Learning the Game

[apophispro]

I started playing AI War about a month ago. Since then I've gone through the first three in-game tutorials and some of the fourth. I read the entire wiki, and I've watched every video tutorial I can find.

The problem is I really learn best by watching or by reading about what someone does and why in a narrative form. There is no material I can find that covers any of this.

The fourth tutorial didn't really work for me. I would do much better off of being able to watch a game being played (or at least the major points sped up and summarized in how they work) and then being able to just go off on my own and do it. With the whole system of trying to read about something and do it at the same time, I didn't really feel like I was learning much. I know there will definitely be players for whom the tutorial is exactly what they need, but I just don't really learn best that way.

It's a complicated game, and I think there should be more resources to help a player to learn it than there are. Every video tutorial covers maybe the first hour of the game at most, but that's not what I'm confused about. What I really need to understand is how the game lays out in the long run. If I do this in the beginning, what happens later? Why did someone prioritize doing this instead of that?

I feel like the tutorial doesn't really say as much as people are saying it does. It certainly guides you step by step through a game, but I want to see someone's strategy play out over time and how they handle everything. That's what would help me actually learn it. As I mentioned, the video tutorials only cover the beginning except one video on youtube about 3/4 player mid-game which just runs a huge amount of stuff off in 8 minutes. All of the wiki articles are just about individual things and how they work but doesn't really talk much about how they all fit together. The only one that really covers the game as a whole is the one that compares it to chess which is along the lines of what I'm looking for but is too abstract to really be helpful.

I think this seems like a great game, and I hope no one feels like I'm attacking it. I just think there should be a little more in the way of resources to help learn the game than there are. Maybe some articles that are 2-3 pages which each lay out how a different strategy would play out over the course of a game. A series of video tutorials that covered an entire solo game and summed up each hour of gameplay in about 10 minutes would be hugely beneficial just to really get to see how things play out and how an experienced player plays.

I know these aren't things that would take just an hour to develop, and I don't know if I'm the only one who has this difficulty. In that case it probably wouldn't be worth it to produce just for one player. However if there are more who are having or did have similar difficulties then more varied introductory resources might help the new players learn the game. It might even attract more  potential players to buy the game if they could get a chance to see the strategy of the game playing out in those ways.

[Nodor]

While the After Action Reports can help you get a better feel for the game, the basis of the game is summarizable in three ships.

You start with 3 fleet ships.  The Fighter, the Bomber and the Frigate.  Fighters kill Bombers, Bombers kill Frigates, and Frigates kill Fighters.  These ships cost different resources, build at different speeds and have different energy costs.  They are different tools with different strengths and weaknesses. 

AI War is about finding the best way to counter the things the AI is throwing at you by exploiting the AI's weaknesses.  To kill AI fighters, you don't want to send bombers, you send frigates. 

Because the game is different every time due to RNG, different AI types, difficulty levels, expansion options, what you need to use to counter the AI changes from game to game.  The tactics don't change a lot.  (Counter bombers with fighters, keep ranged units at range, melee up close.) But the strategy around knowledge choices can be radically different.

[zoutzakje]

welcome to the forums =)
to be honest, I was planning to record a full 7/7 game and post it in pieces on youtube and the likes, with strategic advice of course, just because I'm a big fan of the game and would like to get more people to know and like it. But I haven't even started with this yet, so it won't help you in the near future.
And summarizing each hour worth of gameplay in 10 minutes wouldn't help much (if it's even possible). campaigns can last many many hours and there is often to much going on in the galaxy to sum it up. my own campaigns always end with at least 15 hours on the ingame clock.

I too played all the tutorials, read the entire wiki and a whole lot of forum posts before I started playing the game. But to be honest, it was all to complicated and confusing for me understand very well. In my opinion, the best way to learn this game is to play countless of games yourself. Yes, you will most likely die and lose a lot at first, as did pretty much everyone else on this forum. Just consider it a learning progress.
don't underestimate the AI. Start with low difficulty (I personally started at 1/1, though that might be a bit too low. 5/5 should get you going nicely), play against easy AI types and try out all the different minor factions and AI plots 1 by 1, not all at once. that's what I did at least.
It'll take some time, but you will learn how the game works.

and if any specific questions about the game come to mind, feel free to ask. I'm sure there are plenty of people in this community who are willing to answer your questions about this game (including me).

I hope this helps a bit =)

[apophispro]

Thanks for both of your input! Zoutzakje your idea for a tutorial sounds great. I'm thinking about at least writing a couple myself once I really get up and running with it.

