Playing a Obscene difficulty Game with 9 players in a large galaxy. Kinda in the center , picked out my first victim in a corner who really had a nice bunch of colonies in the initial rush.
I 1.10.029 I would have rolled right over them with my initial fleet of medium hull Missile 9 cruisers.
I took them out, but the AI put up much more of a fight.
First off, the new combat system with damage, makes the game much more exciting IMHO. Several times I had to rejigger my fleets because of damage and left wounded ships behind on odd missions. I even lost some to combat even though I had overwhelming force, because I was forced to place wounded ships in combat.
I was fighting the Drath, I I was shocked. On several occasions, enemy fighters sorted out of planets, where in 1.11 they would have waited to be killed to attack my wounded ships.
On one occasion, I swear a fighter went off to the left away from my main battle fleets to intercept my unescorted transports rushing in.
I even saw the Drath upgrade! a scout ship that I had ignored in my rear into aa fighter to attack my line of trade freighters. Amazing.
And it seemed to actually pull out of a world and retreat to join another fleet. It may have been just flying out to intercept one of my ships, but I swear, it was regrouping.
And best of all, even though I was only taking 10 turns or so to do the entire conquest , I swear it designed two diffferent ships to counter mine.
And the largest planets I captured were filled with factories!!! not morale improvements or a gagillion embassies. The AI even beat me to several trade goods that I had to tech whore for.
I am playing on the obscene level. The AI I attacked was the Drath.
As it stood, they killed a couple of my ships and of the rest of my fleet has suffered damage. Where in 1.11 I would have been sweeping in with little damage, there 1 or 2 ships fought valiently and wore me down though attrition. I had to send my whole fleet to complete the capture and I am now vunerable to the other AI players. Wow.
Whatever you guys did, I sure like it.