AI War 2 News

Full release notes here.

Lots of tuning by Badger for his various mods.

[h2]Forge Of Empires (Formerly Known As Sidekicks)[/h2]

• Fix a Spire Sidekick bug with the Dark Zenith.
  
• Hopefully Armada Mines and Dyson Empire Drills will now die properly.
  
• Decrease Spire Sidekick HaP income; you currently get huge amounts you can't spend.
  
• Make Spire Golems cheaper to repair for Spire Sidekicks.
  
• Make some Terran Flagships reasonably sized that were the wrong size before.
  
• A number of Armada ships should now be able to load into their flagships.
  
• Top tier terran/kilrathi ships have more mass.
  
• The Game Lobby Armada Power knob (which affects income) now works.
  
• A bit more science for the Armada, and Terran/Kilrathi Ranger upgrades now cost the same.
  
• For each game, the Armada can only find 3 (of the 4) extra starbase types on the map.
  
• Change the icon for Reapers to be Parasite instead of Tethuida, for better visual contrast.
  
• Armada Starbases get more sockets.
  
• Buff Armada Locusts.
  
• Adjust some Dyson Empire spire defensive buildings.
  
• Tweaks to the Templar Exorcist/Knight.
  
• Dyson Empire can now upgrade its forcefields.
  
• Drones from Dyson Empire Moons should now attrition if the Moon is elsewhere.
  

[h2]Other Updates[/h2]

• Radiant Dyson Tweaks has been discontinued as a mod, since it was altering a different mod that has changed too much for it to still function.
  
• Further decreased the displayed fleet strength of Exodian Blade.
  
• Wreckage of the Exodian Blade will now correctly have a movement debuff for the enemy ships in the same system.
  

[h2]Heart of the Machine[/h2]
Update 25 just dropped for heart of the Machine: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2001070/view/524223243273371658

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

Full release notes here.

[h2]Forge Of Empires (Formerly Known As Sidekicks)[/h2]

• Make the Hateful AI type just a little bit worse.
  
• Some nerfs to the biggest ships of the Flenserite AI Type.
  
• Human Ark Sidekick metal income buffed.
  
• Lots of balance to the Armada Empire.
  
• A few minor fixes and clarity updates to the DZ Empire.
  
• Full rework of the Spire Sidekick! Full rework of the Spire Sidekick. The Spire Sidekick no longer has any dependency on a Human Empire; it can now be played freely with any Empire. Badger notes: I find playing as the Spire Sidekick alongside a Dark Zenith Empire (which I mostly let play itself unless I want to hit a specific target) makes for a really fun way to invade the galaxy.
• Dyson Empire had a few nerfs to Moons, in particular the Templar Moons.
  
• Scourge Infused Empire's Swarm Summoners attrition more slowly, and now only cost Corbomite.
  

[h2]Other Updates[/h2]

• Fix a bug where the Victory/Defeat screens weren't playing.
  
• AIW2 on Linux now connects to Steam. This was broken by the changes to make Steam work on OSX.
  

[h2]Heart of the Machine[/h2]
Heart of the Machine is continuing to evolve, and is racking up positive reviews. Thank you so much for the ongoing support!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

Full release notes here.

[h2]Forge Of Empires (Formerly Known As Sidekicks)[/h2]

• Lots of buffs to the Dyson Empire, and bugfixes for the Dark Zenith Empire.
  
• Armada Empire now needs to use Multi-Phasing flagships to attack new AI installations that hide in multi-phase. (Badger has been wanting something like this for a while; there's a lot of cool things one can do with phasing).
  

[h2]Other Updates[/h2]

• Performance improvements to the marauders; they were notorious for bogging down the game when they got strong. Thanks to CRCGamer for this.
  
• Improvements to the Exodian Blade mod.
  
• The steamworks integration has been updated for OSX and linux, which should make it so that silicon-based macs are now able to use steamworks features. It's unclear if intel-based macs will still work with this or not, but it has not effect on windows and should not affect linux either.
  

[h2]Heart of the Machine[/h2]
Heart of the Machine is continuing to evolve, and is racking up positive reviews. It's currently on discount for 35% off during the summer sale!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

Full release notes here.

