Well, before TA, the super abilities were the only thing that differentiated the races. In the TA expansion they're less important, since a lot of the individuality is now in the unique tech tress. The Korx super ability does tie into the emphasis on trade in their tech tree, and most of their trade strength is now in unique racial techs like Xeno Mercantalism (+20% to trade on top of starting bonuses), Cut Throat Competition, Fortified Freighters (persistent trade routes) and a unique trade boosting starbase module. Also, starting with all the stock trade techs means you can spend research in other areas, so that super ability is actually fairly powerful... assuming you're going all-out for trade anyway, and it wouldn't make sense to choose the Korx if that isn't the goal.



I agree the espionage bonus doesn't make much sense, but the Iconians don't have much trouble keeping up on research in my TA beta games. They start with multipurpose Precursor buildings that give plenty of research tp in the early game, and then you can research standard research buildings later on, for a further boost. Creativity wouldn't be a good bonus for them (IMO) since their back story is all about relying on ancient Precursor tech they don't understand, and they're not supposed to be especially good at researching their own Iconian tech. I think that's why traditional research comes further down the tech tree for them.

He could have just not ever played DA. Played DL until just now and picked up the DA/TA pack.

Exactly. I actually played DA once a week ago and then tried the Beta and never went back.

And I agree that the Kyrnn's special ability is rather lame too (although I don't think that was loupdinour's angle).

If the Krynn got an extra spy every time they trained one, or their espionage ability boosted their ability to get information on other civs, or putting spies on enemy worlds actually meant something other than a defensive spy zerg from the enemy...urg, yeah. I like playing the Krynn, but their super ability sucks.

The ability to make custom ships is there for a reason. Use it frequently. If anything, there needs to be fewer default ships, not more. All of the armed ships could be deleted and very few people would notice, let alone care.

The AI makes its own custom ships to match what it thinks it needs, so if it percieved a need for such ships, it would make them whether they were default ships or not.

If you really want ships like this, and play the same race repeatedly, just make sure you check the option to save ships to hard drive. That way the ships you design this game will be available next game as soon as you get all the tech necessary.

I do use it frequently. I just find it irritating making the same ships every time I play a new race and having to come up with unique names for the same ships with different races. Later in the game, my mix of techs is always unique, so of course there designing my own ships makes more sense.



The AI almost always seems to use the default ships in the games I play. Are you sure that the AI is good enough to perceive every need that it has?

Anyway, I am just happy about the option that people pointed out to me to not end the turn with moves left. I can't believe that isn't the default!

Indeed. I don't think I've ever seen an AI build a stock ship more than 20 turns into a game - every ship they build is a custom design of one sort or another. If anything, they design new ships and upgrade entirely too often. I occasionally blitz an AI when I find a good chunk of their fleet helplessly upgrading on my doorstep.

BTW hintikka, what difficulty do you play on? At lower levels, the AI is intentionally degraded, so maybe they aren't using custom ships.

The AI upgrades freighters, colony ships, etc. I never check their survey ships because they totally neglect those, but the cargo-class ships do get upgraded. You can see this just by looking at them - they look ugly, because the AI sticks the transport/freight/constructor modules in stupid places.