The game is more than great, the series as a whole is more than great, but there is something that always bothered me about it: where's the support for the little guy?

What I mean by that is that the old hopeful solution for a player who isn't militaristic/expansionist in nature is a huge boost in diplomacy. While this is great and all, I think we need a different approach as well. You see, I always get creamed. If I don't pick a huge diplomacy boost, I'm kaput before I even press the first "turn" button. In my latest game which I just finished, I had my nice little conglomerate sitting at the edge of the map, minding my own business, and sharing the wealth with everyone. What do you think happened at late-game? The Arceans, bored from lack of enjoyment in the galaxy, just brushed me aside and annihilated me with the biggest fleets I ever saw. I threw at them 4(!) lucky rangers, backed up with very high-tech military starbase, and the didn't even flinch. And I'm talking about 30 mass-drivers and 20 anti mass-drivers each.

What I'm saying here is that we need more in terms of defense. The best defense in the game is simply not enough. And even if it was enough, what can we do to stop being harassed and annihilated, or even win? The AI is excellent, but it's bloodthirsty. If it hates you, it hates to the guts. It's not gonna take bribes from you, it doesn't care about you, it's just there to annihilate you. It's too militaristic, it's too expansionist and it's basically treats you like it's some sort of a duel. It won't let you just live harmlessly in the corner, even if you don't bother it at all.

Now, you said that you want a good AI, not just in terms of fights. But what you got here is The Terminator 4: The mopping of the defenseless little humans. I think you need to tell that AI of yours to lighten up But really, I think that in later stages, after the dust settles, we could use some extra ways to calm the AI down and enjoy a game of building our empires or reseraching to ourselves without fear of being bullied into submission.

What do you think? (those of you who don't like fighting all day long, of course). Do you agree that the AI could use a little Ritalin and relax?