This AI is awesome.

[x4000]

 

[shortstar]

First time poster, long time lurker. So I was out to fight the good fight and was playing a 7.3difx2 on random easier. Things were going south from the start, and expansion is realllllly slow this game for some reason after my update to >4.0.21. Tied down (I thought) three planets directly connected to mine after about 5 hours, and raided the command centers in another three systems. I was just getting ready to run more colony ships out to the new homes I had found. Home base was set up well with a nest of turrets of mixed build. Just started to rebuild my losses and then poof, here they come.

Ai(1) raid some 247 frigates(iii).....due to my popping a guard post. no biggie...clock on that ticks down to about 3 min, then
Cross planet attack of 547 ships. ooohkay ai progress is about 75, seems a bit much... I can handle that.
30 seconds later, warning goes for 148 fighters on the other end of the little empire I'm tossing together.

so about 1k ships vs my 500 man mark1 fleet. hmmm cant divide the fleet, so it goes to my home planet. 1 min to go and I have a fighting retreat set up, and fully intend to lose my outposts. Then I guess what are special forces start wormholeing in to my outer planets. only about 200 of em, and not part of the waves.  I split my cutlasses and send them to engage while the rest of the fleet waits between the wormholes to the other planets at my homeworld. once the cutlasses were dead, the snipers finished off what they started and the first wave comes in.......... from BEHIND my defenses... like off the end of the map(wasn't expecting that). I send in the fleet and put the shipyardsx3 into overdrive with engineers back at the homeworld. I take about 75% losses on that fight, but weaken them enough I should be safe from that side.

Fleet goes back to homeworld, while I let the rest of those m3 wave ships slowboat around and kill off what structures are left over there. As my fleet jets off to the other side, I pick up reinforcements and my attention now switches to the other front. Fleet is up to about 60% strength but I take my starships with me this time and kick some butt on that front and take losses to to about 45% strengh, then I head back to the homeworld again.

But what is this.... a brownout.... ohhhh noooooooo, the power plants.... the turrets..... I switch on the backup mk2 plants I built at my homeworld, but I'm still short on power. I turn off anything not directly related to me staying alive when those 500 cross planet guys come in and get net power up to about 5k. Before I could do said task, they start pouring through my turned off tractors and a speed boost train comes in at the same time.

I did manage to save myself, and most of my homeworld. I primaryed the speed train and got the tractors back on line. The turrets did their thing and they dropped like flies.

Moral of the story is no matter what you do, the AI is stronger and faster. They dont feel bad about sending ships to their death. I thought my homeworld defense was uberstout, and it was, so the ai turned off the lightswitch. I'm still playing the same game now, and the AI has fought me tooth and nail for every inch of ground. It seems it knows what I am doing, and it found my weaknesses. It's probably reading this right now.....

[Pathalone]

Just got the game Friday. Had a 80 system game going and had won 15 or so systems. I got smug and was plinking on number 16 when wtf?! I lost 2 systems in 1-2 minutes. The AI had counter-attacked, taken those out and moving to the next. Never had that happen in an previous RTS that I can remember. Humble pie tastes awful! Oh, did I mention this was on easy (#1)?

Amazing game! I'll get the two expansions once I get paid Friday.

[snelg]

...  I split my cutlasses and send them to engage while the rest of the fleet waits between the wormholes to the other planets at my homeworld. once the cutlasses were dead, the snipers finished off what they started and the first wave comes in.......... from BEHIND my defenses... like off the end of the map(wasn't expecting that). I send in the fleet and put the shipyardsx3 into overdrive with engineers back at the homeworld. I take about 75% losses on that fight, but weaken them enough I should be safe from that side.

The counter attacks from the guard posts seem to always come in from the "map edge". I had a very similar first experience with those.   

[Echo35]

...  I split my cutlasses and send them to engage while the rest of the fleet waits between the wormholes to the other planets at my homeworld. once the cutlasses were dead, the snipers finished off what they started and the first wave comes in.......... from BEHIND my defenses... like off the end of the map(wasn't expecting that). I send in the fleet and put the shipyardsx3 into overdrive with engineers back at the homeworld. I take about 75% losses on that fight, but weaken them enough I should be safe from that side.

The counter attacks from the guard posts seem to always come in from the "map edge". I had a very similar first experience with those.   

Me too. Pretty sure the counter attack guard posts only sub space. I've had them run attacks against planets in the center of my alliance with no hostile wormholes, but they can still sub space

[Entrenched Homperson]

Hey all! New poster here. So, I am tinkering with the options to find a play style I like. Go with epic speeds because my play style as an RTS lover is alot micromanagement, even though you guys want to minimize that >< I still find that quick troop movements and taking and giving defensive postitions and such are where a sate my strategy cravings. I chose Cross Planet Waves, misunderstanding the tooltip a little bit. I thought this meant that no attacks where gonna come to planets that didn't have a hostile wormhole on them.

BOY Was I wrong!

All of a sudden on low ship count I get 1800 Ships inbound to a random star system, so I split my fleet, putting half my tank units in different places, Zenith starships and bombers, at my 2 fronts which where about 4 hops away from each other. I'm shaking in my boots at this point and use all the extra power I havent found a use for yet to build a full cap of Fortresses, as I normaly havent been unlocking Mark II Forts.

The enemies arrived in my Homeworld, and my other forces scuttled to reinforce it. Very soon afterwards, the level IV Planet that was my the center of my attention at that time attacks! I hadn't even poked it for a good 15 min and I have guardians pouring through! So I have about 500,000 of each resource and decide to seed that system, and am basicaly admitting that my entire cluster are going to be easy pickings before I counterattack With 3 starship constructers and 3 space docks on repeat full production supported by a good 40 engineers I manage to fend off the enemy attack, but my progress is only about 180 so there all mark I, and I easily beat off the attack with my starship core and cap of missile turrets. Then its a counterattack while supporting hastily build colony ships to restore my power needs as 200 guardians and Mark IV ships sweep through my systems. After clearing those I reshore my defenses and save. At that point it was 4AM And I had a calltime of 11:00 the next day :* In New Jersey :**.

Great game! Aha, I'll beat these pesky AIs.

Was playing Assassin and Fortress Baron which where randomly given to me on diff 8-9. Cant remember off the top of my head what I chose. But it wasnt mini doom, cause that looked skeerey @.@

[keith.lamothe]

Diff 8 or 9 will kill you

I suggest not going higher than 7.6 until you have a pretty thorough understanding of the game.

[Shrugging Khan]

I suggest never playing lower than 8, because it's way too easy to win just by following simple rules 

[Entrenched Homperson]

I've been doing 8. IDK if something changed in lots though I keep getting massive waves.

[Suzera]

If you have been playing in low ship caps, waves are 2x what they used to be. They were previously being divided by 8 instead of 4 from ship caps.

[keith.lamothe]

Actually they used to be being divided by 16 instead of 4

[Entrenched Homperson]

I wonder if thats it. Wow, becomes alot harder.

[Shrugging Khan]

Yah...lately, with all the wave size juggling, I've really been wondering about whether I should maybe switch one of the two AIs to a non-wave-sender type to avoid some unnecessary frustration.

[TechSY730]

Yah...lately, with all the wave size juggling, I've really been wondering about whether I should maybe switch one of the two AIs to a non-wave-sender type to avoid some unnecessary frustration.

I wouldn't. From what I have seen so far, this latest beta has pretty reasonable wave sizes. It could use a slight bumping up of sizes in >=7.6, but that's it. I'd say play as you normally would; they are pretty close to getting it right.

[Entrenched Homperson]

The latest one scaled it down a bit I think? They havent been as bad recently.