SmellyTerror

Well, surely you can only repeat it when you research a new tech...? I've never played below Tough difficulty, and for me the AIs all trade between themselves. It's rare for me to pick up a tech through trade that the other AIs do not have already, and then it's only if I've kept good relations with both sides at war with each other, or if I've payed a huge price for a tech they considered valuable. I would like to see an option to make tech trades more expensive, or (chang

Yeah, *all factories do* is contribute to making stuff on tiles or to building ships in orbit (decided by social/military ratio). If you aren't building anything on a planet or in orbit there, the factories aren't doing anything.

Well, your income is based on the population, and economy structures boost that income. The default population is pretty significant, so economy structures have a decent effect even without farms. Personally, I save farms for worlds with good farm and/or happiness squares, and just make these dedicated, massive economy planets (specialise social, and after a couple of factories just build farms, happiness and economy - about one economy per farm, and probably a happiness per two farms

The trick, at least on harder levels, is to look at your starting wad of cash. It's HUGE. Pump out an invasion fleet, go straight for the target planet. Grab one on the way if you gotta. Game over, you win. You aren't really meant to fight the Dreadlords. Just run like hell!

I like big96d's idea. I also think that the AI should treat each other like they would the player. So if they wouldn't trade it to them for reasons x,y, or z, then they should apply the same logic to other AIs. As far as I can tell, they do. What makes you think they don't?

Big96d is talking about techs you actually researched, rather than traded for. ...personally, I don't see the problem. When I get a tech from the AI I do the rounds and trade it to everyone who doesn't have it, unless it would directly damage my chances. Why shouldn't they do it too? Assume that most non-weapon techs will immediately be spread out to the other races. Hoard techs you don't want to have spread around (for me, that's either the defense to my main weapon, influ

Apologies if this is obvious with the game installed, but I'm at work... I'm most interested in messing with the AI. Nothing I've seen online says it's possible for users to directly mod the AI, but there's heaps of developer tweakage and Metaverse "evolved" AI trading. Can we mod AI? --- (I want to add - I know, it's embarassing to use scripts, but... - a simple script for the AI to detect that it's blockaded. If there's an enemy fleet of X fi