Let me preface by saying that I think TA is a great game. That said, here's yet another example of downright dumb behaivor on the part of the AI. I've seen other examples of this kind of behavior discussed on this forum and witnessed it myself, but not this particular series of events.
(In case someone asks, the game parameters were as follows: Crippling Difficulty, Immense Galaxy, Rare Inhabitable Planets, Uncommon Planets, Rare Suns, Occasional Extreme Planets, Slow Technology, abundant everything else. I play a custom race with no super ability and the Arcean Tech Tree. There are nine AI players-these settings usually mean that that most empires have two-four planets after the initial colony rush and sets up a good epic battle in my opinion.)
Anyway, I declared war on the Altarians, who had yet to develop a single weapons technology but had progressed well down the ground invasion tech tree. Thus, they had tons of transports in orbit around all five of their planets (three of those planets were extreme environments so they had gone down that long tech tree as well). I had colonized an extreme planet right in the midst of their primary center where their home system was located and to my delight found it to be an ideal location to build my manufacturing capital and the stellar forge and oribital command center. I had Mass Drivers, which is the second (after "space cannons") mass driver weapon in the Arcean Tech Tree. I constructed a single fleet of five small ships with three mass drivers each and three transports (I had only the initial planetary invasion tech and enhanced logistics). With that I declared war and proceeded to move my fleet to attack (the neutral ground provision was in place so my ships were "kicked out" of their territory." Of course, without a shot the Altarians promptly surrendered to the Drath. It's odd they never developed ANY weapons tech (or at least did not build any armed ships) given the stage of the game-early middle, post colony rush. This may be related to the increased costs for weapons technology (which I happen to like by the way-it makes early weapons tech relevant).
I noted that the ships the Drath immediately constructed in orbit around the formerly Altarian Planets were also unarmed, so it appeared they had not developed weapons technology either. Keep in mind that Manufacturing Centers were in common use by this time as were other mid-level technologies. I immediately demanded that the Drath surrender Altaria, which they refused. Thus I declared war. The Drath surrendered to the Torians, who were the most powerful AI in the game, the next turn. I repeated the same cycle with the Torians (demanding Altaria etc), except this time the Torians actually had weapons so I got a war and was able to invade Altaria and the formlerly Altarian systems. The Torians then sued for peace, which I accepted because I had other fish to fry ane the Torian center was out of range.
In the meantime, the Drengin had begun to ascend by capturing a series of minor race planets and part of the New Iconia sstem from the Iconians (who were also at war with me most of the game and surrendered to the Krynn once it was apparent the Drengin were going to overrun them). The Drengin soon declared war on me. The Korx and the Krynn were between the Drengin and my empire. The Krynn had two planets-their home system. The Korx had five planets and a Precursor Ranger. Now that the stage is set, here's the dumbest part of all of this: the Korx gave me their Precursor Ranger and about two turns later surrendered to the Krynn because their military was "crushed" and their economy is "in ruins." The best weapon the Krynn had was Laser IV on a small hull and Basic Logistics. That Precursor Ranger would have destroyed their entire empire had the Korx not foolishly gave it to me. (In any event, the Korx should have easily defeated the Krynn given the relative sizes of the two empires and the Korx's healthy trade income). I will note that in my experience the AI never uses the Precursor Rangers to their full potential and most often completely waste them, but this one just took the cake.
