Hello everone ^_^

[Dezdanova]

Hello everone , =P i'm brand new to the forums, and sort of the game, well and gaming in general. ^^ I didn't really know there was forums with all these random stuff XD but after playing for about 130 hours and not winning a single mission =P cause i'm pretty awesome like that.
I figured i would have a look around to see what i was doing wrong, turns out i didn't have to take over ever planet after all :O go figure, i was wondering why after a while it felt like running into a brick wall over and over =P
Though in general i'm not to good at rts's i just like space games XD for a while i thought i didn't have to even bother with defence's just forcefields and call it a day i was pretty wrong on that one. Anyways, so ya long story short after my last horrible death i figured i should go have a looksie and here i am!

So ya i just wanted to say Hello to everone and what not =P and hope to see you all around!

[Hearteater]

Welcome!  And don't worry, I'm certain there are people who have gone well past 130 hours without winning here.  Actually, I seem to recall we have/had at least one regular who had never won a game.  AI Wars is interesting in that your defeats can be just as memorable as your victories.

As for playing and winning: have you completed the tutorials, including the last one where it says "You take it from here?"

[Dezdanova]

Ooh, ya for sure the defeats are all horrible =P i have fun regardless last one i had was my best game though XD sadly my army was stuck on this one AI planet with a grav drill thing that pretty much locked me into it.
Also i dont know what it was but the Ai liked that planet a lot, i set up a mini base in it, since when i invaded there was 1100 enemy units, then they got all up in arms about it  and soon they pulled like ever surronding planet and there was a little over 4500 guys and i was like oooh my why did i make my base a mile away from the wurmhole XD
Though i did win that battle thanks on part to the grav drill slowing them down to, but since i couldnt leave that place, i had something like 200ish vampire ships going around killing all my offbases next thing i know i was -750K energy and my homeworld was attacked, sad day

Oooh, no i havent done any tutorials i didn't even know about them intill reading about it a little while ago XD i may have to give them a try.
I do think i have how the game works down, or atleast the controls, and such i just didn't have very good tatics, though i learned a ton from reading stuff on here soooo I'm hoping my next game i make will be way better ^^

[zoutzakje]

welcome to the forums ^^
So you're still a bit new to gaming in general and you play AI War? Wow, that must be tough. I can't imagine what that must be like. If I stumbled across AI War back when I started gaming during the Pokemon Blue days (not that AI War already existed back then, but IF), I would have hit the brick wall in all of my campaigns very quickly. Oh yeah, did I mention I did not know any English at all at that time? Yeah playing AI War would have been hilarious lol.

Anyway, glad to hear you're enjoying the game =)
Don't worry about not being very good at it yet. You will be in due time. Everybody here had a hard time learning the game. I even lost a few 1/1 games back when I started *hides*

[keith.lamothe]

Welcome to the forums and to the game  

Losing AI War is a time-honored tradition around here, you're in good company there   In general the idea is for it to be one of those "Losing is Fun!" games, albeit quite winnable once you know what you're doing if you don't deal yourself too nasty a scenario.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Welcome to the forums!

Something I want to point out that others haven't to my knowledge: You're actually extremely optimistic about losing, which is totally awesome. If there's any game to have that attitude towards, it's AI War. And probably Dwarf Fortress.

[Kahuna]

Heyy! Welcome to the forums! ^_^

You might wanna read these:
Going for my first game of AI War: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11837.msg125730.html#msg125730
Some overall strategies and tech unlocks: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11937.msg128188.html#msg128188
Neutering: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,12037.msg129629.html#msg129629
Ship combos: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11996.msg129236.html#msg129236
Beachheading: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11391.msg129159.html#msg129159

i'm brand new to the forums, and sort of the game, well and gaming in general.

Yay more gamers! Nerds ftw!
EDIT: I want a shirt that says "Nerd and proud of it".

I didn't really know there was forums

Probably every game has a some sort of forum and community. AI War has one of the best. AI War also has a Wiki. The Wiki is a bit outdated though.

after playing for about 130 hours and not winning a single mission =P cause i'm pretty awesome like that.

Though in general i'm not to good at rts's i just like space games XD

It took me something like 100 hours to win my first game too. It was mostly because of the settings I chose and I was too stubborn to tune down the difficulty. <--- that was my first post. For me the best way to learn this game was to just try stuff and get my ass whooped!

