The AI will not be human - could game options help?

Sensors are already capped at a maximum range of 15 tiles per ship.

Sorry, I did notice the sensor cap (self-limit). What do you think about an engine limit?

An engine limit would make the Huge and Gigntic galaxy sizes unplayable. On those sizes, it already takes multiple turns for ships with speeds over 40 to get into action.

In the smallest galaxies, you will never have time to reach the point where a limit would have any effect.

It would be better if the AI would just use more engines.

they could do engine cap based on size of the ship.

I actully think they should do some type of new star gate technology into game.
example to link your own home worlds to each othere, and abilty to build and linke star gates of allies to gethere.

this would provide a 1turn movement

so you build a star gate at one world and then travel to anthere world and build one which then can be linked to each othere.

any movement thro them would take only one turn no matter the distance.
be cost of matinace and research tehcnology needed.

but i think it help AI and add anthere layer of depth to game.

I have heard evidence of the AI cancelling alliances, but only once. The war thing is annoying, I want to be smacked senseless!

In response to your suggestions:
1. Sounds good. The CPU should be able to cancel an alliance with someone who's conquering ways are about to earn him/her a galaxy full of trouble on their head!
2. Bah! I wouldn't be against including it as an option, fair enough. But I still think the AI can evolve around this.
3. As said above, the sensors top out at 15, as anyone who's built the Eyes of the Universe can tell you. (Oh, I love that galactic wonder!) But it is really pathetic, watching the AI blindly float into a trap. They gotta work out something with those sensors.
4. Here's an idea; I don't know if it's workable, however. Humans should be able to "declare" war officially, and the AI should be able to sneak attack. But on the conquer-o-meter, sneak attacks should be much more disgusting to other races then declarations of war. That is, people will be more lenient if you declare war officially than if you sneak attack. (Better an honorable warrior than a trigger happy conquer maniac.) You could even add racial tendencies; the Arceans would never sneak attack and be especially unforgiving of a sneak attack, while the Drengin would hardly ever declare war officially but skip to the blowing stuff up.

they should be able to cancel allinces, it happens sometimes ing ame mostly tho if insdent happens.

I think main reason they dont allow Ai to attack allies is becuase of issue with miltary power as along as your milstary power is above there miltary power they dont seem to want to attack you.

so if you had allies and your miltary power dropped if they where able to cancel and attack you they would.

so then now only would all your allies attack you but enimes you where fighting and you just end up with whole all the oppents going after you.

they should do something more so with the like and dislike feature in game.
make miltary might less of a reason to go to war with someone if you have larg miltarty might well then you dont want to go to war with you but have less of mitlarty might should play less of a role.

human players should be able to delcare war offical and it sneak attacks should have a larger impact on game if you sneak attack someone they should drop favorabilty with you to all time low same with your oppents.

as for having racil thing where some races sneak attack all time and some dont.

if you did above where sneak attacks where always negative on the dipomlacy metter, then some races would never have friends or allies and would always always become losers period becuase they would always get ganged up on.

Unlike a human I don't think the AI is aware of the size of galaxy it is playing in.

Human beings do things differently when we know we are in a gigantic galaxy. I imagine there are some AI tweeks that could make them better in that case.

1. Let the AI cancel an alliance Only to be fair and add some surprise.

I agree with this 100%, all the AI's should be able to mount a surprise attack, especially the evil races, no way would the Drengin, Yor or Dominion stick to an alliance, if they can gain by breaking it. Its also irritating when they warn u that they could attack u in the near future, by demanding tribute. I just then start building my military machine up, they pick on someone else or I smash them into oblivion.

2. Limit the number of engines per ship from 1 to 3, max. speed 10-15 The AI does not use speed effectively. So instead of trying to code the AI: When starting a game the player may choose the max engine number per ship. 3. Limit the number of sensors Similar to the engine limit option

Disagree with both those, I think the game is perfectly fine in both those areas. Both r needed on size large or bigger maps otherwise playability suffers. People would simply stop playing those games to completeion.

Also I have seen the AI's with speed 10 - 16 ships commonly in my games so they r already using more engines. I think people r better at manoeuvring there ships tactically then the AI's, not really a engine or speed problem. I say leave both those as they r, more important stuff to do like planetary development, better AI diplomacy etc...

4. AI attacks first or human to announce a war Either the AI should strike first or the human player has the same handicap. If the AI cannot attack directly, then the human player has to announce a war one round in advance too.

Both the AI and human player should follow the same rules during war, this is an area the AI is weak in but has improved since the game came out. Dislike creating rules to restrict a players freedom to do what he wants when playing, much better to improve the AI's so they can act more humanlike.

I would like to see an option in the trade/diplomacy screen where you could threaten to declare war if they didn't agree to the deal. They have an "attack" option, how about an "I won't attack" option?

I fully agree on the "let the AI cancel alliances" issue, it would be a fair thing and keep the player somewhat on his toes.

And I'd support any intelligent limit on ship speed (other than "x is enough"): Like restricting the number of engines you can put on a given hull size in a given galaxy size.
I like fast ships myself and play on the big map sizes mostly, but being allowed to put almost nothing than engines on a ship design is unrealistic in my opinion (and we all know the super-speed constructors and attack 1 cargo hulls ).

Oh, and I definitely support the idea of "let us threaten the AI diplomatically".