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 Every Planet is a choice, every choice has a consequence!  What is AI Wars: Fleet Command? AI Wars; Fleet Command is an RTS that combines elements of 4X, turned based strategy and tower defense genres with a strategic scope and an artificial intelligence that mocks the term "Comp stomp". The closest game to this would be the original Supreme Commander, so if you like giant space fleets and huge ships, this will do nicely. AI wars is at once something that has never been seen before and yet is instantly familiar to any strategy fan. The game consists up to 8 players taking on a pair of AI opponents with a wide range of personalities and specializations upon a staggering multitude of different galactic maps. Add on that randomized strategic objectives and the inclusion of minor factions and no single game of AI wars will play out the same. Who also doesn't love massive fleets pulverizing each other for galactic dominance! Is there versus? No, AI wars does not support the usual RTS gameplay of player versus player; it is wholly cooperative and friendly fire is very rare. Do not be fooled that it is at all easy. The AI for this game was built with the engine around it and the AI opponent is more or less emergent. There will be moments where you will curse it, especially if you aren't sure what you are doing. Very few players are capable of defeating the highest difficulty AI, fewer still without handicaps. The AI will be able to field a challenge, as long as you are playing at level 7 and above.  How long does it take A single Ai wars game can take from 7 to 16 hours (can be more or less depending on number of players, size of map, etc), so it is similar in length to a turned based game like Civilizations or some such. How is multiplayer even possible then? Coop is made much easier for such a long game by allowing players to drop in and out in game (roughly) and allowing games to be saved and reloaded by anyone, as long as they can host. There can be some hic-ups and such but it is entirely possible to get a game going once you got the people in place. The game definitely caters more to a LAN group than over the internet but it is very possible to find people to play with, especially goons. Will my piece of junk be able to run this? The good news is that this can probably run on anything. There have been goons playing on Windows 98 for goodness sake. The absolute highest unit caps might give you trouble. The bad news is that this can run on anything. DO NOT expect a pretty game, you will be too zoomed out anyway to care. Where can I get this? You can get the game from Steam, Impulse and their website directly at http://www.arcengames.com/store.php Every Game is Better with Goons  Best way to game with other SA members is to join the Steam Group at http://steamcommunity.com/groups/AWGC. Most of the contact info is given in there. There used to be irc channels too but those were barely populated and such. Might come back if the population is larger than what I can easily count on my digits. Optimistically there will be someone always interested but at the worst, PICTURES  Click here for the full 1680x1050 image.  Click here for the full 1680x1050 image. Youtubes from ze Maker AI wars in 60 seconds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQzkoh56diA Old and outdated training videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-TV...2747&feature=iv http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAsi...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcIn...feature=related Tactics? part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib1g...feature=related part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDiX...feature=related  The expansion adds a literal ton of new features and if you have the base game you really REALLY should get the first expansion. * 122 new ships, including: * 14 new ship classes with a variety of abilities. * 7 massive capturable "Golem" ships. * Dozens of other new capturables, including  experimental ships.* 14 new AI Types. * 4 Zenith alien minor factions (NPCs). * Over 40 minutes of new in-game music tracks. * Several new map styles. * Several new AI behaviors and many related special AI weapons. Even if you are just playing alone, please get the expansion. I can't imagine really playing without it. Links and stuffs Arcen games http://www.arcengames.com/ The Wiki http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki...r:Fleet_Command Some cool stuff on how the AI was designed http://christophermpark.blogspot.co...-ai-part-1.html Steam Page with demo link http://store.steampowered.com/app/40400  The beta for the new expansion has arrived! Children of Neinzul features a new alien race of insectoid creatures with incredibly short life spans. Their conscious however is able to pass from body to body, allowing knowledge to be retained in a race who lives probably less than a month. This translates into new ship classes that have low health and lose health overtime however are incredibly fast and can be quite powerful. Think of it as the inverse of a lot of Zenith ships, tons of smaller ships with low health and low cost to spam. Also the expansion will cost about 4 dollars, with most of the proceeds going to the charity "Child's Play". The new expansion will include: * 36 new ships, including: * 5 new ship classes with a variety of abilities. * Enclave Starships and Regeneration Chambers for direct unlock. * 6 new AI special weapons. * 6 new AI Types. * 3 Neinzul alien minor factions (NPCs). * Devastating new Hybrid Hives AI plot. * 3 new in-game music tracks. * Two new map styles: X and Concentric Circles. As of August 5th, 2010, version 3.173, the following features are in place: * Starship Class: Neinzul Enclave Starships Mark I-IV. * Bonus Ship Type: Neinzul Youngling Commandos Mark I-V. * Bonus Ship Type: Neinzul Youngling Tigers Mark I-V. * Map Types: X,Concentric Circles * AI Plot: Hybrid Hives Be prepared for carrier starships that can build even Mark IV ships in battle, the AI using missile silos and recapturing planets and no longer hearing We have discovered the Zenith Remnant. Hypha fucked around with this message at Nov 6, 2010 around 05:47 |