Now I've played AI War ~1358 hours and now I basically

poop on 10 Doom

lulz

turns out i didn't have to take over ever planet after all :O go figure

You're gonna wanna only capture planets that have something useful. Since I only play high difficulty games I mostly keep 4-6 planets. In addition to that I capture planets with CSGs (Core Shield Generators (Because you need to capture the planet in order to be able to destroy the Generator)). If CSGs are disabled I capture 2 or 3 Advanced Research Stations. After destroying or capturing whatever I just abandon the planet. I wouldn't be able to hold it anyway (without sky rocketing the AIP).

Talking about AIP.. you're gonna wanna keep that as low as possible. I always try to keep it under 100 before I attack the AI Homeworlds. But on lower difficulty levels you can have 250 AIP no problem.

In addition to destroying CSGs and capturing ARSs you should capture planets with 4 or more resource asteroids adjacent to your homeworld. If a planet is not next to your homeworld don't capture it unless it has 6 or more resource asteroids and unless you know you will be able to defend it. But once again.. on lower difficulties it's not as strict.

i was wondering why after a while it felt like running into a brick wall over and over =P

Pain is fun but it hurts. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Keith! Buff the AIs! Punish me!

hope to see you all around!

If you need help, strategies or whatever just ask. AI War has a friendly and active community.

[Kahuna]

sadly my army was stuck on this one AI planet with a grav drill thing that pretty much locked me into it.

Arrr Gravity Drills are annoying . If you really need to enter a planet with Gravity Drill I'd recommend unlocking MarkI Spire Starships. Maybe MarkIIs. They're immune to gravity effects, do very good damage and are durable. I learned that when I played vs the Starfleet Commander AI . When you have the Spire Starships destroy the Gravity Drill with them. Will take quite a while but is easier than.. anything else?

I guess..

Beachheads can also be used to destroy with MarkIII or Super Fortresses. You can build Mark>I Basic, Laser or HBC turrets to destroy them. The Fortress wont be able to destroy them because they have radar dampening. In addition to that you can build some Sniper and Missile Turrets to keep the planet clear.

..combined with the Spire Starships would work.

Also i dont know what it was but the Ai liked that planet a lot, i set up a mini base in it, since when i invaded there was 1100 enemy units

Hmm sounds like you found the Special Forces Or maybe those were threat ships hanging around.

I do think i have how the game works down, or atleast the controls, and such

Check out "Esc-->Settings-->View Controls" or "Esc-->View Controls". Group, attack and FRD moves are important! You should also know how to use the filters and display modes in the galaxy map.

[Hearteater]

Gravity Drill planets make excellent Choke Points though.  If you find one in even remotely a good position with good wormhole positioning (spaced far apart) you can grind massive amount of AI ships with very few casualties.

[Kahuna]

Gravity Drill planets make excellent Choke Points though.  If you find one in even remotely a good position with good wormhole positioning (spaced far apart) you can grind massive amount of AI ships with very few casualties.

Ye that's true. With a Gravity Drill on your whipping boy you can just laugh at an 8000 ship wave. Very good for stopping CPAs too.. unless they go around it.. which they will do unless you're playing against a Grav Driller AI which has a Gravity Drill on pretty much every planet.

[Dezdanova]

Hello, Zoutzakje, Keith.lamothe, LaughingThesaurus, Hearteater and Kahuna thank you for the replys ^_^

Gravity Drill planets make excellent Choke Points though.  If you find one in even remotely a good position with good wormhole positioning (spaced far apart) you can grind massive amount of AI ships with very few casualties.

Ya i found out really quickly that grav drills can be used for much shenanigans ooh so much =P though i dont really know what you mean by choke point though i think thats cause I'm doing it wrong XD but i have been usually taking over any planet with one on =P because of the resources it gives... though i have been taking over anyplanet anyways but we have been through that already XD

welcome to the forums ^^
So you're still a bit new to gaming in general and you play AI War? Wow, that must be tough. I can't imagine what that must be like. If I stumbled across AI War back when I started gaming during the Pokemon Blue days (not that AI War already existed back then, but IF), I would have hit the brick wall in all of my campaigns very quickly. Oh yeah, did I mention I did not know any English at all at that time? Yeah playing AI War would have been hilarious lol.

