What, the hell, was that (newbie question)

[Advenas]

Hello everyone, newbie here,

I just "finished" the tutorial game. Before I had fun trying the game in campaign, and it was even more fun when I began understanding everything (of course).

So, I wanted to invade the AI Homeworld in the tutorial game, prepared my fleet, 1000 ships right in, and...

Thousands of AI ships came out of nowhere, all Mark V, crushed my fleet like if it was nothing, invaded everything. And dead.

I just laughed my ass off when it happened, I just didn't and still don't get it. It was just crazy. I guess I did something really wrong to have that, can someone explain that to me ? I didn't quite have the solution on the (wonderful) FAQ made by the developper.

Anyway, thank you already for your answers !

[Mad Rubicant]

You seem to have met the strategic reserve. They deploy to defend when you attack certain high priority worlds of the AI. They deploy 100% when you attack a homeworld, 30% when you attack a Core world, and 10% when you attack the Superterminal world. The AI also uses them when making a CPA, but I'm not sure what the limit (if there is one) is.

I don't have any tips for dealing with them, since only recently have I gotten to the homeworlds with any consistency.

[keith.lamothe]

The strategic reserve may indeed crush an offensive, but they never ever go on the offense (or even go through a wormhole, actually, they just get reabsorbed into the warp grid when they're done).

If this were a non-tutorial game I'd assume it was a Core Raid Engine on the homeworld.  But I don't think the AI gets core guard posts (brutal ones, at least) in the tutorial.

So my guess is that the on-death-exo-attacks from the other core posts dying triggered this.  Though I'm surprised it would have been overwhelming, as the tutorial is effectively difficulty 1 (iirc) and thus the exos would be very small.

What sort of ships were they, aside from being mkV?  Or you could just post a save and someone could look and tell you what happened


Welcome to the game!

[Advenas]

Thanks you for your answers !

Well, first of all : yes, it was (I'm absolutely sure about that) a tutorial game. The one right when you finish the elementary tutorials, the short 10 planets campaign with many advices. Those were really helpful and really good to make me aware of the next danger, but they never prepared me to something close to that.
I feel that even with a top-notch preparation, I couldn't have beat that. Even with all my defenses, a thousand was left, rushing to my homeworld, meeting almost no resistance.

It is quite funny because the rest of the game was a breeze : almost no difficulty at all (of course, it's tutorial), and then, bam. I'm still laughing a bit when thinking of it.

To answer you Keith, I'm not really sure what ships they were, I think those were Tanks, Missile Launchers... In short, a reverted big bang right in my face.

However, I'm not sure that I didn't destroy any Core stuff if the battle right when I came in. I just X+G right in the front so maybe I destroyed something I shouldn't have to. The problem is, I don't know what I did wrong.

[keith.lamothe]

Do you have a save from before you attacked the HW?  If so it'd be helpful for me to be able to take a look.  I'll be updating the tutorial at some point this year so I'd want to either prepare them for that or prevent it from happening.  Or probably nerf it and prepare them

Anyway, if you have a save like that, load it, and attack again (try just sitting next to the entrance wormhole without taking much out at first), do you get the same kind of response?

[Chthon]

Sounds like a pretty normal response in AI War.  Nothing wakes the AI like a sharp poker to the face

[Advenas]

Keith : I'll check that tomorrow, it's getting super late here, but if the autosave, well, didn't save after the beginning of the fight, I'll send it to you.

Chthon : Well if it is the typical response at this level, I can't imagine what it is in higher difficulties haha.

[keith.lamothe]

Sounds like a pretty normal response in AI War.  Nothing wakes the AI like a sharp poker to the face

It is quite in-character.  Maybe the tutorial should end with "Congratulations, you have died!  This is generally what to expect from AI War."

[Chthon]

Sounds like a pretty normal response in AI War.  Nothing wakes the AI like a sharp poker to the face

It is quite in-character.  Maybe the tutorial should end with "Congratulations, you have died!  This is generally what to expect from AI War."

Well, the tutorial does have you conquer half the galaxy, not that there is much there to begin with

[Mad Rubicant]

You know what, they were probably Neinzul Cockroaches. The first homeworld in my current game (the one I'm doing the AAR on) had not one, but two of the things. They released around 1500 Cockroaches, which could probably have wiped me out if their AI wasn't so weird.

[tadrinth]

Cockroaches killed me during the tutorial as well. 

[Advenas]

Maybe, I don't really know, I still haven't tested it again.

But, one thing, that maybe the solution (the game made me think during the night, which is quite rare for only a few hours in). I conquered the planet next to them. Well, basically, I conquered every planet except their homeworld. I heard the AI is really good, did they prepare with a ton of ships just because I conquered every single planet on the galaxy before attacking them ? While reading the forums, I heard that there is a "Reserve" the AI makes throughout the game, maybe I just took it right in my face because I was too greedy with the other planets.

What do you think ?

[Advenas]

All right, I beat them to the ground with a massive smile on my face. In fact, it was just that I wasn't prepared for anything like that, and indeed those were Cockroaches, like 1500 of them as you said.
I just made a chokepoint on the planet before the HQ and it went perfectly good. They didn't even get past the mines field. I went like a mad man by placing all of my turrets right on the wormhole and placed energy shield around it, between the turrets and the wormhole. They didn't even pass that, it was glorious.

I know, it may sounds over-enthusiastic but it was super fun for a beginning.

[Vacuity]

I know, it may sounds over-enthusiastic but it was super fun for a beginning.

That's the way!  The AI'll kill you again another way soon, have no fear!

[Kahuna]

Use Cloaker Starships and Lightning Warheads to get rid of the reserve.

[...]
So the Warheads will be used to destroy the Reserves and Special Forces.. and to damage the Force Fields protecting the AI Home Command Station AND to kill Guardians under the Force Fields. AI Home Command Stations them selves are now immune to Warheads (because that's how I won my last 10/10 game (by spamming Warheads until all Guard Posts and the CS was dead))