Ok, before I get to that please consider the following. I am using the latest 1.0 version not 1.1 yet, I don't know if Stardock is
working on them already.
These issues really detract from a great game:
Have ships in only one square selectable at one time unless holding CTRL so that I don't send fleets from different squares all over the place.
Add access to all ship commands for stacked ships on the UI. Fleet, disband, upgrade.
Add move points left for stacked fleets on the UI. You can't see how many move points are left for the selected fleet.
I am always guessing what new upgrades are available for starbases, there is no way to tell what is available except to send a constructor to the starbase. The starbase info screen should show both the added components AND the available ones.
Galciv2 has been a fun, stable game for me, but these issues seem so obvious that they should have been addressed before release.
Here is my current game setup.
I'm playing terrans, on the largest map, with all the races, and all set to intelligent. I started against the edge in a mediocre
position, and all the other races quickly surpassed me in all areas. My biggest neighbor, the altarians, are fighting a war with the yor on their opposite border. They are two of the biggest empires in the game and far superior to me. The altarians took a dislike to me, so I built some good defenses and scouted their defenses and nearby systems. They had several mining resources just over the border, plus a fantastic class 28 world(really good planets were uncommon in my setup), with poor defenses. My strategy if they declared war on me was to have several fleets ready with ships tailored to beat the current altarian designs, and race across the border, grab the resources and class 28 planet, and dig in.
So they declared war on me, and I grabbed what I had scouted and covered my new aquisitions with military bases. Their fleets were inferior to me, but they had 10 times the ships I had. Fortunately they didn't attack en masse, but attacked in a non-coordinated fashion, and I was able to hold them off and replace my losses.
With the AI set to intelligent I saw the following:
Strong, well run economies, research, and diplomacy.
Big strong empires see my sorry, weak empire as easy pickings and try to extort or take me out.
Workable ship design strategy, the altarians went for a swarm of cheap quantity over expensive quality.
Altarians began adapting to my ships.
With the AI set to intelligent I DID NOT expect to see the following:
Their economy was far stronger than mine yet all their starbases were either helpless or lightly developed.
Keeping special resources should be a high priority, yet the AI failed to respond to my attack.
I knew they had a class 28 planet for a long time, yet when I captured it it was almost completely undeveloped. It was probably one of the best planets on the map, and it was empty, and weakly defended. Developing and keeping a planet that good should be a high priority for the AI.
The AI declared war on me, but seemed unable to WAGE war on me. They had no fleets prepared to invade my territory. Their response to my taking their planets/resources was uncoordinated and weak.
They had a vast number of fleets that although inferior in terms of quality could have easily overrun my incursion, but didn't. I know they were fighting the yor, but I could see a lot of fleets in the center of their territory just sitting around doing nothing, while I took a cluster of 4 of their planets.
Main failings of the intelligent AI in my example:
The AI failed to protect two key special resources and a class 28 planet. These give a tremendous advantage and they just gave them away.
Undeveloped class 28 planet?
The AI was using a strategy of slow, cheap ships, but did not use the critical mass of fleets when attacking necessary to make this strategy work. They had the ships to beat me, but no focus.
The AI did not recognize the tactical advantage that my faster fleets had, and failed to concentrate its fleets as a defense,
allowing me to atack and retreat.
The AI declared war on me, placing it in the middle of a two front war. I know I looked weak, but it's still a strategic no-no.
The AI failed to recognize that the area of control around my military bases was a suicidal place to be for weak fleets and to not go there if not in force.
This is just an example of some precautions that I would expect a mediocre human player to take into account. The AI may not be able to size up a human player well, and may just think I'm not worth worrying about. Stardock did say the AI's don't know who the human player is. I'm just another AI to them, so they might not be as cautious as they should be, given the fact that I am going to find their weaknesses and exploit them.
