In an attempt to make computers a more worthy foe (i hate games where i can win without losing a single ship), has anybody tried reducing maintenance on ships orbiting planets? They seem to lack the human ability to decide which planets are worth leaving ships to defend, and which aren't, therefore causing a lot of ships that are tied up.
As far as the logic of it, it seems if a ship is sitting next to a planet, its easier to supply and maintain than a ship several parsecs away would be.
The other thing is, put a little more weight in the computer AI to make a few planets that are nothing but industrial juggernauts? I prefer the very large maps, and i would say 1 out of 7 times i kill a civ off, will i can find a planet owned by them that has heavily stacked in factories.
What this means is, the computers almost always go with the starport on every planet, and have slow build times but every planet can produce. If they didn't already stockpile ships, and you declare war on them, their slow build times means they can't quickly turn on the production to get a fleet out to try and save themselves. Using spys to look, its usually around 14 weeks for them to finish a ship on their average planets, and maybe 6 weeks on a planet lucky to have tile resources.
