AI War:Prerequisites to Winning

What do you need to do to win a game of AI War?

Simply put, the only objective of AI War is to kill the AI Homeworld Command stations without losing your own Homeworld Command Stations. This is a bit trickier on Multiplayer since as long as one of the human players hasn't lost any of their home command stations, the alliance can still win.

Core Shield Generators

Core shield generators were introduced as a way to force players to take more planets, as some incredibly minimalistic playstyles were overwhelming the AI before it could really 'rev up'. If these are activated in the "Ships" tab during map generation, then you will always end up destroying a minimum of 8 of these structures on each playthrough. To destroy one, you must have a player command station building on the planet, thus requiring 160 AIP worth of increase with these on.

However, many of these CSGs (6 in particular) are on planets you'll want to take in most circumstances, having either Advanced Research Stations, Advanced Factory IVs, or high end ship fabricators on them. You'll rarely find them prohibitive unless you're playing a very non-standard set of tactics.

You can find out more in the section on this page: AI War - End Game

Right, but what do you NEED to win?

This is a different question, and like many other questions in sandbox style games: "It Depends."

In general, you will require a very strong fleet to be able to overcome the high-level (Mark V) defenders at the AI Homeworlds, and also destroy their guardposts. You will need to destroy all the guardposts on the homeworld before you can damage the AI Homeworld Command Station. This can be daunting. After that you'll need to assault the AI Command Station, almost always defended by two high mark forcefields, a Fortress III, and a small mass of Mark V ships that will hide under the forcefields and attack your assault force.

You will also want to take control of enough positions to be able to attack without causing deepstrike threat. Deepstrike happens whenever you're attacking more than 4 systems away from a neutral or friendly planet. Deepstrike causes a continuous spawning of zombie ships (much like an AI Eye) from the two AI Homeworld Exo-gates.

Once you've done that once, you'll need to do it again on the OTHER AI Homeworld. Both AIs (like two players in Multiplayer) will continue to function as normal as long as one of those homeworld command stations exist. Once both are destroyed, you'll win that game.