I think your statement about ending with 15 hours and having too much going on is what really confuses me. I understand the interface and the basics of how to play. I have a decent idea of what everything does and is more or less used for. The problem is I really have no idea what to do with all of it.

I actually came up with basically the same plan you did. I want to play through everything turning on and off individual things with 5/5 AIs as well. I did start a game a couple of weeks ago on a 5/5 random easy AI. I realized later I should have hand-selected which AI it was so that I could start to understand their strategies. I also made the mistake of having the in-game AI identification turned off.

So I started the game, scouted the local area, made a few basic mistakes but nothing too bad (went scouting with a fleet at one point...definitely figured out why that was a bad idea), and then took a couple of local planets with strong resources. I wasn't really sure whether I should take all the planets surrounding my home planet, but I know that sort of strategy will come with time.

The issue is I hit that point and then I had no idea what to do. I'm sitting there with a 60-planet map, a few small planets that I've built defenses on, my ship caps maxed out, and no idea what to do next. There are all these things I've heard about as being important or necessary, but I don't know which I should go do or why.

For instance I know Advanced Research Stations are important because they give you new ship types, but I don't really have that internalized because I haven't encountered a situation where I need a new ship type. I know that would matter later in the game, but then I don't really know how that plays out. It seems like so many things that you do in this game are "for later" so it's really hard to play without a solid idea of how different decisions would turn out. I even went a few planets out with a small fleet to do a raid on a data center. That knocked my AI progress down to 15. At that point I was like ok my AI progress is really low now. That's a good thing because the AI won't do much to me, but now what do I do to the AI?

I seem to be at a point where I get to the end of the first phase, and I don't know where the game goes from there. Everyone says they play these incredibly long games that get so complicated, but the only thing I can think of is to maybe go find an ARS and take that. Maybe scout out where the AI core planets are. I have a general idea of where my objective is. I'm just not sure how the game is supposed to play out.

So that's really my current dilemma. What happens after I've scouted a few planets out, taken a couple of local planets, and built up some defenses? The chess article gives a lot of different things to potentially do, but I don't understand why I would do any of them or what impact they would have on the later game. Like I said in the first post, I'm really lacking an idea of the scope of the game in my head in the way that it plays out over time if I make one choice versus another. Not really in the sense of having developed my own strategy but just in the base very general sense of what to do, when, and why.

[Diazo]

I think part of the issue is that this is a sandbox game. There is no right way to play.

If you gave every player the same game saved at game start everyone would play that map differently with different strategies.

The goal is to destroy both AI homeworlds, everything else affects how you do that.

You want to keep AIP low so the AI does not attack you as hard.
You want to take systems to increase you resource base to build a bigger fleet, but taking systems increases AIP.
You want to reduce the AIP via datacenters/superterminals/co-processors but is taking the territory you need to use/destroy those worth the reduction?
You want to capture ARS to give you another ship type to increase your total fleet size, but how many systems/AIP is an ARS worth to you?
etc. etc.

There is no right answer to these questions, every player on this board would give you different answers.

Do you play a low AIP capturing the absolute minimum number of systems?
Do you play a high AIP capturing a lot of systems but giving you more map coverage?

It comes down to trying stuff out. You will develop your own strategy as you go along.

D.

[_K_]

Alright, I'm a lil bit late for the first post, but here i go anyway.

When you play AI war for the very first time (assuming you have played other RTS games and have good idea of how they work, economy and military-wise), you set the 4/4 AIs to vanilla, or even lower. And just spend a whole bunch of hours getting the "feel of the game": what things do, how ships fly and shoot, what the map is like, etc etc. I think i have spent my first few hours in AI war just on pause, reading the tooltips and then the wiki.

If you feel bored by the AI doing nothing and want to fight stuff that shoots back, you can then switch to 7/7, or maybe 6/7, or 6/6 and start your first "serious" playthrough, preferably with 1-2 minor factions to study.

But thats just general approach i used. Now, considering your current situation:
First of all, there this "Objectives" tab in the "stats" menu. Very useful to tell you about stuff you could do.
Now, the point of the game is to kill the Home AI stations, right? Well, if you have no idea what to do, just start working towards that. I mean, you are playing against a 5/5! It is quite forgiving, so can you mess up here and there, be waaaaaay away of the optimal approach, it still should be fine.

