Hi!

Not really dominating, but when they go to war they really kick a.. Would they reinforce those "spored" planets with more troops, instead leaving them at 5M, would they become the worst enemy to fight.

BR, Iztok

Kryo, you beat me to it.   

I've been playing at Obscene difficulty since the release of DA, and I've pretty much given up on any playing style other than aggressive war against everybody since the last patch. Korath is best for this.

Usually when i play against the korath and dregin i choose some allies when i start. Then I choose the thalan empire because of their high productivity. Then when the little smilie monkey ppl want to eat me they have to chew on the torians first. They should have anti-germwarefar technology which would make a planet less likely to be destroyed. Aslo increasing the spore tech to compensate for the added defense of anti-germwarfare. With bio-defense techs your planets woud stand a better chance against those homicidal monkeys. Also an idea you could just add bonus's for the survey ship to pick up that would help do this just as well I suppose. + 15% bio-defense ability for example

I find the Krynn pull ahead many times. I usually have to throw a few speed-bumps their way.

I tend to find different races do well with different game setups.

The Drengin and Korath always seem to do well because they are both militaristic conquers and the AI is better at attacking itself then defending. They hardly ever do well if I'm they're closest neighbor, but that's because I know them.

My latest game on Challenging has turned out rather interesting, the Arceans smacked the Drengin around to the point where they're stuck in a corner of the galaxy trying to survive. The Korath are powerful but the Torians and Altarians are keeping them occupied. The Drath would've been the major power if not for me; they conquered half of Krynn territory before I decided to declare war. Now the Krynn are back on their feet and taking back worlds.
So right now, the Arceans and Altarians are the most powerful and militaristic empires, but they're my allies so it's all good. The Korath just can't get out of their rut.

Well Smitty,
I'm laying with tech trading off. It is my first game after a long pause. Tough medium. And just like yours, the korath are crushing everyone. Even I am having problems, which I usually don't after reaching "critical mass". But their ships are just too powerfull. A fleet of 3 to 5 of their small ships are regularly taking out my fleet of 3 medium hull ships, despite thier defenses.

I agree with you ont the tech trading and advantage given, specially since because of the no tech trading, I am forbidden from helping other races by giving them techs when needed. I think that despite the no tech trade, one should be able to give away if they wish. After all I can still get a new tech when capturing a planet. All I can do is give away my relevant trade goods, in hope it will suffice.

I've played another game, some time ago, without tech trade, but on that one, the korath disappeared fast. On this one, I'm not sure I'll survive: they destroy my ships much faster than I can replace them, and at somepoint this won't work anymore...
I might add that playing medium galaxy with max races and minors, at the start everyone has only 1 to 3 planets, giving an overall equal start. But this time, things turned ugly really fast.

I'm actually having a blast playing as the Drath in my most recent game, first time I've played as them in DA. I forget what difficulty it is, but it's one or two above tough (painful or crippling, I think).
The Korath were the most powerful civ at one point in the game (they had a great, central starting position), but I bribed them to attack the Altarians, so all the other Good civs (Torians and Iconians) attacked them. I also bribed the Yor to attack the Terran Alliance, which was awesome, because the Arceans and Thalans in turn attacked the Yor to counter their "aggression." In any, case, eventually the Terran Alliance attacked the Korath, who had built so many spore ships that they didn't have enough military ships to defend the planets that border Terran space, and now the Korath are starting to lose planets to the Terran.
Long story short, playing as the Drath (with tech trading on) has really opened up the diplomatic portion of the game for me. I lured about 3 or 4 civs into a complicated web of wars by trading impulse drive and heavy gravity colonization for "attack such and such." They valued the heavy-grav tech because when I traded it there were still two heavy-grav planets open - even though my colony ships were only 1 turn away!
Previously I've always just played expand, build up military, conquer (or expand, build up military, build influence starbases), so this is quite a change of pace. I even kept playing with a bad starting position (off to the side with very few habitable plaents around me) which has forced me to be more careful about my early-mid game!

The AI does not have a set research path routine; it decides each game what it will research as it plays. The different AIs do have certain preferences though and may tend towards certain types of tech.

Try my mod- Randominator (in the library). It randomises, among other things, what AI the enemy civs use. I got destroyed by the THALANS the other day, of all people.

Hi!

That's exacly what I proposed for a DA! I'll give it a try. Does it randomly assign personalities each time the game is run, or do I have to manualy run "randomizer" for each game?

[edit]nevermind, I downloaded it and found all answers. Thank you!

BR, Iztok