Getting back into AI war

[Delwack]

Man it's been a long time since I played AI war.  I've just gotten back into the game, and figured I'd start with the plain vanilla game, because hey, at least I'd remember something, right?  How different could it be?

Turns out that it can be VERY different, and 'remembering something' can be more detrimental than helpful.

Some of the changes I noted off the top of my head:

1) Mark I starships unlocked by default (I remember these costing knowledge, or at the very least I almost never used them)
2) The main 3 ships seem to follow a more normal counter-order (fighter->bomber->frigate->fighter instead of bomber->fighter->frigate->bomber)
3) No more 3 energy reactors per base (simplifies things quite a bit.)
4) Lots of buildings come pre-built automatically now at the start (again, simplifies quite a bit.)
5) Wormhole guard posts at each wormhole (interesting addition)
6) 'AI eye' structures force you to watch how much you are sending to a world (the first one caught me almost completely off guard)
7) Purpose of special forces appears to have changed
9) The core shield generator network was added (interesting concept, gives a little direction to the game.)
10) Mark V/experimental/starship fabs:  I don't recall seeing these before. (power creep!)
11) AI no longer uses turrets to defend (I am very grateful for no long being tractor-beamed upon exiting a wormhole)
12) I don't recall this 'heavy beam cannon' turret. (but it's awesome!)
13) Transports take damage when entering areas with no supply (imagine my surprise.)
14) Transports don't unload instantly in enemy territory!
15) AI punishes you for attempted deep strikes (again, imagine my surprise; yes I was trying to deep strike with transports.  I'm guessing it was OP and changed.)
16) I can't seem to recall any of the guard posts.  They seem different somehow, especially the ones providing external invincibility to the command station.
17) Speaking of guardposts:  Core guardposts, and AI command station shielded by them.  Also don't recognize any of them (not that I paid attention to them in the past.)
18) Neinzul Spawner Guard Post (this one killed me the first time I encountered it.  Looking at the name now I find it kind of odd this particular post was there with all expansions disabled.)
18) AI seems to constantly accumulate threat now at what I used to consider moderate AI progress (250-300).
19) AI appears to be more mixed in it's MK composition (Can't hold AI progress down a hair below Mk II before you start actually seeing MK II ships.)
20) AI progress of 300-400 seems much more aggressive and tougher than I remember (mostly due to the constant roaming threat it appears).
21) I don't recall hardened forcefields.
22) Some turrets (Lightning and Flak) appear to deal 75% damage under forcefields instead of 25%
23) the first guardians (especially the raid guardian) caught me completely by surprise.
24) Apparently there is no longer a 'lower power' mode; stuff simply turns off instead, but consumes the same amount of power (imagine my surprise when I couldn't get my ff's working again.)
25) EMP/area mines:  I don't recall these being in the base game.
26) Spire/zenith/raid starship:  I also don't recall these being in the base game, but then again I didn't use starships very much back in the day (see #1)

...and I'm sure I'm missing changes where either my memory is too fuzzy, I was too shell-shocked by everything else, or ... yeah.  The number of major changes that have occurred is truly staggering.  I'm also sure my memory is faulty on at least some of these, as it has been around 3 years.  Even with all that though, I've been able to do fairly well, getting close to or into the end-game. 

I've now lost 3 games against 7/7 easier random AI types, two of them due to mechanic changes which caught me off guard. 

The AI also seems to be much better at identifying weak points now, and also in sneaking ships past established defenses and into the more vulnerable parts tucked behind. 

Best of all, I haven't even turned on (much less touched) the expansions yet.  The game seems significantly harder from what I remember it to be, but also significantly more interesting.  I look forward to beating a vanilla game and then turning on the xpacs, probably one at a time.

Overall though, I'm quite happy with the changes.  A lot of things have been smoothed out, a lot of mechanics revamped, and a lot of changes that seem to have really improved the game.  This really is a much better game than when I played it what feels like an eternity ago now, kudos! 

Now back to trying to win a game...

[keith.lamothe]

Welcome back to the game and to the forums

Yea, if you remember back when the triangle was fighter -> cruiser -> bomber then the game has been massively transformed at least, by my guess, 3 times since then

I'd try to list the various things that have changed, but I think you're better off just approaching it as a new game with a bunch of new ways to resolve you into your constituent atoms

Any questions are welcome, of course.  A crew of ninja community members is probably waiting just around the corner.

