Let's Sperg Lego plays... AI War - Damn the machine.

[LegoTugboat]

So, I've had a copy of AI War for a while, and have most of the expansions. Given that the LS subforum seems fairly popular, I figured I might as well show you guys the interesting/diabolical game that is AI War: Fleet Command.

The plot is fairly simple. Humanity builds advanced AI. AI turns on humanity.

...AI proceeds to completely and utterly goddamn annihilate humanity and then go on to take care of other matters.

Humanity has to conduct strategic and tactical strikes on the AI to weaken them without making the AI concerned about them. If the AI gets concerned, the AI will proceed to use excessive and ridiculous military power to take care of you. Which is bad.

So, really, the first thing to do is to pick the victory condition you guys will want me to go for.

1. A series of tactical strikes to weaken the AI, standard normal way.
2. Conquer everything immensely pissing the AI off, crush it's forces in battle and win.
3. Fallen Spire
4. Nebula
5. Nomad
6. Exile
7. Showdown

And, of course, the AI types that you guys will want me to go for, I'll keep it random as a surprise for all of us.

So I would need 4 options of Random Easier, Random Moderate, Random Moderate/Easier, Random Harder, Random Non-Technologist, Random All.

In addition, I would also want 2 numbers from 1 to 10, 7 is considered average difficulty, and finally.

The amount of planets for a map, ranging from 10 to 120. To avoid giving you guys too many options, I'll pick the map type using a RNG.

To put it mildly, though, regardless of what happens, there is a decent chance that humanity may not survive.

Of course, the AI will have it's various fun little tricks, which I'll explain as we see them.

So, do you guys feel confident in putting your lives in my hands?

 

[Tranhuviya]

I vote for condition 1, and hopefully we can put down the Man of Iron before it becomes too powerful to outright kill us all.

I am moderately confident that you will not fail us.

 

[LegoTugboat]

Last of the preliminary stuff.

The 4 random numbers for the AI types have been 2, 1, 7, 5, so it seems that one of the AIs will be a sap, while the other one will be about as easy to deal with as it is to take on an Abrams with your bare hands.

Random number for map type is 8, which is Vines, and Valiant gave me the number 90, which I've rounded up to 100.

My starting homeworld will be selected by the game itself, and as more information pops up, I'll share it with you guys.

Next time there will actually be images. Shocking, I know.

 

[LegoTugboat]

Apologies for the double post. Thus far, for the first hour, it's been fairly quiet in terms of AI attacks, but we have seen some new friends, so we'll take the time to introduce the ones who want to kill us.

The first AI is a difficulty 8 Spireling/Mine Enthusiast. He uses the alien Spire fleet class ships, and he has his planets boobytrapped with mines. He's the easy one.

The second AI is a difficulty 8 Teleporter Turtle/Everything. He specialises in teleporting ships, is heavy on the defence, but would not normally attack. Unfortunately, his secondary characteristic means that he is now able to. Oh, and he has access to every fleet ship in the game.

Those two there are the ones we have to defeat by taking out their Home Command Stations. In return, they can win against myself by taking out my Home Command Station.

So, from the map above, we can spot a few things. My homeworld is the nice place of Wouh, and the neighbouring planets are Ticotus and Quonet. So, at the moment, all that's known is that somewhere, the AI is on one of the... other 99 planets.

Now, at the moment, the AI doesn't give a crap about us. Our AI Progress is 10, which means that it'll reinforce itself with small amounts of ships, it won't attack us with a strong force, it's generally not concerned. As the game goes on and we become more aggressive, the AI will start to show a little bit of concern. And then it will proceed to rape and murder us.

So, right at the start of the game, I pause. I immediately unlock Mk 2 Scouts, Fighters, Bombers, Missile Frigates and my bonus starting ship, Raptors.

Spoiler

Scouts are a unarmed small recon drone, you send them out, they go through wormholes, if they get past the enemy force unseen, they zoom off to the edge of the system and keep you updated on what's going on.

Fighters are small, well, fighter craft, they're moderately fast, they take on Bombers and anything that might want to blow up stuff that we may want to keep.

Bombers are... well, let's be honest. They're bombers, they blow shit up, including the next unit.

