AI War: Fleet Command is a real time strategy game that is a unique and does a creative spin to the traditional RTS formula. It's no ordinary RTS. AI War is all about co-op comp stomps where you can play solo or with other people against the AI.

Now that might sound like any RTS can do this but what makes AI War special is that you don't start out on equal footing to the AI. You and your co-op buddy are the small fries and there is an AI aggressiveness meter(or as the creator put it a Ragometer) in which if you expand aggressively too fast and the AI gets more aggressive.

Also based on the aggressiveness meter are waves. Very much like tower defense games, the AI factions get free waves that come in when you reach a certain threshold. You will need to build defense structures to help defend against these overwhelming forces.

The AI is really good in this game. There are many cool little things and units that you have to play it for yourself to discover it. AI War may not look much but this is pure awesome GAMEPLAY. It is by far the best RTS this year(not many of them)

Screenshots




Many similarities to Sins of a Solar Empire, but this is still its own type of game. There is a demo you can try out on Steam and hosted on other sites:
http://www.arcengames.com/aiwar_buy.php

The developer, Chris Park has been improving this game ever since releasing it. He just released 2.0 on Steam on October and there are plans for more free DLC for it. In fact I must commend Chris Park on an amazing job of keeping the community informed of plans. He has documented all the milestones as well as future plans for AI War.

I need to reiterate this...this game is pure awesome strategy gaming. If you are looking for fancy graphics, you will find none here. Once you get hooked to the gameplay, the looks wont matter.

Steam currently has it on sale for USD$9.99 until 3rd Jan(the actual price is USD$19.99), so try to get it now.

EDIT : Oh yeah...you can build thousands of units

DOUBLE EDIT : Also expansion The Zenith Remnant is dated to be released on 12th jan. Don't hold your breath on the release date though.

This post has been edited by frags: Jan 8 2010, 10:06 PM

lol l4d RTS?

In a way yes. But because it's a strategy game, it's more flexible than L4D. It can offer different experiences for different people based on their preference.

This game has more similarities to Supreme Commander actually.

Hum, recommended by frags and it's on offer.... tempting

I read you talk about this game in some other threads before (I think with H@h@ or Cheese, can't remember)

But do you have to have a co-op person to play? or can you play solo?

Nope you can play solo. If you're a SupCom fan, you'll be familiar with the basics of the economy of this game. I suggest if anyone is interested, look through the video tutorials first(on youtube, you can find links on the game site) and then give the demo a shot. It's only 1 hours trial but if you get it, I promise you, you'll be hooked.

Ok, bought it, 6 bucks is very cheap, I am in family now so I don't really have time to try it out now.

A mix of SupCom and Sins cant be bad for that price, and it's a small game from a one guy team, good to help also

You can read the raving opinions of fellow strategy game enthusiasts:
http://www.crispygamer.com/columns/2009-08...-different.aspx
http://www.crispygamer.com/features/2009-1...e-strategy.aspx
http://www.gamesradar.com/pc/ai-war/review...005102715123063
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/08/28...t-1/#more-16747
http://pc.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.php?id=18671

If you're wondering if what they say is true....YES, it is awesome!

This post has been edited by frags: Jan 1 2010, 08:38 PM

6 dollars? Where do they have it for that cheap? Kinda interested already.

Hum, I am in Europe right now so maybe different deals than Msia but AI Fleet War was showing for 6 euros here, so means 6 usd for US based.
You could try to use a proxy

No. It's still 9.99 USD. It's just a different price in Euro.

Ha alright, from my experience sometimes Steam just don't "convert" and 6 usd price makes a 6 euros price (which is VERY different.... but that's how Steam do...)

Just did the basic tutorials, seems interesting yar, the "look" of the ships reminds me a bit of some old school games like Master of Orion 2 and all

PLaying through with 2 Easy AI's. Solo with 80 planets. The game's really challenging so I need to go slow with the AI difficulty.


Whats cool about AI War is that all the resources and your initial builds all done for you in the starting planet. So I already have a basic economy up for Mark 1 units. 3 resources, crystal and metal work pretty much like in Supreme Commander and Energy which your units and buildings use.


