Why aren't we talking about AI War

KiTA

Anyone heard of this yet?

AI War is the latest 2.5D RTS by Arcen Games. It is also their only 2.5D RTS. It's also their only game, but lets not get technical.

You could probably describe it as a successor to Homeworld. It is a real time RTS with the unit count jacked up to 11. No, scratch that, 100,000.

The art looks... about what you'd expect from a 4 person team, one of which is "CEO, Lead Programmer and Lead Designer". But since when have RTS players gave two squirts of piss about that?

The real drive is the insane unit count -- the simplistic art allows for tens of thousands of units on the screen at once. Skirmishes of 7000 units aren't uncommon, and the average game starts with 20,000 units.

The other drive is the AI. The 12 different AIs, and I'm not talking AI difficulty levels. All of which are emergent and distributed -- that means, the more computing power you have, in the form of your own PC or, in multiplayer, your friend's PCs, the smarter the AI gets.

This thread on their official forums has some examples of what a royal bastard their AI can be, which I shall now quote from.

Alright, I'm playing a game with PhonSiE. I'm assaulting the AI's planet, got a beach head set up, taken out the gate/comm station and I'm bringing in a colony ship. I start building my comm station, all is going well. Then I notice 2 Mark III Force Fields coming my way.

I laugh. I'm thinking "What are 2 puny force fields gonna do?". Boy was I wrong.

So, the force-fields slowly make their way to my comm station. I have no where near enough forces to kill them. Now, get this. They drive over my Comm Station... AND THEN THEY BRING IN ATTACKING UNITS. I was like "OMFG". The AI provided a shield for it's small amount of units (only like 6!) to kill my comm station. I was flabbergasted. Not only that, but they were blocking the wormhole, so I couldn't even retreat!

THEN while I was trying to get out, IT SENT A WAVE AT MY HOME STATION. I can't remember, but I think it may have even killed it.

Lets recap. They sent in a tank, made a beachhead, then locked him in that fight by blocking the exit AND destroying his Comm Station. And while they're doing this, ANOTHER fleet attacks his his homeworld.

Prequisite Trailers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPyrZ-Ktlw0

http://vimeo.com/6095253


So, yeah. For $20, you could do worse. Anyone pick this up yet?

Elimination

that video looks awful. The ships all shooting dots into each other and zipping around in random directions, often through each other. I dont know what to think of this.

Smurph

I tried the free demo and have lost pretty much the whole weekend to it. I'm not really sure why I like it but I do. The units are your standard rock-paper-scissors stuff but seeing >800 little ships washing over an enemy system like a wave of death is pretty fun. I would like to try it with other people though so maybe I'll buy the full version and play with anyone on here who has it.

TalonSE

I bought this during a sale on Impulse on, err, impulse a week or so back although I've not really had time to do much but play the tutorials but it seemed pretty engaging. The creator also seems extremely devoted to his game, pretty much showing up on every forum that has created a thread about it to answer questions and such. Development is ongoing, with constant improvements and he actually seems to care about customer feedback and suggestions. I dunno, I know I sound like I'm cheerleading here which wasn't my intention but I am glad this thread was made and I hope people give it a try because it reminds me of Mount and Blade in a way, obviously they're completely different but each fills a niche that would otherwise go unserved. (The niche here, before anyone says RTSs aren't niche, is that AI Wars isn't a traditional RTS. It's you versus 2 AIs that already control the galaxy. Multiplayer is co-op, it's still humans versus the AIs. Basically, if you've ever played Sword of the Stars and had to deal with a full scale AI rebellion, it's sorta like that in theme.)