| # ? Jul 6, 2010 07:44 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 03:34 |
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Cool patch changes shamelessly copied: What's new since 3.179: * Fixed bug where holding control could let you see the location of exo-galaxy wormholes on planets you had not scouted yet. * Fixed longstanding bug that was causing inordinately high threat counts to stay forever and ever, because the AI considered the Dyson Sphere a constant high-level threat and thus thousands of special forces ships would collect and gawk at it in lieu of actually shooting (since the Dyson is invincible). * Fixed inaccuracy in science station description. * Attrition emitters, human cryogenic pods, planetary cloakers, counter spies, omega drives, rebelling human colonies, captive human settlements, home human settlements, AI troop accelerators, advanced research stations, and datacenters are all now immune to Dark Matter weapons. This protects them from astro trains, munitions boosters, and a few other similar things. * Core Warhead Interceptors can now be captured by taking over the planet the interceptor is on (now that warheads could be incoming from the AI, this makes sense, but previously it did not). * Transports, frigates, scout starships, raid starships, and riot starships are now immune to area damage. This significantly increases their usefulness in situations against things such as grenade launchers, lightning turrets and lightning warheads, and a few other upcoming nasties. * Riot Starships are now immune to blades, which is thematically fitting for them and also makes them not so incredibly prey to vampires. * This one is a HUGE and exciting change to the base game: the endgame has been completely overhauled for AI War. Previously, the home planets for the AI were always very similar to one another, and often they were something of a grind. o The chief problem was that things were too centralized on a single unit on those planets: the AI home command stations. You had to destroy those, and that was really the only goal; therefore, that was super hard if you didn't have enough firepower, or really easy if you did. o Now the emphasis is on a distributed network of specialized, much stronger guard posts, as well as a much weaker central home command station. However, the central home command station can't be touched until all the new AI Core Guard Posts have been destroyed, which means that there are many goals on the planet before you actually get to the final goal of killing the command station itself. o There are 9 new types of these specialized guard posts, with various abilities. Rather than enumerate those here, we'll let you discover those in-game. Some are more rare than others, and your seeding is different every time, which makes each AI home planet quite unique now. There is also room for expansion over time with more specialized guard posts in addition to the first 9. o The overall net effect is that you can take on the home planet a chunk-at-a-time now, and you can successfully destroy a chunk and then come back much later without having lost any progress. This is a big improvement over the old system, where you had to build up overwhelming force and win all in one big push; again, that tended to be either too hard or too easy (usually too hard). o Going along with the above, there is now quite a bit of strategy and puzzle-style challenge to figuring out the best attack pattern and order for actually clearing the guard posts on the AI home planets. Some of the guard posts are likely to support one another, and so your success depends on your ability to make and execute plans here. The goal is to make the endgame as strategic as the early and middle game, rather than it always devolving into a grind or a cakewalk right at the end. o Lastly, the AI home planets previously had really inflated ship caps, in that even if you destroyed guard posts it was impossible to neuter the AI home planets at all. This is no longer the case, and the AI home planets can now have their effective ship caps whittled down over time. This way the battles remain epic, but not laggy or grindy, hopefully. More tweaks may be needed to this over time, too. Hypha fucked around with this message at Aug 16, 2010 around 03:35 |
| # ? Jul 6, 2010 07:45 |
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Hey Hypa mind posting when goons usly get together and die horribly?
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| # ? Jul 6, 2010 07:52 |
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Looks really interesting. Smacks of Iian M Banks to me.
