The military rating is not an accurate representation of their might when they go to war. The AI puts a huge percentage of their ships in orbit around their planets, and never use them for anything else. It's easy to kill the ships one by one and then send in a transport. The AI isn't as good as a human player at general combat either.

As a result, you can be far behind in military rating and still cruise to a victory.

The AI doesn't take full advantage of fleet sizes either. A large fleet of inferior ships can beat a small fleet of higher quality ships. If you build the ships specifically to counter the AI fleet, the advantage can be even bigger.

If you are behind in tech, you can close the gap significantly when you start conquering planets. It is up to chance which technologies you steal, but conquer enough planets and you'll eventually get ones that enable you to build better ships.

It's hard to say. There are so many possibilities.

Hmm...at tough, I think it is possible to tech faster than the AI. I played mostly tough games a month or so ago. I'd just build up a nice empire and a huge fleet before rampaging through the AI. I'd just kept building and teching, until I realize that I'm so powerful that the rest of the game is cleanup. I still wouldn't be leading the military rating chart, but in practice, I could usually win Tough without losing a single ship. I usually had to pay tribute to avoid getting attacked until I was ready.

Some of the AI like the Drengin have a totally screwed up military rating. The Drengin special ability gives them huge stacks of worthless ships that make them look far more powerful than they really are.

At higher difficulties, it's impossible to tech as quickly as the AI. So I usually go to war as soon as possible before the AI gets too far ahead of me. I get some of the basic techs (the ones that don't take too long to research, provide bonuses, capitals, etc.), logistics, then planetary invasion and start attacking with stacks of defenders (1 attack, 1 movement).

Obviously, these two strategies are quite different. It also depends how you prefer to play as well.

When you say you 'breeze through the other victory conditions' do you mean that you can actually win easily, but not a conquest victory?

If so, then you may well have eg high diplo which is helping to stop them from attacking you while you build to eg an influence victory. In that sort of scenario you could use your high diplo to persuade one AI to attack another, thus reducing their military might, then you can mop up...

But hang on, you said you play the Yor? Do you have many non-evil AI opponents? I wouldn't expect them to leave you alone as the Yor.

I agree with CityMan on invasion - if you want to win agressively, invasion is the most powerful thing. Even if you have to use very damaging invasion methods , you still wipe out their population and hurt their econ.

Also agree with CityMan re AI being a bit dumb sometimes with fleet deployment. EG you can tempt an enemy 200+ attack fleet away from something you care about with a measly starbase - some races seem to love to attack starbases and mines rather than more valuable targets. the more you bite the bullet and mix it with them, the more you will see this.

Cheers!

If the enemy fleet is vastly more powerful than yours is, turn out massive numbers of the cheapest pieces of crap you can: No engine, no weapons, cheapest hull. Don't fleet them. Just hurl them into the path of the enemy in a giant carpet. Weaponless hulls cost no maintenance. You can start building these anytime and just build an enormous wall with them. Killing them costs any ship or fleet a move. AI ships practically never have more than a few moves. Sacrificing these hulks that cost next to nothing can quickly grind an AI offensive to a dead halt. Even the most podunk planet can produce one a turn or so. They cost nothing to maintain and still must be shot down to invade you. And the more you are outclassed, the greater the stall that is produced. Stalling 800 points of weapons coming your way costs the same as stalling 8. These things are so cheap you can afford to build walls out of them, enmiring the AI in an impenetrable mass of goo.

If you are the Yor playing on tough, I would try something a little simplier first. Reasearch Xeno Ethics, pick evil.

Research through the beam weapon techs up to (I think) phasors, and then you can research Psyonic Beams.

Build a few ships with 1 or 2 beams on it. Get medium hulls if you can. Add engines or defenses if you want. At that difficulty, I really think thats all you'll need. Even at the slower techs, you should be able to build those ships within the first year or two.

If the AI is making ships with 800+ weapons, you are playing waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long. That of course is just MY opinion, take it with a grain of salt.

