Poll: Should AI homeworlds be buffed? If so, How?

[Trandrin]

Just a thought that came to me. Many people point out when you have super weapons/cheese,the assault on the home world can be marginally to extremely easier. But what if you lack those very strong ace in the hole types and the AI home world is still beefed out to slay them. Might make a hard battle frustrating.

And if all the special forces jump to and defend the AI home worlds that can turn out to be a pretty hairy situation.

[chemical_art]

It definitely is a catch.

On the one hand I want to buff the ai response to the superweapons, but on the other hand the superweapons don't feel that much like superweapons if the ai just responses with a similar response.

Some superweapons also have a very niche purpose that just happens to be useful in homeworld assault. Spire rams and penetrators are usually sup par units, but shine in the homeworld assault. Just because they are good for the last 3% of the game, should be they still be nerfed?

If the ai spawns guardians on core worlds in response to golems, are the golems still a super weapon or a liability? For you still pay for the golems and any other ai response, and if you lose the golem you are then stuck with an even stronger homeworld with no response to it.

[Lancefighter]

Well... It used to be that merely repairing a golem cost aip, with huge amounts of aip on both it completing and it getting destroyed..

That was a truly amazing age (read: Nobody ever built golems) It was such a liability, that they were basically completely ignored. As a matter of fact, back then, 'control nodes' were invented JUST to stop golems from being built. (soon to blossom into the ctrl page we have today)

Ok, I might be exaggerating a little bit. But there were some really strong disincentives for using golems at all.

[TechSY730]

Well... It used to be that merely repairing a golem cost aip, with huge amounts of aip on both it completing and it getting destroyed..

That was a truly amazing age (read: Nobody ever built golems) It was such a liability, that they were basically completely ignored. As a matter of fact, back then, 'control nodes' were invented JUST to stop golems from being built. (soon to blossom into the ctrl page we have today)

Ok, I might be exaggerating a little bit. But there were some really strong disincentives for using golems at all.

Oh yea, I remember that.

And then someone discovered that EMP absorb restored HP in a way that didn't count as repairing, and thus didn't trigger the AIP on repair logic. So by detonating an EMP warhead on the planet, you could repair the broken golem without incurring AIP beyond the cost of detonating the warhead.
And then that was nerfed from EMP absorb to EMP immunity, and people stopped using golems again.

[Toranth]

On the one hand I want to buff the ai response to the superweapons, but on the other hand the superweapons don't feel that much like superweapons if the ai just responses with a similar response.

Exowaves aren't enough?! 

In general, by the time you are ready to take on the Homeworlds, you have a solid economic base and you've captured at least 4 ARSs just because of the CSGs.  Beyond that, you likely have a FacIV or a few Fabs.  With your K, you've probably upgraded a few ships, too.  When you take ALL of that, and throw it at one system, you really SHOULD win.  That battle, at least.

However, I think what offends me (a little) is that it is easy to cheese the homeworld.  Primarily, this seems to involve cloaking.  Cloaking and Enclaves, cloaking and raiding the Core Guardposts one by one, cloaking and Sprie Rams, Cloaking Spire Penetrators...

I think, then, that the best way to fix this perceived 'weakness' of the homeworlds is to do something about cloaking.  Having constant Tachyon bursts seems overkill, though, since it completely ruins ANY cloaking unit.  Same with adding an invincible CounterSpy or something similar.  What we need is something that allows cloaking units to keep their abilities (and usefulness) during "real" attacks, but not allow a cloaked unit to just hang around later.

Unfortunately, the only thing I can think of would be to have a timer that causes the AI Home Command Station to shoot and kill any cloaked unit after X time in system.  It's quite arbitrary, and I'm not sure you could exclude scouts from that.

Overall, though, I'm not convinced there's much that NEEDS to be done.  In many cases, players could fix these issues by just turning on Hybrids.

[keith.lamothe]

I don't know that you're exaggerating, Golems for a long time were the "why on earth would I use these?" unit of AIW for most players.  Some people enjoyed them, but mostly they really were ignored because they were punishing to use.

The AIP wasn't even the worst of it, in my opinion: that was the bit where the AI would get multiplied reinforcements on the planet you were attacking with the golem, and would instantly reinforce the planet when you showed up.  And if the golem was on one of your planets, waves against that planet were multiplied.

It really felt like a treadmill: I just got this awesome unit, but you're spawning units faster than I can kill them in response!

I think there was also a period of less punishing penalties, but way lower stats for the golems to the point that they didn't feel all that special.

The key brilliant insight Chris had after 3 or so reworks of golems was to make them a minor faction, so they no longer had to be part of every game, and thus no longer had to be totally balanced with everything else.  That was the dawn of a new era

[TechSY730]

I don't know that you're exaggerating, Golems for a long time were the "why on earth would I use these?" unit of AIW for most players.  Some people enjoyed them, but mostly they really were ignored because they were punishing to use.