Missile Frigates, long range combatants, they fire missiles to take out small craft like Fighters. They're slow, but they're pretty nifty. It's a game of rock paper scissors, really.

Raptors are a fun little thing, and very annoying to fight. They're fast, have good range and are very nimble. They'll happily zoom in on their selected targets, fire, and zoom away until they reload. The only catch is that they take hits about as well as wet paper.

I also take the time to unlock Mini-Forts, which are a moderately sized defensive unit, ridiculous range, attack with flamethrowers (in space!), but are very energy heavy to run.

Now, during the first ten minutes, while building up my fleet, both the AIs send one wave each at me, the first one being 79 Bombers, and the second one being 90 Armor ships,

Spoiler

which are pretty much just a solid block of metal with a gun and an engine.

From scouting, there are no less than 3 Backup Design Servers within a two planet jump from my homeworld, which we can hack to unlock new unit types, or hack to prevent the AI from using their design by corrupting it. Or we can just ignore them.

One of the design servers is on Quonet, so I clear out Ticotus first, to prevent a back attack, clear out Quonet, and start hacking.

The AI promptly flips it's shit, and acts like I'm trying to install Windows ME on it, sending amounts of various ships at me, mainly Zenith and Spire, which I'll introduce you to later on. The most concerning part is that this is only the first hack, so I don't know how it'll react later on.

I eventually get pushed/forced back by the surge, but manage to hold the ground at Wouh, despite a last minute reprisal wave of 7 Spire Railclusters. The hack is successful, and I get Railclusters of my own.

Spoiler

The Spire Railcluster is a moderately large fleet ship, that has a wide arrange of short range railguns. They're nasty customers to deal with short of a bombing run, and they will happily demolish Fighters.

After that, I go about securing Quonet, and production starts on our new toy. The AI doesn't give us a chance to rest, with a wave announcement coming as my fleet is raiding Vuve, resulting in a hurried retreat before the AI hits, sending in 51 Spire Teleporter Leeches, followed by 175 Bombers. Then followed by 9 Spire Tractor Platforms. While the battle is in progress, the Tractor Platforms grab the majority of my fleet and try to drag them to the first trifecta, the 3 planet stronghold of Quonce-Barkostus-Murdoch.

Spoiler

Spire Teleporter Leeches are a medium sized teleporter, that can happily jump around and try to reclaim your ships, so that they can be used to shoot you. They're a pain in the ass, and they kinda suck for the player to use them, despite the dev's best efforts.

Spire Tractor Platform - I hate these bastards. They have lots of guns, but the worst part is their 30+ tractor beams, which will latch onto your ships and drag them to an AI planet. The AI will then go 'Hey, the humans are here', and promptly go to attack you.

Now, Murdoch is a right bastard of a planet to deal with, since it's always the first planet to get created in a new game. That means it gets top pick of all the fun toys. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to scout Murdoch yet, because...

Thankfully, things get even more chaotic as one of the minor factions, the Marauders, attack, smashing the Tractor Platforms and throwing the AI into disarray. I pull the newly released fleet back as the marauders promptly chase off the AI forces, and split up, 3 of their ships going to my homeworld, which are immediately flattened by the fleet, 4 each go to Vuve, Joyunmik and Dumayo.

Spoiler

Marauders are a minor faction consisting of, well, the dregs of humanity. They have long range missiles and short range grenades, and they don't care who they fire at. They'll show up at random during a large enough battle to make your life interesting.

And 5 go to Quonce, where they immediately die to the massed firepower surrounding the planet.

That's bad, because I have to go THROUGH Quonce.

However, the hour ticks to a close, with another minor faction attack, which gets chased off, as the fleet rebuilds and repairs.

The immediate short term goals are to take on the smaller planets nearby, so that I can continue to gain strength to take on Quonce (without triggering the alarm on Bosape, which would mean the entire goddamn fleet would charge me.)

And so far, I know a whopping 9% of the galaxy.

And a shot of the home planet. In the foreground, you can see the sniper turrets in the bottom left, the scattered metal mines, the two purple forcefields, and the confused mess of colony ships, engineers, docks and deploying ships (ships are highlighted pink to show they're in free roam defender mode, so if anything hostile comes, they'll kill it.)

