How to best get started with AI War?

[Warpstorm]

Should I start with no expansions or dive in with everything or some other choice?  Any general tips?

[keith.lamothe]

Welcome to the game

If you haven't done the tutorial, then I definitely suggest playing that through to the end of the intermediate tutorial.

After that for most people my suggestion is to use the Beginner Game option for the lobby's "Setup Script" dropdown (it mentions that at the end of the tutorial, and when you enter the lobby the first time).  That gives you a low-difficulty, low-extras setup that you can basically just hit start and play.  Even there, expect to lose at least one game before winning

You can have all the expansions on and that will still be reasonable, though it will be even plainer vanilla with no expansions on.


Alternatively you can just pick diff 7 and turn everything on and die repeatedly until you've mastered the chaos.  That's actually been done, but I suspect not all personalities incline towards enjoying that process.

[Aklyon]

Keep Core Shield Generators on if you want to have the game give you an objectives. Turn them off if you want to make the objectives yourself.

[ZaneWolfe]

Welcome to the game

If you haven't done the tutorial, then I definitely suggest playing that through to the end of the intermediate tutorial.

Alternatively you can just pick diff 7 and turn everything on and die repeatedly until you've mastered the chaos.  That's actually been done, but I suspect not all personalities incline towards enjoying that process.

For starters, as Keith said, welcome to the AI War. The tutorials will teach you a LOT about the game, I always recommend to people that they use them. After that, up to you. I used the alternative option Keith mentioned, though I started at diff 5 and worked up from there. Once you've got a handle on things, there is a little game option called Fallen Spire...

[Draco18s]

TBH, I'd enable the exapansions just for the additional map types: concentric and clusters are two of my favorites.  You can easily leave the additional minor factions and AI plots turned off, the increase in available unit types isn't going to overwhelm you (there's something like 100 in the base game alone, what's another 100?  You can also selectively disable classes of units; e.g. teleporting, cloaking, etc. to simplify things, I believe there's also a dropdown that does something similar).  You'll also have a wider variety of AI types to pick from, though I'd suggest individually picking from the Easier list and not turning on random types until you're ready (if you do, it's also a good idea to turn on 'reveal random AI types' if it isn't enabled by default).

[Cyborg]

Turn off csg if you want an open world that is not on rails. If you want to be told what planets you need to take, turn them on.

[Draco18s]

Turn off csg if you want an open world that is not on rails. If you want to be told what planets you need to take, turn them on.

To be fair, most of them are planets you'd want to take anyway.
(The A network is seeded on the ARS worlds, which you pretty much want to take all the time, no matter what.)

[Peter Ebbesen]

• Play the tutorial. Make sure to have a strongly defended planet between your homeworld and the AI's homeworld. That way, should your initial attack on its homeworld fail and it send out strong strong response (In my tutorial game they had Neinzul cockroaches, which was slightly problematic for a new player), you'll easily be able to stop any type of retaliation short of your homeworld and try again, taking out key objectives one at a time.
• Update to the newest beta, if you haven't already. Hacking is fun, crystal is gone, and salvage ensures less downtime watching paint dry.
  
• Read Kanuha's thread here. It gives basic pointers on how to set up strong defenses and gives settings for playing an enjoyable newbie game.
• Once the Zenith Trader visits your homeworld, order its best goodies in places the AI won't immediately reach when it is getting shredded by the rest of your defenses and put them on standby, then continue construction on them whenever you are at the resource cap. The Ion Cannons are mostly fluff - you'll be fighting so many AI ships that their kills become fairly irrelevant compared to what the rest of your defenses can do - but everything helps, so at least get the Mk. I's up and running early on, though the other high priorities are reducing enemy firing range (obvious), getting and getting Orbital Mass Bombards up and running to take out starships; Finally the superfortress is awesome, but it has so high a price tag that you are much better off building anything immediately useful and cheaper first. DO THIS and your homeworld will stand against anything but an exceptionally sustained AI effort, which means that you'll have lots of room to experiment.
• Do note that I strongly advocate starting on 7/7 with something like The Tank and Vanilla AIs like I did a few weeks ago rather than starting on 6/6, as 7/7 is pretty easy. (I am assured that this is a temporary occurrence due to recent changes and that the difficulty will rise again)
• You get four basic shiptypes (scouts, fighters, bombers, missile frigates) and one bonus shiptype chosen at start. You can change which bonus shiptype you get on a given planet on the start screen (once updated to the betas) by rightclicking a planet in the game setup and selecting from a list. Snipers and Sentinel Frigates are very newbie friendly unlocks.
• You start with 10k knowledge and will gain a further 3k from your homeworld before you need to conquer for more knowledge. A general-purpose setup that will result in an incredibly safe starting position and make conquest easy is to unlock Military Command Stations II and III (4k + 5k), mark II of your chosen bonus shiptype (2.5k), Neinzul Enclave Starship mk. II (1k) and the Heavy Beam Cannon mk. I (0.5k). A Flagship starship, full caps of all the basic shiptypes Mk I, and Mk. I and II of your chosen bonus ship and Neinzul Enclave Starships is a very powerful early-game force indeed, to which you can add the rest of the Starships you have unlocked from start as resources allow. The first starships to add after Flagship and Neinzul Enclaves would be the RIOT Starships Mk. I in a configuration that supports your chosen bonus ship type. (If you choose Snipers or Sentinel Frigates as suggested, that would be the default Stand-Off configuration).
• Enjoy.
• Restart the game with other settings once you win or think you are ready to explore more under less safe conditions.

[keith.lamothe]

Turn off csg if you want an open world that is not on rails. If you want to be told what planets you need to take, turn them on.

To be fair, most of them are planets you'd want to take anyway.
(The A network is seeded on the ARS worlds, which you pretty much want to take all the time, no matter what.)

Well, he's right, the main reason a new player would want CSGs on is "to be told what planets you need to take"

But feel free to turn them off if you ever get tired of them.

[Draco18s]

Turn off csg if you want an open world that is not on rails. If you want to be told what planets you need to take, turn them on.

To be fair, most of them are planets you'd want to take anyway.
(The A network is seeded on the ARS worlds, which you pretty much want to take all the time, no matter what.)

Well, he's right, the main reason a new player would want CSGs on is "to be told what planets you need to take"

But feel free to turn them off if you ever get tired of them.

It's the newbie way of saying "hey, this planet is probably one you should be taking," then, I guess.
I still have them on because for me it forces me to take some planets I wouldn't normally take (the C, D, and E networks).  Notably though...I haven't won a game since before the transport nerf....

[Vinraith]

It's the newbie way of saying "hey, this planet is probably one you should be taking," then, I guess.
I still have them on because for me it forces me to take some planets I wouldn't normally take (the C, D, and E networks).  Notably though...I haven't won a game since before the transport nerf....

This is exactly why I leave them on. It's an additional wrinkle in the "what planets do I really need to take?" puzzle. I actually find that, for me, they make the game harder in an interesting way.

[Aklyon]

I just think they're annoying. But they have a decent use for what they are.

[Wingflier]

Buy all the expansions, turn everything you possibly can. Pick 4 Technologist AIs, put them all on 10 difficulty. Turn on all the minor factions, put them to 10, enable the AI modifiers as well. Finally, make sure you've enabled all the AI Plots on both sides to 10. Those are important for having a fair and balanced game.

After you've done all this, pick autocannon minipods as your bonus ship and feel free to start.

If you can last for an hour without losing your Homeworld, you'll know everything there is to know about AI War. Just make sure you bring a pillow to cry into.

[Draco18s]

You are a terrible, terrible person.