The AIP wasn't even the worst of it, in my opinion: that was the bit where the AI would get multiplied reinforcements on the planet you were attacking with the golem, and would instantly reinforce the planet when you showed up.  And if the golem was on one of your planets, waves against that planet were multiplied.

It really felt like a treadmill: I just got this awesome unit, but you're spawning units faster than I can kill them in response!

I think there was also a period of less punishing penalties, but way lower stats for the golems to the point that they didn't feel all that special.

The key brilliant insight Chris had after 3 or so reworks of golems was to make them a minor faction, so they no longer had to be part of every game, and thus no longer had to be totally balanced with everything else.  That was the dawn of a new era

Once again showing why Chris deserves to be the head honcho around here. (Well, that and the whole founding the company thing...)

Anyways, I forgot about the insta reinforcement thing.

Actually, that could make a good way to buff homeworlds. Once you enter the planet (maybe only for the first time, maybe every time, maybe every time with a cooldown), they get a free, one planet reinforcement cycle immediately on that planet.

Or, that could make a nifty new brutal pick structure. It would be like a raid engine or CPA guard post, with similar trigger and cooldown mechanics, but when it triggers, it gives the planet it is on an instant reinforcement "cycle"

[Lancefighter]

Well, i meant more exaggerating on the other bits. Id also completely forgotten about the reinforcements increase..

But I thought ctrls were made for something else mainly, but I'm not entirely sure(it was a long long time ago..)

And yeah, splitting them into plots was probably the biggest boon to their use. Although the exo-waves certainly dont pull any punches..

[LaughingThesaurus]

What if the AI just had a couple of superweapons of its own waiting on its homeworld if you had that minor faction enabled? Seems the AI would be smart enough to realize "Hey, there's a big ship that hits 50 things at once, let's not throw 50 little ships at it. How about one HUGE ship?" Or, to prevent it from getting too ridiculous (I don't have a golem, how do I win?), the AI would have some sort of once-only warp in on each homeworld of a superweapon designed to fend off the golem(s). Surely the AI has the resources for that, given the whole nature of the game. They respond in kind to what the humans do.
"You've got an atomic bomb? It's okay, I've got a nuke stashed around the corner."

Off the subject of superweapons, I read about the really old AI War blogs, about fuzzy logic and about predictability being the thing that kills RTS. AI War is certainly far from predictable in many ways, but wouldn't you say the idea of baiting ships into your turret lines is a bit too predictable? If released threat wasn't as predictable, people couldn't exploit and abuse it quite so much. Released threat could be smarter, or just do something other than beeline for enemy planets. Random chance of sticking around, random chance of going on defensive patrols, random chance of joining special forces, or something similar.

[chemical_art]

Apparently I'm not being clear:

I'm not in favor of the ai directly getting more defenses to superweapons, I've always been against it. I favor more offensive methods which exo waves cover nicely.

[TechSY730]

I posted the idea to give freed more possible actions: 9465: Give Freed AI Ships more possible actions

[Diazo]

A comment back in the thread about defenses taking more military might then the HW assult gave me a thought.

When an AI homeworld is on alert, waves sent by that AI spawn from the Exo-Galactic wormhole in the Homeworld system rather then at an AI gate like normal, maybe with a "Homeworld Defence" bonus?

This changes the game in that you are moving the battlefield to the AI homeworld.

CPA's and waves from the other AI would continue as normal however so you can't ignore your defences at your own worlds.

D.

[Faulty Logic]

I wonder about the AI initializing a Cross-Planet Defence, where it frees a bunch of ships which then run the attacked HW.

[Lancefighter]

What about a sort of special forces post specifically for homeworld defense? Or maybe not guard post as much as barracks.. The idea being, these barracks would sit with a bunch of mk5 units in them until the homeworlds get attacked, at which point they start popping and sending units to *defend* the homeworld.

If nothing else, it would employ similar mechanics as the core shield generators and possibly require people to look for them and destroy them individually before assaulting the homeworlds.. which may be a good thing?

[LaughingThesaurus]

What about a sort of special forces post specifically for homeworld defense? Or maybe not guard post as much as barracks.. The idea being, these barracks would sit with a bunch of mk5 units in them until the homeworlds get attacked, at which point they start popping and sending units to *defend* the homeworld.

If nothing else, it would employ similar mechanics as the core shield generators and possibly require people to look for them and destroy them individually before assaulting the homeworlds.. which may be a good thing?

Ooh, I actually like this a whole lot more than outright making the homeworld invulnerable. Some kind of Core Defense Force setup, where the defense force will all break free and attack AND defend when a homeworld is put on alert. Or, if you hunt down and kill the defense forces, the ships inside all self destruct. Instead of holding the player back directly, it'd be more like attacking the homeworld could very well be pushing the suicide button if you haven't scoured the galaxy, but only if your defenses are even slightly not solid.