[Lancefighter]

Any questions are welcome, of course.  A crew of ninja community members is probably waiting just around the corner.

It helps if you dont point us out..

[TechSY730]

Dang, no kidding it's been a long time. Your last post before this was what, 2009, three years ago?

Anyways, yea, it has been a crazy ride since then. (Not all of it I have seen, in fact, I am not quite as senior as you in terms of registration time)
But yea, the game seems a lot nicer since then. Are there still some things needing polish and work. Of course, in case you couldn't tell by recent, popular threads.

But overall, I am very happy about how the game is today.
Good to see that someone who has gone straight from the "old" to the "new" feels the same way. I guess it gives a stronger confirmation of progress from hearing it from someone who has not been following the "wild ride" all along.

[TechSY730]

Welcome back to the game and to the forums

Yea, if you remember back when the triangle was fighter -> cruiser -> bomber then the game has been massively transformed at least, by my guess, 3 times since then

Yea, I remember that as well. Very different fleet ship balance back then.

Speaking of old, old stuff, what about the graphs in the stats screen?

[zoutzakje]

Old Triangle counters and AI using turrets is all before my time, though I've heard of those days. welcome back ^^
I may not have been here to follow all changes, but I have been around since the early 4.0 days. And I agree the game has improved so much in that time. It must be really hard to figure out all these changes after being gone for so long. I kinda forgot what it was like when I first started AI war. It was hard and scary, that's all I remember. As suggested above, I would indeed treat AI War as a completely new game, though you seem to be doing pretty well if you can already make it to the endgame of a 7/7 campaign.
Good luck =)

[TechSY730]

As suggested above, I would indeed treat AI War as a completely new game, though you seem to be doing pretty well if you can already make it to the endgame of a 7/7 campaign.
Good luck =)

Well some things still hold ever since 1.0 (though that was before even my day).
Find the homeworlds, push towards them avoiding pi**ing the AI off, and deal with waves and "backwash", and protect your homeworld(s).

The tools, strategies, tactics, and options may have expanded GREATLY for both human and AI players since then, but the same basic, overarching goal still stands.

[Draco18s]

2) The main 3 ships seem to follow a more normal counter-order (fighter->bomber->frigate->fighter instead of bomber->fighter->frigate->bomber)

You've been gone a long time.

(That was fixed by, what, 3.0?)

[Echo35]

2) The main 3 ships seem to follow a more normal counter-order (fighter->bomber->frigate->fighter instead of bomber->fighter->frigate->bomber)

You've been gone a long time.

(That was fixed by, what, 3.0?)

I just started a co-op campaign up myself, and the last time I really sat down and played a full campaign was around version 4. It's... VERY different now. I think the thing that most immediately jumped out at me was the whole power stations thing. It almost feels like cheating when half my economy isn't getting sucked away by energy. I got so good at managing the economy before that I'm now sitting on max resources trying to find ways to spend it all. Granted we're only playing 7.3 AIs to warm back into the game, but still. I do remember the guardians and eyes though. I was happy when those got implemented, since I never did figure out how to beat the buffer overflow attack the AI would use before.

[Draco18s]

now sitting on max resources trying to find ways to spend it all

Everyone has that problem.
Discussion starts roughly here.

[KDR_11k]

I joined the game around 3.0 and it still had the reverse logic triangle. The Raid, Zenith and Spire starships were around even back then but the Z and S were high mark flagships. I think I still liked them better in that role, as a kind of elite strikeforce. I remember using the full caps of Z and S starships as a raid force to strike data centers on the other end of the galaxy, they were durable enough to pull that off.

[Delwack]

It's been a long time, so I'm sure my memory may be questionable in some areas.  I don't think I was using beta builds, but if I was, it's even possible that some of my memories come from super-obscure things. 

All that said, as different as this game is, much of it is still the same, so approaching it as entirely new isn't quite necessary.  It's just the little details that trip me up every now and again  .  I think I've got the hang of most of the changes now in any case.

Some examples of things that haven't changed:
*Scouting still as important as ever
*Energy still acts as a global 'food cap'
*Resources are still about controlling flows, as long as your fleet is attritioning at a equal to or less than you are gaining income, you are good.
*raid starships still great for killing data centers
*transports still great for moving around (within the 'hop' limit)
*turret/mine defensive layouts/theory hasn't changed significantly.
*ARS and Adv. Facts still very valuable.

