Thoughts and questions

[Ambo]

Hi there, I'm a new AI war player and just thought I'd share a few thoughts and ask a couple of questions:

My first game was played on a 40 planet map with 2 difficulty 7 AIs. Thought I was doing ok for a while but eventually just ground to a halt and could not seem to go anywhere.
I'm currently in the middle of my second game on a 60 planet map against 2 difficulty 6 AIs. Doing much better this time I think, hopefully on course for a win. 

This game is SO different to normal RTS games that I almost gave up pretty early on. I think the problem is that a lot of games claim to be different and then you play them and find out that really, they're just the same old recycled gameplay. AI war came across to me as 'supreme commander in space' with a few minor changes. Trouble is, if you try and play it like sup com then it's going to be an up-hill struggle and it took me a while to figure out why I was having such a hard time.

The reinforcement mechanic caused me some issues. It was not clear to me that the AI would put pretty much ALL of it's allotted reinforcements into planets bordering my own. This is clearly marked on the galaxy map but I think that including more about how reinforcement works in the tutorial would have been beneficial.
Personally, my natural tendency is to build strong defences on my home planet, take a neighbouring planet, thoroughly consolidate and then move on. This resulted in me having to constantly fight against very tough planets in my first game. In my second, my expansion is much more explosive. I took several around my home system very quickly and now I'm blasting through the big border planets and making sure I have enough forces to take several beyond that as well.


So, to the questions:

1) What is the point of destroying the warp gates? In-game, the text says that it stops them reinforcing but that just is not true. Do they just initiate the occasional attacks with several hundred ships? Is there any danger in just leaving warp gates on planets that I control? (not sure if this is even possible)

2) I felt like to get information that I needed to be able to play properly, I had to come here, look at the wiki, etc. I'm curious as to why there are not other sections in the tutorials covering this stuff. (e.g. the reinforcement mechanic, the strong vs/weak vs information, v + right click, ctrl + right click, etc)

3) Previously, when I came up against a difficult planet, I'd get a big force in and move them around, slowly destroying all the guard posts, etc. As the AI keeps reinforcing, this meant that I would take a very long time and suffer heavy losses when taking enemy strongholds.
On my current game, I've found that the best way to take a difficult planet is to get a big force together, send them in and move them to the command station. I then get one ship to attack the command station. The AI will then send pretty much all the ships in the system against my blob of ships. Because they all start at different ranges and have different speeds, the AI ships arrive in small groups and are easily destroyed. I'm then free to blow the command station without fear of retaliatory attacks. Would this be considered an exploit? Is it just because I'm playing on difficulty 6 and they'd do something more intelligent on higher difficulties?

4) Fast and Dangerous mode. Not played with this yet but from what I've read, it seems to be the 'standard' way of playing. If so, why is it not called normal and normal renamed to slow or something? The main barrier for me getting involved with this game has been the time required. I'm not sure as I haven't used it, but I get the impression that fast and dangerous mode would help reduce the amount of time a game takes.


Congrats on making this amazing game, it's a slightly humbling experience to be massively outflanked and seemingly out-thought by an AI opponent on the 'normal' difficulty. This last weekend, I kept meaning to play for an hour and then do something else. I look up at the clock and it's suddenly 4 hours later! Even then, I get 'just-one-more' disease for another half hour before managing to pry myself away. It's a fantastic game and all the more impressive for being (mostly) the work of one guy.

[Volatar]

Congrats on making this amazing game, it's a slightly humbling experience to be massively outflanked and seemingly out-thought by an AI opponent on the 'normal' difficulty. This last weekend, I kept meaning to play for an hour and then do something else. I look up at the clock and it's suddenly 4 hours later! Even then, I get 'just-one-more' disease for another half hour before managing to pry myself away. It's a fantastic game and all the more impressive for being (mostly) the work of one guy.

Glad you are enjoying the game now that you understand it  . Let me try to answer some of your questions

1) What is the point of destroying the warp gates? In-game, the text says that it stops them reinforcing but that just is not true. Do they just initiate the occasional attacks with several hundred ships? Is there any danger in just leaving warp gates on planets that I control? (not sure if this is even possible)

Destroying warp gates stop the AI from sending Waves from that planet. If for example you destroy all but one of the warp gates bordering your planets, you have only one wormhole to defend against waves. Don't destroy all of them though, as you will then get lots of cross planet attacks (nastier) instead.

