[Taqwus]

One area where it definitely needs improvement is the "no warp point" start.

I played a game with that option, in a large galaxy, 3 planets ea, high race points, pretty much everything else default.

I took a LOT of time researching things like the other two colonization tech, before bothering to create warp points, and then went all the way to converting every atmosphere in my (by that time, ca. 10, all previously vacant) systems to nice, pleasant hydrogen, before ever constructing a war fleet.

And I'd waited to max out the ship techs (propulsion, organic weapons, tachyon sensors etc -- everything on them) before doing so. In the meantime, since I wasn't sure what to expect I'd been heavily mining and so forth. So by now a couple o' hundred turns had elapsed (I'm *not* kidding). To give you an example of the resources and pop I had -- and thus, sheer length of the game -- by the time the game was over I'd built three sphereworlds, concurrently, and I'd have needed at least six more to hold my population were I to move everybody on 'em.

I eventually created a fleet of 17 ships (1 warp creator/destroyer BB, 2 heavy carriers w/ 112 heavy fighters ea, 4 sweeper/sensor/repair BBs, 2 shipyard BBs, 2 bomber BBs, 6 beamer DNS. 1 warp creator/destroyer joined later to speed up the search.), which proceeded to tour the galaxy.

What I found was disappointing. Not one of the AIs had created a single warp point. At least one didn't even colonize every planet in its system -- it probably didn't have the tech. Most of their fleets -- the ones that didn't heed my suggestion to surrender immediately, and that I didn't bother using PPP on -- used DU cannons I, and perhaps CSM II, despite the insanely long time they had to research, undisturbed.

So perhaps they got stuck in some state where they didn't have enough colonies to jump to the next, or where it was assumed there'd be warp points already and the alternative (needing to research Stellar Manipulation and *making* warp points and planets) wasn't considered.

------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night