Stickytraps work well in combination with the "wall of cruft". Not only will your enemy's ships be reduced to a single move, but it means their fleets can only kill ONE little piece of crap at a time....and you can replace them faster than he can shoot them down, so for every worthless POS he shoots down, 2 more take their place.



I didn't say he was making ships with 800+ weapons. That was just a figure pulled from my ass as an example of stalling a huge force with a single unarmed tiny ship.


If you don't arm them, they cost no maintenance, too. So you can start building this wall from the beginning of the game (no technology required!), and those walls you build at the very beginning stay up until destroyed. They cost nothing to maintain, so it doesn't even represent a drain on your economy. I have seen it get to the point where the replacement cost in BCs (adjusted for industrial bonii) is less than the cost of turnly maintenance for the ship you just stalled, meaning he is actually taking an economic loss for every ship destroyed. Yes, that's right: You are WINNING by LOSING every single fight.

I prefer to fight the Yor than play as them, but keep in mind your super ability (DA/TA?) which can greatly assist in the above strategies. Whatever you do, don't forget to have an "evil buddy" to trade with and support your war machine. Miniaturization is also important, it means you can fit more stuff. As for battlefield tactics, a few well placed scouts are always helpful when moving in for the kill. Nothing worse than suddenly discovering a big, fat, Terran dreadnought hiding out of sensor range!

Some more things to consider:

1) It looks like the AI's are beating you in the race to bigger hulls and/or better weapons. After the necessary rather basic research, econ, efficiency and population growth techs, it's time for military techs. I typically stop already at lasers, then move on to medium hulls. Only then will I continue along the laser branch.
2) Spin Control Center (at the end of the yellow diplomacy branch, leading to Total Majesty). The increased diplomacy will helps to keep some AI's off your back, get better alliances while the SCC will make it seem that your military is vastly more powerful than the AI's.
3) Always consider whether you want to upgrade existing ships (costly but fast) or replace them by bigger/better newly built ones. This is for me another reason to move to medium hulls quite early. Then I have 2-3 times to upgrade: plasma (not always), phasors, psionic beams. Unless I've been playing a slow game, I never go beyond that psionic beam technology. At the most I add 1-2 after improving my miniaturization.

Actually, I'd say this is the main problem.
Never say die until you're actually dead. Most of the AI's score is fluff. It is also quite possible to beat an AI that has a military, research, economic, diplomatic ánd influence lead over you. Fighting uphill battles will teach you much more than equal battles or battles against an AI that is weaker than you. Always remember, the AI is not quite as capable at using it's resources as a human player could. Don't get intimidated, sure, it's possible that you lose, but until you actually start losing planets in rapid succession and all the aces up your sleeve have fallen out, all hope is not lost.

Personally, I find the game boring the second it becomes clear that my power is equal or greater than that of the AI. I know there's just no way I could lose when that happens.

Always run down the entire Invasion tree, sabotage morale buildings, then invade using Information Warfare if your enemy has weak soldiering. You may very well end up with more population on the planet than you had soldiers in your invasionship. Add to that the free tech and you can easely catch up if you fell behind. (The Torians and Iconians are very easy targets early on, for example)
Also, bribery WORKS. Pay potential enemies to go fight someone else before they declare war on you. Actually, pay EVERYONE to go to war with as many others as possible. If they're too busy killing eachother, they won't declare war on you and you can start picking them off one by one. I simply love riding the tails of i.e. the Krynn as they destroy the defending ships of a planet and then invade it myself once the orbit is clear...

Remember, only challenging games make you better, play slightly above your level.

I have to agree with that. When I know I destroy the AI in every way, it's boring.

As for AI vs Human military, another thing the AI misses often (at least in my experience) is the advantage from being the aggressor. They seem to bring their fleets in to blow up my orbiting transports, and don't bother with attacking my own (slightly inferior) fleets, even though if they had the aggression advantage, they would win the fight.

Also, he never defended his troop transports adequately. I could send in one cheap cruiser and blow up 10 transports in one turn before he destroyed the cruiser.