AI War: Fleet Command

This is the type of game I wish I could instantly learn how to play--it's so daunting. I'll scoop it for now and hope I have time to learn it later. At least I seem to be supporting a pretty cool indie dev.

Whew, I'm finally here. But man this looks daunting. Did enough to start a game and get my Summer Ticket from Steam. Might have to wait a while before diving into the whole thing.

Do we have a Steam group for getting coop together? Or do people just post here?

This thing seems to support steamworks, at least it recognized my nickname. But the multiplayer still seems to be IP based, what gives?

Played this again for a while tonight and really enjoyed it. I decided to start a journey of beating the AI on each difficulty level, to get a feel for how it scales.

Interesting point: While viewing the Global Stats on the Steam achievements, I saw that a mere 4.4% have actually won a game and gotten the "First Victory" achievement.

Sounds about right. I only did the summer achievement, haven't been back in to "play" the thing yet.

Stele wrote:

Sounds about right. I only did the summer achievement, haven't been back in to "play" the thing yet. :D

Likewise. I've gotten as far as "Okay, I should look through the manual, then come back and play the tutorials when I can concentrate." That time hasn't arrived yet.

Do you suck at AI War? Do things in the game elude you? Well, Chris posted up a list of Let's Play vids for AI War. Haven't watched any, but I'm glad to see people did some for this game.

I am looking for some co-op AI War action.

I played one game to completion solo. Man, talking about ship logistics. I had to abandon my bases to near destruction when I pulled ALL of my forces to travel the last AI core. It was an awesome spectacle filled with challenges to get my 1,000+ fleet to the core system and then manage all the different ships for their assigned tasks. Totally worth it though to see the 1980s style reward of "You Win!" flash up on the screen.

Who is up for co-oping across the galaxy?

I am! I have no idea what I'm doing even after the tutorials. But I do want to pew pew some robots.

Tamren wrote:

I am! I have no idea what I'm doing even after the tutorials. But I do want to pew pew some robots.

Cool. Now to figure out how to send you an invite. Hmmmm. I'll let you know how that goes.

EDIT: Do you have microphone so we can talk? If you don't that's fine.

Tamren wrote:

I am! I have no idea what I'm doing even after the tutorials. But I do want to pew pew some robots.

I've sent you a group invite to the official Steam AI War group. And I've opened up the thing to get players in. Let me know when you get the invite.

I got the invite. I'm trying to puzzle out the multiplayer interface. It looks like it recognizes my steam tag. But then when I go to invite people it seems to connect by IP, which is confusing...

Tamren wrote:

I got the invite. I'm trying to puzzle out the multiplayer interface. It looks like it recognizes my steam tag. But then when I go to invite people it seems to connect by IP, which is confusing...

Yeah. I just got back. I hope someone reading this thread will go, "Hey, click this button for multiplayer happiness." That's a hint by the way for anyone else reading this

This bears re-posting methinks. (Wow. I knew I came to the right place where the word methinks gets the nod from the GWJ spell checker)

AI War how-to on playing co-op

Re: Multiplayer how to?
« Reply #2 on: September 29, 2009, 08:40:07 AM »
The process on a LAN is:
------------------------

1. Host starts game (through lobby or through loading a multiplayer saved game).

2. Client connects to host, either by manually typing in the IP address, or by selecting it in the results list from when it searches on the LAN.

Possible Problems:

A. Client and server have different ports selected in the Settings window (this would only be the case if one of the players had changed this in the past).

B. Client and server are not on the same game version (both must be the same).

C. Client or server has a software firewall, like the Windows Firewall, ZoneAlarm, or something else that is either blocking AI War or the AI War port. AI War's setup process opens the Windows Firewall port if you use our installer, but if you have something else you might need to either temporarily disable it to test, and then add an exception once you have confirmed the firewall is the issue.

The process over the Internet is:
--------------------------------

1. Host starts game (through lobby or through loading a multiplayer saved game).

2. Client connects to host, either by manually typing in the host's public IP address, or by manually typing in the host's virtual IP address on a VPN solution like Hamachi.