At the moment I haven't bothered to take screenshots of any battles, because they've really just been skirmishes at best. But soon, though, soon things will liven up.

(Also, the forcefields around my home command station dropped to about 80% during one of those battles, so you might want to keep an evacuation plan in place.)

 

[Tranhuviya]

Build up on Raptors and Fighters, and move to LIGHTNING STRIKE one of the nearby planets with the aforementioned ships.

 

[LegoTugboat]

So, I have good news and bad news.

The good news is lots of exciting battle screenshots, and that Valiant, if she wanted to fufill her dreams of being a space captain, got a hell of a chance to rise quickly through the ranks. And by rise quickly, I mean at the rate of probably one per second.

The bad news I'll save for later.

Remember how I mentioned that the planet Quonce was one that I was concerned about? Well, the AI was concerned about it was well, so they deployed a Hunter/Killer to patrol it. And by patrol, I mean to keep wandering between Quonce and Ticotus, trolling my raiding plans.

Despite that charming little beastie wandering above, which I will let the screenshot above tell you why I was so concerned about it, I continue raiding the nearby planets, expanding my scouting to Murdoch, which contained a beautiful Zenith Beam Frigate MkV Fabricator, and another Backup Server, because I swear, the frigging AI this game has more servers than Google.

Spoiler

Zenith Beam Frigates are a relatively low cap ship that work in a simple way. They fire a beam in a straight line. Anything that's an enemy in the beam takes damage or blows up.

MkV Fabricators let you build the MkV, or Core, versions of fleet ships, which are 5 times stronger than normal ships, are immune to being nuked, and are generally nasty to deal with, for both sides.

Given the HK wandering around, I unlock MkII Engineers and deploy them, as well as bringing Quant, the captured planet from last update, fully online and producing starships, which I won't really go into this time because...

Around this time, I have a bit of good news as a friendly Neinzul Enclave joins us, roaming the homeworld, and deploying it's drones to help our fleet attack any enemies that visit.

An attack of 164 Spire Gravity Rippers comes through

Spoiler

They have a nasty close range gun that can stop anybody in it's tracks. Trouble is, the gun is so close range that if it were a shotgun, you would have to literally put it into the person's chest to fire.

, followed up by 8 Spire Railclusters.

During the battle, the AI retreats to Ticotus, I follow to deal it a crushing blow, which causes the AI to flip out and deploy the HK in support.

As it's screaming towards the battle, more Marauders appear, forcing me to pull my fleet back as the battle becomes a free for all. The HK retreats, as a group of 6 Marauders chase after it. Annoyingly, the HK isn't even scratched.

As the HK continues retreating, I push forward into Ticotus with the rebuilt fleet and a mobile builder, to set up two Mini-Forts for extra offensive presence.

As the third battle for Ticotus rages on, the HK arrives with it's escort, as a wave of 314 Bombers is launched against Wouh. I'm forced to retreat my Fighters as my own Bombers start to pound the HK. Unfortunately, even though it's the weakest type of HK, it still takes a lot of firepower to bring down.

Despite taking heavy punishment, 100 Bombers manage to break through and start pounding the forcefields protecting the home command station on Wouh. This is immediately followed up by another wave coming of 467 Spire Teleporting Leeches.

The fleet on Ticotus is forced to stop receiving reinforcements, and they start to lose ground, despite the firepower of the newly online Mini-Forts.

As the Teleporting Leeches start to jump around, stealing my ships like the bastards they are, ANOTHER wave is announced, because holy fuck is the AI upset.

A wave of 41 Spire Stealth Battleships.

Spoiler

SSBs are just bastards. They're cloaked, like Raptors, but they have innate radar dampening, so you have to close in to attack them, when they reveal themselves, or you forcibly reveal them. But they can attack you from afar, and en masse...

The battle for Ticotus by now has been lost, with the forces there crushed as they tried to retreat, and by now, the forcefields around the home command centre are down to about 40%. Then the SSBs open up with their literal massed firepower. The forcefields explode under the pressure as fire starts ripping into the centre.

