I do think Asteroids need to put out more production, so as to make them a more significant tactical element to the game. It takes too long to develop a mine, Space Mining takes too long to research, and the asteroids don't put out much. They're not much more than eye candy, and they could be so much more.

Also it would be awesome if asteroids figured into space combat more. Like give defending ships first strike capability.

Third, can you imagine the fun if they brought Terror Stars back?? They turn planets into asteroids!!

They're plenty useful. Factories are nerfed in DA, and the asteroids make up the difference... also, the ability to change which planet they beam to allows you to focus stuff onto frontier planets or ones that REALLY need the extra production... and the amount of production each field gives you increases dramatically with each tech.

Martimus:

Have you tried maxing the aggression level for all the AIs? This is one of the features in which I'm most interested. Has anyone had any experience with it? Does everyone start acting like the Drengin (which to me is a good thing)?

Cheers

h

Have you guys tried these settings:

1) Play on medium, common planets.

2) Create custom AIs to play against and crank up the aggressive factor.

3) Play on tough or higher (really "gifted" is the fairest due to round off).

I mean, if someone says the AI is docile, that's why we put in the aggression slider in there.

With regards to how good the AI is overall, there's always things that can be done to improve it and it's an ongoing thing. I do think it's fair to say it's far FAR better than 1.4X was which, given how much more the AI has to do, is significant.

And, I'll repeat again, people beating it at the highest level are usually playing against an outright hole in the AI logic.  I'd love to see someone simply explain, step by step, how they win at those high levels.

I can beat the AI at the highest level in 8 turns in a 1 on 1 game with specific settings. But it's not a weakness in the AI but rather that a game in which the AI has to deal with countless startup conditions and map sizes and so forth is going to have game types that it isn't as good at as others.

 

Not sure what you mean with highest level. But I usually play on painful or tough and depending on my start position it's generally no problem to win. If the AI gets way ahead of my technologically, economically etc then I will lose but that has more to do with strength in numbers rather than tactical brilliance.

I dont remember using a step by step strategy to win but its rather has to do with the AI not taking advantage of situations as I do. For example, there has been many times where the AI was way ahead of my militarily (maybe twice or three times my military rating) but all it did was demand tribute of me, which I gladly paid, and then when I was ready I just rolled them over. If it was smart it would have killed me of when he had the chance.

I imagine this has something to do with diplomacy as it has huge effects on the AI but little to no effect on human players and I almost always go for high diplomacy since I know what huge advantage this will get me. It shouldnt be like this, if it sees a weakness it should go for the throat. Just as any decent human player would do.

Also the AI is very poor at managing his fleets. It cannot use basic defensive tactics, doesnt seem to have a concept of holding a defensive line but rather just puts a bunch of ships into orbit without orbital fleet management.

Furthermore its attacks arent very coordinated. It seems to just sends a bunch of ships towards you in waves, rather than to do it in a big coordinated attack. It should amass one or two huge fleets and then send it at a few locations, backed up with transports. Also it should put alot more focus on destroying resource starbases as it is usually a big blow to lose one.

Finally it is too slow to react in regards to ship design. Often when I start planning for designing ships I poll other empires around me and see what attack and defence they are focusing on and then I focus my research and design on areas which they are weak to. For some strange reason most AIs seem to focus in the same areas, even with tech trading of, which have my ships designed to be strong against most of the AI empires.

Im not sure how this works but the AI should poll other empires ship setups more often and then design it ships to be strong at those empires most likely to be a threat. Also it should do this continually and adapt to new threats, not sure if it does this already but I rarely see an AI adapt to me changing my ship setups.

Well, I guess Brad answered my question about the aggression slider.

So has anyone played a game on painful or higher with all AIs set to 100% aggression (without hitting ctrl-N 100 times and/or restarting after you've found all the choice planets to colonize)? Is it entertaining?

btw: Do you have to create custom AIs to adjust the aggression or can you tweak the exisitng AIs?