Possible Problems:

A. Any of the problems from the LAN section might still be the issue here, but additionally:

B. Using the wrong IP address. For Hamachi, the IP addresses always start with 5.whatever, and are shown right in Hamachi. For a direct connection, use something like http://www.whatismyip.com/

C. If not using VPN software like Hamachi, then you probably are having to traverse a router with NAT on the host's network. This requires port forwarding for the AI War port.

Those are pretty much the common pitfalls, I can't think of anything else that would generally cause a problem with a game like this. Hope that helps!

I grabbed it and a few expansions during the steam sale this summer, but haven't spent a ton of time with it yet. So incredibly deep and interesting, though.

If anyone wants to play a game let me know. I'm up for a co-op match. Either PM me on Steam, Twitter or right here on this site.

Strangeblades wrote:

If anyone wants to play a game let me know. I'm up for a co-op match. Either PM me on Steam, Twitter or right here on this site.

I'll take you up on that, but my schedule for the next week or two will not permit much gaming time. Once this quarter of school at night is over, I'm all over some MP.

Arcen just recently pushed a patch, which is neat as most of their time (95%) has understandably been going towards AVWW. Anywho, AI fortresses just had their hit points halved, which will make them much more manageable as an opponent.

Here's a nifty pocket reference guide, suitable for printing and folding.

Michael wrote:

Here's a nifty pocket reference guide, suitable for printing and folding.

Nice reference guide. Will come in handy when I am panicking. This happens often when I realize I forgot to block a hole into my system and BOOM, 1,000 level 3 ships.

So hit me up when you are free and we will get a multiplayer game in.

You want to see a developer treat a game like a living organism where every round of evolution means it only gets more awesome?

Strategizers - You owe it to yourself to buy the AI War: Alien Bundle on sale at Steam. You get a crazy amount of content for only $7.50.

Agreed, that's the deal I picked up over the summer. So much great stuff. You should post it in the Space Game thread, too.

I now own this game thanks to Strangeblades. May his camera never run out of memory.
Unfortunately won't be able to play it for the next five days or so because I won't have access to a computer.

tagg wrote:

I now own this game thanks to Strangeblades. May his camera never run out of memory.
Unfortunately won't be able to play it for the next five days or so because I won't have access to a computer. :-(

Curses!

I think I made a mistake buying it because I'm fairly impatient recently and I fail to grasp the concept of how to spam ships correctly. I guess I'll have to try more of the tutorials. I tried to start a game and got owned fairly fast. I guess I need to start with a solid defense and learn how to combine ships correctly.

Is it a good idea to play the first games without the expansions?

Niseg wrote:

I think I made a mistake buying it because I'm fairly impatient recently and I fail to grasp the concept of how to spam ships correctly. I guess I'll have to try more of the tutorials. I tried to start a game and got owned fairly fast. I guess I need to start with a solid defense and learn how to combine ships correctly.

Is it a good idea to play the first games without the expansions?

Yes. There are already plenty of ships and options in the 'vanilla' game - more than enough for a new player to learn.

Niseg wrote:

I think I made a mistake buying it because I'm fairly impatient recently and I fail to grasp the concept of how to spam ships correctly. I guess I'll have to try more of the tutorials. I tried to start a game and got owned fairly fast. I guess I need to start with a solid defense and learn how to combine ships correctly.

Is it a good idea to play the first games without the expansions?

You have to play the tutorials. The last tutorial is a full on game that will take you hours to complete. And you have to do it. It's a requirement to unlock the awesome potential of the game.

Looking to Play AI War.

Sorry if I made invitations to others to play AI War and then didn't follow through. MW3 happened.

I am ready to go now. I know a couple of you expressed interest so hit me up and let's play some co-op.

Have they added an option to turn off AI Eyes yet?

I just wish it wasn't such an incredible, epic slog to finish this game. It me takes forty to fifty hours to wipe out both enemy AIs on a standard map. I'm in a game that's been sitting for months, where I just took out the first AI, and I know I can take out the second, but it would take so goddamn long to get over there and get set up that it's just not worth it.

Unless my Steam account is wrong it took me only seven hours to beat the AI. Of course I reloaded a lot.