The AI then launches another wave of 15 Spire Railclusters, because screw you human.

By this point, it was obvious that humanity is more screwed than a virgin on her wedding night.

Fortunately, the screwening doesn't last long, because humanity is promptly wiped out about 5 minutes later. (Command centre blows up about 15 seconds after the above screenshot, and the remainder is just the AI wiping out the people popsicles.)

For those of you interested, the ships destroyed by the second AI and myself were roughly equal on both sides. The first AI effectively shit itself and did nothing.

 

[LegoTugboat]

Alright, time for the second attempt.

This time, the RNG has given me a 120 planet Grid map, against some interesting opponents, and I find a toy for later on.

<Screenshot of map here whenever the farms lets me insert it.>

This time, I start off with Zenith Bombardment Ships as my bonus ship.

Spoiler

Zenith Bombardment Ships - Oh god yes. This is one of the better ships to have. A low 24 unit cap per tier, and they take half a minute to reload in between shots. In return, they have a ridiculous range, and an attack that will cripple, if not outright annihilate, any ship it hits.

Plus they'll retreat out of range by themselves, helping to protect against an attack. A pain in the ass to the AI if you have them, and a pain in the ass to you if they have them.

Given that it's the largest planet map, the first hour was really pretty pointless to take screenshots of, but there was a lot of information to be found, so let's see what happened.

I unlock the second tiers of the fleet ships and begin scouting. Amazingly, there is absolutely nothing of interest, except for some Counterattack Guard posts to the west, so I decide I'll head east and see what I can find.

First wave by the Vanilla Bully AI (Completely and utterly uninteresting AI. If it was a co-op game, it would pick on the weaker player, though.), consisting of 79 Bombers to Lauyiark.

Second wave by a Neinzul/Teleporter Turtle, consisting of a variety of 148 Neinzul units, which I'll cover more through the LP. (And yes, the Teleporter Turtle is the fun bastard who crushed me last time.)

On the planet Plusav, however, there is a very interesting little discovery, as the scout inadvertently activates it.

Spoiler

Dyson Sphere - A massive, massive, indestructable golem at the edge of the planet. It's quite content to be left alone, and it's not a fan of any command stations being built. If it's the AI, it will spawn hostile to all Dyson Gatlings, if it's your command station, it'll spawn Dyson Gatlings that will only attack you. If you blow up the AI command station and don't build one of your own, it'll spawn allied Dyson Gatlings that'll patrol your planets.

In this case, the scout activates it, and the hostile Gatlings start harassing the AI forces guarding the planet. They won't clear the planet by themselves, but it's an annoying distraction for the AI.

I clear and capture Boomsho, and unlock Logistical Command Station MkIIs, and immediately start building starships. They don't play a major role in the first hour, but it's nice to have them ready.

Spoiler

Logistical Command Station MkII is a variety of command station you can build on captured planets. They slow enemy units down by a third, and double your unit's speed. Unlocking them was NOT in any way related to an attempted LP yesterday where some MkV Raid Starships sped past my fleet and blew up my home command. Not at all. Bastards.

The AI retaliates with waves 3 and 4, wave 3 of 174 Neinzul Tigers against Boomsho, followed up by another 208 assortment of Neinzul.

Spoiler

Neinzul Youngling Tiger - It's a 'slow (by Neinzul standards) bomber/tank type ship, cheap to build and will happily go off and destroy your/AI structures. In return, it constantly takes damage simply by existing, a trait that all Neinzul Younglings share. There are ways to regenerate them, but honestly, I'm just not a fan of Neinzul.

Phigio and Achban are quickly neutralised by the fleet, and the Bombards commence a long range bombardment against the enemy force on Arranyunther, taking out some of the defenders, and allowing for two followup raids, which effectively clear out half of the planet's defences.

The AI sends in wave 5, 81 Bombers to Lauyiark, and 159 Neinzul Younglings to Boomsho. Even though the younglings end up being backed up by marauders, the waves are still crushed.

<Screenshot of battle whenever the images on the farm stop playing up.>

And that was the end of the first hour.

For the next hour, it will really be a case of continuing to push east, while seeing if I can help out with Plusav.