New to the game

[RichBea]

Hi All, I am brand new to the game and looking forward to learning and playing. I have one question. Is there a school type site where a new player can go to learn all the ropes?
Thanks in advance and hope to get know some you in the near future.
RichBea

[Peter Ebbesen]

Welcome.

The wiki is not up to date (in particular, you'll find that health/damage values are off by a factor 100), but it has a lot of useful information about the gameplay in general, most of which is relevant even if not completely up to date.

Kahuna's Guide to AI War teaches you the basics of defence.

Both of these are really good places to start and to keep bookmarked while learning AI War.

Once you start having questions about strategy - and you likely will - the search engine is your friend, and there's also the strategy subforum to ask questions in, should you not find an answer.

[TheVampire100]

You should also definatly play the intermediate Tutorial/Tutorial campaign of the game.
It helps you to understand the basics of the game while playing it, explains basic strategies and how to win.

However, the campaign does NOT express the true AI War experience for an example all waves you get there are scripted, no random waves. Also you fight only a single AI on 10 planets. Normally it's 2 AIs and about 80 planets (but you can change the number of planets as you like, very low and high planet caps might make the game a lot harder).

Except that you can find a lot of useful stuff on the wiki Peter Ebbesen already mentioned.
Some stuff is outdated (especially since 8.0) but the basic strategies still work.

[RichBea]

Hi, thanks for the advice. Got slaughtered first game out. Sent some scouts through 5 minutes later a wave of bombers decided to say hi n bye. Swift learning curve 

[TheVampire100]

Attacks on your planets can happen all the time., esspecially if you've alerted AI planets (planets that are adjacent to your own planets).
Since the turret cap has changed to planet-cap instead of galaxy-cap you should put on every planet you own some basic defenses. Keep in mind that turrets does cost energy and you can only get a certain amount of energy for free on your planets. Everything above that has a hefty metal cost that got substracted from your income.
So it is wise to put on every planet you own some basic defenses but focus on heavy defenses only on important planets or planets you want as chokepoints.

You should consider playcing tractor beam turrets because they hold enemy ships in place, giving you time to react. However, the ships does only stop to move and there are still ships that can bypass tractor beams. Ships can still attack and use special abillities normally.
If you want however to stop enemies for good, use spider turrets. They target the engine and ships that are immune to tractor beams are not immune to engine damage.

Beware that stopping the enemy won't be enough, you still need fire power. Combine different turrets so you can defeat different enemy ships. When a wave is announced, watch out what ship types enter. You might want to reinforce your defenses until the wave arrives.
And I cannot stress this out enough, always look at the stats of you and your enemy ships. It might seem very much but it helps if you look at the hull types and the attack multipliers. That alone can tell you what ship is excellent against another ship.
The basic triangle is Fighter>Bomber>Frigate>Fighter (like Rock-Paper-Scissors) and there are tons of bonus ships (esspecially if you own any of the expansions) that behave similiar.
Try tounderstand the different roles from the ships. Fighters are fast and agile, bombers bomb the shit out of structures and heavy ships, missile frigates are slow, fire slow but have a huge range with auto-targeting missiles making them excellent for an early artillery unit.

Also, don't try to use every unit in a huge blob. This works on easier difficulties but on higher difficulties it's better to divede your units so they can fulfill their role (you don't want the fragile frigates fight in the front line as an example).

And again, whenever you encounter a new ship, first thing to check put is it's description. Knowledge is very important in this game, you have to know what you encounter.

[Nodor]

As a note, about 10 minutes in, the AI Will start sending "assualt waves" to eliminate your planets.

You usually get a notice that this will happen, but you will want to build defenses, like turrets ASAP. 

[doctorfrog]

As a note, about 10 minutes in, the AI Will start sending "assualt waves" to eliminate your planets.

You usually get a notice that this will happen, but you will want to build defenses, like turrets ASAP.

To build on this, it may be helpful to understand the "tower defense" label that the company puts on the defensive part of the game. You're probably going to be using your fleet ships in both offensive and defensive efforts, but your turrets will form the backbone of your defense. Although AI war takes place in space and there are no 'natural' barriers, you can have some control over the route of destruction they take: you can restrict them to which wormhole they enter, you can blow them up, slow them down, in some cases teleport them, etc., all while pummeling away at them with those all-important turrets--and sometimes your fleet ships. That's the tower defense aspect.

Generally, they'll rush for your command center, taking out targets along the way. The AI gets more devious at higher difficulties, so it's actually a pretty good idea to go up against a less crafty enemy.

I really suggest going with a Beginner 1 or Beginner 2 game for your first "real" games after the tutorials. They're decently difficult in spite of their titles, forcing you to come up with some basic attack/defense strategies without completely overwhelming you with tons of extra play mechanics and units.