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 Upgrades, but too late (20:51) A third Spire City goes up, upgrading our capitol to Mk II and giving us access to some new buildings. The process of upgrading Spire cities is discussed as well. Shortly afterwards though, I admit defeat. The hostile Scourge are simply too strong and there's nothing I can do about it. So I'll be rebooting this ASAP, beginning at essentially the same point as this one ended on a new map. However, I will do a montage of stuff that has happened in the start-up because its' turning out to be quite an interesting galaxy. Up Next Tomorrowish hopefully, I'll dive back in with a more focused, less ambitious Spire setup. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Mar 8, 2020 |
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Mar 7, 2020 23:59
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Unfortunate, but not completely unsurprising. The Scourge were dominating everything happening so far. You were only doing very little Spire stuff, and it seems like most of the firepower was still coming from your "traditional" ships and turrets. Would it have helped to do more Spire stuff faster, and thereby strengthen your Spire fleet a lot faster? The strategy of first securing the first two rings, before really starting to do more Spire stuff, got you a lot of the disadvantages of having higher AI Progress and taking a lot of time, without getting the advantage of having super powerful Spire fleets. Even though you had trouble securing Kiwi, you still had more than enough secure space (I think) to put more Spire cities into. Looking forward to the next run.
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Mar 8, 2020 07:30
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Good observation. I think it would have helped, but it would have required not making the other mistakes I made. I.e., when you're having trouble defending it's hard to invest in other things which are going to initially increase the pressure. Plus, while I waited a while on the third city I had no prospects for getting more after that. Doing so meant grabbing Relic Trains - it wasn't a space issue I definitely had room for them - which required deepstriking, which I couldn't do because the fleet wasn't strong enough (either standard or Spire), and the Spire aren't fast enough, and the map wasn't at all conducive to cutting them off in most cases, and … Yeah. If I'd prioritized differently, I might well have been in a position to get 1-2 more but some still would have gotten away. Who knows what that might have changed. But to do that, I would have needed to be more aggressive expanding my own territory earlier before things got out of hand, spend my science knowledge more wisely, switched to military chokepoints sooner … in other words, mostly just played the game in a much different way. I'll take my humble pie a la mode, if you please.
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Mar 8, 2020 11:36
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Revised Spire Reboot (33:13) Back with a new map and a new plan - we'll see how well that fares. A look at the Nemesis from the last run, and then Outguard features prominently along with one of new Arks as we press on to have a couple Spire cities and more coming soon by the end of this. Up Next The Spire fully take center stage as we progress through adding more cities.
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Mar 8, 2020 21:16
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Wow, that Nemesis is brutal. Really like the new map and your strategy for getting the Spire stuff done (intercepting the trains). It seems like a lot better than with the previous map.
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Mar 8, 2020 23:34
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Yeah, something that stands out when comparing this with the last run, it looks like in that your overall plan going into "tasting" run of (establish control the two inner rings first) was the factor that decided beforehand those systems had to be conquered (regardless of whether the system was really worth capturing), but in doing so you ended up always being short on flagships/citadels/researchstations/vaults/etc compared to previous runs. Was that just bad mapgen RNG luck and/or map layout? Also possible that I'm entirely wrong.
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Mar 9, 2020 01:26
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I think there was some bad mapgen RNG. This galaxy really fell into place for me with stuff like being able to get to the two paired MDCs just before I hit MK III AIP, and so on. The difference in Outguard access early cannot be overstated as a factor, and in the first game having the MDC on top of the 180-strength citadel didn't do me any favors. On the other hand there was also dealing with Scourge stuff and I thought I needed to save more science for Spire research whereas going into this game I knew how that worked and that upgrading those is about getting more cities, not your own science knowledge. With just the Fallen Spire and the AI, I could afford to take me time on this map and I knew what I was getting into. So I'd say both RNG and understanding better what needed to be done are factors here. I'm still in for some surprises but at least I figure I'm much better set up to deal with them this time.
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Mar 9, 2020 07:28
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The Race Is On! (25:35) While it's not without tension, we do get the next pair of cities planned and also take a look at the mass of turrets I'm using for this run. Some are new, others are familiar. I'm sort of splitting the debris with the AI, but it's more important to me to keep expanding Spire holdings faster than the exo waves can ramp up. So far so good - and there's an amusing situation as well with AI threat getting 'trapped' by a Black Hole Machine. Up Next Getting the Capitol up to Mk III, and other frivolities.
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Mar 9, 2020 21:04
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Do the relic-chase spawns ramp up over time, to prevent ridiculously cheesy/stupid strategies like stockpiling several relics before you even build the first city?
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Mar 9, 2020 21:29
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I think they do, but I can't say for certain. It appears to be the case but I've not tested it or anything. Having said that, the strength of them is mostly determined by the intensity of the Fallen Spire faction that you've set, and how many Spire cities you have. But stockpiling relics before you build the first city … that's not really a thing. Not only would you get attacked, but you could only stockpile the initial three (hack, Citadel, Research station) unless you want to constantly move the other ones around. I.e., once you move them, they build a city where you told them to go. So you'd literally have to move them back and forth constantly to stop them from building.
