On the discord someone was asking about the general gameplay of AI War 2 and some of us were attempting to explain how the player and AI are playing different games in a way, I tried providing a perspective in the context of a grand strategy game such as the ones by paradox or the civilization games, and it was suggested that I also post that description on the forums, so this is mostly copy and paste. Feel free to add your own descriptions or alterations to this one, in case this thread might serve as a reference for answering the same sort of questions in the future or in case you feel this one is somewhat inaccurate.
Description Below
Here is another perspective, have you ever played grand strategy games such as the ones by paradox, or possibly one of the civilization games? Imagine you are plying one of those, controlling a large empire and attacking another to get all the things.
Now imagine some rebels (or barbarians with civ) pop up, just a small force that doesn't really do anything, just sitting around in your territory, maybe reducing your income by a tenth of a percent.
In that case, you probably wouldn't really pay attention to them, maybe send a unit or two that happen to be nearby to clean up, but really they don't matter one way or another, so you just focus on conquering that empire you are attacking.
Now imagine they actually take a province (or city) or two out of dozens if not hundreds. You might start getting slightly annoyed and send a full stack to clean up or slow them down, but you still only really care about that other empire since you can always just take that territory back once you finish the war.
Next imagine they are popping up all over the place, taking stuff and just being really annoying, now you might start using a bit of excessive force and send several stacks to just get rid of those annoying rebels, destroying them as they pop up but with the majority of your army still focused on the other empire.
If they hold out, destroying your forces and steadily gaining territory, then you just bring in all your death stacks from the front line and absolutely crush them before returning your focus to the other empire, taking back whatever ground you lost and continuing your war. Game over for the rebels.
Now go back to when they were just taking over a province or two, being slightly annoying.
Imagine that instead of steadily expanding, they stick to those few provinces and while you are focusing on the other empire they just happen to walk up to your capital, which is game over if you lose it, and burn it to ashes while you aren't paying attention. You are now extremely annoyed and got a game over, rebels win.
In AI War 2, the AI is the huge empire fighting another one, and you are the rebels that are just annoying and a pain to deal with.
End of description
Once again, feel free to make corrections or provide your own descriptions of AI War 2 in this thread, or just ignore it if you prefer, this is mostly just in case anyone in the future has the same question, since it is easier to find something in the forums than something buried in months of discord comments.
