I think this is a cheesy way to win, but it's worth quite a bit of points, and it's been known for a long time. I think it's a huge flaw in the AI and should be fixed.
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I agree.
You'd be right at home in RB land, friend. Not a sales pitch, just an observation.
Personally, I have been observing a few voluntary rules to keep the game interesting. One of these is not stacking starbases. I don't stack trade bases, cultural bases or production bases. One per sector.
This means only one significant change vs unlimited bases, on the cultural front: possession of the influence mines makes ALL the difference. Unfortunately, there's a fat loophole in the rules, there, too -- big enough to fly a battleship through. The fact that you can buy starbases that are parked on resources means you can always acquire the influence resources through trade, even if you cannot do it through war or through poaching them between AI wars after someone else takes out the current owner or his base.
In the final analysis, if you can stay at peace, you can win by culture, even restricting yourself to one base per sector. Without that, what you said, just plop down a ton of them in one place and flip everything in sight, does indeed work.
Something else I don't do is turn off cultural victory. That allows for more points, too, turning a cultural win into a conquest win, worth more points.
My voluntary limits do not translate into propping up the game in this weak area, but they help some. At least the alliance win is a more meaningful, well balanced option (assuming you don't cheese the game by setting AI's to all the same alignment).
While there are currently a number of tricks and exploits and loopholes that can render Maso a lot easier, Stardock has previously taken some of these off the table, most notably majors paying cash. That at least renders Maso playable, for those of who could take the shirt right off the aliens' backs if they would allow it. Some other moves have gotten attention, like parking transports next to alien planets. The solutions don't always fix the problem, but they are trying. The 1 IP trick seems to be gone.
What Stardock cannot or does not fix in the exploit department, RB will eventually try to address through our house rules, at least for our players. We value bona fide challenges, not finding ways to win that take no effort and no risks. That kind of "fun" cannot entertain our players for long. As one of them put it, we're not interested in laboring for hours on end at some tedious task just to increase integers on a remote server (pad our score).
If you can't lose and have nothing at stake, it's boring.
If Stardock ever does shut down the shortcuts, those reliant on them will have to adapt, and may struggle, while those of us who never came to rely on them will plug along without skipping a beat. I didn't use the 1 IP trick -- never even tried it. After it vanished, I started to rise through the ranks. Only players who can play without that are still standing.
CariElf says that several of these type of issues are on the to-do list. As players, we have to keep our expectations in line with what is doable on their end. They do have a passion for the game and its quality, and are paying attention to feedback, so I am content to wait and see what improvements they can make and I have pre-ordered my copy of the expansion.
Even when I play not planning to use this flaw, it's hard not to fall back on it when things aren't going your way.
End of quote
Yeah. What they really need to do is to teach the AI how to use starbases -- party palaces, terror stars -- because right now the ONLY legitimate threats posed by the AI's are military, and even then they are not very sharp at invading in the late game.
As long as the AI poses ONLY a military threat, then if player can stay at peace (which does become difficult in the late game with soaring AI militaries, but is achievable) then winning becomes only a matter of time and tedium. Stardock has got to strengthen its AI a bit more, shore up the parts of the game where it performs poorly, if the gameplay is going to keep players engaged for years, rather than months.
- Sirian
Stardock Forums
