AI War:AI Progress Strategy
What Happens If The AI Progress Is Lowered After Passing A Tech-Up Threshold?
Q: If the AI hits 200 and gets a new ship, does this ship somehow disappear (or the AI can't build any) if the AI goes below 200?
A: Nope, that's the one thing that is irreversible. But having a new ship type doesn't give it more volume of ships, it just spreads out the ships that it reinforces with into more ship types, if that makes sense. So it doesn't increase the difficulty unless the ship type itself is more difficult.
Q: What happens if the AI goes over 200, then below, then over 200 again?
A: This the only property that is affected by positive AI progress only, actually. In other words, the game keeps track of the total positive and negative AI Progress modifiers, and the negative are completely ignored for when the AI unlocks new ship types. So even if you have +200 AI Progress and -100 negative AI progess, showing a total of 100 AI progress on your screen, you'll see the AI getting new ship types after that point. Here again it's not so much a question of difficulty usually, unlike the actual numbers of ships built, and the tech level of the ships built, both of which are affected by the total effective AI Progress (100 from my example).
As an added note, part of why the game keeps track of the negative and positive components of the AI progress is for having an internal lower bound without ever wasting datacenters. For example, here are the cap levels:
- >= 100, cap 30
- >= 150, cap 40
- >= 200, cap 50
- >= 250, cap 60
- >= 300, cap 70
- >= 350, cap 80
- >= 400, cap 90
- >= 450, cap 100
So what that's telling you is that if your internal, non-adjusted AI Progress is 100 or more, you can never reduce the effective AI Progress below 30. But! If you kill so many datacenters that it would draw it below the cap, don't worry about that wasting your efforts. There is never a reason to delay killing a datacenter. It's true that in those circumstances the datacenter killing would have no immediate effect, but the next time your AI Progress would be increased, the prior datacenter reduction will keep it snapped to that cap level (assuming the cap level doesn't bump up to a new height).
Q: Same for when it goes over 240 and sends out level II ships. Can this be brought down to I again?
A: Yes, this can get brought back down to I. Same as with the relative volume of ships in waves and reinforcements. Any existing waves/reinforcements of higher volume/tech level won't be affected, but new ones will be back at the prior level.
When To Worry
Q: When Should I Be Worried About The AI Progress Getting Too High?
A: Well, opinions on this actually vary a bit between the hardcore players. I'm the developer of the game, but some other players have figured out some very effective tactics that are a bit different from how I personally play it. Which way you go depends on your personal preferences and playstyle, but my style is generally easiest for new players:
I tend not to be too worried about the AI Progress reaching around 400-600 by the end of an 80 planet map. You can even go higher, but it will get harder. Killing the first of the two AIs will bump it up by around 100, so you might want to position yourself where you can kill both in quick succession if you can. But that's not nearly always possible.
As far as whether you should kill the warp gate on a planet, I would suggest that if the planet is adjacent to your home planet, then the answer is yes 100% of the time. If you can create a layer of buffer around your home planet, that is always worthwhile.
Beyond that, it's just a matter of either 1) capturing some sort of goal; or 2) reducing the number of ingress points through which the AI can to send waves at you.
Goals worthy of taking a planet:
- Advanced Research Stations (100% of the time)
- Advanced Factories (100% of the time unless you already have one)
- Large amounts of metal/crystal (if the planet is defensible, and you need whichever resource)
- Other special capturable structures that you might encounter and desire.
Goals that you should just raid for unless there is some other reason you want the planet:
- Destroying a data center
- Destroying Astro Train stations
- Destroying Special Forces Guard Posts
If a planet is just in your way, or threatening you through adjacency, you can always decide to go in and kill all of the command posts but leave the command station and/or warp gate. If there is a long string of planets in your way, you can use transports to ferry your guys across all of them, but you might be setting yourself up for being too weak later on. It's hard to say.
In general, when I play an 80 planet map, I tend to capture a planet around every 45 minutes, give or take. I tend to thus take around 20-30 planets total out of the 80 planets on the map. That is 400-600 AI Progress right there, not counting special forces command posts or astro train station additions (or additions from other sources), and also not counting data center reductions in AI Progress.
I tend to be pretty lax on destroying all the data centers, too, unlike some others here. That would be problematic when playing on the really high difficulties, which I occasionally do, but I tend to prefer a more relaxed game and so tend to play in the difficulty 7 range (it's only "relaxed" if you really know what you are doing, don't worry, and even then it still provides enough challenge that sometimes my own AI surprises me and kills me).
Anyway, so you should be okay at the start, it's not until the cumulative effect of the AI Progress starts taking hold that -- on difficulty 7 and similar -- things start to get dicey. But YMMV, depending on your skill and comfort level at the moment, and also the specific map and AI types you have in this game. Some maps are harder than others, and require a more conservative or aggressive strategy.
Having a string of 5 planets all in a row is the sort of thing that I, personally, would probably take just to have an open supply line. But it depends on the rest of the map and how open it is. If you're going to be going through narrow corridors like that the whole time, then that might be trouble and something you should instead hop over. On the plus side, if those are all that border your home, and you take them all, you've got a huge amount of buffer between the AI and your home. On the minus side, the attacks will be that much stronger against your front door...
