Returning after a long time - feasibility of 120 star wins?

[paeniteoazrael]

So it's been a while since I've played AI War, and man, those changes.

It seems a lot of strategies are... different, to say the least.

I've heard about AIP being dangerous at much lower levels, no more crystal (not a huge change tbh), hacking (that's new) and a million other differences.

Anyone have more recent strategies as to how to manage AIP, and about how quickly AIP enters the danger zone (7/7 AIs)?

Also, is the "conquer the galaxy" approach even remotely feasible this time around, or is that pretty much a lost cause? Not that it was easy to begin with... but you know.

I've been reading through patch notes, and there is quite a lot to look at.

[CaptainTaz]

I'm no pro player, but I have played a lot. Conquering/setting up a bottle-necked base on encapsulated (Claiming between 25 and 40 planets depending on the map) works for me most of the time.

My trick is freeing the spire civilians (Minor faction) and blowing up all datacenters ASAP to get AIP moving steadily downwards, then slowly expand without breaking over the MK 2 border. Once I get the fallen spire set up and mobile in my fleet I move on to completely set up a base.


I'm a vary abnormal player though tbh, and I use almost ALL of the minor factions, so this might not work for you at all.

[paeniteoazrael]

Yeah I set up the game with the Dyson Sphere at 10/10 and the Dark Spire at 6/10.

Funny story, the Dyson Sphere is like three jumps away and two vengeance generators were a jump beyond that. I also forgot that Downloading is 50 HAP, not 20. So many Mk III ships. So many.

Ah, when early scouting kills the heck out of you.

When I start another game, I'll have to enable the Spire Civilian Leaders. I just opened up my last save, where I had all the factions enabled (on hard or 4~5/10). I also realized why I named it a continuous string of curse words. Yaay three exogalactic waves + two devourer golems at different chokepoints + 3,000 Mk III threat + a CPA. Oh, and like 40 angry dark spire ships. God I hate Dark Spire.

[Radiant Phoenix]

Wait, what? How do you have multiple Devourer Golems?

[paeniteoazrael]

I have literally no idea.

EDIT: I probably spawned it myself for the lulz, thinking back. Because of course that would be a good idea.

[CaptainTaz]

I have literally no idea.

EDIT: I probably spawned it myself for the lulz, thinking back. Because of course that would be a good idea.

Using cheats?

.... juuust curious......

*Glances sneakily at future MP game*

[Pumpkin]

Aaah, Ilostit...
So spawned ships retains their behavior? So behavior is linked to the nature of the ship? Interesting... Could there be an allied devourer? That would be... totally... "broken" (for a golem, haha...)

120 stars win? Sure. 7/7? Maybe not. 7/7 with no minor factions? No.
About AIP, I really can't tell, I'm a low chaos player. More than 200 AIP before first homeworld assault is high, for me. However, have a look at the Red.Queen's AAR... This guy trusted the tooltip and put 1 AIP per 5 minutes on his first game... and managed to win. This guy's outa control. ^^

[Toranth]

120 star wins are still possible on 7/7, even without Champions or Fallen Spire.  They're just difficult - if you are a 7/7 player normally, I'd say it's a pretty hopeless task.  On the other hand, if you are a 9+/9+ player normally, then you should have an interesting challenge ahead for you.
The major issues are timing, and handling the Strategic Reserve/CPA and Special Forces.  Those can get out of control if you aren't careful as the AIP goes up.

But I agree with Pumpkin about AIP.  200 is about the level where the AI starts to get actually dangerous on 7/7.  500 AIP is danged high for anything but the last, final AI Homeworld assault.  If you let the AI get to Tech Level 4 (pushing 1000 AIP) you'll deserve what you get

[Kahuna]

How big are the waves and CPAs on 7 difficulty level at 200, 500 and 1000 AIPs approximately?
After having survived on 10/10 difficulty level at nearly 500 AIP I can say the normal waves had 7000-10000 ships depending on the ship types.

[paeniteoazrael]

The waves are pretty tiny at 200 AIP and not very big at 500 AIP on 7/7, even with a Sledgehammer AI.

The more problematic issue for me was the exogalactic strikeforces + stupid amounts of threat. Not so much a problem, really, but threat tended to increase and then CPA's would be about 2 to 3 thousand ships - but they wouldn't attack with them for two or three CPAs and generally timed them with the exos. So the threatball fleets would easily get to 5 to 10000 ships if I didn't go in with the botnet golem and and armored golem and fix the issue.

[ZaneWolfe]

I will not make judgments about non-Fallen Spire games, since I've fallen so in love with Spire that I don't turn that option off, but I'm able to handle 120 maps at 8/8 on a regular basis. And my AIP gets pretty crazy even before my first Spire City. Now that being said, I usually play on maps that allow me to create a single solid chokepoint, or 2 at most. And this is the VERY first thing I move to do. In fact, given some of the changes you might have missed, it is VERY plausible to make your homeworld into a chokepoint, even more so when you have Alt Champion Progress turned on.

[Radiant Phoenix]

In fact, given some of the changes you might have missed, it is VERY plausible to make your homeworld into a chokepoint, even more so when you have Alt Champion Progress turned on.

This is from Faulty Logic's 10/10 AAR "Red is not my favorite color":



The selected world appears to be the homeworld.

[Kahuna]

So the threatball fleets would easily get to 5 to 10000 ships

Threat fleet can only get as big as your defenses can handle because after that the AI will attack.