Basic base is in there. Probably need a couple of scouts to send to different planets.


Without a scout, I have no idea what a planet holds, even the resources...no freakin idea. So first priority is scout. But here's the deal, I need to prepare some defense to be safe. WHo knows what the AI will do when it detects my presence.


EDIT : Also the best way to prepare defense it to build turrets near wormholes in the planet. This is the tower defense feel of the game I was talking about. But at the start need to keep a fleet just in case. Since your home planet orbital command is vital. Lose that and you lost.

This post has been edited by frags: Jan 3 2010, 11:05 PM

So I've built defense around this wormhole(this is where the enemy will come from). As you can see this one enemy ship got hit by a tractor beam turret and the normal turrets will deal with it.



The thing how Research works is very different. Research points are finite resources you get from planets. Which means this is the last 3000 research points I have. I'm saving the 3,000 research points for emergency. in case I see something from the AI i need to counter(saw one starship in the next system)



Just like in SUpcom, I use engineer to speed up constructions. Here I've got my near 400 unit fleet. Running out of metal, so I'll need to colonise a new planet. Have a target now. Next time, I'll be sending in this mark 1 fleet(all first tier units). Somehow I feel it's still going to be a tough fight and I might lose.


To be continued...

Murdoch looks like a good choice, decent amount of metal and crystals.



Built 5 scouts that will act as decoys. You see, the enemy might build defenses that can hold your ships(like tractor beams). So by sending in scouts in first, their tractor beams will catch the decoy ships and most of your fleet will get through. But I need to time it properly.



Low on energy. it's time to build a tier 3 power plant. Will do great to build reinforcements.



The invasion begins!



This is where AI War is unique. The system is huge and I need to clear the entire system to make it safe for the colony ship. Notice the countdown timer on the left of the screen. Piss off the AI enough and it will send a wave to your home planet(or maybe some other planet). You need to make sure you have defenses. I can handle this one.



Time to start building the colony ship. Target sector still not completely secure but building ahead.



Planet secured. Only thing in this planet is this astro train station thing with 80,000,000 HP. These thing let out these trains(which have a million HP) that move around the galaxy and damages turrets and defences. They are near indestructible. They don't do huge damage but overtime if you don't keep an eye, you could loose some resources to them. Think of these like the sand worms in Dune 2.


To be continued...

That would be me (It was more of me trying to explain the concept of this game properly)... But I'm a rather "stupid" gamer at heart (OTT: I'm playing DA on Normal and I actually use tactics) and so though I love the idea of these types of games but suck really bad at them (The demo seemed unbelievably daunting to me)

He he he yar, I like this kind too but sometimes also lack the time to really explore all of them.
Will be back from family soon so will have more time to play (and will be back to desktop instead of laptop ^^) but high competition between all the new games I bought during Steam Xmas.

Still in the middle of the Intermediate Tutorial (which is more of a mini-campain-tutorial), still find the UI cluncky a bit but not so bad.

The video tutorials on youtube were quite helpful and might have helped if you had a look at it before jumping the demo. Also demo is time limited(1 hour).

The UI looks clunky, but when you get into it, you'll find its pretty good. Its got the same empire tree UI of Sins of A Solar Empire(similar). You can use that to select your orbital platform to give build instructions instead of scrolling to it on the map. The only problem is the UI, the Art is a bit on the low end(low resolution and not much detail). This might lead to having difficulty finding or differentiating between different ships(I always have some trouble finding the orbital command). If you want to switch to the galaxy map, just use tab. Thats the faster way.

Ctrl and shift helps a lot too. You can build manufacutrer on all spots just with a single clck(ctrl click) and shift clicking to place multiple copies.

IINM, it was 4 hours (I could only last 2 hours before my brain fainted)... So... yeah.

I've already come to terms with this... I'm not "strategy" material... I like it, but not play it.

Getting old?

I had that problem when I played Hearts Of Iron once, could not handle that much stress. More stressful than work. hahahaha

Will get this game once I had enough of Sins of Solar Empires.

I wouldn't say its because I'm old... but rather, now that I'm old I realize that my love for strategy is just my idle folly

*sigh*

That being said, I'm now more open towards anything and EVERYTHING turn-based.