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| # ? Jul 6, 2010 07:58 |
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wargames posted:Hey Hypha mind posting when goons usly get together and die horribly? If all else fails, try Fridays. You might be lucky to browbeat someone into games over the weekdays too but I try to keep Fridays almost guaranteed.
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| # ? Jul 6, 2010 08:09 |
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Wow an expansion and everything? I thought this game was a huge failure cause I remember people saying it got boring in like 40 minutes. Maybe I'm thinking of another game cause this looks kinda cool. Giving it a try.
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| # ? Jul 6, 2010 08:10 |
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Det_no posted:boring in like 40 minutes. It CAN be boring if you set the game way too easy and just try to steamroll everything. The appeal of the game is that you can't take every planet you want without getting dominated and if you set it up such that you can, it will make for a boring experience. The capabilities of the AI are really tied till level 7, where the game really takes off. If you don't play at the very limit of your capabilities, like anything else, it will be boring.
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| # ? Jul 6, 2010 08:25 |
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I've just been messing around with the game so far, but I really like vampires at the moment. They're a big angry laser beam that can take out MK I guard posts and command stations almost ludicrously easily in the beginning, and aren't too shabby against most ships either.
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| # ? Jul 6, 2010 13:14 |
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Det_no posted:Wow an expansion and everything? I thought this game was a huge failure cause I remember people saying it got boring in like 40 minutes. Maybe I'm thinking of another game cause this looks kinda cool. You might be thinking of http://www.positech.co.uk/gratuitousspacebattles/.
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| # ? Jul 6, 2010 15:31 |
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AI War is pretty slow paced, I can see how someone would think it's boring.
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| # ? Jul 6, 2010 17:59 |
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Playing at Diff 7 (or more) and enabling Fast & Dangerous helps. And again, play it coop.
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| # ? Jul 6, 2010 18:07 |
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"AI Wars is pretty slow paced" *remembers the game we had last week when we got raped within 10 minutes* So. Many. Space Tanks.
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| # ? Jul 6, 2010 18:45 |
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I really want to get back into this game sometime. I'm having problems finding people to play with though. My timezone is CEST.
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| # ? Jul 6, 2010 19:34 |
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The full list of features/units/etc for the next expansion is done. You can see it here. This expansion will be smaller than The Zenith Remnant, and it will be cheaper as well ($4). Money will go to the Child's Play Charity. That's some decent content for that price. I don't want to troll MW2 players or anything, but compare that to the MW2 map packs. Vaos fucked around with this message at Jul 7, 2010 around 20:36 |
| # ? Jul 7, 2010 20:22 |
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...eh. I see nothing that interests me in it.
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| # ? Jul 7, 2010 20:54 |
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I'm actually really excited about the carrier starships. Having the ability to have a mobile factory would be great and combined with the cheaper, short-lived ships, I can see this making heavy sieges much more bearable. This might make autobombs hilarious to use now as well. On another note, can someone give me a clue how to use stealth units like space planes effectively, I don't know what to do with them to make them cost effective and I think it is something obvious that I am missing.
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| # ? Jul 8, 2010 07:22 |
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I've come very close to buying this game multiple times. Maybe the day is approaching...
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| # ? Jul 8, 2010 07:37 |
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Hypha posted:I'm actually really excited about the carrier starships. Having the ability to have a mobile factory would be great and combined with the cheaper, short-lived ships, I can see this making heavy sieges much more bearable. This might make autobombs hilarious to use now as well. Don't toss them at wormholes with stealth detectors. If you toss them at wormholes with stealth detectors send in some fighters ahead of them to eat the first salvo of whatever.
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| # ? Jul 8, 2010 07:38 |
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Sil posted:Don't toss them at wormholes with stealth detectors. If you toss them at wormholes with stealth detectors send in some fighters ahead of them to eat the first salvo of whatever. The issue isn't so much that they are dying, I never send them in first. It is just that once everything is in I'm not sure what to do with them for their usage to be worth it. They are stealth, so I want them to rush priority targets that I can't get to but I find them pretty mediocre for this. They still are fine ships but I'll still take beam frigates over em  .
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| # ? Jul 8, 2010 08:19 |
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Hypha posted:The issue isn't so much that they are dying, I never send them in first. It is just that once everything is in I'm not sure what to do with them for their usage to be worth it. They are stealth, so I want them to rush priority targets that I can't get to but I find them pretty mediocre for this. They still are fine ships but I'll still take beam frigates over em Some stealth stuff has mine/tractor beam avoidance. Those are excellent raiders. Not sure though since I've never used stealth ships all that much.
