe]

If we give it a sense of proportion you'll exploit it