I got a new (i.e., modern) video card, and for the first time in months, I'm playing a game in a Gigantic galaxy. I'm seeing a few AI behaviors that I've seen others discussing on these boards, but I haven't been experiencing them on the smaller map sizes. I have been playing on smaller (Tiny through Large) galaxies since before v1.2 was released, and have only very rarely encountered the problems I have listed below on those sizes.

FYI, I'm playing as Terrans, Crippling, Gigantic, nine opponents all at Genius intelligence, AI Intensive Algorithms on, tech trading and all victory types enabled.

1) AI ships not moving away from culture-flipped planets: Before I started conquering, I culture flipped several planets. When a planet flips, any ships that were in orbit are kicked out into space. Usually, these ships start to move toward a nearby planet of their own faction. However, in this game, the ships not moving away at all; and in some cases, more ships keep coming to join them! The Arceans are the worst; I have three full stacks of their ships sitting beside one of my planets that used to be theirs.

I think there may a problem with the distance between these ships and the nearest friendly planet. In the Gigantic galaxy, these ships are awfully far from home, whereas in a Large galaxy, they would only be a couple of parsecs away.

2) AI fails to develop planets: Honestly, I have never seen the AI doing such a poor job developing planets before. I have taken about thirty planets from the Torians, almost all of which were colonized by the Torians four years previously, game-time. None of them has more than a single factory, which in their case is an industrial center. Many don't even have one factory. Typically, a Torian planet in this game has a starport and a discovery sphere. Sometimes they have an orbital defense system, and sometimes they have an industrial center. And that is all. One planet in the thirty that I have taken had a farm; so their population is stagnant, too.

There is not even a single partially-constructed improvement anywhere - they are simply no longer building anything. Is that the best they can do in four years? The other AI factions are all doing the same thing. My theory here is that they have switched over to 100% military production. That makes some sense for factions that are at war, but what about the others? The factions who aren't at war have the same problem. All AI factions in this game progressed normally for a while, then total stagnation.

3) AI has quit researching: Part of the reason I think they have gone to 100% military spending and stayed there is that none of the AI factions are researching anything new. I left tech trading on for this game, and nobody is gaining new techs. Again, this is four years into the game, and they all have a lot of techs left that they could research.

4) AI starships have almost no defenses, and are not adapting: Now that combat has been altered so that both sides fire simultaneously, it makes no sense to have huge fleets of ships with zero defenses, but that is the case in this game. Again, I am playing with Intensive AI Algorithms enabled. Maybe one AI starship in a hundred has any defenses, and no more that 2-3 points' worth. I've been watching the Drengin and Iconians fight it out, and their ship designs have not adapted in any way to each others' weapon systems. I have been demolishing Torian fleets for over ten weeks, and their designs have not changed, either.

There are some other things, but this post is too long as it is. I'd like to reiterate that I haven't seen nearly this much stagnation in smaller-galaxy games. I also don't normally play beyond four years, either, on smaller maps.

Has anyone else played both small and large maps and found the same discrepancy? Do you folks who always play big galaxies see this every time? I know the devs don't really use the larger maps (don't blame them, either, it takes for EVER!), and I think there are some aspects of the game that were just never really tested at the larger map sizes for a full game. All in all, this Gigantic game is leaving me discouraged. Not for the game as a whole, just for the largest map sizes.