AI War 8.0 & Destroyer of Worlds Incoming

[-budd-]

I bought from Arcane site after i read they are serperate steam keys and indeed they are...so i have the other 5DLC's available for anyone who needs them. I only needed Destroyer of Worlds. Post here and i'll catch up to you.

I'm going to post this in the game donation thread.

[Martok]

Credit goes to DoctorQuest for noticing that GOG is selling the entire AI War package (including the new Vengeance of the Machine expansion) for $6.79.  At that price, I can't resist!  (Sigh...) 

http://www.gog.com/news/release_ai_wars_collection

[Cougar_DK]

Same price at the official arcen store: http://arcengames.com/arcen-store/

[Boggit]

budd, my basic advice is:

• Pay careful attention to the tutorial.  The game play is different than other games, which is a lot of where the novelty comes from, but it does require a little attention.
• Learn the interface.  There's a lot of stuff to manage, but the interface is actually very powerful and helps you to take advantage of it.
• Don't try to micromanage the battles.  Just get a feel for what units do really well against what other types of units, plan the composition of your assault force accordingly, then sit back and watch the fireworks.
• Don't just conquer systems for the sake of conquering systems.  This isn't your standard 4x.  Every star system you conquer gets the AI to take a little more notice of you.  And as the AI starts to take notice of you, bad things happen.  If he mobilized all his forces to go after you, the game would be over in about 45 seconds, but that's why you tiptoe around the fringes of his space...
• Expanding on the prior point, take any systems with Advanced Research Posts (to give you new classes of ships) and any system with factories you can use to produce specific types of ships.  And then take systems to create secure bottlenecks.  Just don't get greedy.
• Your first few games, build lots of defensive turrets--and different types of them--around the various warp points in your home system.  I was always stingy with my defenses, and when I got whacked, I'd then have to spend the next hour of game play cleaning up the mess after the alien breakthrough lead to AI units rampaging in my rear.  It was only after I played co-op and I saw how my friends never ran out of turrets, and how much more often I got creamed by attacks, that I realized I was being too stingy.

I could go on, but have fun!!

Cougardk, I can appreciate the problem.  Even at the lower difficulty levels, if you go about needlessly poking the hornet's nest, you will get very badly stung!

Excellent advice, which I'm going to take from now on. All my games have ended in disaster for me. It's a great game, but I think success with it is an art form if like me you play it every now and then. ::)