AIP

[chow404]

       As it was decided on how AIP was going to work, I decided that the previouse post no longer made sense to keep around. There was some nice discussion about the lack of feedback for the player, so I decided to keep the first 4 points so that any discussion could continue for that point.

1. The player needs to retain the feedback that the AIP meter would give, i.e. to allow the player to know when they had gone to far, and when the AI would be upgraded.

2. Feedback needs to be given on the value of what the player is destroying/taking over/ building, on what the response of the AI will be, and the deadliness of the actual response.

3. The AI needs to still be able to provide adequate responses to player actions, as in sending in units that can't be reclaimed against the botnet golem. This shouldn't be a problem as it is already in AIW:C, but is still vital.

4. Of course the AI still needs to "progress" over time as it upgrades your "threat" level. It might sound redundant, but it is still absolutely vital for the AI to become more deadly over time.








       

[Pumpkin]

I like the idea of Reactive/Progressive. I interpret that as the AI investing resources on short term or long term goals. Am I right?

How would you represent the level of Reactive/Progressive? As numbers like AIP? There would be AIR and AIP? Or as something more organic like budgets? Something like "The recent human actions raised the Reactive budget by 500, which will soon trigger a wave of 500 strength"?

[tadrinth]

Chris decided to keep AIP around, at least for now. 

 What this does is create a window for the player to deal with the second AI

The increased AIP from killing the first HW will increase waves and reinforcements.  If you go over 200 AIP, then the reinforcements stop increasing, and the extra strength goes first to the strategic reserve, then to waves and the next CPA.

In other words, I think this is already built into the game, a little. You'll probably be over 200 AIP after the first HW assault, and that means the AI will first devote extra strength to protecting it's own HW (via refilling the SR), and only then to killing you.  If you're about to win anyway, you can use warheads to soak waves to buy a bit more time.  You'll probably want to win before the next CPA, though. 

[Pumpkin]

If you go over 200 AIP, then the reinforcements stop increasing, and the extra strength goes first to the strategic reserve, then to waves and the next CPA.

I hate AI War for being so cryptic around things like that.

[Misery]

If you go over 200 AIP, then the reinforcements stop increasing, and the extra strength goes first to the strategic reserve, then to waves and the next CPA.

I hate AI War for being so cryptic around things like that.

That's one thing the game definitely needs to do, is be less cryptic.  About everything. 

Hell, that can be a really frustrating reason to lose, is because the game does something like, I dunno, give you a message, which is important, but you have no bloody clue what it means.  One early loss I had was to a Champ Nemesis wave.... the message popped up, and I had no freaking clue what the heck it even meant.  And of course it doesn't list a planet for something like that, so I don't know WHERE it's going to go.

Countdown hits zero, I'm watching the galaxy map to see what's happening.... nothing happens for awhile... and then ZOOM, those bloody things and their stupid shields are on top of my home system before I could do anything.  That game ended there.   If I'd had a clue what the whole thing was, I mighta been able to do something about it (I have a pretty specific response to that event now).  But nope.   And the game does tend to do that.

Or something like a cross-planet attack.  The player has no bloody clue what that means when they see it the first time, and when the countdown hits zero, it then gives you a couple of other messages that also wont make sense.  There's no way for them to know what happens there.  It's not like the "incoming wave" message, which is very clear about what's happening.

Hell, I still don't entirely understand CPAs myself.  There's just no real info on them in the game (and the wiki is mostly useless).

[Pumpkin]

(and the wiki is mostly useless)

I did my best. ;P

Yeah, CPA too are rather cryptic. I know it pulls from different sources (guards, barracks, threat?, strategic reserve, etc) but...

[chemical_art]

(and the wiki is mostly useless)

I did my best. ;P

Yeah, CPA too are rather cryptic. I know it pulls from different sources (guards, barracks, threat?, strategic reserve, etc) but...

I feel like it is matter of being different but with no explanation. Once it is explained (The AI pulls reserves from all sources rather them producing them directly) then it makes sense. But it lacks explanation and that is what makes it confusing which in turn make it challenging to counter.