Beginner Questions

[Mithror]

Hey guys,

First of all: Awesome game. Really. The depth of it is just great.

I'm still relatively knew to the game, but thought I had an ok understanding of the game mechanics, except something happens in my latest game that I can't quite align with how I interpreted the mechanics.



In the above picture, I have Gate Raided all the white and red circled planets and my hope was that the AI would always send waves from the green circled planet, except they seem to be coming from the red circled planet's wormhole? Could some one explain how that happens? I was under the impression that only the green circled planet could now send a wave to my planet and that the wave would come through it's wormhole.

Also, would it be wise to try and keep the number of troops on the white Mk IV planet low? I believe this would trigger the AI to always try reinforcing there (as it seems to be doing now) and so I could use this to keep its reinforcements "under control".

[Wingflier]

Very good questions from a new player, it seems like you have a grasp on the basics of the game, and I will do my best to explain to you the answers that you seek.

There are 2 types of attacks the AI can send towards you.  The first type of attack is a wave, as you know.  A wave is spawned with a large number of ships, and gives you a warning at the top left of the screen about how many enemy ships are coming, and which planet they are attacking.  These CAN be controlled by taking out warp gates on adjacent planets, as you know.

The second type of attack is called border aggression.  http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Border_Aggression#Defending_Against_Border_Aggression

Border Aggression occurs when a planet that is adjacent to yours reaches a certain amount of reinforcements and starts sending "excess" units to your planets.  Border Aggression can not be controlled the way that "waves" can, any planet adjacent to one of your own is potentially subject to border aggression.  So in the case of the planet you are trying to protect, you need to build a lot of defense there, since it has 4 planets that can potentially be aggressive towards it.  

Here's the kicker.  An enemy planet will receive reinforcements based on the "level" of planet it is.  This makes Mark III and IV planets that are adjacent to yours much more dangerous than "other" planet types, because they will be sending higher level ships!

If you are trying to defend the planet in question here, the best way to do it is to surround the command center with shield(s) and defense, and build exo-forcefield generators on your harvesters to protect those as well.  With all of your defense concentrated around your orbital command station, it will be very tough to take out.  Remember to build your turrets OUTSIDE of your Force Fields, or they will do massively reduced damage.  I would also highly suggest either neutering or periodically "thinning" out the numbers on that MKIV planet, otherwise it is going to continue sending some very nasty high-level ships your way.

edit:  Also, unless I'm mistaken, "wave attacks" do not come through wormholes, but instead appear on one of the "edges" of the target planet's space.  If units are attacking your planets through wormholes, chances are you aren't dealing with waves.

[Mithror]

Very good questions from a new player, it seems like you have a grasp on the basics of the game, and I will do my best to explain to you the answers that you seek.

There are 2 types of attacks the AI can send towards you.  The first type of attack is a wave, as you know.  A wave is spawned with a large number of ships, and gives you a warning at the top left of the screen about how many enemy ships are coming, and which planet they are attacking.  These CAN be controlled by taking out warp gates on adjacent planets, as you know.

The second type of attack is called border aggression.  http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Border_Aggression#Defending_Against_Border_Aggression

Border Aggression occurs when a planet that is adjacent to yours reaches a certain amount of reinforcements and starts sending "excess" units to your planets.  Border Aggression can not be controlled the way that "waves" can, any planet adjacent to one of your own is potentially subject to border aggression.  So in the case of the planet you are trying to protect, you need to build a lot of defense there, since it has 4 planets that can potentially be aggressive towards it.  

Hmm, but border aggression does not start until the number of ships get really high. The wiki says that I can expect border aggression if the planets have: (4100 - ( AI Progress / 2 )) ships (I play on difficulty 7), which gives 4026 ships. They clearly don't have that many ships yet (luckily .

Here's the kicker.  An enemy planet will receive reinforcements based on the "level" of planet it is.  This makes Mark III and IV planets that are adjacent to yours much more dangerous than "other" planet types, because they will be sending higher level ships!

I am quite wary of that Mk IV planet, and I'm probably going to neuter it pretty soon. That way I don't have to worry as much about it. I would think that keeping its numbers low would be something similar to neutering, except you'd need ships to be able to continually keep the numbers down. I don't quite know which one would be better suited or if there is a significant difference anyhow. I definitely don't think I wanna see 4k+ ships on that planet though!

