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vjovanovic

Join Date 06/2006

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about "intelligent"

I have been playing this game for a few weeks on tough with no success. I play as Human medium size galaxy, 2 opponents Drengi and Altarian. Tough means "intelligent" opponents right!? In the manual it says that the comp does not cheat, but it is just funny. In the initial phase by the time I have 3 planets they already have 6 each if not more. They already researched way more techs then I did. Their economy is already above mine. I mean if that is what they mean by optimized opponents as stated in the manual then whoever did AI has an advanced degree in optimization, and I have one but it does not help me. If the opponents don’t cheat then this game has to be comparable to chess computer opponents. But this is impossible, because there is randomness involved. When a computer plays chess there is just now way that it can cheat. Everything is determined, but here there is randomness everywhere.

So you may roll your ship battles fairly but how do you make those ships win. I mean Drengi has strong ships pretty soon, and Altarain gets angry pretty soon and just chrashes you. What kind of tactics are these guys using!? The manual says "intelligent" means AI evaluates all known human tactics. That sounds just like there is an incredible number of them. But what is it there really? There are a few things one can do as stated in victory conditions and that is it. To me every game I play looks the same. No matter what I do they just pretty soon come at me with all those have fighters and so on, and if I have some kind of ship to counteract then in a few turns they come back with even more hit points etc. I mean it just does not look realistic.

Sure, you’ll say. Just decrease the level if it is hard for you, but if you call the level of these guys "intelligent" then you’ve got to put some IQ number on that. And what would that be? In our human world intelligent is anything above I’d say 110. But these guys seems to be running on much higher. And yet they cannot really talk with you. All you can do with them is offer them some tech, money, ask them to attack somebody, make piece and that is about it. Even my dog understands a greater range of requests. And yet these guys are "intelligent" and so much "intelligent" that they win against an intelligent human being with the official IQ 134. I mean common.

I just have one question. What kind of minute and subtle actions one has to do in this game to win? And I would say you have to do those actions all the time and rarely make a mistake, because if you do, oops here they come with all those heavy fighters and frigates and what not.

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Do a search of masochistic or suicidal to find some posts that have strategies for beating the AI.

And there are actually quite a few strategies that will beat the AI. Mine's the best but then again I'm prejudice.

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Play a lot more games, try to survive longer each one. Eventually, you'll find out intelligence hole in the AI, and exploit them.

Don't forget, they're just computer. They can micro-manage very well, they can run things at peak efficiency, but they aren't intelligent. If you do something that isn't included in the original programming, you'll zap them in no time.

Off course, the then-challenge is to beat them without any of these cheesy tactics

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The games not that hard on tough, if the AI is doing better than you it's not because they cheated, probably had more planets nearby, and besides, the AI doesn't get tired, or bored, so they'll micromanage every little detail ( although they really suck at fleet cordination and planet managment). Also don't worry about they're economy, after a half-year they won't even have the cash they had at the beggining, and whoa once they start building they're military, they're usually in the negatives.

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There are plenty of people on these forums who can easily beat the AI at that difficulty level; I generally can too. I don't think it's cheating.

On general principles, set up some trade with AIs who are likely to be hostile, and give them small gifts - this will buy you some time. Delay creating a large military as long as possible just make enough ships to be a deterrent in order to devote resources to an exponentially increasing economy. Early on you must really focus on getting good planets; immediately obselete the core colony ship design and build a better one; put your military production on at least 50%. I also jump straight on the drive tech tree until I get impulse drive, which gains you that bonus move point in addition to better engines. Focus on civilian technologies at first, particularly if there are minor races, since they will generally trade you military technologies quite cheaply (not usually the state of the art ones, but enough to let you catch up in a few turns if required). Exception: DO get the Eyes of The Universe wonder - this is probably the most powerful wonder in the games, and it's cheap and easily gotten (sensors IV). Get this as early as you can.

Wherever possible, forment discord between the AIs. If the Altarians are at war with the Drengin (and this is often easy to provoke), neither of them are likely to bother you. If they are already at war with you, then opening a second front makes them much more likely to agree to peace with you.

The ship designer is absolutely your friend. Keep an eye on your neighbours, and have designs optimised against their ships ready to hand. When the AI declares war, you generally have a few turns grace before his ships appear. Use those turns wisely: start building ships right away (I go to military 50%, research 40%) and try and get a level of two of whatever offence and defence techs appropriate; as you get them, you can update the design of whatever ships your planets are building, so that the production is all focused on the newest possible designs. At the start of the war, you will be outnumbered: focus on knocking out transports and defending your starbases. As you build more ships, create one fleet as strong as you can, and start picking off individual ships or weak fleets. Constantly cycle damaged ships back to safe areas to create new fleets of experienced ships - each ship is precious; don't forget that upgrading a ship completely repairs is; fleets of experienced, state-of-the-art ships will quickly give you a big advantage.