So, first you scout as far as possible and try find the AI Homes and all core shield generators if you have em enabled. Scouts getting killed? They get spotted by tachyon guard posts at the wormholes, go kill those to scout further, it costsd you no AIP as long as you dont touch the comm center and the gate. All systems scouted? Good job, read how the core shield gens work ("Objectives" has a nice explanation). Once these are done, start working towards the AI home. I mean, to kill it, you need to get your fleet in there, and for that you probably want to conquer a system nearby. 2-3 jumps away from the AI home should be fine, as taking a system right next to it will set the Home system on alert and it will start getting MKV reinforcements. So you expand to the homes, maybe take other systems to maintain decent border line and get some bonuses.
Once both homes are killable, you, well, kill them. Its often a good idea not to kill the command station in the first AI home you attack until the second AI home is ready to die.

Also, here are some things to exploit:
1: Raid starships. Those guys can hit stuff protected by shields, have very nice damage and decent health. They 1-shot data centers and co-processors, and can kill guard posts, warp gates and command centers rather quickly.
2: Transports+cloaker starships to cloak em. An awesome way to get your fleet through an enemy system without taking any damage. Just dont forget to kill the tachyon guard posts. This is the best way to get your fleet in the AI home.
3: Dyson sphere neutral faction. Read its description. The ships it produces are incredibly good, just beware of the hybrids (AI plot), they can subvert it.
4: Harvester upgrades. Right now, the best way to boost your economy is to get MKIII harvesters. They will probably get a severe nerf in the near future, so abuse em while you can.

[Cyborg]

Just read the after action reports and make sure that the difficulty is around what you play at.

[apophispro]

Hi Dazio,

Thanks for your reply. So it sounds to me like you're saying there are a lot of dynamic variables, but there is at least one that is more fixed. Ultimately I'm going to need something to destroy the AI homeworlds. So what does that look like potentially?

Lets say I start the game with a ship cap of 300 total ships and 4 each of metal and crystal harvesters. What would I ultimately have once I was ready to attack the AI? Would I need at least 30 each of metal and crystal harvesters and a fleet of 3,000 ships? Would some of the special ships in the game reduce the fleet size I would need? You seem to be simplifying the game down to some primary variables, and that makes a lot of sense. How do those variables really interact?

I'll make a quick outline.

Start: One planet. Basic Resources. Two AIs of varying types.

Goal: Destroy both AIs by defeating their core planets.

Primary Variables:

Fleet Size
AI Progress
Resources

So if we were to really simplify this and boil this down. Forget all of the factors you can potentially add into the game like factions, golems, astro trains, etc. Just at the most basic level without too many intricacies, what are the primary variables and how do they affect each other?

For instance the end game requirements might be:

Resources:
Metal Income +400
Crystal Income +400
Knowledge - How much knowledge would I have gathered over the course of the game?
Energy

Fleet:
30,000 ships

AI Progress:
Below 200

Then over the course of the game if I take a system it drives my resources up or for an ARS my fleet size but it drives AIP up as well.

This actually strikes me as being a lot like philosophy. When you deal with philosophy, you don't introduce them to everything all at once. You just kind of get them started. For instance if anyone who didn't know formal logic got all of the intricacies dumped in their lap in no particular order, they would have no idea what to do. When you learn formal logic you kind of learn that there are genuses and species and definitions to start. You learn that there are some basic rules for those, and then you learn the myriads of problems with those rules later. You couldn't just jump up to the highest level of epistemology right off the bat. You have to learn how it's simple first even though it's really not. Then you can learn how it's complex.

So I can tell that AI War is pretty similar. Everything really has an alternate way of going about it. Chances are there's even some way to defeat the AI with a much smaller fleet size than most people would use. All of the variables affect each other in nearly incalculable ways, and so on. However is there a way to simplify the variables into an endgame goal and a set of rules for how they affect each other that is relatively accurate despite the fact that later on you will learn all kinds of ways to toy with those rules? I'm sure with certain types of AIs or other options those rules would already be broken.

What I'm getting at here is it seems like you're saying that there are no rules because the rules that there are can be broken in an infinite number of ways. However if you learn about definitions in formal logic, there are a set of rules that we can assign to being the standard for the concept of definitions as a whole. Then we talk about all the ways that they can be broken. Is there a set of rules like that for AI War that kind of define the gameplay as a whole?

[apophispro]

Hi K,

I completely forgot about the objectives tab. I remember reading about that somewhere. I'll have to take a look at that.

So two points in your post confuse me. The first one is what is it that ends up taking over 10 hours? The objective seems so simple. I think that's a big part of the reason that I got to that point and felt so confused on what to do. I'd heard from so much of what I'd read that I couldn't just go straight for the core worlds, but I didn't know what else I was supposed to be doing. Every other goal other than going for the core worlds is flexible? It's just the difficulty of accomplishing that which makes the game last so long?