2) I felt like to get information that I needed to be able to play properly, I had to come here, look at the wiki, etc. I'm curious as to why there are not other sections in the tutorials covering this stuff. (e.g. the reinforcement mechanic, the strong vs/weak vs information, v + right click, ctrl + right click, etc)

Hmmmmm... I think you have a good point there! 

3) Previously, when I came up against a difficult planet, I'd get a big force in and move them around, slowly destroying all the guard posts, etc. As the AI keeps reinforcing, this meant that I would take a very long time and suffer heavy losses when taking enemy strongholds.
On my current game, I've found that the best way to take a difficult planet is to get a big force together, send them in and move them to the command station. I then get one ship to attack the command station. The AI will then send pretty much all the ships in the system against my blob of ships. Because they all start at different ranges and have different speeds, the AI ships arrive in small groups and are easily destroyed. I'm then free to blow the command station without fear of retaliatory attacks. Would this be considered an exploit? Is it just because I'm playing on difficulty 6 and they'd do something more intelligent on higher difficulties?

Sounds like you may be playing on too low a difficulty for your skill (now that you are better at the game). Most players say that the AI makes a rather large jump in intelligence when it hits difficulty 7. (I don't play that high myself, as I am not very good at the game right now I am playing a game against a 5 and a 6.) Though, I personally will run a force in and destroy the command station, as then most of the guards on the planet will attack my heavily defended planets (turrets ftw! ) when I don't want to take out the guard posts one by one.

Also, maybe you should try raid starships. I have used them a bit, they are really awesome at attacking some of the harder planets.

4) Fast and Dangerous mode. Not played with this yet but from what I've read, it seems to be the 'standard' way of playing. If so, why is it not called normal and normal renamed to slow or something? The main barrier for me getting involved with this game has been the time required. I'm not sure as I haven't used it, but I get the impression that fast and dangerous mode would help reduce the amount of time a game takes.

It is the "standard" way of playing only because some of the more crazy players, and most notably Chris himself, play with it on. In a of my multiplayer experiences (even with some rather good (too good for me actually) players) I have played on "normal" combat mode. Actually, when I think about it, I have never played on F&D mode... Maybe I should try it 

[quickstix]

I can answer a few questions I think,

1. Answered by Volatar here. Wiki has all the info here http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Gate_Raids#Warp_Gates

Also, check this out http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_No_Warning_On_Waves%3F If you kill ALL of the warp gates adjacent to ALL of your planets, you won't get any more incoming waves warnings, as the AI will warp waves into distant planets and move them through to yours. However, this only happens on difficulty 6 and up, on lower levels the AI will just reinforce their planets again.

2. There's some ideas floating around for new stuff for the tutorials regarding shortcut keys and move modifiers. For me though, the complex stuff like reinforcement mechanics, in my opinion, is better suited for a manual/wiki format and encourages people to read them, which is a good idea because there is A LOT of extra info that you'd need hours of tutorials to cover.

3. When the AI feels threatened, it starts to build up reinforcements on that planet. To take it quickly, divide and conquer (if possible). Taking out the guard posts will reduce the capacity of the AI to reinforce. Baiting the AI by attacking the command station can work, but be aware the AI might decide that rushing your wormhole is a much better idea and taking out the command station itself has a 50% chance of releasing all the enemy ships on the planet, who usually decide to rush your wormholes (for me I swear it's 100%, plenty of freak out moments for me, still fun tho ) Apparently there is a big jump from difficulty 6 to 7, but I can't say because I'm still slogging away at 5/6. The guard post stuff does get tricky, as evidenced by eRe4s3r who had a bit of trouble with some troop accelerators http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,1905.0.html

4. Straight from the wiki (http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Combat_Styles):
'The Normal combat style is much slower-paced, pretty much matching most other contemporary RTS games. Players that like to micromanage their units, or who are new to the game, or who just like to take a lot of time to mull strategy and tactics, will prefer this mode.

