Overwhelmed by special forces at the start of a game

[HellishFiend]

Using 3.0. The save speaks for itself.... Within ~5 minutes of starting this game I had 200+ special forces at my home planet.

[Kjara]

Making it past that initial hurdle is the toughest part of special forces.  Once you get past that, and take out your first planet on a loop, they are pretty much beat.

[HellishFiend]

They are not special forces-heavy AI types, though. Pretty sure it's a glitch.

[Kjara]

Ah, thought it was the special forces ai, my mistake.  Sounds like a bug yeah .

[x4000]

Ah -- looks like this is because of the Turtle there happening to have special forces posts on all the adjacent planets.  This means that when the turtle gets his oversized reinforcements, that is also making for oversized special forces -- you'll never see true waves from the turtles, but these special forces are something that, depending on the map seed, may be more or less strong.  Looks like mainly you got extremely unlucky with the map seed for the turtle.

[HellishFiend]

Ok, well, I guess this isn't really a bug then... But it sure felt like one!

[Cydonia]

Looks like mainly you got extremely unlucky with the map seed for the turtle.

Well, this might be a bit off topic, but I'm wondering about the map seed.
The positions of the planets and the wormhole connections are specific to a seed, I get that.

Is the individual planet-setup also predefined regarding number of resources and position of res. and wormholes? Or do you get totally different planets every time you load the same seed?

[x4000]

Yep, all of that stuff is the same with the map seed, assuming:

1. You use the same AI types.
2. You use the same starting position.
3. You use the same "available ships" and minor factions.
4. You have the same number of players.
5. You use the same version of AI War.

Those are in order of important.  In other words, the differences between different versions of AI War are often the most minor thing, whereas the difference by using different AI Types is often the most major.  But even when all of the above are different, the position of things like wormholes and resources is identical.  Having a different number of players will cause there to be more resource spots on all planets, and choosing a different home planet causes there to be way more resources on that planet specifically.  Choosing a different home planet also affects the position that the AIs will choose for their own home planets.

[eRe4s3r]

So are Distribution Nodes and their chance for infection / Golems and Resistence and where they appear \ stuck to the seed as well? Or is that truly random?

[x4000]

So are Distribution Nodes and their chance for infection / Golems and Resistence and where they appear \ stuck to the seed as well? Or is that truly random?

All of those things, plus any other capturables, are part of the seed.  Again, those will vary by the above factors in addition to the seed, but that's all.  The seed is meant to create an entire scenario, and the nodes and golems part of it.

Although: the chance for "realtime" events are completely random, and not part of the scenario. So, whether or not a distribution node turns out to be infected, when marauders or resistance fighters appear, where the AI attacks and how it reinforces (basically everything the AI does after the initial population of the map), etc.

In other words, the at game second zero, everything that exists on the map is affected by the seed.  After game second zero, nothing more is.