Do AI Planets Still Go "Alert"?

[EKG_Burst]

Hi all. Brand new, so genuinely sorry if this isn't the right place for this.

A.I. War had an "alert" system by which enemy planets, once put into "alert" mode, would begin reinforcing them with ships, making some planets very difficult nuts to crack in the late game.

Has this feature been carried over to A.I. War 2? I don't see a tooltip for it, and can't find anything about it online.

Thanks in advance.

[x4000]

Welcome!  Sorry for the slow response here.  And you are in just the right place.

The concept of planets being on alert is... kinda-sorta here?  The AI does make decisions based on the proximity to hostiles, but it's a little more complicated now since there are other hostiles than just you, and those hostiles may or may not own planets (macrophage often lives on AI worlds, doing nasty things without taking the planet).

The AI has a certain set reinforcement budget that goes up as the AIP goes up, and it allocates that primarily along the "front lines" of where it thinks things are most dangerous, but that's not just limited to what we would have considered "planets on alert" in the first game.  I can't remember if the reinforcement budget in the first game went up with more planets being on alert or not.  I'm not sure if that would be wise in this game, or not.

I'll be curious to know what you think about how it's tuned at the moment, if we should show alert status or not, and that sort of thing.

Cheers!
Chris

[BadgerBadger]

When spending its Reinforcement budget, the AI has two conditions it checks for:
Either there were enemy forces there "recently" or the planet is adjacent to a non-AI planet (could be neutral, could be player/minor faction controlled). If this planet has either of those conditions then the AI will Reinforce that planet.

Each planet has a cap on "Max Defense Strength based on the mark level of the planet and the current AIP". Any budget that might be wasted is given to the next CPA.

[Draco18s]

Also also, AIP is per faction. Players have a progress, each minor faction has its own progress, etc.

That was the microphage and nanocaust can press the AI off without the player being the one taking all the attacks.

[tadrinth]

I'm assuming reinforcements are based on total AIP generated by all hostile-to-AI factions? 

I don't think the budget went up in AIWC based on number of planets alerted.  I don't think that would make much sense.

The AI did get more reinforcements for each guard post it had in the system, which made it worth neutering any planets that were going to be alerted long term.  I think this functioned as a multiplier to any budget spent in that system, something like +10% per guard post.

AIWC also had a small chance to reinforce the AI Homeworld and the adjacent Core Worlds on each reinforcement cycle. 

AIWC capped the reinforcement budget at whatever it was at AIP 200, and any excess went to the strategic reserve (is that still a thing?), the next wave, and the next CPA.  That way high AIP wouldn't stonewall you, but instead would try to kill you with massive waves and boosted CPAs. 

[BadgerBadger]

No, reinforcements are only based on player AIP. You are the star of this game, after all.

[etheric42]

Does anyone think it would be useful to see what AI planets are on "alert" on the galaxy map?

If it sounds useful but also TMI, maybe gate it behind a tech or a certain building?

[x4000]

A looooong time ago, in AIWC, the budget was a certain severity based on the AIP, but it would happen in a certain number of "spending events" that was based on the number of non-AI planets that existed, and it would try to spend only on alerted planets unless it had hit its strength cap on those, and then flow over to elsewhere.

But things progressed a long way from there, and AIW2 has always done it differently.  I think AIWC does it differently now, too.

[EKG_Burst]

Welcome!  Sorry for the slow response here.  And you are in just the right place.

The concept of planets being on alert is... kinda-sorta here?  The AI does make decisions based on the proximity to hostiles, but it's a little more complicated now since there are other hostiles than just you, and those hostiles may or may not own planets (macrophage often lives on AI worlds, doing nasty things without taking the planet).

The AI has a certain set reinforcement budget that goes up as the AIP goes up, and it allocates that primarily along the "front lines" of where it thinks things are most dangerous, but that's not just limited to what we would have considered "planets on alert" in the first game.  I can't remember if the reinforcement budget in the first game went up with more planets being on alert or not.  I'm not sure if that would be wise in this game, or not.

I'll be curious to know what you think about how it's tuned at the moment, if we should show alert status or not, and that sort of thing.

Cheers!
Chris

Thanks for the reply Mr. Parker! So what I'm hearing is that while the concept of alert reinforcement is generally the same, the conditions and variables the system is working under are more complex and varied.

While I'll definitely let you know about tuning the more I play, my first instinct is that a tooltip updating the player to "alert" status would be helpful, but it would necessarily have to convey more information than in the original A.I. War, and I don't know how much of that information you want to keep hidden from players at any given time.