AI War:OLD Guard Posts
What Do Guard Posts Do?
A: Firstly, they block resource gather points. More importantly, when an AI reinforces a planet, it gets units at each guard post. By killing the guard posts on a planet, you cut down on the volume of reinforcements the AI is able to get and the maximum AI ship cap for that planet. Some guard posts allow AI reinforcements even if the warp gate and command station have been destroyed.
See AI Reinforcementsfor a general discussion on reinforcments
Another consideration with guard posts: normally, ships that are guarding each guard post won't stray too far from it unless chasing an enemy ship that came within their range. However, when the command station on the planet is destroyed, there is about a 50% chance that all the guards will decide to abandon their posts. With low-level planets this matters little, but if you are attacking a Mark IV planet and have not cleared off all the guard posts before taking the command station, you have a 50% chance of getting a nasty surprise. Even worse, if the released guards kill all your forces on their planet, they will then swarm over to your planets, destroying whatever they can. With higher-level planets, this can lose you the game if you aren't careful about it.
- Five marks each (I-V) of nine new guard posts have been added to the game. These are specifically NOT for the AI homeworlds, but are now used in place of all of the previously-existing guard posts and stealth guard posts that used to be in the game (special forces guard posts have not been altered.
These new, specialized guard posts vary in rarity and effect just as do their counterparts on the AI homeworlds, but these have very little overlap in terms of specific function with the homeworld-specific guard posts. Also, with the exception of the "AI Command Station Shield Guard Post," none of these new guard posts protect the command stations from being destroyed.
The primary function of these specialized guard posts is to make the assaults on AI non-homeworld planets more interesting and varied. These first 45 new guard posts should be considered the first steps into this new design paradigm for guard posts, rather than the end-all designs. In other words, there is lots of room for growth in terms of variety and function with these, same as with the guard posts for the homeworlds.
The secondary function of these new guard posts is to raise the difficulty on the non-homeworld planets. Or, more specifically, to counteract the lowered difficulty that is also contained in this release in the form of the lowered AI per-planet ship caps. These guard posts now form the centerpieces of more varied sub-battlefields within the larger battlefields of each planetary area.
Guard Post List (link)
Core Guard Post List (link)