Cheers

h

Yeah, I did a small/abundant/abundant with 3 aggressive AI's on crippling. It's most definitely entertaining, because they're aggressive toward each other, not just toward you. Plus I get to do the military starbase thing that I swear by, which is very satisfying. It's more a wargame under those settings, more than a Civ-like build-your-empire game.

Sure, I can tell you how I beat 8+ AIs on Suicidal:

First - Money. I need to do everything I can to maximize my money so that I always produce at 100%. Always spend the 4 points for +30% economy boost. Go evil to get a +100% economy boost.

Second - Diplomacy. I research xeno comm, univ trans, diplomacy, trade, interstellar, alliance, republic, adv diplo >> majesty, and then democracy and federation in that order EVERY game - from there I look and see what areas I need to research. With my diplomacy that high (and another +60% now if your Krynn populists) I trade for every infrastructure and military tech, so I never fall behind. Sure, the AI will get hung up and never trade a few techs - basic logistics, advanced hulls and planetary invasion come to mind. But who cares if you don't get advanced hulls when it will happily trade you medium hulls? The techs it won't trade will only take you a few turns once your diplomacy research is done. A high diplomacy helps keep everyone happy with you as well. Also, dovetailing with point one, the improved governments (and trade) keep the cash flowing in.

Third - Spin Control Center. You get this from Total Majesty. I know I can't fight anyone, but while I build infrastructure it keeps the few military ships I kick out looking scary. I like to put an orbital fleet manager and omega defense system next to the spin control, usually on my manufacturing capital world.

Fourth - Hit early, hit hard. As soon as my diplomacy research is done, sometimes before it is done - I pick an empire I want to take out. Figure out what weapons they use, and build a fleet to counter. Count all of their worlds, and build enough transports to wipe out the whole civilization in one turn. You simply MUST take out at least one AI in the first year and a half or you won't have enough territory to compete with the enemy. When it is time to strike - DO NOT DECLARE WAR! Not worth getting a negative diplomacy modifier. Instead, move all of your fighters and transports next to their worlds, and put a trade embargo on them. They will "know what you are doing", and declare war on you. But, they won't attack on the turn they declare war. So, after they declare war, wipe out every world. You probably won't wipe out all their ships, but that doesn't matter, territory is more valuable than ships.

Fifth (new!) - give your treaties away to people who are mad at you, while you prepare to take care of them. Nothing like another way to increase diplomacy.

Sixth - A house cannat stand divided against itself. Do what you have to do to keep yourself at war with only one civ at a time. Take em down in chunks.

Seventh - Use allies. I usually like to pick one or two civilizations that are a medium distance from me (the closest ones I want to conquer) that I want to hold on to for the whole game. Use all of that research and production and military they produce to my advantage. I work to build an alliance usually with two civs and keep them around until there are just 3 civs left (besides me) to break that alliance and destroy them. If one civ starts to get too far above me in military and relations aren't going well, I pay my allies to attack it, just because war will wear down both sides. Unlike a typical war declaration, if you pay an ally to go to war with someone - you don't get the "honor your alliance and go to war" dialogue, so you can stay at peace with the threat civ while your allies get blown to bits.

No deep dark secrets there. In short, money, diplomacy, and let the AIs do most of the research and fighting for you.

This is cool. So you give your treaties away and then get them to declare war on you? Do you get your treaty back to trade again after they do that?

Yes, you get your treaty back. How broken is that?? (I Love it)

Exploitalicious.

Well for one thing they could take out your transport ships when they see them amassing inside their space. You know, preemptive strike.

I mean the moment a non ally sends tons of transports inside its space it should be regarded as an act of aggression and war should be declared and the transports should be dealt with immediately.

The AI has, for some reason, not enough focus on transports.

Most of the strategies I've read for the highest difficulty levels involve people using high diplomacy modifiers to counter-act the AI's high economy modifiers. Actually, not even counter-act, they harness the super-productive AIs for their own purposes, leashing them for diplomacy. Perhaps it would be appropriate to lower the AI economic bonus a tad at higher difficulty levels, but give them a scaling diplomacy bonus?

Right now it seems as thought the AIs at higher levels are super-powered beings who happen to be childlike and gullible when it comes to negotiations.