Troy Goodfellow

Episode 194: Checking In With Arcen

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Last seen way back in Episode 37, Chris Park from Arcen Games returns to the show to talk to Troy, Michael Hermes and Shannon Quesnel about AI War: Fleet Command on the occasion of the release of Version 6.0. Chris talks about how theme and vision dictate patching, the particular skills that a hardcore niche audience can bring to an indie game and how Steam is the best promotional tool they have.

Check it out over here.

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maaaaaan,

now I want to go and plough more time into AI War. haven't played it in about a year, (and only have 49 hours racked up on Steam).

Only listened to the first half of the show (will listen to the rest on the walk back from work tomorrow evening), but so far so good. :)

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Really good to hear Chris talking about the progress of AI War, and especially how successful its been! I feel particularly proud in being one of the evangelists for the game in the early days, spreading the good news around forums like Gamers With Jobs, Quarter To Three, Rock Paper Shotgun and anywhere else I could get a mention in. :)

It's a game I've followed avidly, although haven't played a lot of recently. Like Michael, I keep an eye on the patches and expansions, as well as following Chris' blog posts on all sorts of Arcen topics.

I think its a testament to the "Arcen way" that AI War is so successful and has so much longevity. I look forward to seeing what's next for all the Arcen projects.

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After listening to this episode I'm intrigued by A.I. Wars, but when I look at the website, I'm still not sold. Anyone care to evangelize on the topic?

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Interesting podcast, especially so because what the changes the most recent dlc does were not discussed :)

AI Wars does something very well that I wish more games did, it aknowledges that the AI will not be able to compete vs a human player and so builds the entire game around that. I feel that a game like Fallen Enchantress could be easily be made to play that way and be really good. No TBS 4x game I can think of has an AI that can compete on an even playing field with humans, they always receive boosts at the higher levels.

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After listening to this episode I'm intrigued by A.I. Wars, but when I look at the website, I'm still not sold. Anyone care to evangelize on the topic?

The game definitely has a steep learning curve and "unique" graphics. Admittedly, neither are really helpful at hooking the casual passer-by. I've yet to meet someone, however, who was unhappy with what they found on the other side. There is a demo available via Steam and the developer's website, so that might be your best option. And while Arcen is a great dev and really deserves our ducats, it's no secret that the game will be pretty deeply discounted in the winter Steam sale.

Interesting podcast, especially so because what the changes the most recent dlc does were not discussed :)

I know! I wish we had Chris for a few more hours to talk about everything I had in mind, but we had a limited amount of his time and therefore had to focus. It's a different game since launch, and we thought it would be interesting to talk about what's changed along the way and why. I do like the new expansion, though.

There are a few other games that I think would be interesting to "check in" on. Hearts of Iron III is another 2009 release that's changed dramatically since launch and had a lot of great features added. I haven't picked up the latest expansion yet, but it was review pretty favorably over at Wargamer.

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+1 for checking out the demo. It's pretty huge and will give you an idea of what the game is like.

Another idea is to try and organize a game with somebody friendly who can show you the ropes. I've only competed the one multi-player game, but it was a blast, with lots of joint planning, coming to each others rescue, etc.

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Thanks for the responses. I'll check out the demo sometime this holiday weekend.

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Man, gotta try again to get into AI war some time. I've bought all the DLCs so far, and started the lengthy tutorials, but somehow it's incredibly overwhelming. I guess you have to commit much time to really master it. I'll defininitely come back to it some time.

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Man, gotta try again to get into AI war some time. I've bought all the DLCs so far, and started the lengthy tutorials, but somehow it's incredibly overwhelming. I guess you have to commit much time to really master it. I'll defininitely come back to it some time.

Hmm, not really. The game is a LOT less daunting than it looks. If you ignore nearly everything that isn't mentioned in the tutorial, and go up against the AI on a low setting, you'll still probably win. And when you come across things you don't know how to deal with, you can just look them up on the wiki.

Or better yet, get through the tutorial, and find somebody on the forum to take you through a co-op game :)

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I would also suggest playing a game or two with all of the expansions turned off. They add more units and complexity.

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I did play with the expansions turned off, but there's so much stuff going on at once, it's much more complicated than in a turn based game. But really have to try again, because as far as i know there's also much automation to do many of those tasks for you. Have given up the tutorial every time I tried with a new version because I somehow got annoyed with new tasks showing up over the course of a full campaign. But I guess I still have some savegames. The tutorial somehow is a game of it's own!