However, for more advanced players or those who like a faster-paced game in general, the Fast & Dangerous combat style is the way to go. This mode does not cause any extra load on the CPU, so it does not affect system requirements like upping the simulation speed does, and it also does not affect the speed of the game clock, so things like resource income, build times, enemy wave frequency, and autosave frequency are all unaffected by the change. What IS changed is the speed of combat -- ships do twice as much damage, move twice as fast, and reload twice as fast. In-house, this is our preferred mode.'

I personally prefer normal because I absolutely love slow paced grand strategy and mircroing my units around planets. I also love leaning back on my chair, studying the galaxy map and stroking my chin going, "Hmmm" whilst I contemplate my next move.

Hope that helps!

[Ambo]

Thanks for the answers.

I guess the warp gate not affecting reinforcement is intended and the description in game is wrong then? Would certainly be helpful for new players if it description was changed if that is the case.

I agree that the tutorial would become much longer if everything was covered. However, personally, I want to be able to understand most things about the game after completing the tutorial. With this, I felt fairly lost in my first game. I didn't know enough about the game mechanics to be able to make good decisions about what to do next.
On the other side it, I know that many people can't stand long tutorials and want to get into the action as soon as possible. Having this stuff available as an optional 'advanced' tutorial or something would have made my first game a much more enjoyable and less frustrating experience. There are few things worse in a game than losing and not knowing why you're losing or what you can do about it and that's how my first game felt.


I'm also a little confused about reinforcement around guard posts. As I understand it, the AI gets x 'reinforcement points' to spend every now and then. This is determined by AI progress, number of planets not held by AIs, etc. If the AI player chooses to spend all points at one planet then they will get the same number of ships regardless of the number of guard posts? If this is correct then I guess the benefit of taking out guard posts is simply that enemies won't re-spawn there but at other guard posts, wormholes or the command station.

[Ktoff]

As i understand it one reinforcement point corresponds to one planet reinforced. The number of troups arriving depends on the number of guard posts and wormholes (and of course the AI progress, or maybe that just modifies the number of reinforcement points). So the effectiveness of one point on a given planet is affected by the guard posts.

Additionally the number of guard posts has a rather large influence on the unit cap on that specific planet, so taking out guard posts will diminish the total number of ships the AI can place on that planet as well as the rate at which they are placed there.

For planets not properly reinforced yet i find it quite convenient simply to kill of the command station and deal with all the freed ships from the command posts, but for stronger planets it is simply not feasible to kill off that many ships at once and taking out the AI guardpost by guardpost is a good idea (try going directly for the homestation on a core planet) .

[Volatar]

I'm also a little confused about reinforcement around guard posts. As I understand it, the AI gets x 'reinforcement points' to spend every now and then. This is determined by AI progress, number of planets not held by AIs, etc. If the AI player chooses to spend all points at one planet then they will get the same number of ships regardless of the number of guard posts? If this is correct then I guess the benefit of taking out guard posts is simply that enemies won't re-spawn there but at other guard posts, wormholes or the command station.

You are approaching the game somewhat wrong here I will mention. Do not think of the AI as a computer controlled player. The AI works with ENTIRELY different rules than you, and is so RADICALLY different that this is a bad way to approach thinking about its actions.

[Ambo]

Thanks for the explanation Ktoff, I finally feel like I'm getting a handle on how reinforcement works.  


While I remember it, there was one other thing that caused me a lot of confusion: In the tutorial, I had cruisers, fighters, bombers and anti-armour. I accidentally clicked on the adv research station so it got blown up.  

When I came to play a proper game, I had cruisers, fighters, bombers and snipers... "huh?", I thought, "where have my anti-armour ships gone and what are these sniper things? Why couldn't I build them before?". Of course I figured out what it was about after reading up and capturing a few adv research labs but I just felt like it was another needless source of confusion.

It would have been nice to have been told in the tutorial that there are x different ship types, you start with the three core types and one other, in this case the anti-armour ship, etc.


Btw, I don't want to appear overly critical here. I love the game, I just feel that it's very hard to get into. Some changes and additions to the tutorial would have done wonders for reducing my initial frustration and confusion.

