Some newbie questions

[Marcin Nowak]

Hi all,
I am a new player trying to get into SE4, and it's proving to be rather complicated. I am munching the huge FAQ right now, I have found answers to some questions already, but some still remain. I will list them here in hope somebody will enlight me. Please remember that as I am a new player, all these questions concern the start phase of the game with very little tech.
1) I am getting tech trade deals from the AI, where is gives me "unknown tech", and it mostly is a tech that I already know. How to prevent that?
2) I am able to attack a planet 6 times per turn. So I can kill a homeworld with the most puny ships. That looks a bit strange to me.
3) The missiles seem to be an uber weapon. I win all combats (tactical) with no loses, due to their superior range. Again feels strange.
4) I have read the tip about getting other "breathers" to colonize other types of atmosphere. Having no better idea how to get these guys, I tried to trade for a planet. And the AI sold me its homeworld!! It had some colonies, so this seems to be a completely braindead behaviour. I started to worry if the singleplayer aspect of the game is working.

[Alneyan]

1) No idea; unknown technology could be either racial technology, or fields you haven't researched yet. I would advice against trading technologies with the AI, as you will probably be able to exploit the AI too easily.

2) You can attack as many times per turn as you have movement points. Planetary defences are usually not much of a threat, which puts the focus on ships for your own defence (or other means to prevent the enemy from getting to your worlds to begin with). There are mods that make planets more dangerous however.

3) Missiles are way too powerful in tactical combats indeed, since you are able to "dance" and avoid fire. They are less dangerous in strategical combat (where the computer plays battles in your stead), as you cannot exploit their longer range this way. Lastly, note that seekers are easily countered by Point Defence Cannons, which reduce their importance later on in the game.

4) You can get other peoples in your Empire by capturing a planet having these breathers or a ship transporting them. AIs do not put any value to ships having their population, and so you could easily buy them for virtually nothing. And I gather it doesn't give any value to the homeworld itself either.

Diplomacy is, as in any game I can think of at the moment, not really the strong aspect for the AI. If you would like to do a lot of diplomacy, I guess your best bet is to play a multiplayer game. The TDM mod might improve AI regarding diplomacy as well, but I cannot say for sure since I seldom play singleplayer. This mod makes no change to the game, save making the AI more intelligent.

Lastly, are you playing on the Hard difficulty? Any difficulty lower than this one will mean that the AI cannot use all its ministers, possibly crippling all AI Empires. The AI bonuses should be considered as being the actual difficulty levels, since they allow the AI to cheat by having a lot more resources than you do.

[primitive]

Welcome to the forum.
First of all, be sure to patch up (to 1.91) and download the TDM AIs instead of the defaults.

1 and 4: The AI’s suck at trade and can be easily exploited. If you want a challenge from singleplayer you should adopt a no trade house rule. Population you can get from capturing planets (with troops) or capturing colonizers or pop. transports (with Boarding parties or Intel).

2: That’s the way the game works. However, except from the first few turns, expect the AI’s (TDMs at least) to put quite heavy defences on their HWs.

3: Point Defence (PDC) makes missiles obsolete soon enough, so don’t expect your über weapon to Last very long

[Randallw]

Originally posted by Marcin Nowak:

1) I am getting tech trade deals from the AI, where is gives me "unknown tech", and it mostly is a tech that I already know. How to prevent that?

unknown tech means you are asking for any tech the AI knows which means if it knows the same as you it will give you a tech you already know. Look at enemy ship designs for technology you don't have (excluding racial tech) and try asking for tech you don't know.

2) I am able to attack a planet 6 times per turn. So I can kill a homeworld with the most puny ships. That looks a bit strange to me.

A game turn is one month. The number of attacks you get is the month divided by your movement (I think. Someone else could elaborate). You will fight any enemy in a sector until they are destroyed. As such, each time you get another action you will attack again if the enemy still exists. If you are killing a planet with a puny vessel obviously your enemy has inadequate defences or ships. There are some mods which reduce the civilian death caused by weapons as a result planetary populations take more damge.

3) The missiles seem to be an uber weapon. I win all combats (tactical) with no loses, due to their superior range. Again feels strange.

Wait until you meet someone who has actually researched PD (and to high levels). missiles like mines become useless once your opponent has managed to research the maximum in PD.

4) I have read the tip about getting other "breathers" to colonize other types of atmosphere. Having no better idea how to get these guys, I tried to trade for a planet. And the AI sold me its homeworld!! It had some colonies, so this seems to be a completely braindead behaviour. I started to worry if the singleplayer aspect of the game is working.

Simple answer, The AI is stupid. Try TDM modpack.

Edit: ahh, I knew if it took me so long to format my reply others would get in first.

[ July 23, 2004, 11:05: Message edited by: Randallw ]

[Marcin Nowak]

Thanks for all the answers. I see I will have to get the TDM mod you mentioned and play on hard difficulty. And maybe forget about tactical combat and trade. That's a bit of shame, but if anything it will at least speed up things.
Cheers.

[Raging Deadstar]

As some one pointed out already, if the AI is still not hard enough for you then try Play By Web. It should be infinitely more challenging.