I took a decently long break from GC2 since I was finding the AI annoyingly unable to manage its troop transports and star bases. When 1.3 came out and was mostly about the AI (or so it seemed) I dove back in again.

Yuck.

The AI still cannot handle its transports or starbases.

I think its more a question of focus though than anything else. I've been playing at crippling which should have all AI features on, if not then please advise as to the change.

The basics of it are that the AI will overbuild transports, not defend them, and not even attack open planets when they are in range. Its a trifecta of ineptitude which makes warring the AI too too simple. I've notices this behavior in every build of GC2 and I've brought it up several times, and I understood some of Brads reasons for why the AI is not always optimal in its tactics. And yet the fix to these problems seems to overwhelmingly simple that I do not understand why it is not made.

So what is the fix? Well first of all stop building 10s of transports when not at war. Second, *NEVER* leave transports in a square where there is not a friendly fleet or war ship. Third, after the AI wins the space battle, INVADE!!!

This last one is truely bizarre, in my last game I made an alliance with the Arceans where were listed as #1 and for some reason the terrans decide to declare war on me, even though I'm on the other side of the galaxy and the Arceans and their massive military are right next door (another possible glitch? Declaring war on allied players when the AI will get waffle stomped by the allied neighbor?). Of course I rush over a couple of battleships to see whats what, and by the time they get there the Arceans have wiped the terrans ships out and have 12! full transports in the sector which just sit there turn after turn while I slowly send over the transports I'm churning out gobbleing up the Terran space. I mean it makes no sense to me, this was the definition of free lunch for the Arceans and they are acting like they just hit the all you can eat Iconian buffet.

And that behavior is not limited to just that one game, and not just allies. Indeed I rarely if ever build a warship until far into the game since even if someone declares war on me they rarely are able to invade, even when I see the transports comeing, and there's nothing I can do to intercept them, they don't actually invade the planets, they just kind of wait for me to build a cheap interceptor (one gun lots of engines) to destroy 10s of transports just sitting around. Indeed that strategy is seemingly so powerful against the AIs that I don't see any point in ever developing a military other than a handful of interceptors (if needed) and the eventual assualt fleets to wipe out the AIs when that time comes (if it comes...).

True true, turn off tech trading, change victory conditions, ... blah blah blah, none of that addresses the underlying issue.

And as a final point on focus, I've been noticing the AIs still don't get how to use starbases. They will drop one somewhere, sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it mught not make much sense, but they are using it for range, fine. Whats not so fine is when they build another identical SB next to it. What's the point? Add a module instead, I 'm not talking about fully decked out SBs, I'm talking about one constructor SBs.

Hell even their econ and military starbases get built using this 'batch' process which is so inefficient... And yah, they may not have the next tech to add the next module sometimes, but I'm talking about bases with NO modules on them yet, and they plop another down next to it...

Bizarre.