The AI types you are fighting determine how the AI behaves and what ships and defenses it is able to use against you. Some types only give the AI access to extra units, while others radically alter its behavior. Some types are so defense-oriented they don't even launch regular waves, while others are extremely offense-oriented. The type you're up against can greatly influence how you play the game.
Note that this is for AI War 2. This page is currently WIP; some AI types are missing
AI Opponent Types by Difficulty
Easier
AI Name
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Wave or Ship Types
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Additional Spawns and Unlocks
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Description
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Full Ensemble
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The Full Ensemble gets access to most of the AIs 'normal' ships
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Nothing
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Hugely varied AI in terms of what its planets are like. However, it doesn't use any niche tactics... usually.
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Simple Ensemble
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The Simple Ensemble gets access to a subset of the Full Ensemble's ships, minus the more esoteric variants
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Very solid, generalist AI. Nothing fancy
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One-Way Doormaster
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Black Hole Machines on most planets
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The presence of so many Black Hole Machines will cause problems to the player as they move ships around, and will increase the AIP as the player destroys them.
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Shield Hater
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Focuses on anti-defense and anti-shield ships
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Generalist AI other than its focus on particular ships
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Overreactive
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Sends much larger Counterattacks when human ships spend a lot of time ineffectually dying on its planets.
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Bar Fighter
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Reacts violently to any attacks on its planets; rarely retreats and almost always prefers to fight
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Moderate
AI Name
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Wave or Ship Types
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Additional Spawns and Unlocks
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Description
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Vanguard
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Focuses on regular Guardians instead of strikecraft
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Similar to the Royal AI, but instead of getting Royal Guardians it gets regular Guardians. Requires The Neinzul Abyss expansion
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Gladiator
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Gets access to Zenith Architrave Ships
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Gets ZA-themed defensive structures on many planets
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Generalist AI with new units available; Requires Zenith Onslaught expansion
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Peace Maker
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Gets lots of Ion Cannons and Mass Drivers
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Generalist AI alongside the extra defenses
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Quadratic
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Each incoming wave is about twice as large as the previous one
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With every normal wave it sends, it doubles the minimum strength of wave that it is willing to send. This tends to lead to waves that take much longer to 'charge' (before being announced), but eventually leads to VERY large waves.
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Hard
AI Name
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Wave or Ship Types
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Additional Spawns and Unlocks
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Description
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Spire Hammer
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Gets access to stronger versions of Dark Spire units, and weaker but more numerous versions of Spire units.
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Has access to extra Spire-themed defensive structures.
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Generalist AI with new units available; Requires The Spire Rises and Zenith Onslaught Expansions.
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Ragnarok
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Gets access to stronger versions of Dark Spire units, and Dark Zenith units.
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Has access to extra Dark Zenith-themed defensive structures.
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Generalist AI with new units available; Requires Zenith Onslaught Expansion.
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Zombifiyer
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Uses many units that deal zombification damage.
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Has access to extra Dark Zenith-themed defensive structures.
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Generalist AI other than its focus on specific units.
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Vicious Raider
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Significantly larger waves, and uses more raiding units.
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Offense focused AI.
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Tsunami
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Offense focused AI. Spends more on Waves and border aggression.
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Special Forces Master
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Gets much larger warden and hunter fleets.
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Can be very difficult to make progress against due to it's reactivity, and the use of it's budget directly on warden and hunter makes it significantly more dangerous.
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Aedile
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Slightly Stronger Praetorian Guard that can move further from its homeworld.
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Generalist AI, but it's Praetorian guard can move further from it's homeworld. Can be particularly hard on highly connected maps. Requires Zenith Onslaught Expansion.
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Brutal
AI Name
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Wave or Ship Types
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Additional Spawns and Unlocks
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Description
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Vengeful
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Gets extra exowaves.
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Generalist AI that retaliates with (relatively) small exogalactic attacks whenever you destroy it's guardposts, warpgates, command stations, data centres, and more. Requires Zenith Onslaught Expansion.
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The Beast
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Has access to strengthened versions of Nanocaust units.
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Generalist AI with access to powerful Nanocaust units that can require specialised strategies to deal with. Requires Zenith Onslaught Expansion.
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Jabberwock
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Has access to strengthened or altered versions of many minor faction's units, including Dark Spire, Dark Zenith, Nanocaust, Scourge, Spire and Zenith Architrave units.
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Gets ZA-themed and Spire themed defensive structures on many planets.
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Generalist AI with access to a wide variety of powerful units that will require specialised strategies to deal with. Possibly the hardest AI type in the game. Requires Zenith Onslaught Expansion.
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Geneticist
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Has access to Scourge units.
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Generalist AI with access to powerful Scourge units that can require specialised strategies to deal with. Requires Zenith Onslaught Expansion.
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Swarmer
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Uses lots of drone ships and swarmer-type strikecraft.
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Has modified guardposts that all spawn swarms of drones.
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Generalist AI other than its focus on particular ships
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Royal
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Focuses on Guardians instead of Strikecraft, and they are much more powerful.
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Extremely Guardian focused AI. It's stronger guardians can require specialised strategies to deal with.
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Praetor
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Stronger Praetorian Guard that can move further from its homeworld.
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Generalist AI, but it's strong Praetorian guard can move much further from it's homeworld. Can be almost impossible on highly connected maps. Requires Zenith Onslaught Expansion.
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Golemite
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Extra AI Golems on its planets.
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Generalist AI, but it's golems can be very difficult to handle in the early game.
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Other Types
- There are also Random and Adaptive options. Random gives a randomly chosen AI Type from the appropriate class. So a "Random Easier" will give you a randomly chosen "Easier" AI Type. Adaptive will change AI Types every hour or so. So if you have "Adaptive Brutal" then every hour or so the AI will change to a different Brutal type.