If you are trying to defend the planet in question here, the best way to do it is to surround the command center with shield(s) and defense, and build exo-forcefield generators on your harvesters to protect those as well.  With all of your defense concentrated around your orbital command station, it will be very tough to take out.  Remember to build your turrets OUTSIDE of your Force Fields, or they will do massively reduced damage.  I would also highly suggest either neutering or periodically "thinning" out the numbers on that MKIV planet, otherwise it is going to continue sending some very nasty high-level ships your way.

edit:  Also, unless I'm mistaken, "wave attacks" do not come through wormholes, but instead appear on one of the "edges" of the target planet's space.  If units are attacking your planets through wormholes, chances are you aren't dealing with waves.

Isn't that what the Warp Sensor tells you? Afaik I've never seen ships not come through a wormhole. I built those sensors so I could know which wormhole the wave would come through. I looked at the wiki and it says:

4. The wave, when it arrives, will most likely appear directly on the "far side" of a wormhole from the warp gate. It's like a slingshot effect, basically. In other words, if there is an AI planet with three wormholes that border player planets, it can slingshot the wave directly into any one of those three player planets through the wormholes leading from the AI planet.

Doesn't that mean that it sends it to you through a wormhole?

Thanks for answering my question btw

[zebramatt]

The structural ships, "Warp Gates", which the AI uses to send waves through to you are not the only structures the AI possesses capable of doing so.

Raid Engines and AI Eyes are two other structures with this ability. In all likelihood, that AI planet possesses such a ship.

Check the tooltips of all the major AI structures on that planet - "Warp Gate [Full - AI Only]" is the property you're looking for.

[Mithror]

Aha, that explains! The planet does indeed have AI Eye on it. So does the Mk IV planet, apparently. Guess I'll have to take those out as well

[Mánagarmr]

Also, be very careful with the Eyes. They are nasty if you try to blob them...

[Mithror]

I was planning on putting some stuff in transports and then snipe them. Sort of like how I do my gate raiding (as explained in the tutorial). Should be allright. Except I'll need to prepare properly for the counter attack!

[Sunshine!]

Just be sure to not outnumber the enemy by more than 2:1.  Deploying just your mk1 fighters in a transport (98 ships) should do decently, depending on defences/enemy fleet presence.

[Mithror]

Ok, another question, though it's more of strategic advice.

First, am I correct to assume that 40 planets with difficulty 7 AI's (Random Easy ones) is fairly doable? So far, as you can see, I'm at 148 AIP. I also think I know in which direction I need to go to find the AI homeworlds (past the two consecutive Mk IV planets). On top of that, I have found all 4 Co-processors (P7) and they seem fairly easy to take out, so that would reduce AIP with 120, I also found one data center which would further reduce this by 20. This generally means I can take another 4-ish planets without increasing my AIP. Bringing me up to 10. Of the 4 planets I tend to take, two have an ARS (P9) and one has an advanced factory (P5), so that gives me 2 new ship types and 2 Mk IV ship types, which is nice. Seems like fairly good odds in this system.

Second, the little knot of planets in the lower right corner is kinda out of my way to reach the homeworlds, unless the bottom P6 (207 ships) is a homeworld as it is cloaked and I can't see what is there yet. Can AI homeworlds be cloaked? What is interesting about those planets though is that they almost all have production facilities for Mk V ships and the P6 with 519 enemy ships has the Dyson Sphere. There's also a Gollem there somewhere.
So basically it's a very cool area in my opinion! Only, it might not be good to capture stuff there because it might slow my push towards the AI, whom I could probably kill while they're still cool with me being here, mucking about. How do you guys deal with such a situation? Do you give in to your inner needs of exploration and acquiring new toys or do you hit the AI as quickly as possible?

[Wingflier]

Good questions!

In general (from my experience), it's a good idea to establish a solid "base" of about 10 planets or so (looks like you're doing that), then go straight for the AI homeworlds.  

On a 40 planet map, you may feel as though you are "missing out" on something by avoiding planets that are "out of your way", but when you play an 80+ planet map, you will get used to having to avoid a lot of potential technologies and incentives that go with increasing your AIP a ridiculous amount.

In AI War, you are constantly fighting against the clock.  The longer the game goes, the more powerful the AI gets, and their power is exacerbated even more by high AIP.  