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I normally play on challenging myself. I've played a few games on Tough and agree that the AIs easily take the lead in the early game.

It became rather discouraging to me when the AI picked up more planets, more research, more ships, more of everything it seems...

But by honing my own strategy I was able to stay in the game and after a year or so I was able to turn the tables on the AIs and take the lead in economy & research and win the game. But it takes patience and a willingness to more heavily micromanage your own empire.

But the bonus was that when I went back to challenging games, the strategies I learned from tough made me rule over the AIs more than ever before!

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You do know you can buy ships and buildings immediately, right? Rather than waiting for them to build. It costs more, but I'm pretty sure that that's what the computers do to build up so quickly. It can hurt you in the long term though.

If you don't like to waste money buying stuff, the trick is to play with the economys sliders. First of all, you don't have to worry about balancing the budget until your cash reserves run out. Push spending to 100% and keep taxes low to encourage population growth.

To start with, put all your resources into Social and build a couple of factories. What you do next depends on how many planets there are on the map. If there aren't many to go around, put all your money into military and build as many colony ships as you need. You'll fall a bit behind technologically, but you can catch that up later. If the galaxy is a bit bigger, you'll have to balance out some of the spending into Research and Social because the colony rush will last for so long.

If you drop behind technologically, buy the techs off the AI. Sell the rest to the other AIs to help recoup the cash. Some people consider this to be a chease tactic, but since you're having trouble at this difficulty level you might as well try it. Researching Diplomacy techs will help here as well (don't sell these techs to the AI!).

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Your IQ does not translate to gaming genius. The idea that the AI is cheating has been pretty much laid to rest. This game can be very hard, but also very easy. I can beat it on Suicidal with greater ease that I could beat old games like Civ III on the medium levels. Keep in mind that this game has a huge amount of variables. Even when setting up the game, you can alter your racial charactaristics. I have found that these setting make all the difference in the world. Also, as stated above, you can buy ships in one turn. You are given a decent amount of money right off the bat. I have a fast colony ship that I designed that is available from turn one. It has 3 movement points instead of 2. I will usualy buy at least three of them, one turn after the other. In fact, I could go on forever with little tid bits, but I am sure they have all been mentioned before. Keep in mind that this game takes practice. Many people who don't have difficulty with this game have been playing games like it for a decade or more.

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And don't forget that 100% morale double your planetary growth rate. that can always be useful

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This is pathetic. You can't beat the AI so it must be cheating? Search the forum first to see what YOU are doing wrong before laying down your criticisms in such broad strokes.

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The AI gets a lot of bonuses that help it get a good jump in the beginning. It has to be that way because expert human players can smoke them at anything below incredible intelligence.

When I first started playing, it irritated me that the AI was able to get such a good jump on me. Now I don't worry about it. You can out-smart them and out-play them further into the game. Just hang in there. Use diplomacy and cultural conquest to get more planets. Bribe losing races so they surrender to you when they get wiped out by another race. You'll get their remaining planets. Go after weak races first so you can expand your empire and acquire enough power to compete. There are lots of tactics and strategies to get ahead later in the game no matter how big a jump the AI gets on you.

Don't get irritated, just play and have fun. I had to get past that myself.

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The AI gets a lot of bonuses that help it get a good jump in the beginning. It has to be that way because expert human players can smoke them at anything below incredible intelligence.

The AI does not get any special bonuses at Intelligent at below.

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I know they get something because I've seen groups of colonizers 10 sectors away from any starbase or planet they own within the first 6 months of a game. They're able to do that even on intelligent, it just takes a bit longer. There's no way a human player can jump out of the gate like that without a pretty darn big treasury and some serious life support. Short of accusing the AI of cheating, they're getting some kind of bonus at the start. I'm not complaining because I kick their butts in the end anyway. I'd really smear them if they didn't get that jump on me. In any case, I'm just saying there's something going on there. But, it's fine, the dynamics work well for me and the challenge in catching up and passing them is a lot of fun.

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My stadegy Spend your cash on Colony ships right away, but leave yourself about 500bc or you'll run out of cash

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i play on tough and the computor never expands faster and only researchs slightly faster then me at the start.

Dont blame a game just cause you arent that good at it.

Make sure to have your spending at 100% and make those colony ships cheap and fast. Only research techs at the begining that aid in that. The first 2 military techs each give 10% to mil productions.

