Assassinated by a ruthless AI ::sad face::

SPACE!  Also robots!  Killer death robots!  I'm not sure how I let AI War slip through the cracks until now, but this was the first time I played it.

Which was a mistake on multiple levels.

The game is fast, brutal and complex, with 1-8 human players (no bots), up against 2 AI that are clever and well-equipped.  I certainly wasn't experienced enough to get anywhere close to a win on my first playthrough, especially on hard difficulty, by myself.

Also, its an amazing game.  I was so engrossed that over a nearly four-hour campaign I only managed to take six screenshots.  I think I made a halfway decent showing of myself.


Things started off well.  Of the three planets I had wormholes to, one was lightly defended and fell quickly in the face of my cobbled-together "fleet."

Take that, robot overlords!

Half an hour real-time passes as I slowly expand and build up my fleet.  'Knowledge' (research points) is a finite resource, so I have to make careful decisions about what I'm going to upgrade.  Eventually, I hit my current ship-cap and am ready to go take on some of the more fortified worlds.

325 ships, mostly level 1.  Hope this works

My gambit succeeded, and I managed to take two level 3 planets.  I stalled for a long time here, trying to keep my forces up while fending off waves of AI ships.  It took another two real-time hours before I was able to launch another assault.

A costly victory.  I lost several hundred ships taking this system

Turns out this system is a Big Deal.  I find here a starship of Spire refugees, who mostly want to be left alone but appear will to reward me with ships and technology in exchange for shelter from the AI.

No complaints from me.  Also, a fan of the jaded survey leader

Ooops, I pissed off Skynet.  Hordes of AI ships follow the refugees home, and it takes my best efforts to fend them off.  In the meantime, the waves are getting bigger, eventually topping a thousand in a single swarm.

My main battle-fleet gathers in preparation to fend off a giant wave

Stabilizing the situation is costly, but I pull it off with enough manpower surviving to launch another assault.  This planet will be especially important, as it has both an Advanced Research Station and a Data Center.  That means I can get a new ship design while simultaneously calming down the AI.  Good Skynet, pay no attention to the gazillions of ships bearing down your throat.  MEMORY WIPE!

Or not.

The magnificent bastard skulked a raider starship into my home system.  Raiders can bypass forcefields, so my command station is vulnerable.  The overwhelming majority of my forces are off conquering; and my meager home-defense fleet can't even draw the raider's attention, much less bring it down in time.  The game is unsubtle about the AI's victory:

:(

I guess we're done here.  I'm absolutely going to pick this back up later, and give it all the love and tender care my robot overlords deserve.

In the meantime, Alien Breed 2 is next.  A new genre for your enjoyment: isometric arcade shooter!