AI War:AI Types

AI Opponent Types by Expansion

Base Game AI Types

Zenith Remnant Added AI Types

Children of Neinzul Added AI Types

Light of the Spire Added AI Types

AI Opponent Types by Difficulty

Easier

Entrenched Homeworlder

Planets are heavily defended, and they do moderate attacks on the players.

Unique Units: Captive Human Settlements

Fortress Baron

Planets are mostly moderately defended, but the core planets are incredibly heavily defended, and they do moderate attacks on the players.

Unique Units: SuperFortress

Grav Driller 

(requires Zenith Remnant)

Aggressive AI with many gravity drill stations on its planets. Gravity Drills nullify teleporting units and majorly slow down all other units, but when captured provide free resources and energy.

Mine Enthusiast

Planets are all moderately defended, but are heavily booby-trapped with mines.

Neinzul Viral Enthusiast 

(requires Children of Neinzul)

Has Neinzul Viral Swarmers at every wormhole, making the use of lightning warheads and similar against them... dangerous.

One-Way Doormaster 

(requires Zenith Remnant)

Employs black hole machines on all of its planets, which makes each raid into its territory a one-way trip if the black hole machine is not destroyed.

Shield Ninny 

(requires Zenith Remnant)

Planets are all heavily defended, often with special boosters for allied shields or inhibitors for enemy shields, but this AI never launches waves at the players.

Sledge Hammer

Waves slam into one player planet after another, with potentially fatal effect.

Support Corps 

(requires Children of Neinzul)

Launches no waves of its own, but supports the waves of its ally by adding in various specialized units. Also supports its own planets and its ally's plants with those sorts of units.

Units that it adds for support: Engineers, Mobile Repair Stations, Munition Boosters, Force Field Bearers, Decloakers

Units that it also adds for support if The Zenith Remnant is installed: Decoy Drones and Shield Boosters

Thanks to FrostyThePyro for suggesting.

The Tank

Planets are all lightly defended, and they do slightly heavier-than-average attacks on the players.

Extra Units: Has tanks and armor ships from the start, as well as whatever other ships they might unlock.

Train Master (requires the Space Trains AI-plot to be enabled)

Uses many, many astro trains.

Extra Units: Double the normal number of astro trains.

Turtle

Planets are all very-to-incredibly heavily defended, but they do no waves against the players (Cross Planet Attacks and border aggression still happen).

Vanilla 

(requires Light of the Spire)

Has absolutely no unusual powers. Just a plain old basic AI, with whatever unlocks happen to come with the map seed.

Zenith Descendant 

(requires Zenith Remnant)

Aggressive AI that uses only Zenith fleet ships.

Moderate

Assassin

Planets are all moderately defended, and they harass the strongest player with prejudice.

Backdoor Hacker

Planets are all moderately defended, and they have a permanent path into each player's home planet (so creating the usual defensive perimeters won't work).

Extra Units: Has a permanent Exo-Galaxy Wormhole on each player's home planet.

Bully

Planets are all moderately defended, and they harass the weakest player with prejudice.

Camouflager 

(requires Zenith Remnant)

All of its mobile ships look like harmless pieces of junk when stationary and not firing.

Counter Spy

Planets are heavily defended, and advanced scouting is almost impossible because of the counter spy defenses on each planet, which insta-kill all cloaked ships.

Unique Units: Counter Spy

Experimentalist 

(requires Zenith Remnant)

Aggressive AI that uses a heavy mix of experimental ships along with its normal fleets.

Feeding Parasite

Uses parasite raids almost exclusively (which can be highly damaging).

Extra Units: Has all parasite ships from the start, as well as whatever other ships they might unlock.

Mad Bomber

Non-core planets are all very lightly defended, but does extremely brutal attacks on the players.

Unique Units: Bomber Starships

Neinzul Cluster-Bomber 

(requires Children of Neinzul)

Builds Neinzul Clusters on all of its planets.

Neinzul Youngster 

(requires Children of Neinzul)

Uses all Neinzul ship types. Its waves never have any ships other than Neinzul younglings, but its waves have only half the warning that normally is given. Its planets are comparably lightly defended, around the level of the Mad Bomber.

Thanks to RCIX for suggesting.

Peacemaker 

(requires Zenith Remnant)

Uses anti-golem, anti-starship, anti-warhead, etc, ships on all its planets.

Speed Racer 

(requires Zenith Remnant)

All of its mobile ships have been upgraded to move extremely fast.

Spireling 

(requires Light of the Spire)

Fairly aggressive AI that uses only Spire fleet ships.

Extra Ships: All Spire fleet ships.

Stealth Master

Uses stealth raids almost exclusively (which can be highly disconcerting).

Extra Units: Has all ships with cloaking from the start, as well as whatever other ships they might unlock.

Tag Teamer 

(requires Zenith Remnant)

A defensive AI whose guards are extra speedy and don't stay near their posts. This makes them more challenging to attack.

Teleporter Turtle

Planets are all very-to-incredibly heavily defended, but they do no waves against the players (Cross Planet Attacks and border aggression still happen). Specializes in teleporting ships, which are particularly powerful in defensive postures.

Extra Units: Has all ships with teleportation from the start, as well as whatever other ships they might unlock.

Thief 

(requires Light of the Spire)

Fairly aggressive AI that uses ships with tractor beams and leech capabilities. This can lead to a distinct disregard for player property rights.

Extra Ships: Etherjet tractors, Spire Tractor Platforms, Parasites

Thanks to Kemeno for the suggestion.