Anyway, glad to hear you're enjoying the game =)
Don't worry about not being very good at it yet. You will be in due time. Everybody here had a hard time learning the game. I even lost a few 1/1 games back when I started *hides*

Thank you :3 and ya i did try some other random space games i found on steam to, but i don't know they seemed really small to me, a lot of them i haven't even fully played or played at all XD a lot of times i see the map sizes, and leave the game space is suppose to be big imo =P
Lol ya I'm still trying to figure things out XD last game i just decided i would just have to smash through there brick walls! it was slow going and then they got upset and put there boots to me =P
ooh crazy ^^ i dont know how long ago this was but you seem pretty good at english as is atm XD better then me atleast i was never good with languages, i must of failed english in school half a dozen times.

Welcome to the forums and to the game  

Losing AI War is a time-honored tradition around here, you're in good company there   In general the idea is for it to be one of those "Losing is Fun!" games, albeit quite winnable once you know what you're doing if you don't deal yourself too nasty a scenario.

Thank you, ^^ yes i do have fun losing I'm going to tell myself once i figure out all the sneaky moves the Ai has been doing to cause me to lose ill finally win =P but so far i got nothing by the scenarios i take it your talking about like the Ai types and stuff cause there is some pretty crazy ones XD i couldn't even imagine fighting a lot of them right now i just stick to the easy ones and even they give me troubles :0

Welcome to the forums!

Something I want to point out that others haven't to my knowledge: You're actually extremely optimistic about losing, which is totally awesome. If there's any game to have that attitude towards, it's AI War. And probably Dwarf Fortress.

^_^ thank you, lol yes =P I'm all about losing its what I'm good at! For sure though i see me losing a lot in Ai wars so no need to get bent out of shape about it XD plus the AI is really good at pistol whipping me!
Though most loses feel like i would of won, if only i had this, or if only i retreated my main forces or stuff like that ^^ so it always seems to me like i could of stopped it so may as well try again, and this time i won't be tricked =P
Ooh i have seen that one game Dwarf Fortress on steam before, i have't tried it though =P



Thank you, Kahuna for all the info to XD i will have to read the wiki page and thank you for the controll things to XD i have no idea what your talking about with filter's or FRD or what not so mabye i lied a little when i said i knew the controls =P
Oh my 1300 hours is pretty impressive XD oooh I'm crazy stubborn to its bad, i know i should turn down the settings but i wont >:0 I'm pretty sure i can do this on the 2 Ai, 7 difficulty! I just got to keep trying.
Hmm, I'm sorry i'm really not good with abbreviations whats a HBC turret, and ooh my XD i guess i should say so now but I'm bad i actually haven't used any of the basic ships yet i have only been making armies with the starships :0 but i have been trying to find a good starting ship to help, and i need to learn to mix them i think XD i tried last night using missle frigates they didn't do well on there own
XD thank you for all the links to you know i have read the terms Neutering or Beachheading and what not i didn't really know what they implied i just made up my own explanations for them and kept on going =P
I guess there most likely is a forum XD for ever game, makes sense, I'm not a big computer or gaming person =P so i haven't ever looked up forums and what not for a game intill recently I'm not to familiar with how to use it =P it actually took me a while to figure out the quote thing and i was half way done this post when i did, so needless to say XD if my reply doesn't look nearly as awesome as yours thats why
Also on a side note spire starships are my favorite =P gaint death laser is awesome, i was thinking of trying those smaller starting ships out i forget there name atm its like zenith something laser frigate i think >.>
OOoh wow 8000 ships would be crazy!....... whats CPA mean XD

[Dezdanova]

Soooo on a side note i read through "Beachheading: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11391.msg129159.html#msg129159" and i have no idea what its trying to tell me XD I'm so confused, whats a whipping boy, and cpa, and i don't fully get the maps either >.<

^_^ i did understand the other ones though, but ya dont really get that one

Also on a completely different side not since i haven't mention this and just started the game XD i love the music for the game its really awesome!

[Hearteater]

CPA = Cross-Planet Attack: These are launched against you every 2 or so hours.  You'll get around a 15 minute warning, much like a wave.  But they'll be bigger than a wave.  And unlike a wave, they don't attack a specific planet of yours.  Instead, that number of ships "wake-up" and start to look for ways to attack you.  Often, enough wake up that they band together and hit you were you aren't well defended.  But if you have amazing defenses, sometimes they won't attack, and they will just wait...until they see an opening.

HBC = Heavy Beam Cannon: This is a turret that doesn't start unlocked.  It isn't very expensive to unlock though, and although you only get a few, it hits really hard and is great against the bigger AI ships.  For a lot of people, unlocking Mark I HBC is pretty common.

