AI War: Fleet Command

AI War: Fleet Command from Arcengames is a game that almost passed me by. A 2d space themed Real Time Strategy game that cloaked and sailed past my DRADIS, headed for the nearest warp gate to Alpha Centuri. Luckily, my finely tuned Stardock Impulse client, managed to pick up the faint impellor engine’s signature in the form of a small visual advert, like a pulsing distress beacon it caught my attention and turned my coveted starcredits into the full game.

The game presents itself in 2d, all craft and structures are flat sprites. The backgrounds are rendered 3d planets and starscapes, but are purely for flavour – they do not affect the flow of the game. Since its launch in May 2009 the game has undergone a version iteration from 1.0 through to 2.0 and much of the game has been honed and whittled into a much better looking and ‘player centric’ experience.

The scope and scale of the game however is big, you have large planetary systems as your main conflicted play area, interconnected via warp gates into a web weaving and winding itself into a chaotic galactic tapestry. The game setup allows you to randomly seed the generated Universe and select the number of planetary systems available. The connections between systems are “spun” in a chaotic fashion, and they can lead to isolated systems, ideal for defense, or well linked “junction” systems giving you many paths to travel and explore. Zoom is your friend, and as you plan your movements and offensives you will rarely notice the intricately detailed 2d sprites, because your broad strokes of battle will usually be made on the max zoomed iconic representations anyway. The sheer number of units that can be deployed is astounding, 10,000+ is not uncommon. The game was inspired by the similar large scale conflict and zoomed out operational approach that Supreme Commander adopted.

What is not obvious upon your first play with the tutorial levels is the nature of the more strategic scale of operations you will play out. It is your goal to scout and explore a path through the systems to locate specific advantageous enemy structures and either destroy them or capture them. This almost surgical precision applied to your offense is your greatest strength, because if you advance aggressively through the Universe conquering all you meet, you will quickly meet your demise, with each takeover the AI’s aggression towards you turns up a notch. With every conquest, you’re essentially stoking the AI into a frenzy and equipping the AI with more advanced tactics to employ against you. A more carefully planned and well considered approach is needed to balance the AI aggression as you make your way forward. Destroying its data centers deny the AI valuable computational resources and thus reduces the AI’s aggression level. Capturing Advanced Research facilities will open up to you some of the more specially developed equipment that the AI can use against you, equalising the odds when it comes to tech vs tech conflicts. Another key tactic to employ is to secure your travel lanes, by blockading warp gates and holding the AI enemy at bay whilst you planet hop your way around the most economic and efficient path.

So, in essence, you are:

1. scouting and pathfinding
2. exploring and searching out key targets
3. plugging and unplugging warp gates
4. capturing planet systems to install resource gathering equipment
5. eeking out scientific knowledge from new planetary systems, and researching new tech
6. managing your manufacturing and fleet content so that when you find the AI core base you can annihilate it!

The unique draw of this game is that you are plunged into a randomly seeded Universe, where the AI can be scaled in difficulty and tweaked with various play styles into very different opponents. As the name suggests the AI plays a very important role in the games appeal, and as such it can be tailored to your needs, and pacing. The developer has provided a very detailed explanation of the unique features of the AI, from its swarm intelligence to its completely emergent sub-commander logic, and a layer of fuzzy logic applied over it, so that its not always predictable and precise. Another feature is that the game supports up to 8 players working cooperatively against the AI, so gather your disparate fleets together to survive, and live long and prosper (the AI also scales depending upon the number of players involved in the conflict). By design, the game doesn’t support the more level playing field of PvP ‘player versus player’ combat, with the main focus of the game pitting the strategic and tactical capabilities of the human player against this finely crafted and asymmetric AI.

Since version 2.0, players can now drop in and out of co-operative play at will. If you add a player after a game has started, the player will come into the game without any resources, almost as a spectator, but the existing players can fund the new players startup, by donating equipment and resources. If a player has to drop out of a co-op game for any reason, then he can be set as temporarily away – in a dormant state – and all other players can control his equipment, if the player drops out of the game completely, then the remaining fleet can be divvied up between the remaining players. So AI War 2.0 delivers the flexibilty to host these co-operative games, and manage the players without affecting the overall play.

There are a large variety of hardware on offer and many of the techs will open up new tactical possibilities, with free download-able content being available in the form of new community requested features and ships. Some examples of the equipment you can utilise (in addition to the usual range of fighters, bombers and starships) are: defense turrets, mines and mine repairers, tractor beam turrets, laser turrets, long range sniper turrets, missile turrets, force field shields, de-cloaking devices, detectors of incoming ships through warp gates, to name a few, and I’ve really only scratched the surface in terms of the unit specialisations. I am assured that as you play the game, increasing AI difficulty levels and AI play styles, you will find new uses for existing equipment and you will discover new equipment and new tactical ways to deploy them.

I would recommend watching the video guides presented by the developer to get a feel for how to get started with the game, and to see an explanation of the “bigger picture” strategic game. These informal instructional videos have been updated for the new features available in version 2.0 and are well worth a look, even for returning players.

Since you specify the parameters of the Universe you play in, there are a lot of replay opportunities and the degrees of AI difficulty and play style will also further add to that, so you’re getting a lot of indie-fuelled strategic play for your $20. But you are also encouraged to become part of the AI War community, and participate in its future evolution and development. With DLC already being rolled out regularly, and an expansion (The Zenith Remnant) in the works, you too could be a part of its evolution and emergence. With the AI War community picking up speed, alongside the release on Steam and other digital distribution formats, theres never been a better time to join the ranks of the human fleet commanders making a push against the suffocating and overpowering AI. Together, cooperatively, perhaps we can succeed.

Whilst playing the game, I’m reminded of other games, Supreme Commander, Sins of a Solar Empire, Stars!, but also see glimpses of Battlestar Galactica’s desperate plight of jumping through a Universe full of Cylons and having to “box clever” to stem the tide of the AI toasters and jump your way through secured corridors of space, picking up what little resources you can… but then I do have a vivid imagination for those sort of things.

JUMP!

If you want to know more about the game and the designer, Chris Parks, check out the UKGamer exclusive interview I did in July 2009. Episode 37 of the Three Moves Ahead strategy podcast is devoted entirely to AI Wars and discussion with the developer, worth a listen. Also keep a look out for an upcoming Claw exclusive, where we ask Chris about the game, the expansion and the future.