This AI is awesome.

[x4000]

Like Keith said, many thanks and also welcome!

If you're curious about the internals of the AI, you might enjoy the articles on that in the articles section of the forum.  The first one in a series of 6ish articles is written more for non-programmers than for programmers, others are more programmer-y but still accessible.

[rubikscube]

poot turrets next to command station and mobile military

[Thumpy]

wow, a reply from the programmer himself?

anyway, one question: should i spend more time mastering ai war or would you suggest immediately going for the expansion? does the game get much more complicated with the zenith remnant? or would you say it's enhancing the overall experience of the game? is the expansion featuring even better AI? are the updates for the expansion as well? or how do you handle this? sorry to use this thread, i will definitely buy it sooner than later anyway.

english ain't my native language, sorry

[x4000]

My pleasure.

Regarding the expansion versus the base game, that is really up to you -- there is a lot more content to master in the expansion, but since the game is about discovery and exploration, that's not so much an issue as it might otherwise be.  The core experience is basically the same in the expansion, except that there are way more options and more things to run into.  If you have played Civ IV, it would be like if they doubled the size of the tech tree there, or something along those lines.  It's more, sure, but if you know how to play Civ IV then that's not an overwhelming thing.

For details on exactly what's new in the expansion: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_The_Zenith_Remnant

With games in the past, I've done it both ways, starting with just the base game for like a half year and then going to the expansion(s), or having the expansions right from the start.  Just depends on the game, I guess, and I could see it going either way.

The expansion doesn't include any updates to the AI, for this reason: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Expansions_Vs_Free_DLC  Basically, we don't want people to have to buy the expansion just to get better AI.  We're always making improvements and updates to the AI, but that comes out as part of the free DLC for everyone, not hidden behind a paywall.  That said, the AI does have some weapons in the expansion that it does not have in the base game, so that's something to note.

All of the updates for the game are for the base game and the expansion (we use a unified binary approach that makes this easy), so no matter how many expansions there ever are, all of the core updates are for the base game plus every expansion.

Thanks for your support!

[Ktoff]

Hey Thumpy,

the expansion brings a lot to the game and gets more complicated in one respect: There are vastly more different ship types that can be in a game (though the number of ship types in any one specific game stays the same, meaning in one game there are parasites and teleport raiders and in the next there are zenith mirrors (expansion only) and tanks). The gameplay stays more or less the same, even if there are more different capturablse on the planets.

If you breezed through the intermediate tutorial moning how complicated everythign is, start without the expansion with simple ship selection to grasp the basics, if you did alright... go for the expansion, it is a lot of fun!

Letztendlich bleibt es dir überlassen. Die Komplexität wächst mit der Erweiterung nicht extrem stark, du hast halt nur mehr verschiedene Gründe einzelne Planeten einzunehmen (oder nicht einzunehmen).

Cheers,
KToff

[danando]

i must admit thumpy if it makes you decide that playing ai war W/o expansion was great but with golems and many other features on the expansion it made the game one in a million golems are ...well....golems lol BIG AND POWERFUL just like they are meant to be though they do use excessive energy and high repair count but they last through games mayb even to the end, plus new cheats which i never use but they are cool in times of need. basically the expansion is what its there for... to make the game experience better.
my opinion? ai war is better with the expansion i bought the expansion hoping that i regret buying it but it was indeed the opposite    

[Thumpy]

thanks everyone! it's much appreciated. as soon i have finished that 80 planet map on diff 7 i will download it! and as it looks, that will be sooner than later. my plan to get my greedy hands on that advanced research station was maybe a bit too optimistic

this AI is just brilliant. this game is just brilliant. good lord!

[superking]

the expansion makes the game about a zillion times more awesome 

[soMe_RandoM]

i have few seeds where I've been abused by ai using golm black widow defeating my ships at my home planet then went away then i was picked off by few ships eg anti armor. or raptors. is this an oddity or yust an rare occurance or is it not spose to happen only with golmmite ai  type? it was with an easy ai type like turtle for exsample, ill post save or seed with ai types + starting pos + settings>?