Choke Point: This is a planet the AI must go through to get to the rest of your planets.  This lets you focus all your defenses in one spot.  Sometimes you need a few Choke Points to protect all your systems.  The less Choke Points you need, the stronger each one is because you can stack up your defenses more.

Whipping Boy: This is a planet you set up to get attacked by all the AI waves.  A Choke Point can be a Whipping Boy, and often is.  Generally you only want one Whipping Boy.  To set up a Whipping Boy you need to Gate Raid all adjacent AI worlds so only those next to your Whipping Boy have Warp Gates left.

Gate Raid: This is when you attack an AI world, but you don't kill the Command Station.  Instead, you kill the Warp Gate.  You may also kill Guard Posts, but you don't have to.  Once the Warp Gate is dead, the AI can't send waves from that planet to any of your systems next to it.  In the Galaxy Map, press W to see how many Warp Gates are next to each of your systems.  Red Number tell you the number of nearby Warp Gates you would need to kill to protect that planet.

[zoutzakje]

I'd suggest starting on a pretty low AI difficulty. At least until you know a bit what's going on and then work your way up. AI war takes quite some time to learn, even people who have played strategy games for many years have trouble with it. If you're still fairly new to gaming in general, people giving you all sorts of tactical advice probably won't do you much good. I'd say start at AI difficulty 5 or lower and just play a few games, see if you can win. Try out as many different ships, starships and structures as possible, find out what they do. Try a few Minor Factions as well with every new game you play, they prove to be quite fun. Or experiment with a few of the harder AI types a bit. And when you've won a few games, you could try something harder. Unless you don't mind losing a lot on dif 7 at first, in which case I won't stop you
I won't explain neutering and beachheading just yet, as I know it's hard to understand all of it at once. When I first started I didn't get any of it, even though I've been playing games for as long as I can remember. I tried reading the Wiki but it made little sense to me. I've learned that you learn the most from just experiencing it yourself. Make mistakes, make many mistakes and you'll get better for sure. That's how i got good at the game and I'm sure that's how most people here got good at the game.
Bottom line of AI War: Don't piss off the AI or it will piss on you. If you attack something, always be prepared for the (sometimes enormous) consequenses.

As for some of the terms...
CPA means Cross Planet Attack. I'm sure you've seen the AI send some of those already. The first one usually appears somewhere between 3-4 hours of gametime. And it'll send ships to you literally everywhere so it's hard to defend against.
HBC means Heavy Beam Cannon and they're the most powerful turret you can use. Put as many of them as you can around a single wormhole you want to defend and I'll guarantee you that they destroy entire waves on their own.

So, long story short... Just play and enjoy the game and if you have any specific questions, we'll try to answer them for you =)
Good luck ^^ Might take you a while to beat the AI at dif 7, but once you finally do pull it off it'll be a real satisfaction.

Looks like I already got ninja'd by Hearteater

[Dezdanova]

OOOOH, thank you Heart :O oooh killing the gate makes it so they cant attack from that planet? cause that would make things way easier.... i think I'm going to try that =P
I like the choke point idea and the whipping boy one, getting the computer to attack one planet sounds a lot easier to deal with.

^_^ yes those laser cannons are awesome i always unlock them, and the tacheyon sensor if i spelt that right, and the gravity turret right away, plus i tend to do the spire starship ^^ those are the things i always get evergame, i also like the mini fortresses things to but they tend to make me pretty poor when i build them at the beginning.

Thanks for telling me about how the CPA work XD evertime it happens i was always just sitting around looking for where they where attack, wondering what was taking so long =P i like to build tons of defences, I'm usually to lazy to want to pull my fleet to the planet, though again XD i was trying to take over all the planets so it was usually a pretty long ways away sometimes.

I have been trying to build a second fleet for defence mostly which hasnt been going to bad =P

^_^ thanks, Zoutzakje looks like you did to =P
Hmm, i have been thinking of trying a lower difficulty but i think ill keep up trying Diff 7 i think i can do a lot better now since i have read more, and with what i have been told here =P lol, ya i have been learning that the Ai has a short temper, or I'm just good at upsetting it one of the two =P
Ooh i was wondering about those gate raids, lets say i had 1 planet, with like 4 wormholes, if i killed the gates in all 4 connecting systems does that mean my 1 planet will never be attacked