Difficult AI opponents?

[Weson102]

What original AI's make for a difficult opponent?

What about AI's that have been developed by others?

I'm using TDM-Mod_1.71 to improve the difficulty, but haven't found any aggressive
challenging race. CueCappa and Sergetti have been some competition.

[capnq]

In one of my games, the original Xi-Chung declared war immediately after first contact, and it took me years of game time to catch up with their technology and gain the upper hand.

------------------
Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[Omega]

There are no difficult AI opponents. Some of the AI mods are pretty good, but they are unable to overcome the shortcomings in the core AI of the program.

[rdouglass]

Give the AI a bonus. Yes, I know, that gives the AI some cheating room, but it does help making the AI more challenging. Another thing that I do to help is set up the game for 5000 racial points but I use only 2000. You have to dicipline yourself to do it at setup, but it does make the AI significantly more of a challenge up thru mid-game.

[raynor]

Play a medium bonus game. Give the AI 5000 racial points but don't use any. Don't use mines. Don't use Stellar Manipulation. Fight all your battles in strategic mode instead of tactical. Don't do any trades with the AI. If the game is still too easy, don't use any units at all. When you attack, use at most half your forces in one mass. At the end of every turn, leave your forces in orbit around a planet you just captured or destroyed. If your forces are just one sector away from the planet, the enemy forces might not engage you. Eliminate black holes from your galaxy maps. My intuition says you should probably remove nebulas as well.

If the AI is still too easy, you might try disallowing all treaties between yourself and the AI. Another idea is to start out with 10 planets. Then, once the game has started, take control of a neutral race.

IMHO, the AI seems much weaker in larger galaxies than in smaller ones. If you have enough time to develop several systems before you encounter the AI, you will almost certainly win. But if your home system borders his, then you will be in for a greater challenge. As poor as the AI is, if you play a high bonus game and have only two warp points leading from your home system and both those warp points lead to AI home systems, I don't think you are going to win the game.

Definitely get the TDM ModPack. Malfador is wisely incorporating the ingenious AI improvements developed by the talented Daynarr, Mephisto, Tampa_Gamer and others.

But as others have stated time and again, there really isn't any AI for the game. Instead, SEIV just attempts to 'mimic' semi-intelligent behaviour while playing 'at' the game rather than actually playing it. The AI doesn't play to win. Rather, it just plays so as to simulate intelligent behaviour. The SEIV AI is much less the AI of a chess program than the equivalent of an Eliza-like computer psychiatrist designed to fool you into think there is some human intelligence behind its decisions.

[Weson102]

Your right. I use the TDM mod and do a most of items you listed, but the results are not satisfactory. If the AI is not there it is like playing a chess match with yourself.

Maybe the game is just too complicated to have a good AI.