[x4000]

That was a bug in a couple of beta versions during a 2-3 day window a few weeks ago.

[J a s o n]

Well... where do I begin?    

I'm COMPLETELY new to this forums thing (yeah, I never replied in any forum), but I have been eyeballing at this one for a long time even though I have been playing for like 198 hours (Steam actually clocked it). However, I just keep restarting the game because of a bad habit ("perfection is everything") I've gotten from some other game other than AI War, so I'm NOT uber-awesome at the game. Anyway, I kept thinking about dropping in, but I am VERY SHY about it and couldn't find a suitable spot to actually start off up until I found this topic, which is not serious, but a fun topic. I keep hearing that this community is actually pretty friendly in general, and from all the stuff I read in these forums, the rumors are true.

My first impression of this game was, "Awesome ships! Looks interesting, too!" when I saw the screenshots and THANK GOODNESS there IS a demo. Tried the demo, it was a blast! Been looking for a strategy game where building fast and rushing doesn't really help all the time, instead good strategy and tactics in general and other stuff I didn't mention leads to success. I think everybody hears this all the time about the game in these forums, but... this game is amazing... just amazing. I never played a strategy game for as many as 198 hours before. Also, heard the community is heavily involved as well with the ideas and all. So my thanks goes to the developers and the community for backing them up!

Thank you for an awesome game everyone!  

I actually do have my share of the AI in this game acting evil as well, but this one also involves the AI using Etherjets. However, my situation was a TOTAL MISHAP. Well, first I started off with level 1 AI after completing all tutorials, it was just too easy and boring (the level 1 AI anyways, but I found the tutorial mildly fun.) Then I started at level 3, which is where I should have just stuck with until beating the AI at that difficulty! However, I quickly moved to level 7, denying that I needed any practice (and being that I'm a... semi-masochist? I'm guessing it's like a masochist, but not quite   ).

Anyway, I was trying out level 7 and felt like knowledge raiding. However, I wanted to do this without any combat ships protecting them. I got the Cloaker Starship mk1 and plus I got a Transport because I didn't want to wait for them to travel and some other reason which I will mention, shortly. Plus, I had like 5 Science Labs mk1 and at the time the cloaking field was very very small until an update, so I had to compress those 5 labs into one somehow, which was ACTUALLY how the transport got involved. What I did after I came up with the plan was pretty dumb though. I did everything as planned, but for some reason I traveled away from the wormhole I came from... like "opposite-from-it" away. Also, the transport shouldn't have to be involved, what was I thinking?! I could've just... have the Cloaker Starship warp in first and just simply float over the wormhole or next to it at least, THEN send in the science labs one by one, keeping them all safe. This was even right at the start of the game. Well, anyways, it gets baaaad from here: I let them moved far away from my wormhole, have the transport dump all 5 science labs and.... great, some of them are outside the cloaking field! Enemy Snipers fired at them, but to deflect those shots I send them back inside the transport. When all was safe I repeated the same mistake, once or twice more. Then, I'm like... "Okay, AI, you want to play rough? Well, in your face 'cause I'm bringing in a mobile builder and build Counter-Snipers to deflect those shots! YEAH MAN, YOU TRY AND TOP THAT!!!" (by the way, this was before the Cloaker Starship had the ability to deflect sniper bullets). Anyways I did that. Right when the Mobile Builder warped in, I pause the game, build the counter-sniper (and... I think I sent a few combat ships to protect it). When the counter-sniper was finally built, I dumped all my science labs and ordered them into the cloaking zone and -- WHAT ON EARTH IS -- err... WHAT IN SPACE IS THIS   !? The Etherjets just appeared RIGHT NEXT TO THE AREA where my Cloaker Starship and Transport is and right after I let loose the Science Labs, those blasted Ether Jets just drags them off to there doom -- they were actually waiting for me to do that (at least it seems that way)! Yeah, and to make it worst, they were beyond saving, because they warped deeper into their territory. And to put the cherry on top, they threw in a couple of punch lines...

