Add me to the list of folks wowed by this update. The game plays much smoother now, sounds a lot better, and the UI is definitely cleaner. The tutorials are actually easy to follow and helpful now, whereas the old tutorials were a bit hard to get into.
Great update!
Developers like Arcen really deserve to be rewarded for their efforts.
The level of support seen for this series is remarkable.
Additionally Arcen is donating 100% of profits from sales of Children of Neinzul (AI War expansion) to the charity CHILDS PLAY.
Even though I already owned AI WAR: FLEET COMMAND and ZENITH REMNANTH I purchased them at full price along with CHILDREN OF NEINZUl directly from Arcen.
I strongly urge that those of you in the financial position to support Arcen to do so by purchasing directly from Arcen.
It is so rare to see this type of support and generosity in today gaming market that we really need to reward this kind of behavior.
-Arboris
I have a question…if I buy the new DLC and my friend doesn’t, can we still coop together?
You can choose which expansions to use, so yes.
If I buy directly from Arcen, do I get the Steam achievements?
I’d like that!
You can add the key to Steam.
So, in my most recent game, I’ve gotten a regenerator golem up and running. From now on, anytime I find one of these in my galaxy, they’re going to become my number one priority. One of these really helps you maintain a sustained offensive in heavily defended AI territories.
I did this too the day 4.0 launched, for the same reason; and with the hope of being able to buy Alden Ridge and A Valley Without Wind sometime down the road. The world needs more Arcen.
I finally found time to play the update and wow, this is great. I can’t pinpoint many specific changes besides the engine change and the lack of AI turrets and the new “strong vs. hull” system but the whole game feels much faster now. I’ve put well over a dozen hours into this game since buying it and never come close to finishing one, but with a few hours tonight I’ve identified both core AI planets and taken over a chunk of the galaxy. This will be the one I finish.
I really really really REALLY am not trying to be a dick. But with Arcen games posting just recently how they were in seriously dire straits, howcome they’re giving all their profits away to childs’ play? I bought Tidalis, a game I had no particular interest in, purely to support Arcen and keep them alive. Are they in so different a state financially that they can afford to do that?
As what’s-his-name has said in the past, they made the commitment before their current difficulties and decided not to renege on their promise.
From Keith Lamothe on the recent RPS article comments:
Some people asked about our financial situation and why we would be so coo-coo-for-cocoa-puffs as to be donating proceeds from an expansion to charity in light of said situation, so let me clarify:
- As others have mentioned here, the plans (and public promises) to donate CoN’s proceeds to charity were made well before our financial difficulties became apparent. We would rather go out of business than break our given word.
- The financial situation is basically what the last public news said; at the rates of income and expense we’ve had over the past couple months, we would not be able to make payroll at the end of December (iirc; I don’t actually handle the numbers). Of course, that doesn’t mean we would hit that wall, we would just have to massively cut expenses to avoid doing so, which basically means cutting personnel hours, etc.
- Our hope is that the currently ongoing promotional sales will help turn things around, or at least cover us until the actual revenue from the next expansion (due out early December) hits our account.
- Even if these plans fall through, we won’t disappear completely (no debt, so no bankruptcy, so no closure), we’ll just be on a small fraction of the productive capacity we have now, and trying to rebuild.
Also profits mean revenues minus costs. Costs have to be paid off first, and I imagine they have a few costs to take care of in creating this expansion.
Amazing. One of the most time-consuming parts of the game was slowly working through enemy turrets to clear a planet map. I’m really busy right now, but I’m tempted to play another campaign because of these gameplay changes.
They aren’t giving all their profits away. Only the proceeds (as others have pointed out, that’s revenue minus all costs incurred, including taxes, publisher fees, etc) of the second AI War expansion Children of Neinzul which retails for a whopping $4. So your purchase of Tidalis will most certainly help their situation as you were clearly intending.
So I bought this game without trying the demo but based on the general positive feedback in QT3 only to realize that I was thinking about Gratituous Space Battle. All these space games look alike!
Not that I’m regretting my purchase as this thread are full of positive stuff about AI War but can anyone share the difference between these two games?
They are utterly different.
GSB is a game where you design spaceships and give them battle plans. You then send this fleet into combat with another fleet, be it a human-made one or one of the many fleets in the campaign. It’s all about coming up with counters and cool designs and seeing how it plays out in a fantastically flashy way.
AI War is a hugely detailed and complex strategy game that pitches you against a galaxy controlled by 2 AIs. While I don’t have the room to describe the game in detail, the basic idea is that you must destroy the headquarters for both of these AIs. Unlike most games, you do not simply grow stronger and stronger; every major action has a consequence and the more you piss off the AI, the stronger it gets and the more pressure it puts you under. Ultimately it’s a large scale (thousands of ships) long-term (maps can take several hours easily) majorly replayable (there are countless different AI types which provide distinctly different play experiences, as well as a vast number of ships and strategies for you to try out) work of goddamn genius; a strategy game where every move must be carefully considered and where information is king.
I love both, but the only thing they share is spaceships.
Thanks JM. AI War sound really interesting but at the same time incredibly complex to play. I tried the first tutorial and it looks easy enough. I have a business trip next month and I’ll spend more time on this in the evening. I hope it plays well on a notebook with integrated gfx.
To be honest, I like the early version of the game before the economic model change quite some time back. But, that said, I hate RTS and I love, love, loved playing AI War. One of the most enjoyable epic strategy games I’ve ever owned. Worth the price x2.
If you haven’t played the demo, get it, play it, and I’m incredibly confident you’ll love it. Games like this deserve our love.
I was on a business trip last week with a Dell laptop with integrated graphics and I didn’t run into any issues.