Hi!
AI above crippling gets BIG bonuses. Those are not just 200% economy, they get insane bonuses in production, morale, influence... Some numbers from my maso games:
- a planet without research installation, only with basic colony producing 46 tech points (and 52 military points for full picture),
- a HW with 2 basic factories producing a colonizer each turn,
- an empty planet with 3B pop producing more money than my 8B planet with econ capital and 2 advanced trade centers,
- AI taxing their pop 69% and still having all planets below 10B pop at 100% approval,
- etc.

To be successfull against such advantages one needs to use and abuse evey little trick from the game and from his built-in shrewdnes. If he does not know/have them, it's IMO better to not try such unbalanced levels until he learns "expert ropes".

BR, Iztok

until he learns "expert ropes".

I do not play suicide, I can win occasionally on crippling and thats about it.

To not quite quote one of the games designers... with the new changes to the AI if your winning on anything above normal your probably using an abuse of the AI in some form or the other. For instance, a while back it was pointed out that you could build a ranger class starship by selecting the build nothing from a certain screen. Sure was it an option, was it legal to use... grey area, especially if you were say... posting your scores on the MV and not everyone was using the build ranger bug or.... "feature" as some would call it. Those folks will defend their actions by blaming the game developer for "allowing" them to use such an obvious bug therefore in their minds they would be not at fault.

In my wacked out mind though... sorry I do not by it. That Kat don't hunt.

My recommendation is to try it once on Suicidal and than if you like it stay there. Perhaps though you may want to move up one level per round though to see and get a feel for what the developers have done (such as CariElf and Frogboy).

Good hunting,

W/R
Suralle Straykat
Kat Lord @ Large

I have played on suicide and would win if I ever get to finish (someone in my house keeps switching by alt tab and the game crashes). I did it with gigantic galaxies which is why it takes a while to finish. I play neutral and do trade with everyone. It also has the benefit of opening all the planet tiles (do not need terraforming). I did not spend to buy any ships early but built up the first planet then colonized. At the start I only had 10 planets and the game ai had 18 or more. By researching diplomacy, the diplomacy tile improvement, ethics and government my diplomacy ability was about double the other races best. That is the only advantage I had. It was a huge advantage. I remember buying tech for almost nothing and then selling to all the other races to turn a nice profit. THis way you keep into mid-game. Once there start knocking off the weakest one at a time. Be prepared for one of the other races to jump into aid them but there is not much that can be done at that.I always build huge ships and upgrade them. This way they get alot of experience, have the best tech and yes you start off way behind in number of ships but you do not lose any (strong defence against the race you fights best weapon).

The big issue for many people is that no matter what difficulty level the AI simply does not execute war properly.

The biggest 'exploit' is to keep some very fast interceptor type ships which can pick off the undefended transports the AI loves to leave sitting around. The AI also does not use sensors very well, though Brad has given reasons for this, but the fact remains that the play who will likely build the eyes and have a speed advantage on their ships, can use and abuse the game mechanics to nullify the AI militarilly.

It works like this. Don't keep any ships in orbit or in range of enemy fleets (its not really that hard to do, even on smaller maps). The AI can walk up to your planets and do nothing, since they don't seem to keep their transports adequately defended. With your sensor advantage any time you see transports or a fleet with transports, hit it with your fast interceptor(s). Unless you are horribly behind in tech (well weapons/defense tech) you can use your cheap interceptors to keep your planets safe. Losing these interceptors (which are fighters usually) doesn't really mater since you should be able to pump them out quite quickly. Of course you may lose some/all of your starbases, but the AI seems to spread itself a bit thin if it chases your SBs, so you can gang tackle any of his fleets which stray outside of retaliation range.

All of this strategy is predicated on the attacker fires first mechanic, which will change in 1.2, so that may (should) help cut down on this strategy, however, unless the AI is better about invading your systems it ultimately won't matter.

There are other strategies involving diplomacy and buying others into wars to keep them from attacking you in the first place which also work, though those depend on your neighbors and your neighbors neighbors.

There are ways to handicap yourself in a game, turn of tech trading, play on tiny galaxies, ... but ultimately there will always be the ability to use (or abuse) game mechanics until those game mechanics are 'corrected' to cut down on the 'cheese'.

I play and win on suicidal regularly and actually rely very little on starbases. I find on suicidal they simply have no survivablity. Diplomacy is the key, Why you turn off tech trading if you focus on diplomacy you will be so far ahead of other races you never need research a thing even on suicidal. A spin control center is usually enough to keep all the kids in line til your ready to make your move to victory.

i play the game on crippling pretty much always and have no problems beating the computer.
right now i am busy with my biggest challenge, on a gigantic field i have war with the biggest IA in the game (who is right next to me) and nearly war with my other neigbour + another IA but he is to far ahead to be of any danger.
also i have war with 7 minor races
crippling is a good difficulty to go if you want a challenge but are not that advanced in the game yet. just build economy, keep up with the tech and indeed take advantage of the IA in war.

(i won easely against a much stronger, much bigger, much better drengin empire just because i could war better than he could. he had double my production, economy, standing army and double tech. i beat him easely)


one question btw, how do people know whats gonna be in 1.2?
i tried searching the forums but couldn't find anything about 1.2 yet.

And ctrl n does what?

Resets the galaxy using the same settings. The user of ctrl n hopes to gain a better foothold this way by isolation from evils and allowing themselves more time to build a good defensive shell around their new planets. If your playing on the MV you have to go through the login again and establish an internet connection, plus hit the next button a few times.

Good Hunting,
Suralle Straykat
Kat Lord @ Large