Help needed

AI cheats?

ok i'm puzzled, i just wrote my previous post about what i was doing wrong and decided to take a look at the AI myself.
I flew directly towards him watching his behaviour.

Its not march 15, so i played 10 or 11 turns. the AI has 12 colony ships (??????????), 11 of them are docked in there planets.
the AI (drath) has used his start kolony ship to grab the nearest planet simular to mars with the terrans, a PQ 4. he has 7 kolony ships in that PQ 4 planet and 5 in its home planet. now as i said i only played like 10-11 turns, so i doubt he has high production in his pq 4 planet so he must have rush build them.
still he has like 1.5K BC left, if i rush build 7 ships i'd be bankrupt so my first question is how did he get those ships?
also he has been researching for atleast 7 weeks, he spend like 45% on militairy, 30% on research and 25% on social or something along those lines.
He is losing about 75 BC a week, his expenses are 120 while his total income is 46.
but i still like to know how in the world did he get sooo much colony ships this fast, i cant get them so fast, no way! what is he doing that i dont do

?

Anway, i've played a few more turns, i have put my starting points in +2 speed so i can do a kolony rush as well. well right now the drath's income is about equal to my own, we both have 11 colony's, i have tax so high that my moral is 46%, i have my expenses slider at 0% (yes zero!), i have -14 BC money and i am still losing 3BC a week. so basicly i am bankrupt.
While we both have 11 colony's, i pay around 60 BC a week more than he does.
again...what am i doing wrong?

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

What difficulty is the Drath set to?

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all set to painfull, so the matching difficult, i dont have the random intelligents option on.
but it feels like i'm playing with godlike or 200% cash bonuses here.

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anybody has an idea how the AI did this?

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

I don't know if we're sure these days what the bonus is at various levels but at least from the Wiki, painful is one level above full AI intelligence so there should be some kind of bonus involved. It's supposed to be something like 5% but that could be a bit misleading. Not really sure how it is now but I think it used to be that a 5% bonus meant 5% to everything. That's 5% to income, 5% to morale, 5% to military production, which taken together is pretty much equilivent to a 15% bonus when it comes to building/buying ships. For all we know the AI gets a 5% bonus when buying a ship as well.

The real point is that we really don't have full details about what the AI bonuses are at any level, most of what we know is merely conjecture. These kinds of questions come up all the time and usually the question behind the question is "does the AI cheat?". The answer almost always has been that there's some way for the human to duplicate the behavior. For example, perhaps the AI rush bought all those ships on the installment plan from Mitrosoft.

I think if you consider the minor bonuses the AI gets at this level along with rush buying on the installment plan this performance is conceivable. By the way, I think rush buying colony ships on the installement plan like this is an awfully bad idea. In any case I think it's best to take the AI's performance at any level to simply be what it is. Some of the things the AI seems to be able to do at suicidal can pretty much leave you scratching your head.

As far as why you're not currently making money that's pretty tough to answer without knowing a lot more detail. The short answer is you're spending too much money and/or not earning enough. I know this is a trite response but maybe you have too many factories and not enough economic buildings. Even at 0% spending you're still paying the maintenance costs of all your buildings.

I know it's too late now but in hindsight but you could have had a 30% economic bonus and a 20% morale bonus (morale=money) with a point left over for the 8 racial ability points you spent on +2 speed. I am assuming you're still on DL here. I'm not sure how the DA racial abilities are structured.

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