One of the reasons I purchased this game was Brad's description of how the AI overwhelmed him in an iteration of the Human-Drengin wars scenario. So far, I haven't found the AI to be very aggressive at all, so I tried this scenerio out. Difficulty was set to 'Tough', but I was using the 'Struggle' map instead of 'Duel', because I wanted a slightly more large-scale struggle.
This scenario starts you out with just your capital and a starport. No survey vessel or initial colony ship. There are 12 worlds up for grabs. I dove into the land grab, quickly building up some factories so I could pump out enough colony ships. Long story short, I colonized all six of the worlds on my half of the galaxy before I heard a peep out of the AI, and that was just a scout poking it's nose across the line. I decided to stop at 6, and switch over to building up infrastructure and research.
It was about another 10 turns before the AI colonized its first planet. That just won't do. If I had wanted to, I could have taken AT LEAST another 2 planets before he got his first. Even as it was, I had a totally crushing lead. There's no way the AI can recover from giving me that much of an economic head start in a competitive game. Difficulty was set to 'tough', but I can't believe this is the same AI that actually managed to beat Brad in an honest game. Something is broken here.
Anyone else had this experience with an overly-passive AI in the land grab? The AI seemed to be way faster even on the normal games I played in the previous patch.