Vicious Raider

Planets are all moderately defended, and they do heavy attacks on the players.

Extra Units: Has raider ships from the start, as well as whatever other ships they might unlock.

Harder

Alarmist 

(requires Zenith Remnant)

Uses alarm posts (special forces or regular) on all of their planets. Makes for massive cross-planet attacks unless players carefully kill these alarms.

Attritioner

Planets are all moderately defended, except that each one has an Attrition Emitter, which drains the health of any human ships in the system. Does heavy attacks on the players.

Unique Units: Attrition Emitter

Everything 

(requires Light of the Spire)

Has absolutely every fleet ship and core ship type unlocked from the start.

Extreme Raider 

(requires Light of the Spire)

Very nasty AI that uses raid-oriented fleet ships and really likes sending Raid Starships along with normal waves.

Extra Ships: Raider, Spire Stealth Battleship, Cutlass, Vampire, Teleport Raider

Thanks to ShadowOTE for the suggestion.

Golemite 

(requires Zenith Remnant)

Has fully-functioning golems on a great many of its planets. Since the AI Progress goes up greatly when these are repaired, care must be taken to destroy these all in one wave to avoid any such penalty.

Neinzul Nester 

(requires Children of Neinzul)

Builds Neinzul Nests on a huge number of its planets.

Thanks to Nemo for suggesting.

Radar Jammer 

(requires Zenith Remnant)

Employs radar jammers on all of its planets, which makes long-range ships very ineffective against it.

Retaliatory 

(requires Light of the Spire)

Starts with Counterattack Guard Posts on most planets, and can actually have more than one on a planet (if that planet would have gotten one normally). This can lead to devastating counter attacks particularly when taking a mkIV planet.

Thanks to zebramatt for the suggestion.

Scorched Earth

Heavily defended planets. Whenever it loses control of a planet, it destroys that planet and all the resources there. Ships will survive.

Shadow Master

Like the Stealth Master, except every planet is equipped with a powerful device that keeps all ships permanently cloaked, even when firing, even if they wouldn't normally have cloaking. The only sign of this enemy is the device itself, which can be difficult to reach what with all the invisible enemies firing at you from the nether.

Unique Units: Planetary Cloaker

Extra Units: Has all ships with cloaking from the start, as well as whatever other ships they might unlock.

Special Forces Captain

Only has special forces guard posts -- no regular guard posts. This makes for a tremendous number of ships patrolling around the map at any given time.

Spire Hammer 

(requires Light of the Spire)

Generally solid AI that also adds a powerful Spire ship to each wave (in addition to the normal starship). At higher tech levels it will even send Capital-ship level vessels.

Extra Ships: Spire Frigates and Capital Ships.

Starfleet Commander 

(requires Zenith Remnant)

Aggressive AI that uses starships heavily in place of normal fleet ships.

Warp Jumper 

(requires Children of Neinzul)

On the bright side, this AI type does not build any warp gates on its planets, which saves 5 AI Progress per plant and avoids the need to gate raid their planets. On the downside, however, this AI type is able to launch waves at any non-warp-jammed planet on the map at any time thanks to their warp drives on their individual ships.

(AI-types below are red in-game to represent their relative difficulty compared to others)

Crafty Spire 

(requires Light of the Spire)

Starts with various Spirecraft (which are generally bigger than starships and smaller than golems) on its planets.

Extra Ships: Spirecraft.

Raid Engine 

(requires Zenith Remnant)

Uses Raid Engines on a huge number of their planets. Makes for very frequent, short-term brutal waves in addition to the normal waves unless players carefully kill these engines.

Technologist

Technologist Homeworlder

Like the Entrenched Homeworlder, except the enemy uses only the highest-technologies right from the start (these are quite a formidable foe).

Unique Units: Captive Human Settlements

Technologist Parasite

Like the Feeding Parasite, except the enemy uses only the highest-technologies right from the start (these are quite a formidable foe).

Extra Units: Has all parasite ships from the start, as well as whatever other ships they might unlock.

Technologist Raider

Like the Vicious Raider, except the enemy uses only the highest-technologies right from the start (these are quite a formidable foe).

Extra Units: Has raider ships from the start, as well as whatever other ships they might unlock.

Technologist Sledge

Like the Sledge Hammer, except the enemy uses only the highest-technologies right from the start (these are quite a formidable foe).

Technologist Turtle

Like the Turtle, except the enemy uses only the highest-technolgies right from the start (these are quite a formidable foe).

The Core

Planets are all lightly defended in terms of the number of ships at each, but all ships of this AI are deadly Mark V/Core ships.

Randoms

Normally when you choose a random AI type you cannot see which type was actually chosen until the game ends. However, there is an AI Modifier in the lobby that allows you to make them visible from the start, but still chosen at random. You can also use the disabledaitypes.txt file to exclude specific AI types from being chosen (if you've already played them, say, and are trying to work your way at random through the whole list -- or if you simply don't like a specific type of AI).

Random Easier

Chooses one of the easier AI types at random.

Random Moderate

Chooses one of the moderate AI types at random.

Random Moderate/Easier

Chooses one of the easier or moderate AI types at random.

Random Harder

Chooses one of the harder AI types at random (technologist AI types are all considered harder, so this includes them).

Random Harder Non-Technologist

Chooses one of the harder AI types at random, but specifically excluding any of the technologist types.

Random All

Chooses one of AI types at random.

Random All Non-Technologist

Chooses one of AI types at random, but specifically excluding any of the technologist types.

AI War:AI War