This AI is awesome.

[TechSY730]

Alright, I was sending in a guerrilla raid of bombers to take care of a fortress, with a few escorts so they don't all get killed along the way. It was going pretty well until most of the bombers and many of my escorts just died for some reason. I was wondering what in the world just happened, and then I looked in the side bar. Turns out a self destruct guardian intercepted my little raid and basically stopped it. My metal supplies really took a beating as I rebuilt my bombers (This was still pretty early game).

Sometimes the AI knows just where and how to strike to shut down your efforts.

P.S. Sorry for the double post.

[Ranakastrasz]

P.S. Sorry for the double post.

You could actually use the delete option, and copy the new info into your old post.

Alright, I was sending in a guerrilla raid of bombers to take care of a fortress, with a few escorts so they don't all get killed along the way. It was going pretty well until most of the bombers and many of my escorts just died for some reason. I was wondering what in the world just happened, and then I looked in the side bar. Turns out a self destruct guardian intercepted my little raid and basically stopped it. My metal supplies really took a beating as I rebuilt my bombers (This was still pretty early game).

Sometimes the AI knows just where and how to strike to shut down your efforts.

I haven't met any self destruct guardians, however, I will regardless suggest you check the planet summery better first (before starting the raid), as certain guardians (Looking at you EMP guardian) can lose you the game if you piss them off, or at least put you in a really bad situation. (your command stations don't last long under bombardment by even AI fighters without force fields. that is how I lost my last game, I learned my lesson.)

[Nalgas]

Turns out a self destruct guardian intercepted my little raid and basically stopped it. My metal supplies really took a beating as I rebuilt my bombers (This was still pretty early game).

Now that's just mean.  I hate how you think you have everything planned out, and your resources are balanced juuuust right, and then you unexpectedly lose a huge chunk of bombers or something else vitally important and extremely heavy on one resource (especially if your starting bonus ship is useful and also leans that way) and throws everything off while you're stuck reorganizing everything to compensate.  Except I don't really hate it that much, because that's the kind of stuff that keeps things interesting (at least as long as it's fair and my fault for not noticing it and dealing with it properly).

I haven't met any self destruct guardians, however, I will regardless suggest you check the planet summery better first (before starting the raid), as certain guardians (Looking at you EMP guardian) can lose you the game if you piss them off, or at least put you in a really bad situation. (your command stations don't last long under bombardment by even AI fighters without force fields. that is how I lost my last game, I learned my lesson.)

I don't at all mean this to be rude or critical, so please don't take it that way, but I just find it amusing to see someone making basic gameplay suggestions to a guy who's spent nearly as much time playing the game as the devs.  To be fair, though, I haven't seen him around on here as much lately, so newer members probably don't all know him yet.  Heh.

And yeah, EMP guardians are all kinds of evil when they catch you off guard.  I've had some good times with them that totally would fit right in with the stories in this thread, like the literal train of EMP guardians that ran through multiple systems in this game a few months ago.  I don't think I would've been able to hold that off without the Fallen Spire stuff.  In a regular game, the AI sending EMP guardians to multiple systems in a row after already having used one to wipe out a good chunk of my fleet would be more than enough to take any depth that remained out of "defense in depth".

[Ranakastrasz]

I haven't met any self destruct guardians, however, I will regardless suggest you check the planet summery better first (before starting the raid), as certain guardians (Looking at you EMP guardian) can lose you the game if you piss them off, or at least put you in a really bad situation. (your command stations don't last long under bombardment by even AI fighters without force fields. that is how I lost my last game, I learned my lesson.)

I don't at all mean this to be rude or critical, so please don't take it that way, but I just find it amusing to see someone making basic gameplay suggestions to a guy who's spent nearly as much time playing the game as the devs.  To be fair, though, I haven't seen him around on here as much lately, so newer members probably don't all know him yet.  Heh.

I suppose I ought to know whether someone is a long time community member, however, I know that post count is not a direct measurement, but is related. If star count is not actually directly related to post count, I could assume that anyone with more stars that me is a longer time community member than I am. I am not sure what I should do to avoid this type of situation in the future.