AI 2: How stupid do you think we are?
AI 1: Bah... pitiful humans...

  . . .

I'm just kidding, they didn't say that at the climax of the mishap. They didn't say anything... but it'd be funny if they did at that moment, but oh well. You know what, maybe they didn't say anything because they're just laughing so hard. Or maybe because what I did was so "stupid" and "pitiful" (quoting the AI comments) that they didn't even have to express it with words. Yeah, watching those Ether Jets just APPEAR right next to them was just enough. At that moment, I couldn't decide if I should get mad or laugh... but now the choice is obvious!  

Well, that's the end of the story, and it's a pleasure for me just writing what I remember what happened at the time.  

[superking]

Ether Jets make for some great FUUUUUU moments, like when you have just spent all your resources building a huge fleet of expensive zenith bombards only for the AI to nap them with jets and carry them to a nearby MKIV world for instadeath

[J a s o n]

Yeah man. Ether Jets... gotta admit those AI sure know how to use em, basically dragging their key targets to the guillotine for execution.

I had this other moment where all I had was just my home planet and waaaay too light defenses. I was doing pretty bad (and I mean... BAAAD) and I think the AI was level 7 again. This time they just send in a wave at the best moment.

Well, I was just exploring with scouts and ran into a Dyson Sphere, my very first sighting of it (except one time I used a cheat just to see what certain ships look like in-game) and my first impression of the Dyson Sphere was,"Whooaaa... cooooool!". Then out came the Dyson Gatlings, I actually think they look pretty cool, honestly.  I wish they had Dyson Chainsaws though... yeah, man! Cut those starships in half! EEEERRRRREEEERRRRRRRRRGGGH!!! Sorry, I'm just cuttin' up... heh... "cuttin' up". Just kidding around, in other words .

Well, I found a Dyson Sphere, so I'm like,"Sweet, now I can have space alien friends!". So I blew up the AI Command Center there.. A few Dyson Gatlings escaped, still programmed to annihilate BOTH me and the AI. Guess the Zenith cannot reprogram their older Dyson Gatlings, but it's cool... adds to the challenge. As I watch those Dyson Gatlings ripping through the lines of planets, I was just laughing at the AI getting blown up...

Soon... the jokes on me.

I then noticed a Dyson Gattling was already attacking my Home Planet (this is sad, I haven't captured a planet even though it's close to an hour into the game). Then, it gets from sad to tragic. As I'm trying to fend off the hard-to-kill Dyson Gatlings (3 of them) with my very... very... few ships (like 100 total) and my defenses are just waaaay too few, like I said before. Then the AI decides to "conveniently" send a wave from the nearest wormhole to my Home Command Center which was like an inch away if I zoomed out my camera completely...

I knew I was gonna lose.

However, being a masochist... err semi-masochist whatever, I welcomed it, because I was doing so bad in that game, but I never give up without a fight, either. So I just fought to the death making my last stand. The AI warped in like ants emerging from their subterranean abode and attacked, then there I go... my Home Command Station got shot down out of orbit, and I plummeted onto the planet like a meteor  .

[x4000]

Welcome to the forums, Jason! I'm glad you decided to join in! I enjoyed reading your tales of the etherjets, thanks for that. In the base game, when I had the idea to code that behavior into the ai that quickly became my favorite thing the ai did. I can still remember he first time I was playing with my alpha testers over voice chat, and that behavior was new. There was a wave of etherjets incoming, which made me smile. But none of the others knew what was coming. I about died laughing when my uncle, over voice chat, was like "what? What are they doing? Come back with my stuff! Hey, those are my science labs! They took them through the wormhole!? Come back with my stuff!".

Good times, good times.

[Dragon]

Yeah, I do agree that etherjets are just about the most awesome unit the AI has.  I have trouble using them right though....  Maybe it's just because the AI doesn't really have much that can be tractored that is important.