[Talenn]

Mephisto:

Ok, I just finished my first game with your EA AI. They did as well as can be expected given the limits of what we can influence. In the end, I easily blew through them but that was a result of the AI's lack of attacking. At one or two points they had the firepower to easily overwhelm my forward colonies but never attacked. They even had enough Cruisers at one point to defeat or at least mutually annihilate my Strike Fleet...again, it simply split up it's ships and moved them away.

So, of course I was eventually able to go through and glass about half of their worlds, occupy a few of the major ones and go on to win the game. If they actually attacked me back instead of flailing around, they might have won or at least occupied me long enough for someone ELSE to win. Economically, Militarilly and Technologically they were my equal or superior for most of the game (with 1000 more RPs and the Low AI bonus). But none of that will matter if it never masses and attacks.

I think this was most depressing game I've played to date. Most of the other games I've played the AI never had near parity in ANY of these fields. Between your AI and the general tweaks I've made to the AI, its getting to the point where it can rival human players 'on paper'. But it's utter and pathetic usage of the military it possesses is very discouraging.

I VERY much hope that the new patch for next week is planning on tweaking the AI's ABILITY not just its hostility and production capability etc. It wont matter HOW much of a bonus it has and how many ships it can build unless it finally gets around to using them in a halfway effective manner.

But, from the programmible AI standpoint, I say NICE JOB! Its certainly better than the AIs that shipped and it was downright terrifying to see that many fighters from an AI player.

One other downside though is that the AI doesnt seem to recognize Fighters as being able to move within a system. Personally, I think this ability should be removed from fighters in general. It would make them less of complete system defense and more of a planetary or sector defense and this is how it should be IMO. Given that the AI doesnt seem to take advantage of the fact that they can move, IMO, its just one more reason to kill the capabilty.

Thanx for the time you spent on this and I look forward to seeing forthcoming mods from you.

Talenn