Ah, and another problem, the fact that the whole keyboard is used for all sorts of hotkeys I find very hard to memorize is a big turnoff. It's almost like in a complicated simulation.

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I did play with the expansions turned off, but there's so much stuff going on at once, it's much more complicated than in a turn based game. But really have to try again, because as far as i know there's also much automation to do many of those tasks for you. Have given up the tutorial every time I tried with a new version because I somehow got annoyed with new tasks showing up over the course of a full campaign. But I guess I still have some savegames. The tutorial somehow is a game of it's own!

Ah, and another problem, the fact that the whole keyboard is used for all sorts of hotkeys I find very hard to memorize is a big turnoff. It's almost like in a complicated simulation.

Unfortunately I'm facing similar problems. It seems like there is an awesome game in there somewhere, but I'm having a damn hard time trying to find it...

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I did play with the expansions turned off, but there's so much stuff going on at once, it's much more complicated than in a turn based game. But really have to try again, because as far as i know there's also much automation to do many of those tasks for you. Have given up the tutorial every time I tried with a new version because I somehow got annoyed with new tasks showing up over the course of a full campaign. But I guess I still have some savegames. The tutorial somehow is a game of it's own!

Ah, and another problem, the fact that the whole keyboard is used for all sorts of hotkeys I find very hard to memorize is a big turnoff. It's almost like in a complicated simulation.

You don't need 90% of those keyboard shortcuts, especially on a lower difficulty level. Stick the AI on 0 or 1, and you can play at your own speed and work out what to know.

Useful keyboard shortcuts that I use are:

tab - to get the galatic map

B - build structures

D - build ships. I think hitting D repeatedly will cycle through available docks around the current planet (so, normal ships and starships)

S - science menu (if you have a science lab around current system?)

O - select a scout around current system

Ctrl-[comma] - select all military ships

L - select half of current selection

and that's about it really. Knowing more shortcuts is probably essential if you want to go head to head with the harder AIs,. but don't even think about that just now. Stick the AI on 1 or something. You'll end up board, as there's no challenge, but at least you'll know how the game works, so cna then move on up to a higher level.

This is boardly what I do (from memory, haven't played in a while, so things might of changed, or I'm mis-remembering something. And I'm hardly a good player, etc etc etc)

When the game loads:

- press D. Start building the three main ship types, along with some scouts. You can set your build order to cycle indefinatly, so do that.

- while you're waiting to build a fleet, sort out some defenses. Hit B and select the turret tabs. I mainly just use basic, MLRS and tractor turrets around wormholes, and place some sniper turrets around my command centre. You can ignore most the others for now.

- you should now have some scout ships. Press O to select one, and then tab, to bring up the map, and then send it out. Try and scout all the neighbouring systems. You may need multiple scout ships for this. Don't worry if they get destroyed.

- now you have to select which system to take. this is the meat of the game. but basically, select something that you can easily take (as an early failed attack can trigger fatal counterattacks). You get a lot of info when you mouse over scouted systems. Make a note of how many enemy ships are in each system, and their level. Do not take on anything with lots of high level ships or you will die. Also take a note of how many resources each system has, as there's no point pissing off the AI unless you're getting something in return. If the system has an advanced science centre, core fabricator, etc, then it's extra valuable. If there is a "core shield generator" then you will have to capture this system at some point (the shield gen can only be destroyed if you own the system, and you need to destroy it in order to bring down the shields on the AI's homeworld).

- once you've selected your target, go to your home system, hit ctrl-[comma] to select all military ships, and send them to attack. destroy everything. Then build a coloniser at your homeworld (press B to bring up menu)

- repeat

- note: you don't need docks at every system

- move science labs to new systems once they have "mined" all available knowledge at their current system.

- every now and then, unlock better versions of your ships.

- when there's an incoming AI attack, move some ships back to the threatened system. Remember that bombers > frigates > fighters > bombers.

- experiment with the other stuff as you see fit.

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Once you have those basics down, here's some stuff that's worth looking at:

- shield generators over your command centres.

- engineers

- free roaming defender mode (and apply it to your engineers). default is "v + right click"

- transports - useful to transport your fleet past a heavily defended enemy system that you don't want to capture

- starships (press D twice to bring up menu I think).

- mines.

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