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| # ? Jul 8, 2010 08:25 |
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Nephilm posted:...eh. I see nothing that interests me in it. I'm actually most excited by the new concentric rings map type. I'm not familiar enough with the existing units to think that it needs more, or to know how this will impact my game. Also: $4 goes to needy kids.
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| # ? Jul 8, 2010 10:59 |
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Hey, I knew there had to be goons playing this somewhere! I might be in for the friday game this week, I've got my first multiplayer game going with a bunch of non-goons but it looks like some of them can't make it on friday, so we'll see.
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| # ? Jul 8, 2010 17:47 |
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I just picked this up during the steam sale, and it's alot of fun. I haven't gotten the chance to try multi-player yet, hopefully I can get in on the Friday game one of these days.
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| # ? Jul 8, 2010 22:28 |
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You mean tomorrow.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2010 03:19 |
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The new map styles look promising. I think pattern maps will be very interesting compared to the "tangled web of planets after tangled web of planets" layouts we have seen so far.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2010 04:43 |
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Please note all, I'm still having some difficulties hosting on my end. I would love it if, just in cause, some one else can host for today.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2010 06:16 |
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If I'm around tonight at all, I can host no problem.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2010 12:47 |
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you guys don't play with the beta DRIVERS* installed do you? Its always a pain when someone'e running a different version.
SystemAddict fucked around with this message at Jul 9, 2010 around 14:32 |
| # ? Jul 9, 2010 13:45 |
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What's so difficult about pressing the Beta Updates button?
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| # ? Jul 9, 2010 15:33 |
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Nephilm posted:What's so difficult about pressing the Beta Updates button? games that don't have auto updates tend to become an interesting, OK EVERYONE CHECK YOUR VERSION fest over lans.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2010 16:04 |
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It's a good thing this one does have auto updates, then? Anyways, I wasn't using the beta version originally, but since everyone who wants to play multiplayer apparently is, so am I as of a few days ago.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2010 16:14 |
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ToxicFrog posted:It's a good thing this one does have auto updates, then? ahh OK that explains it. I was wondering why that guy seemed so passive aggressive with his response. I dunno I've just never been a big beta guy when it comes to the game updates.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2010 16:32 |
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Neither am I, for the most part, but in AI War installing the betas is really painless (main menu, Updates, Install Beta, wait two minutes), and because of this, if you're trying to set up a multiplayer game and some of the players have the beta and some don't, it's easier for everyone who doesn't have it to upgrade than it is for everyone who does have it to downgrade. Besides which, the latest beta does have some pretty nice changes, like the research lab/knowledge raiding rework.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2010 17:19 |
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I can't be the only one who keeps thinking of Yuengling whenever I see Youngling in the notes for the expansion. Short-lived but potent lager in my expansion oh nooooo 
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| # ? Jul 9, 2010 17:32 |
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RoboCicero posted:I can't be the only one who keeps thinking of Yuengling whenever I see Youngling in the notes for the expansion. I love ai wars for the fact that I can easily drink and play at the same time. Often, I forget about my drink till it is flat  .
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| # ? Jul 9, 2010 19:01 |
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Whenever I hear "younglings" Hayden Christensen's face appears in my mind. It's horrible.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2010 19:06 |
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What time is it starting? "Friday" is so vague.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2010 23:44 |
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Is there anything I'd need to set up ahead of time to join the game? I saw a few different networks or LAN-like programs on the AI war forums, do I need to set up one of these?
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| # ? Jul 10, 2010 00:10 |
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The Steam event says 2030, 8:30pm EST, that is, right loving now. If I'm hosting we don't need any VPN software, just make sure you're using the default port (32320). EDIT: except looking at the community page it looks like a game may have started half an hour ago? EDIT: game filled up while I was trying to unfuck my ventrilo settings. 
ToxicFrog fucked around with this message at Jul 10, 2010 around 00:43 |
| # ? Jul 10, 2010 00:31 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 03:34 |
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Dumb. Next time post the time in the thread I'm not refreshing some steam community page. Anyway I'm willing to start a pro game if anyone's still around.
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| # ? Jul 10, 2010 00:49 |
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