[Talenn]

LintMan:

Hehe...yes, well, Carriers are probably close to that in terms of operation costs. Also remember that the maintenance costs also include the whole support infrastructure (planetside) that having a fleet would entail. I just view these costs as abstracted into the cost of the individual ships.

I also agree with your AI issues. But I dont see how they can be altered easily. I think the best tweak would be to FORCE the player to spend resources on fleets by having more hostile AIs which would actually use their fleets to harass and annoy the players.

Overall, I'd like to see something like the AI in 'Imperialism II' where you did NOT want to be perceived as the weakest player (militarily). Everyone and their mother declared war on the weaker powers. The AI in SE4 is too rooted on the SCORE. A high score will generally keep the AI at bay (until Mega-Evil level), but a high score is NOT necessarily an indication of military power. I've played games where I was in 1st or 2nd place the whole game with barely a Scout or two for defense for the first 100+ turns.

To me, showing a strong econ and weak military should be a red flag for the AI to attack, attack, attack! These are empires that are RIPE for conquest. Forcing an expanding player to constantly be on guard would go a LONG way to making the game far more challenging IMO.

So, I guess my suggestion would be to more heavily weight the score based on ships and units rather than on raw CPs and RPs. That and even presence on the borders should be accounted for IMO. A strong empire with a weak border should be viewed as a potential target as well IMO.

Talenn