Beginner question

[busfahrer]

Hi,

I'm currently in the (I guess) mid-game phase of my first AI War game, after having finished the intermediate tutorial.

I am playing on a size 40 map, versus two "Random Easier" AIs, both at difficulty 1.

I own about half of those planets, which enabled me to do a fair bit of research. I also own 3 advanced research stations, and 2 advanced factories, which allowed me to build some of the Mark IV ships. I also own 2 fabs.

I don't have much problems with border aggression, so most ships are in my core fleet, which is around 1800 ships right now.

I am currently trying to take the first AI's home planet, but I'm struggling with it. I have cleared out the corners, but the core of the system contains around 400 ships, many of them Mark IV, a Mark III Fortress, and that whole blob is guarded by two force fields that cover each other.

I'm having real difficulties clearing that blob, due to the force fields. I have tried several times now, each time loading from a savegame, and everytime I have failed.

Is there a trick to it? I built 3 each of the Mark III and II Raid Starships, since they seem to be able to bypass force fields, to no avail. I even tried bringing two Mark III EMP warheads, and set one of them off before going in. According to the description that should disable the force field for 120 seconds, but it didn't. Am I missing a key gameplay component or ship type here?

Is there a trick to clearing blobs like this, or am I simply lacking the firepower? As I said above, I own half the galaxy and several ARS's and AF's, so I thought I should be fine... This is really beginning to be embarrassing, since I'm playing on difficulty 1...

Greetings,
busfahrer

[Shrugging Khan]

You're struggling....at diff 1. Might this actually not be the game for you?

Alright, alright. What ship types have you unlocked / are you capable of fabricating, and how much knowledge do you have?

[BobTheJanitor]

EMPs don't affect MkV stuff, which is what you'll find on an AI homeworld. Although I don't know if there is such a thing as a MkV force field now that I think of it. Maybe there is? Anyway, that's what I would guess is happening. Usually the solution to a forcefield with a fortress under it is to bring in your bombers and bomber starships and sit there and shoot at it for a long time. A full cap of MkI-IV bombers should be able to chop through even two forcefields and a fortress. Just always remember, the AI can't rebuild things, so if you lose your whole fleet but take down at least one thing, you are still making progress. Focus on just getting one thing at a time and don't let your bombers split their firepower.

Also don't let Khan be grumpy at you. Everyone starts somewhere.

[keith.lamothe]

Well, he's taken half the  map, that isn't exactly struggling,  Those MkV forcefields are painful at any difficulty.

Anyway, a few things:
1) The EMPs have no effect on anything MkV (Core Forcefields included).  But if the bulk of the ships under it are MkIV, it should stun them and give you less return fire to deal with while you try to take down the ff's.  Not sure if that's worthwhile.
2) Do you have anything that's half-decent against forcefields that outranges everything under the ff's?  They could just shoot at it from outside range and whittle it down.  But if that's only one or two ship types you may be there for a while.
3) You may have some other ships that are good at it too, but you definitely have bombers and those are pretty effective against ff's.  If you have tons and tons of resources (likely if you have half the map) you could try setting up some space docks on other side of one of the wormholes (or just on the planet itself) and have them loop-build bombers with a gather point next to the target ff's, with as many engineers assisting the docks as necessary to keep up with your losses (mixing in fighters and other cheap distractions is good too).  Eventually, it should go down.  Just make sure the ff doesn't go more than about 20 seconds without being hit by something, or it will start to regenerate (I think the actual threshold is closer to a minute, but no sense taking chances).
4) If you're keeping them busy enough, the Raid Starships can probably live long enough get in some good hits on the AI Home Command Station.  Keeping it up long enough may remove the need to take out the ff's, dunno.

[Shrugging Khan]

Well, he took 20 planets and increased AIP to about 400, give or take a hundred. Maybe that's the problem?

[busfahrer]

First of all, thanks for your replies!

My AI progress is around 300 I think, I figured staying under the first treshold (290 or something, I read on the wiki that 400-600 is OK at the end of an 80-world map, even though mine is only 40) isn't possible for me anyway. In the current setup, I will stay below the second threshold even if I take all the worlds that lead up the the second AI's homeworld.

That leads me to my next question: I think I might not have paid attention to the whole concept of planets being on alert. With the tries that I described above, I owned the planet right next to the AI's home planet, so that meant that the homeworld was alerted and well reinforced. I just loaded up an older savegame where I don't own the neighboring planet, so the homeworld isn't alerted. I took several transports and brought my fleet over, and attacked. I still took heavy losses (around 2/3rd of my fleet), but I managed to take the AI1 out.
I had to save at that point since it's getting really late here, but I fear that means a huge retaliation wave coming at me when I come back.