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Mar 10, 2020 08:30
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Strategic Sage posted:I think they do, but I can't say for certain. It appears to be the case but I've not tested it or anything. Having said that, the strength of them is mostly determined by the intensity of the Fallen Spire faction that you've set, and how many Spire cities you have. But stockpiling relics before you build the first city … that's not really a thing. Not only would you get attacked, but you could only stockpile the initial three (hack, Citadel, Research station) unless you want to constantly move the other ones around. I.e., once you move them, they build a city where you told them to go. So you'd literally have to move them back and forth constantly to stop them from building. Seems like the kind of thing that would have some sanity check so it only builds inside player-owned territory? Obviously even if it did work it would be a silly thing to do anyway, and you'd probably need to stagger the last few constructions since each city spawns an exo wave on completion. During which time you would be fighting a constant stream of pursuers as well. silentsnack fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Mar 10, 2020 |
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Mar 10, 2020 08:55
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Actually they intentionally allow you to build cities on AI planets. They won't function properly until you take the planet, but I think that's so you can place the city then expand rather than expand first if that's the way you want to do it.
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Mar 10, 2020 09:17
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Are there any story messages like in AI War 1? I mean, how are you supposed to know what is happening, what you should do, and why?
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Mar 10, 2020 18:37
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There are not. Lore is something they've talked about being behind on. Last I heard they still planning on adding it, but right now Fallen Spire is really bereft of in-game flavor/guidance like that. You just sort of figure it out as you go along like with the other factions.
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Mar 10, 2020 20:55
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Raising the Stakes (36:37) Another relic chase, and then lots of attacks to deal with including a wormhole invasion and largest CPA I've yet seen. Also new Mk III Spire toys. Up Next All is going smoothly so far, and we'll try to grab another couple of cities to take the next step up the ladder.
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Mar 11, 2020 21:28
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Egads I've been a slacker - sorry, I didn't realize I'd forgotten to post one in this thread. Battleships Ahoy! (18:46) The power of the 'mid-level' Spire flagship is shown … but it isn't enough to avoid my first significant setback of the campaign. A new strategy is needed.
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Mar 14, 2020 22:39
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Old-School Relic Defense (38:07) Faced with an even further journey, I employ a strategy adapted from Classic and get a little more specific on the relic response. It's fiddly and requires timing & micromanagement, but it definitely works better. Now at MK 4 Spire advancement, just one tier shy of the promised land … now if only I didn't fail at math. Up Next I'm aiming for a double feature tomorrow to wrap up this run before the weekend's over. Failing that, it will conclude early next week. It's time to show a dangerous possibility in Spire games … and then trigger the alternate endgame. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Mar 15, 2020 |
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Mar 14, 2020 22:42
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The Final City (26:29) The double feature ended up being unnecessary. The endgame is more compressed in AI War 2's Fallen Spire iteration, with more concentrated hostility. Otherwhise it plays out fairly similarly. Up Next I'll return to complete Faction Frenzy after doing a couple of topical videos, and then I'm going to probably wrap up this thread as I'll be taking a modest break from AI War 2. It'll return on my channel with a challenge run of TBD composition and I expect to keep going there with future expansions etc., so if you haven't gotten enough of it I'm not done with the game but we've seen all the current factions here so I figure it's probably served its purpose on the forums.
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Mar 15, 2020 20:55
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Faction Overview (23:04) The second of a couple topical videos, I also did a review of the expansion a few days ago. This one spends about two minutes on each faction, ranked from least impact on the game to highest. Up Next An unfortunately-brief by necessity return to Faction Frenzy. You can probably guess why.
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Mar 21, 2020 21:21
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Inevitable Surrender (3:27) Super-short because there wasn't much to say except admitting defeat and showing why. The Extragalactic War stuff simply cannot be stopped, I have no idea where Phase 2 is, and while I temporarily got all my planets back up it was short-lived and they really started coming in force. Several hundred strength worth level of force. Thanks to all who participated and followed this LP. It is now concluded and will be submitted for archival soon, though I will continue to have AI War 2 content on my channel in the future. A new, long-threatened project will be coming to SA from yours truly starting later this week, and I'm excited about that.
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Mar 24, 2020 15:50
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Thanks again for the LP -- it's great to see someone who has a better idea of what they're doing than I do. I never thought I was very good at this game, but it recently became clear exactly how bad I am, after I bounced hard off of a level 5 AI allied to level 5 Scourge, with level 4 Scourge allied to me. The map that I played on has one single choke point that I do not have the military strength to punch through, and I haven't been motivated to try exhausting the resources I haven't touched on my side of the galaxy. I'll have to try again to play more with the expansion content. Lysidas fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Mar 25, 2020 |
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Mar 25, 2020 22:20
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You're welcome. Scourge is hard, and their AI is tuned for the purpose of attacking the player; meaning they aren't as good at attacking the AI so allied Scourge tend to not be quite as strong. And you either move quickly and aggressively to keep them down or they kick your arse. My advice is get up to where you can win against diff 7 AI before messing with them or the Spire.
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Mar 25, 2020 23:11
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Thanks for the LP. I really enjoyed it! I did go ahead and purchase it - who knows, with the Coronavirus lockdowns, I might actually get around to playing it - at which point I think I now have a good enough grasp of how it all works.  With the patches coming in so quickly and changing so much, running head long into impossible situations that weren't your fault was inevitable.
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Mar 26, 2020 13:48
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