[h2]Forge Of Empires (Formerly Known As Sidekicks)[/h2]
This is basically an unofficial DLC4, and it's free, and it's created by one of the main developers of the game (Badger). Originally, the Sidekicks mod started life as something a lot more modest, but it grew to a degree where the name was really no longer relevant. So... what is this thing:

• 4 new player empires.
  
• Dyson Empire: 4 races unite to create dyson spheres to help resist the AI
  
• Scourge Infused Empire: Control your scourge allies as they help you fight the AI
  
• Dark Zenith Empire: Lead the Dark Zenith as they seize the galaxy
  
• Armada Empire: 2 races fight the AI and their new allies, while making friends along the way.
  
• 13 AI Types, including the brand new "Hateful" AI type, that just uses people's least favorite AI ships
  

[h2]Other New Pieces[/h2]

• Mod organization: Featured Mods are now shown at the top of the mod list, along with Forge of Empires, with the goal being to make it easy for players to find interesting and exciting mods to enhance their gameplay.
  
• Four mods are featured to start with:
  
• Points of Interest and Generator are both cool mods to increase the variety of your galaxies.
  
• DPSHud gives you a new way to understand combat.
  
• Extended Ship Variants gives you a lot of new ship lines to play with.
  

[h2]Heart of the Machine[/h2]
Heart of the Machine is continuing to evolve. It's currently on discount for 35% off for the first time ever! Update 18, Update 19, and Update 20 all went live this week, and are each notable in their own way. They've been in progress for a while. Update 21 will be out later tonight, in just a few hours, and has the new The Executive Tomb side story. This is a great time to dive into the game if you haven't yet!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

[p]The full notes are here. There are a bunch of balance adjustments from CRCGamer in this one for units that were over-performanc or under-performing, a couple of fixes from Dismiss, a few quickstarts from Erenussocrates, and then a bunch of additions to the Sidekicks mod from Badger.[/p][p] [/p][h2]Balance Adjustments[/h2][p]Long-time contributor CRCGamer has done a pass on some of the more exotic ships that were just a bit too powerful, or more frequently, not quite useful enough to warrant their cost.[/p][p][/p][p]Just to set your mind at ease, the only real nerfs were to Electric Bombers and Phantasmal Hosts, and they needed it. The Electric Bombers are a bit worse at crowd control now, but still excellent. And Phantasmal Hosts don't have so many decoys, which will help with performance as well as their general balance.[/p][p][/p][p]Pretty much everything else is some level of buff, a lot of them slight. Fusion Bombers in particular got a big buff against shields, because some years-old balance changes had put them in kind of a not-great spot. But Agravic Pods, Grenade Launcher Corvettes, and Ablative Gatlings are some of the other common ships that are now a lot more useful.[/p][p][/p][p]There are other changes as well, so please see the release notes for details.[/p][p][/p][h2]New QuickStarts[/h2][p]The new quickstarts from Erenussocrates are mod-heavy and help you get your bearings with some of his mods, which is really nice.[/p][p][/p][h2]Sidekicks Mod[/h2][p]Badger has been adding lots of cool things. Once again, if you're not familiar with this mod, be sure to check it out! As one of the main developers on the game, Badger has essentially created a fourth DLC, for free, for you to check out. Don't miss it![/p][p][/p][p]Exo Badger is a new difficulty level that focuses on having a reduced ship budget, but seeing lots of exo war ships early and often.[/p][p][/p][p]Dyson Sidekick now gives both the Templare and the Spire unique moons with their own turrets.[/p][p][/p][p]Armada Empire is ANOTHER whole new player type in this mod! It's a coalition of races that will fight the AI. Please bear in mind that this is a first build of this, and Badger notes that it's not particularly well-balanced yet. It's under active development, so expect savegames including this feature to break a few times in the near future. Normally that's not something we do, but for a mod that's in active development, that's up to the modder. Anyway, the purpose of this being released at the moment is for people to try it out and give early feedback.[/p][p][/p][h2]Heart of the Machine[/h2][p]Heart of the Machine is continuing to evolve. Be sure to keep an eye on it this month. Update 17 just went live yesterday, but there's even more cool stuff coming in the near future.[/p]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/