To sum it up: is it wise never to take the neighboring planets of AI homeworlds, so they won't get reinforced?

(By the way, I own all the bombers I'm allowed to build, from Mark I to Mark IV, and many space tanks as well, to answer that)

[Fleet]

I not only avoid ever taking planets neighboring home worlds (called core worlds, even though they are IV), I usually avoid taking planets bordering core worlds themselves as well. So my approach is usually neutering the planet next to the core world, neutering the core worlds, and then making well-defined assaults on the home world, to as minimize the time it is on alert.

[busfahrer]

I not only avoid ever taking planets neighboring home worlds (called core worlds, even though they are IV), I usually avoid taking planets bordering core worlds themselves as well. So my approach is usually neutering the planet next to the core world, neutering the core worlds, and then making well-defined assaults on the home world, to as minimize the time it is on alert.

That's some sound advice. I began with my new try, and leaving the core/home worlds mostly untouched, and using transporters, I seem to have more success.

[Jokus]

Just for clarification: What do you mean with "core worlds"? I suppose you are talking about the IV worlds around the AI home world. The ones with the dual warp gates? If you won't put those on alert, too, then you have to cross two hostile worlds, before you enter the home world, right?

If that's true, I'm in trouble (or at least have to rethink my plan). My first game has a level 6 Shield Ninny and a level 6 Sledgehammer. The first one absolutely loves AI Eyes, even on his homeworld. And Spire Shield Guard Posts. In systems with eyes. And I really want that Artillery Golem for that stuff, which is in a system next door to a level VI world next to the Sledgehammer...

[BobTheJanitor]

It depends on the map type you're playing, but usually there are at least two ways in to an AI homeworld. If you have to do something to alert one of the core worlds for long enough that it starts building up ridiculous forces, you can always try going around to the other entrance and attacking from there. Sometimes I wish for a more highly armored transport that would have a chance of crossing heavily reinforced worlds, even if it could only jump one world.

[Jokus]

If you do that just to make it easier to pass through, then I'm fine. That AI homeworld has 4 entry systems, of which only one will be alerted.

[busfahrer]

So, I just beat the game, without much troubles, after realizing two things. I want to write these down here in case other newbies stumble upon this thread:

1) Any AI planet that borders on either one of your planets, or on a neutral planet, will be on alert, and will get reinforced. That means that the number of enemy ships on that planet will be much higher than on one that is not on alert. Hover over planets in the galaxy view to see whether they are on alert or not. Attacking the AI home world is much easier when it's not on alert.

2) Raid Starships bypass force fields. This is important for the following: You don't have to clean out the AI home world. If, as in my case, the AI home station is under two thick force fields, and guarded by a Mark III fortress, you can use your fleet to come in, distract all the enemies guarding the AI home station simply by attacking it. Then, with your Raid Starships (I unlock and build the Mark II and Mark III ones for that purpose), you can destroy the AI home station relatively quickly. After it dies, you can retreat right away. Just make sure beforehand that your border is relatively secure, because there probably will be retaliation strikes.

[BobTheJanitor]

Destroying a command station has a 50% chance (I think) to free all the ships on a planet. I don't know if the home command station uses different logic, but I would think that it would be likely to. So yeah, that could get messy if you don't mop up most of the high mark ships on the world first. A lot of people assume at first that destroying the homeworld will provoke a massive AI response, but it just bumps up your AIP a lot. I think that assumption makes people worry too much about taking a homeworld. Unless you have the avenger plot on, killing the first homeworld shouldn't hurt you much at all.

And yeah, you never want to keep a homeworld on alert for long if you can help it. Quick, surgical strikes that jump across the core worlds without taking them are the way to go there.

[busfahrer]

Well, for me, personally, the problem wasn't so much the number of ships on that planet, but rather the fact that they were under a force field, and guarded by a Mark III fortress... so that solution worked for me

I like how everybody has their own personal playstyle in this game

[keith.lamothe]

Destroying a command station has a 50% chance (I think) to free all the ships on a planet. I don't know if the home command station uses different logic, but I would think that it would be likely to.

Well, not different per se, but the nature of the situation is such that you have to have already destroyed all the guard posts on the planet to be able to harm the home command station at all.  And destroying a guard post (or even damaging it) automatically frees all its guards.  That means the only guards left on the planet are guarding the home command station, and destroying (or even damaging) it will free them.