Edit: Oh, and one other thing: the group move option, one of the most useful things that I didn't find out about until just randomly messing around to try and figure out what all the interface buttons did.... also ctrl + shift/alt + shift for placing turrets and minefields. (Trying to place a minefield one at a time is NOT fun  )

[Vaos]

While I remember it, there was one other thing that caused me a lot of confusion: In the tutorial, I had cruisers, fighters, bombers and anti-armour. I accidentally clicked on the adv research station so it got blown up.  

When I came to play a proper game, I had cruisers, fighters, bombers and snipers... "huh?", I thought, "where have my anti-armour ships gone and what are these sniper things? Why couldn't I build them before?". Of course I figured out what it was about after reading up and capturing a few adv research labs but I just felt like it was another needless source of confusion.

You start with a different additional ship type each game (depend on witch planet you choose in the lobby), and you get a random one for each advanced research station you capture. The AI also get different ships every game. The consistent ship types are Fighter/Bombers/Cruisers. You and the AI will always have those.

[Revenantus]

Thanks for the explanation Ktoff, I finally feel like I'm getting a handle on how reinforcement works.  


While I remember it, there was one other thing that caused me a lot of confusion: In the tutorial, I had cruisers, fighters, bombers and anti-armour. I accidentally clicked on the adv research station so it got blown up.  

When I came to play a proper game, I had cruisers, fighters, bombers and snipers... "huh?", I thought, "where have my anti-armour ships gone and what are these sniper things? Why couldn't I build them before?". Of course I figured out what it was about after reading up and capturing a few adv research labs but I just felt like it was another needless source of confusion.

It would have been nice to have been told in the tutorial that there are x different ship types, you start with the three core types and one other, in this case the anti-armour ship, etc.


Btw, I don't want to appear overly critical here. I love the game, I just feel that it's very hard to get into. Some changes and additions to the tutorial would have done wonders for reducing my initial frustration and confusion.

Edit: Oh, and one other thing: the group move option, one of the most useful things that I didn't find out about until just randomly messing around to try and figure out what all the interface buttons did.... also ctrl + shift/alt + shift for placing turrets and minefields. (Trying to place a minefield one at a time is NOT fun  )

This is all really valuable feedback, thanks.

I'd like to clarify that warp gates, as well as initiating waves against neighbouring planets, play an important role in AI reinforcement. The AI can reinforce on a planet if it controls either a warp gate or command station there. If you want to stop reinforcements from being deposited there entirely, you need to destroy both.

At least some of the points you've been questioning are discussed in the Game Manual, so that might be worth a skim if you haven't done so already. It also contains a comprehensive list of the available shortcut keys.

Thanks for your support of the game.

[Kjara]

Well, it can reinforce wormholes only if it has a command center, it can reinforce guard posts if it has either a command center or a warp gate.  If you clear all the guard posts and wormholes and leave the warp gate, the only place the ai can reinforce on that planet is the warpgate itself(but of course it can still raid that planet and adjacent planets from that warpgate).  There are valid strategies that kill warp gates and valid strategies that leave some or all of them alive.

[quickstix]

While I remember it, there was one other thing that caused me a lot of confusion: In the tutorial, I had cruisers, fighters, bombers and anti-armour. I accidentally clicked on the adv research station so it got blown up.  

Just on this note, your units shouldn't attack capturable structures like Advanced Research Stations on enemy planets unless you hold down the x key and right click on them. If this isn't the case, drop us a line in the bugs forum (I'd test myself, but I can't get to AI War just now). The reason you can still blow up capturable structures is that regular constructors that appear on enemy planets like warhead or starship constructors are a big drain on power, and in the early game taking them might throw your energy into the negative, or you simply may not need them at all, so you can blow them up.

If you're having trouble remembering shortcuts, check out the stickied 'Printable Shortcut Keys' thread in the AI War forum. The keys also appear in the manual at the back, but this version is great to print out and have next to you whilst you play. I still keep it with me and it's extremely useful. This should also appear in your install folder as well I think (and in the start menu). http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,1247.0.html