The second point is about capturing planets. I know this is sort of guerrilla warfare, but even in guerrilla war you wouldn't leave yourself in defenseless islands cut off from all sides. That seems to be a primary part of this game though. For instance starting out in the game I spotted a planet two jumps away from my home planet which had a large amount of resources. My immediate question was do I take that planet while leaving the planet between me and it? If these AIs are so strong and cunning especially at the higher levels (which they obviously are), how can I ever hope to defend all of these island planets? Is building defenses for each of them really going to cut it? Also I have a limited amount of ships, and do I need to be dividing them up to defend the planets I have? Sorry, the proper word seems to be systems here, and I keep using planets.

I scout out away from me in the beginning of the game. Now do I take the neighboring systems to my home system as a defense even if they suck for resources? Is that necessary or optional? Then it seems like every other system I'm going to take is going to be largely out on its own. The ARStations won't likely be right next to my home system either. It just seems like no matter what strategy I was going to use that by the end of the game I'm going to end up looking like a series of very small islands in a sea of AI. Of course that goes against every RTS instinct I have where the goal is always to build as strong of a base as possible. In almost any other RTS I've played going around and building little mini-bases around things that I liked would be suicide.

Thanks for your post!

[Diazo]

Alright.

I'll give you a quick run down on how I start a game. Note that I am one of the more defensively minded players on the board, but that's not a bad thing as that gives you more depth to recover from any mistakes.

It also leads to a longer game as consequence however.

First, conquer every system adjacent to your homeworld, I want that defensive depth.
Second, scout out as many hops as you can to get the lay of the land. An easy trick is to stick the scouts in transports, that usually gets them a hop or two further then they do on their own.
Third depends on what you find. I play with Core Sheild Generators enabled so I have to deal with those before I go after the home worlds.

When I don't have an obvious target, I look at the map and guess where the AI homeworlds are, then I pick a system 2 or 3 hops out, depending on the map, and conquer it, the repeat the scouting process from my new base.

It all depends on how you value the different structures in your own strategy you will develop.
Note that the AI (generally) does not make unannounced attacks if all the minor factions are off so you have warning to prepare your defences when a wave or cross-planet attack comes in.

[_K_]

what is it that ends up taking over 10 hours?

Well, lets see. 30 minutes to scout around and build everything up. Conquer the systems around your home so that the AI waves need to at least travel 1 system before reaching your home. Thats like 30 minutes. Then you spend like 30-60 minutes per system, because you need to defend against waves here and there, raid the data centers, kill AI eyes, raid for knowledge maybe, etc. And you end up with like 16 systems. With 30 minutes per system thats already 9 hours. Then you start preparing to go for the AI homes. Clean up the tachyons, ready your fleet, etc: takes a while as well. Plus, at any time you might lose your fleet to something and have to rebuild, your territory might suffer to some especially vicious attacks and you might have to spend 40 minutes rebuilding, and so on.

The second point is about capturing planets. I know this is sort of guerrilla warfare, but even in guerrilla war you wouldn't leave yourself in defenseless islands cut off from all sides

On 5/5, you should absolutely have no problem controlling 20 systems, given you kill the data centers and other AIP reducers. Even 30 would probably be fine. So you can take like 14 as your core worlds, getting income, knowledge and different bonuses, setting up a tight perimeter, and then take the rest as "tentacles" growing out towards the AI homes. Also, the number of resources is of secondary importance. ARS, Adv Factories and research allow you to have stronger fleet. Resources just help you rebuild it faster.

So it sounds to me like you're saying there are a lot of dynamic variables, but there is at least one that is more fixed. Ultimately I'm going to need something to destroy the AI homeworlds. So what does that look like potentially?

Brace for sentences riddled wih "Depends". The max AI Progress depends on its level and the shape of your territory. If the map is such that you got just 2-3 chokepoint planets with the rest being safe, you can survive quite large levels of AIP. If your defences are spread thinly, it will be much harder. I was playing 7/8 and was doing fine against 200 AIP with very thin defences and minor factions messing me up. With 5/5 you should be fine at 400, probably even more.

Fleet strength? First of all, try to get an advanced factory, it lets you build MKIV ships once you research the MKIII's. MKII has 2x better stats than MKI. MKIV has 4x better stats  so they boost your fleet a lot. Be sure to get MKIV bombers, as these are good against fortresses and shields - the things that take AGES to kill, as well as many other things. 2-3 bonus ship types are fun, maybe even less. You get MKII of these for free, so you only need to research MKIII and you can build MKIV's at the adv fac. If you put a scout in the AI home, you can see how many ships it has. If you havent alerted it, it will probably have way under 200, probably under 100. And you are gonna have more than 1000, probably way more than 1000. Thats enough to overwhelm the 200 ships at home. Home guard posts are a joke, just slightly stronger than the regular ones. Fortresses are a pain. Bombers are almost immune to fortress fire. Use bombers to kill fortresses, keep the rest of your fleet out of fortress' range, as it deals loads of damage. Kill everything except the home station, go for the other home. Kill the second station, quickly finish off the first station. "YOU WIN".