[BobTheJanitor]

I suppose I ought to know whether someone is a long time community member, however, I know that post count is not a direct measurement, but is related. If star count is not actually directly related to post count, I could assume that anyone with more stars that me is a longer time community member than I am. I am not sure what I should do to avoid this type of situation in the future.

It's hard to tell, really. I've only been around since January of this year, but I just don't know when to shut-up, as evidenced by my overblown post count. The forums might have some option to turn on registration dates to show with posts, maybe that would help. Although what would be more fun is if there were a way to show total hours played for AI War next to each person's post. But then, you could only really get that from Steam players.

[TechSY730]

I haven't met any self destruct guardians

They only show up on difficulty 8 or higher, IIRC.

I will regardless suggest you check the planet summery better first (before starting the raid)

You're right, newbie mistake there. I tend to forget to analyze in detail what the enemy has before constructing my guerrilla raids. If I had saw that self destruct guardian, I would of sent in something that could take it out from a distance first.

I haven't met any self destruct guardians, however, I will regardless suggest you check the planet summery better first (before starting the raid), as certain guardians (Looking at you EMP guardian) can lose you the game if you piss them off, or at least put you in a really bad situation. (your command stations don't last long under bombardment by even AI fighters without force fields. that is how I lost my last game, I learned my lesson.)

I don't at all mean this to be rude or critical, so please don't take it that way, but I just find it amusing to see someone making basic gameplay suggestions to a guy who's spent nearly as much time playing the game as the devs.  To be fair, though, I haven't seen him around on here as much lately, so newer members probably don't all know him yet.  Heh.

I suppose I ought to know whether someone is a long time community member, however, I know that post count is not a direct measurement, but is related. If star count is not actually directly related to post count, I could assume that anyone with more stars that me is a longer time community member than I am. I am not sure what I should do to avoid this type of situation in the future.

Don't worry about it. Even "long time" players like me sometimes forget simple stuff and make "newbie" mistakes, as evidenced above. Even the best of players need to be reminded of the basics every now and then.

Besides, I'm not as much of a veteran as some players. I know that there are a few people here that were around in the 1.x versions, and several that were around in the 2.x versions. I only started at around 3.1, and joined the forms in the last 3.x beta period.

EDIT:

To be fair, though, I haven't seen him around on here as much lately, so newer members probably don't all know him yet.  Heh.

After I won my first game a couple months ago (yea, it took me like 800 hours of playing just to get my first solo win.  ), I decided to take a break from playing AI war "seriously". Now I'm getting back into again, so expect to see me around more again. 

[Ranakastrasz]

I haven't met any self destruct guardians

They only show up on difficulty 8 or higher, IIRC.

That explains it, I have only played on 7 so far, and its quite difficult already.

I will regardless suggest you check the planet summery better first (before starting the raid)

You're right, newbie mistake there. I tend to forget to analyze in detail what the enemy has before constructing my guerrilla raids. If I had saw that self destruct guardian, I would of sent in something that could take it out from a distance first.

I was actually slightly incorrect. I played again today, and apparently it just says *guardians* which means you have to have a scout there currently, and check the sidebar for them.

I haven't met any self destruct guardians, however, I will regardless suggest you check the planet summery better first (before starting the raid), as certain guardians (Looking at you EMP guardian) can lose you the game if you piss them off, or at least put you in a really bad situation. (your command stations don't last long under bombardment by even AI fighters without force fields. that is how I lost my last game, I learned my lesson.)

I don't at all mean this to be rude or critical, so please don't take it that way, but I just find it amusing to see someone making basic gameplay suggestions to a guy who's spent nearly as much time playing the game as the devs.  To be fair, though, I haven't seen him around on here as much lately, so newer members probably don't all know him yet.  Heh.

I suppose I ought to know whether someone is a long time community member, however, I know that post count is not a direct measurement, but is related. If star count is not actually directly related to post count, I could assume that anyone with more stars that me is a longer time community member than I am. I am not sure what I should do to avoid this type of situation in the future.

Don't worry about it. Even "long time" players like me sometimes forget simple stuff and make "newbie" mistakes, as evidenced above. Even the best of players need to be reminded of the basics every now and then.

Besides, I'm not as much of a veteran as some players. I know that there are a few people here that were around in the 1.x versions, and several that were around in the 2.x versions. I only started at around 3.1, and joined the forms in the last 3.x beta period.