The bottom right cluster of planets may indeed have some nice fabricators and incentives for you, but to me it seems too far out of the way, and would be too time consuming a process for what it's worth (not mentioning the additional AIP you would accrue).  Some others might disagree with me on this, but my experience with the game dictates that you shouldn't take unnecessary risks to help you win the game, and Core Fabricators have always been a luxury for me, never a necessity (as in, you can easily win the game without them).

If I were you, I would go straight for that P1 Planet at the far right/mid-top part of the map, and then from there make a "beeline" straight for the enemy Homeworld(s).  Remember that it is important to unlock MKIII scouts, so that you can produce an MKIV scout with your MKIV Factory.  MKIV scouts can not be detected, and will help you reveal the rest of the map, so you know exactly where to go.

To answer your question, AI Homeworlds can not be "cloaked", so by process of elimination, you know that are on the left side of the map, fairly close to each other.  

For a more advanced strategy/technique guide, you can check this link(http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7686.msg64478.html#msg64478), where I gave a pretty detailed synopsis of how I play.

edit:  Also, please note that if you are running the latest version of the game (4.41), there is a bug with Counter-Attack Posts that will basically cause you to lose the game if you kill one.  If you are running v4.41, DO NOT destroy a Counter-Attack Post, at any cost.

[Mithror]

I've had to deal with a CPA today, but I think something went wrong. Instead of attacking, the AI just gathered its ships at various wormholes but did not enter my territory. I waited several minutes to half an hour, but the AI still did not attack. I presumed it was waiting for more ships? Unfortunately I was not inclined to just wait arround and let him do that, so I made some pre-emptive strikes to eliminated the freed ships. I noticed that all I needed to do was send a transport ship through the wormhole and that would trigger all the ships to fly through the wormhole and attack me. Of course he had no chance at winning, since I controlled where he went to.

Is this normal behavior with CPA's?

[Signata]

I had the same exact thing happen in my game last night. Three of my planets had large accumulations on their wormholes, but the AI never committed. I finally sent through my main fleet to one wormhole and blasted the accumulation away. They didn't have a chance; and the other two forces never used the opportunity to attack even though I had withdrawn defensive forces to commit to the one assault. I've decided to just ignore them for the time being. If I need to advance in those directions, I know there is a thicket I'll need to blast through, but for now it looks like the wave is just sitting there at +1.5 hours after the announcement. Probably ought to clear it before the next wave though.

I'm wondering if perhaps the new mechanics are fouling up these attacks? The latest update changed the way the AI attacks to reduce "trickle attacks" which were just always worthless anyway, making it so the AI paid attention to the same sort of scouting statistics you have, looking for weak spots and then sending in a bunch of units at once.

[ShadowOTE]

I've seen the same thing. This issue pops up from time to time, and generally seems to get fixed then reappear later on after a new beta changes something. It sounds like the latest anti-trickle efforts backfired by stopping waves from moving until they hit critical mass, perhaps defined by CPA size. As a result, the waves spread across multiple worlds never accumulate enough reinforcements from other CPA released planets to move on. Of course, that's just my impression - i could be completely wrong.

As far as the MkIV world, one of my favorite tactics with waves from high level worlds is to sit a leech starship just barely in range of the nearest wormhole under a forcefield and have a MRS (Mobile repair station) a bit behind it. The leech marks for reclaimation, the turrets kill it, and the MRS causes the ships to fly out of danger and heal before being killed. The result? A LOT of high level ships ready for offensive/defensive duties without research cost or factory acquisition. Of course, that assumes you actually have enough power to support your nifty new fleet...

[Garthor]

Also, be very careful with the Eyes. They are nasty if you try to blob them...

Not if you blob them with Viral Shredders.

[Echo35]

Also, be very careful with the Eyes. They are nasty if you try to blob them...

Not if you blob them with Viral Shredders.

Viral Shredders make me SO happy. I did exactly that once, and came away with so many good things. Another fun idea is to rush an AI Command Post (Well before the recent updates when that worked), get the heck out (Because the AI ships will beeline for your planet) and stick a swarm of Viral Shredders on the wormhole on your planet. AI swarm comes through to seek vengeance, shredders do their work, profit! You can reclaim entire AI fleets doing that.