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My stadegy Spend your cash on Colony ships right away, but leave yourself about 500bc or you'll run out of cash

buying something costs 10x more then building it. Better to build as much as possible. Only buy factorys and only a few of them.

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And don't forget that 100% morale double your planetary growth rate. that can always be useful

dont need 100% at the start only need 1 person per colony ship to take a planet so population isnt the most important thing.

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I'm not a super genius like some here. And usually play at Tough level. Lg Galaxy, 9 opponents. (And I don’t auto-sum for better planets. I play with what the “cards dealt me.”.)

Some like to "Buy ships". I prefer too buy "factories", and build the ships via Factories. Usually I "buy" three factories, Then set Military spending\research to 50\50. (Build your colonies after the colony rush)

A Colony ship structure can be made into a fast. scout ship. Speed 5, scan 7. (excluding a scanning\speed race bonus.) Speed it over to a good planet. Upgrade it to the old "colony ship", then colonize.

Worry about population after getting your choice planets. (Transports\Colony ships can be used as population transports.)

Or you could set research to 100%, But a couple research stations. Research to "impulse engines". Make a colony ship with ion engines *2. (speed 4) And reset your spending to your preferred levels.

While your population is good for your starting worlds, Sometimes the AI will get a "choice" planet before you do.

Either Way. Make your home world a Economic powerhouse, and grow the rest of your infrastructure later.

(And a little side trick, planet nurture (+2) + xenon ethics (neutral) =‘s a planet 21 “terra firma”.) Which makes a excellent Economic powerhouse with 16 economic building’s, one economic capital, one mechanical capital, and three factories. And with a few worlds having economic buildings as well. I usually ave. 300-500 credit’s a turn. 49% tax rate.)

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dont need 100% at the start only need 1 person per colony ship to take a planet so population isnt the most important thing.

Well, as long as you can afford it without being forced to reduce your spending ...

It is a nice thing to grab planets, but there is a maintenance cost associated ....

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dont need 100% at the start only need 1 person per colony ship to take a planet so population isnt the most important thing.

I read this more than once on this forums, but I don't understand the reason for it. I build colony ships with one pod, keep my approval rating at 100%, build a colony ship every other turn and I am still able to send 500 colonists with each of them (I even load up the inital colony ship to the max). By the time when there are no more colonies to grab, my homeworld still has some 3+ billion people on it. So what is the reason for claiming colonies with only 1 settler? They won't grow on their own...
I do build 2 or 3 scout/survey ships during the colony-grab-phase, to get me more of those anomaly bonuses, does that make a difference (don't think so).

And for the OP: I mentioned building scout/survey ships. I find them very usefull, because they usually get you a fortune in the beginning (15.000+ bc) and a lot of long term bonuses as well. Research sensors, take a Cargo Hull, put a survey module on it, 3+ basic life supports and fill the remaining space with engines. Build 2-3 of those ships and set them on Auto-Survey ... When you have researched better engines and life support upgrade these ships to get even further, even faster.

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dont need 100% at the start only need 1 person per colony ship to take a planet so population isnt the most important thing.

Worthless advice.
The more planets that you colonise with 500 pop, the faster your taxbase will increase.

One of the major faults of the AI is that they colonise planets with 10-50 pop. It takes an incredible long time for those planets to give any money back to the empire.

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And for the OP: I mentioned building scout/survey ships. I find them very usefull, because they usually get you a fortune in the beginning (15.000+ bc) and a lot of long term bonuses as well. Research sensors, take a Cargo Hull, put a survey module on it, 3+ basic life supports and fill the remaining space with engines. Build 2-3 of those ships and set them on Auto-Survey ... When you have researched better engines and life support upgrade these ships to get even further, even faster.

They are extremely profitable if you have chosen the government type that gives you +25 luck.

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really, it's not hard to figure out the AI on tough, and you don't need an advanced degree in optimization (though, if you actually had one, I'm sure you would have found an optimal strategy by now

)

there are many ways to jump out of the blocks, and people here have shown a few.

take some time to figure out the game and what you can do with it.. then worry about if the AI is cheating

I found that I consistently beat the AI to my local good planets now, and have an easy time getting ahead of everyone in research fast (without getting any research boni).. it didn't take much to figure out that buying a few things off the mark means more in the long run than letting things grow.

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Yea, I think you definitely need to help things along as far as development. I often buy the first factory or two on a planet to get things moving. Later in the game, I may even shut off social spending at times and buy all my improvements. Letting things grow on their own would be a serious handicap AFAIC.

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