Also, as many things that have caught me off guard and 'hurt' me in some way, there things that have helped:
*New toys: heavy beam cannon, spire starship, riot starship, zeneth starship, Fabricators. I am thankful for every bit of additional firepower.  Some of the additions are significant additional firepower. 
*Stuff that used to cost knowledge (at least I think it did) seems to be free now.  This opens up choices for what strategic route to follow rather than grabbing a set of utility unlocks you'd always get anyway.
*No AI turrets
--Popping a command center and letting the AI come to you is both easier and faster than before.
--Turrets made many worlds grindy.  Many times I'd have to try to establish a beachhead, and try to fight turrets with turrets. Being Tractor beam turreted was one of the most annoying things ever, too.
*Resources did seem more stable/higher.  I remember having to be significantly more conservative with my fleet.  I remeber building a single starship being a very resource intensive endeavor.

I think the thing I am strugging with right now is the ever-mounting boarder aggression at higher AI progress levels.  I used to remeber that ~350-400 AIP was very grindy, but you weren't really in danger of dying outright.  the amount of constantly released threat to boarder agression (which I am not used to dealing with) is causing me some headaches. 

I'm consdering trying to set up a 'weak link' in my defensive chain so the AI attempts to funnel the freed threat there, with a clean-up fleet situation a system or two away in an attempt to funnel all the freed threat there.  I suppose I could also try for lower AIP games, but I guess I'm a traditionalist who wants to end the game at the 'suggested' 400-600 AIP.  I have played around a bit with keeping the AIP lower, and it seems much more powerful to do so now than I remember. 

At this point, I consider overflowing boarder agression threat to be my biggest problem.  Waves are a non-issue and I'm not really all that concerned about CPAs either; I pull back the entire fleet and prepare to greet them with a fleet-based mobile, multi-stage defense.  What I am strugging with is conducting effective offensive operations with the constant (and never reducing) free threat stalking my every move-out.  Every time I manage to bring the threat down to something reasonable with 'threat clearing' ops, it spike right back up by the time I'm actually ready to move out again.

I suspect some of these problems may be coming from especially high defensive reinforce rates (do easy defensive computer personalities get bonus defensive reinforce rates?)  Without turrets now, I assume this means in many cases they are getting bonus defensive reinforcement spawns... which turn into free threat through the new (to me) boarder aggression mechanic.  I suspect this is actually making my games harder, and that I'd perhaps have fewer problems with a more 'aggressive' AI. 

I think the other problem I'm having is I should focus a bit more on turret defense also.  I primarially focus on fleet upgrades (that is, getting as many Mk III's and IV's as possible).  This is probably a holdover of trying to reach 'critical mass' to break the AI homeworld door down; a critical mass beeline-zerg-the-command-station-down seems less necessary with the way AI homeworlds are set up now. 

[TechSY730]

The player econ currently being strong, perhaps too strong is something that is being discussed elsewhere, as you might of seen.

Anyways, one of your AIs is a turtle? Yep, turtles get reinforcements much faster, thus reaching the border aggression cutoff much faster. And even non-turtle, but still defensively focues AIs tend to get a bit of reinforcement "point" buff, though not to the same degree as the dedicated turtles. As such, you would not see it quite as much with less defensive AIs. Still, I agree that once border aggression happens, it tends to happen annoyingly often, to the point of looking like a steady stream in some cases. I wonder if the threshold formula needs a bit of tweaking...

Yea, the contributions of higher mark turrets may not be immediately visible, but they really help out long term and as you spread your empire.
Also, fortresses, they are freaking awesome now. If you need good, strong, durable, long range defenses and are willing to pay for it, fortresses are some of the best.

[Draco18s]

I think the thing I am strugging with right now is the ever-mounting boarder aggression at higher AI progress levels.  I used to remeber that ~350-400 AIP was very grindy, but you weren't really in danger of dying outright.  the amount of constantly released threat to boarder agression (which I am not used to dealing with) is causing me some headaches.

I remember games back in the 3.0 days where 700 AIP was "survivable" but ultimately unwinnable.  Nowadays that value is more like 300 200.

[Mánagarmr]

It has to be awesome to come back to the game after so long. SO MANY CHANGES! ^^