What happened? The game has become an exercise in building sandcastles.

No more war. The new and 'improved' AIs no longer declare war. This has got have something to do wih that fear factor algorithm that has been introduced recently - "Aggressive AIs will think twice before going around conquering because they know the other civs will gang up on them" Great idea man, unfortunately it works too bloody well. The only wars i have seen in my last few sandbox games have been trivial. And I can't get people to fight each other anymore - They want more than all my tech +cash + goodies. What? you've neutered GC2. The Galaxy is no longer a dangerous place, its all peace and love in space.

As for AI planets: I normally spend a fortune on espionage and I map the galaxy quickly too. Cos i want to take it all. The AI is rubbish with planetary improvements. I've seen worlds with no factories, 4 farms (one of which was on a yellow research bonus tile - sacriledge!), 4 embassies, a starport and a fleet management(Worst Improvement ever) and the palnet was building a frigate. Which would be ready in over a hundred and fifty turns. oh yeah the population was a mere 6.5b. This is arguably one of the worst ones i have seen, but i would not be complaining if this was an isolated case. this is accross the board. All the AIs are guilty of having more than half their worlds underproducing.

I play on masochistic with loose clusters and abundant everything. But, If this is the state of the AI no wonder they're just about able to match me(Even with a 200% bonus). The AI has huge fleets but they're not building them - they are buying them. My thought is that if they become more efficient with their planets they would be able to kill me on this difficulty level.

But there is a plus side - The enemy AI ships are fantastic now - powerfull and upgraded regularly. Well done on that side of things. Its just a shame that you had to go and cut off their balls while sharpening their teeth.

And also the Campaign is much more challenging now, unfortunately there seems to be a bug in the DL defences. If the DL ship has a defensive rating in shields say, it seems to have the same rating in armour and point defence too. But no matter, i'm still killing em an loving it.

If you are really happy with your "no war is good thing". can we have an option for aggressive AI's in the setup prior to the game please?

Please can you address these two problems, they are real, and they weaken the game - especially the poor planet management.

I'm going to load 1.11 now and see how it does. here's hoping

thanks for listening.

P.S. Love your work Stardock