EDIT:

To be fair, though, I haven't seen him around on here as much lately, so newer members probably don't all know him yet.  Heh.

After I won my first game a couple months ago (yea, it took me like 800 hours of playing just to get my first solo win.  ), I decided to take a break from playing AI war "seriously". Now I'm getting back into again, so expect to see me around more again. 

Also, I met my first Gravity drain today, and I really hate the fact they slow raid starships to a crawl. So I have to usually have to have my allies support my raids with a distraction to avoid my 12 raid star-ships being picked off at 7-12 speed. (yea, 9 mark 1 + 3 mark 2 atm, due to allies sharing them. I wish you could gift capacity, as it would make it easier to control, since you could ctrl-group them all)

[Coppermantis]

Ugh. So I'm playing on my 10 planet map and The AI sends a few thousand autocannons to planet Apex through the exogalactic wormhole there. I beat a lot of them, but the rest remain cloaked and distribute themselves around my systems. (I own 9 out of 10 of them.) So, I can't take them out and don't feel like using tachyon warheads, so several hundred of them just sit there and wait. I eventually forget about them and move defenses up to the final front, and then all the autocannons decloak and begin a massive counterattack.

This was of course followed by some real stupidity, they proceed to split up and get slaughtered by the defenses on neighboring planets, and didn't even take out the mk. II Ion cannon I had there. The command station can be replaced, the cannon cannot.

[Hearteater]

Amusing, when there are cloaked ships at a plant, I find building a tachyon scanner inside the shield around my CS so it reveals anything sitting right next to the shield will catch most of the cloaked ships.  Just park your fleet nearby while the tachyon scanner is being built, you'll reveal them and they'll instantly get destroyed.  I should mention this mainly applies when you are blocking the warp point with your shield as well.

Doesn't catch everything, but it is very cheap and quick.

[Gudamor]

10 hours into the game, a wave arrives at a system where I have a Zenith Power Generator.

"It should be alright, I've got plenty of turrets and shields there."

Instantly I'm in an energy brownout: -360,000 energy. How did they kill it so fast?! ...where's the AIP gain...  AND WHAT ARE THOSE GIANT SHIPS IN THE SYSTEM?!

Oh.



So remember: 10% chance of Beachheads on just a single AI can give you plenty of time to forget what Beachheads are, let alone that you enabled them.

[steelstiletto]

My buddies and I have actually learned from the AI. For a bit of time when we first started, we didn't like using anything with Tractor beams. Then, we found an AI that used them. Very effectively. In specific, when a wave would come, or we would attack a planet that had tractor platforms, they would gather up all of our ships and take them away to one of the AI's well defended planet. Needless to say, our ships did not last long is such hostile space. Splitting up our force like that ended up losing us the game.

Well, that, and the endless carriers of MkV ships that were being sent at us. Those probably didn't really help us win either...

[Nice Save]

I suppose I ought to know whether someone is a long time community member, however, I know that post count is not a direct measurement, but is related. If star count is not actually directly related to post count, I could assume that anyone with more stars that me is a longer time community member than I am. I am not sure what I should do to avoid this type of situation in the future.

It's hard to tell, really. I've only been around since January of this year, but I just don't know when to shut-up, as evidenced by my overblown post count. The forums might have some option to turn on registration dates to show with posts, maybe that would help. Although what would be more fun is if there were a way to show total hours played for AI War next to each person's post. But then, you could only really get that from Steam players.

Still wouldn't necessarily help, you wouldn't think from my join date or (especially) my post count that I've been lurking around since the 2.x days.

[Coppermantis]

This made me rage. I was fighting off an exogalactic strikeforce, took out almost everthing with a martyr, but the regenerator golem survives. Then it goes and DESTROYS MY HOME COMMAND STATION. Yes, I lost to a lone regenerator golem. It's not quite brilliant AI, but it was still interesting. Bleh.

[Nalgas]

Yes, I lost to a lone regenerator golem. It's not quite brilliant AI, but it was still interesting.

I don't even know what that is, but it sure is funny.

[Coppermantis]

Yeah, I was all "Oh, regen golem, what can it possibly-YOU HAVE LOST"