This isn't related to the beta - just something I've noticed over several games as I've gotten a high enough espionage rating to see exactly what the AI is doing. FYI, my comments are also address to the "intelligent" AI.
First off, the AI is great at getting started, so much that I've started mimicking it's spend patterns early one. I was wondering how it was always doing so much better than me early on, then I figured out what it was doing by watching the charts and seeing what it was doing with its spending. Nice work there Stardock.
But AI's planetary development seems pretty weak. At the mid to end game, I consisently have planets with massive production and research capabilities, capabilities that AI cannot match. My older and middle age planets will be fully decked out with tons of factories, labs and stock exhanges. But when I take over AI planets they are developed pretty weakly, such that i have to spend alot of time just trying to get them up to snuff.
To me the key to everything is production/factories. If i have enough factories, then I can build it if I need it. Most of my colonies 10+ or so, have at least half their tiles devoted to factories, the larger planets even more. My first build is a factory - on a bonus tile if it exists,then my second build is either a market or lab (if bonus tiles), then another factory. Then I can start rolling stuff out. Smaller planets get at least one or two factories, then labs/markets. With enough factories I can counter whatever the AI threat is - if war, then build ships, if influence, then build influence starbases, if tech, then build econ starbases to boost research. The planets are my base, starbases is what I use to focus my strategy.
But the AI just plain builds crappy planets. There just doesn't seem to be a focus. Much of the time I find only a couple of factories on a world, even 10+ planet quality worlds. The AI can't respond to threats because it has no production capability. I've seen worlds with tons of embassies for example. Now maybe the AI was focusing on an influence strategy but is this really way to go about it? It leaves the AI a one trick pony. If that doesn't work it can't defend itself because it can't produce warships. Nor can it fend off a research race. The AI doesn't seem to be flexible, IMO because it seems to focus it's planets towards one strategy and if that fails, it's dead..
II think the AI as a baseline needs to develop strong production oriented planets - and then everytihng should flow from that. if it wants to foucs strategy, it should try that through starbases, not loading up big planets with embasssies. It should use big planets as production centers, then if it wants either a influence or research strategy, load up small planets with embassies or labs, using starbases to maginfy their effect. But without a strong planet development base, the AI is sunk.
Is anyone else seeing the same thing? Or am I off here? I"ve played 5 games and this is what I'm seeing. I'd be interested in Brad's take. Maybe he can shed some light on the AI? I just think there's still a fair amout of work to be done here.
