I think my inability to get a decent competitive game out of DA these days is related to the fact that I've read Machiavelli and the AI hasn't.
More seriously, the AI doesn't respond well to devious tactics, and for the human player (me) it requires unrealistic self restraint not to use such tactics.
For context, I've been playing 4X since MoO, 15 years ago. So I kinda know what works and what doesn't. And therein lies the problem. I play GC2:DA on painful or crippling, (full AI, simply continuing to up the difficulty level to give the AI more bonus production is beside the point IMO).
What do I mean by devious? Nothing more than playing the game that is there, really, but I suppose I mean things like;
- Early trade, diplomacy and small tributes to avoid war at times that don't suit me (meanwhile I am maximising my economy and research advantage).
- When my lack of military strength starts to become too much of a temptation for other races, I start building a few medium hull ships, as a defensive bank. All the time keeping my economy and bank balance well into the green.
- If I do get into an unwanted shooting war, quickly develop my medium ship design to the optimum available and upgrade the ships in the immediate area of conflict. My earlier focus on research will usually give my latest ships a significant advantage over the enemies old designs that have been slowing travelling into my region.
- When I go on the attack, I identify and focus upon the crucial enemy planets. A good attack on multiple fronts should take several enemy planets in one quick wave, overwhelming his resource base and making it mine. Clean the enemy ships from the skies of any nearby planets I can't immediately occupy.
- I force myself not to use influence bases to take over premium groups of planets. It's just too easy.
- I prefer to play as a custom race with super warrior ability. I know this is why most of my games get too easy, as my smaller numbers of higher quality ships can then chew through vast numbers of opposing ships with few losses. The AI does respond well to this tactic and does not put enough value upon movement points and logistics (allowing my first strikes on multiple small ship groups and still retreat to avoid retaliation).
- I usually play evil early on to get the colony advantages (and friendship with the most aggresive evil races), then pay for the switch to neutral for the morale and research benefits.
Perhaps I should avoid taking the super warrior ability, but it's much more fun to have small numbers of high quality ships wading through the opposition, like 300 spartans without the unfortunate ending. (Or as a better analogy, like a dozen F22 Raptors against, well, just about anything - look 'em up on Wikipedia). To offset this "advantage" I usually start a custom game in a gigantic universe with no more than a few available planets - if I can see that I will readily colonise more than 4 or 5 planets (or 2 - 3 really good ones) then I start again looking for a greater handicap.
If you've bothered to read all this, you can see I'm just rambling really. Still love the game, but haven't had a "tough" time winning for a long time, including the epic game just finished which motivated me to this post. In that game I even left the Dread Lords alone for ages, but they never amounted to much and were no match for my little doom ray equipped raptors.
I'm really hoping the new Twilight pack includes some surprises in the AI.
Cheers
Greg