[apophispro]

Alright this is starting to make some sense. I'm going to have to go actually try out everything you're all saying to see if I can associate it in practice. Thanks for the help everyone! I'll be back to this thread if I have some more beginner questions. Of course if anyone has more to add to the posts already made please do. New perspectives are always great, and I'll keep checking the thread to see.

[Diazo]

Oh, perhaps the biggest thing you should know about is the speed increase.

You can hit + to increase the speed and - to decrease it, that helps cut down the waiting periods in real time when you are waiting for an AI wave to hit before you take your fleet on the attack and at other times you are waiting on something to happen.

D.

[Wanderer]

Let's see if I can shed some light.  Also, if you're interested in a more tactical approach to how the game is played, you might try going to the After Action Reports area and reading through a couple of the AARs.  I've got two that you might be interested in, the AI 9 through 10 run where I describe at a high level a number of different tactics I use through the game, and Disposable heroes, where I break down actions (sometimes to the minute) in an incredibly fast-paced game with overpowered ships.

There are only two critical components to this game, everything else is a tool in your hands to achieve it.
1) Find and destroy the AI Homeworld Command Stations
2) Do not lose your own Homeworld Command Station

EVERYTHING else in this game is a tool to those objectives.  Either it's hurting you protecting your homeworld or it's helping you defeat the AI Homeworlds.  A lot of those come in at oblique angles.  For example, one of the options out there is the Neinzul Protectorate, who attack you if your economy is too high.  This will affect you sideways because you can't rebuild as quickly if you hit their tipping points of when they will start hammering at you, or you need to increase your defenses.

So, with that in mind, everything else builds you towards the final objective.

Now, by default, Core Shield Generators are on.  What these do is force you to take a certain # of worlds to destroy them.  You need to take all but one of the A-Class CSGs which are also stacked up with ARSs, so you get more fleet ships.   The rest as long as you kill one you're golden.  There's A through E to destroy.

Then you need to handle the homeworlds.  The homeworlds have a number of guardposts on them that all must be destroyed before you can destroy the final command station.  These are protected by numerous ships far above your ability to produce, thus you'll need a powerful fleet (how powerful will depend on your AI levels and how often you annoyed it for reinforcements) to get in there and do enough damage that you've pushed forward towards the goal of killing it.

The balance in this game comes from riding the line between getting enough power to kill off the Homeworlds and not getting the AI annoyed enough (AIP, or AI Progress) that it overwhelms you during that buildup phase.  You'll need to take 'jump' worlds, so that you're not doing deepstrikes with your fleet (over 4 systems away from a friendly/neutral planet).  You'll need to take Factory IV worlds so that your MK III researched ships can also be produced as MK IVs, giving you that much more firepower when you go in after the enemy (Besides, there's B-Class CSG on each Fact IV, two for one!).

The game, as I like to call it, is making your OWN objectives to reach the final goal.  You're trying to consume the game all at once.  This won't work well, as you've found.  Relax a little.  Start with taking the systems around your homeworld as a safety buffer.  Move to going for one of a kind resources, like Advanced Research Stations and Factory IVs.  Continue to scout as deeply as you can.  Use your fleet to open roads for your scouts to get deeper into the galaxy, so you can eventually find the AI HWs.  Use turrets and other stationary defenders to protect your satellite worlds, or take over entire swaths of the galaxy and have a huge war on your hands.  Depends on your idea of 'fun'.   Fun for me is driving Keith (one of the developers) a little nuts by doing off-the-wall stuff that works.

So, take the game in pieces.  First, get your econ strong enough that you're not permanently waiting for resources while trying to build your fleet up enough to attack systems.  Then get your fleet strong enough to attack the homeworlds by taking whatever out there gives you a stronger fleet.  Finally, go blow up an AI or two.

Other than that... welcome to our little corner of the universe.  Stay for the insanity, enjoy the tacos.

[apophispro]

Wow, thanks Wanderer! That's very helpful. I don't think I have any questions on that at the moment. Except for one extremely pertinent question, how did you know about the tacos?! Seriously I've been craving mexican food for like two days now, and there's a little taco place a couple of miles from where I live that I've been wanting to try. So thanks for torturing me. :-)