AI War:Why Do Enemy Waves Get So Large?

Why Do The Enemy Waves Get So Large So Fast?

Q: With AI players of difficulty 8 and up, it seems like they get really huge incoming waves way faster than before. Is there anything I can do to prevent this?

A: Yes, there is definitely something you can do to prevent this -- keep the AI Progress level as absolutely low as you can. This might mean skipping planets you would normally take, stealing knowledge from AI planets in more cases, not doing as many gate-raids as you otherwise would, doing a lot more deep-raids into enemy territory, and other advanced strategies. That's part of the challenge of these highest difficulties: the decisions about which planets to take, and when, are a lot more momentous. This effect is even more pronounced on difficulty 10.

For a more detailed explanation, here's how the wave sizes are calculated (in version 4.040 and later):

How Wave Sizes Are Calculated

Note that all of the above is for calculating just a single Wave's size. In single player, each AI separately launches a wave against you, often simultaneously. In multiplayer or multi-home-planet starts, each AI gets one wave per player. So with four players, you'll see waves in batches of four or eight, depending on whether one or both AIs are sending waves at you simultaneously, for instance.

Each individual wave is shown as a line item on the alerts window in the upper left of the screen, and the calculations for each line item is what's being covered here.

Also, please note that this formula is completely new as of version 4.040 or so. Prior to that, a different, less-interesting, more-forgiving-for-high-AI-Progress formula was used.

Step 1:

Find the intersection of your current difficulty level and AI Progress off the chart below. This is an abbreviated chart, of course: the non-integer AI Difficulties are ignored here, and only a few example AI Progress amounts are shown. If you want the exact number for your specific case, the formula for this step is as follows: ( AIProgress * AIDifficulty ) / ( 11 - AIDifficulty )

AI Progress	1	10	20	50	100	200	300	500	1000	4000
AI Difficulty
1	0.1	1	2	5	10	20	30	50	100	400
2	0.22	2.22	4.44	11.11	22.22	44.44	66.67	111.11	222.22	888.89
3	0.38	3.75	7.5	18.75	37.5	75	112.5	187.5	375	1500
4	0.57	5.71	11.43	28.57	57.14	114.29	171.43	285.71	571.43	2285.71
5	0.83	8.33	16.67	41.67	83.33	166.67	250	416.67	833.33	3333.33
6	1.2	12	24	60	120	240	360	600	1200	4800
7	1.75	17.5	35	87.5	175	350	525	875	1750	7000
8	2.67	26.67	53.33	133.33	266.67	533.33	800	1333.33	2666.67	10666.67
9	4.5	45	90	225	450	900	1350	2250	4500	18000
10	10	100	200	500	1000	2000	3000	5000	10000	40000

Step 2:

Randomized between 1.0 and 0.3, so has a chance of getting smaller.

Step 3:

Given the chart below, if smaller than the floor, then set to the appropriate floor.

AI Difficulty	Minimum Wave Size
1	20
2	40
3	60
4	80
5	100
6	120
7	140
8	160
9	180
10	200

Step 4:

Now apply the “wave size” variable, which is generally based on how long it has been since the last wave. This typically ranges from anywhere from 0.1 to 3 or even a bit more. For the first wave of the game, it's always 1. In the case of counterattack waves, the wave size is temporarily doubled from whatever it would have been.

Step 5:

Given the chart below, if smaller than the floor, then set to the appropriate floor.

AI Difficulty	Minimum Wave Size
1	10
2	20
3	30
4	40
5	50
6	60
7	70
8	80
9	90
10	100

Step 6:

Now apply the multiplier based on the AI Type. These range from 0.25 to 2.0, with only the Mad Bomber being as high as 2.0. Most of the “aggressive” types are 1.5 or 1.25.

Step 7:

Now apply the multipliers from the actual ship types themselves. Ships with a larger ship cap have bigger waves, those with smaller ones have smaller waves. So there are always 2.8x as many laser gatlings, for instance, compared to the norm.

AI War:Fleet Command