Should I buy this game???

[tweek]

Hi everyone,

I have just played the demo (for around 50 turns). Without any effort from my side whatsoever all of the races (around 8 in total) exept one had a "partnership" agreement with me. As a result I was running a huge trade surplus. The game became a little dull as far as politics was concerned. So my first question is will diplomacy represent a greater challenge in a full version of the game? For exmaple will races delare war on me? Will they try to ally themselves with other races if thay begin to loose the war? Will the allied empires coordinate their war plans? Will AI able to effectively invade my planets? I have a humber of other question but this should be a good start.

Thanks,
Tweek

[Starhawk]

Yes to all of your questions, the AIs of various races are impossible to ally with because they like destroying things, things being you of course.
More races encountered and more time also brings abotu new challenges because they are less likely to stay allied with you as you become more powerful.

And YES this game is DEFINATElY worth getting!

[douglas]

Are you playing on easy difficulty? IIRC, besides making the AI ridiculously stupid, easy difficulty is supposed to load the galaxy with more pacifist races. I strongly recommend always playing on hard difficulty, because the AI is severely crippled on the lower difficulty levels. I consider the AI bonus setting to be the true difficulty setting.

[tweek]

douglas said:
Are you playing on easy difficulty? IIRC, besides making the AI ridiculously stupid, easy difficulty is supposed to load the galaxy with more pacifist races. I strongly recommend always playing on hard difficulty, because the AI is severely crippled on the lower difficulty levels. I consider the AI bonus setting to be the true difficulty setting.

These were the settings:
Number of comp players: High
Comp player difficulty: High (I assume the higher the more difficult it is for ME)
Computer player bonus: Low (I was a bit scared setting this one to anything higher).

Can this "easyness" of getting everyone to be my "partner" might be due to the fact that my rank overall is third in the galaxy (out of 8 as far as i remember)? Maybe I am weak and thats why everybody thinks of me as a nice guy?!?

Tweek.

[Fyron]

If your score becomes some percentage of the 2nd place player (300% or so, but not sure on the value), then you will become the "mega evil empire." All AI races will immediately declare war on you and will refuse treaty requests.

If you play with mods such as TDM (in the full version of the game), the AIs are a lot tougher, and will declare war more often (at least, the non-peaceful ones will).

[douglas]

Actually, the Tesselate won the latest AI Deathmatch. For a really good player, even the best TDM AI on high bonus is not a challenge unless the player adds some extra restrictions to how he plays, such as not taking religious and not using training facilities. For a really good AI, wait for SEV - no more inputting numbers into an algorithm, modders will actually be able to write the algorithms the AI uses from scratch. With enough people working on it, this should result is some truly good AI's.

[Hunpecked]

I'm still new to the game and have only played against the AIs so far. In my experience the AI races aren't bad for AIs, but generally are still no match for a semi-experienced human player. Certain game settings, however, can improve the AIs' chances:

(1) As Douglas has suggested, play against the top races from the AI Deathmatch run by Master Belisarius. Five of the top six finishers are found in the TDM ModPack; these are the ones I'm playing against now.

(2) It seems unmodded AIs will accept trades even when at war. Don't use this exploit.

(3) Play a semi-generic race, i.e. don't Min-Max your race aggressively.

(4) Select "Team Play" during game setup. The AIs will all declare war on the human within a turn or two of first contact.

(5) Play with simultaneous movement and strategic combat. Sequential turns and tactical combat give the human player a big advantage.

(6) Give the AIs a bonus. As I recall, the AI Deathmatch was run with low bonus for all AIs. Players should start with "Good" homeworlds.

(7) Play in a smaller quadrant. The AIs tend to expand slower than human players, but in a small/medium quadrant conflicts start before the AIs fall far behind.

Some combination of these settings should challenge or even overwhelm a new player; they can be adjusted as player skill improves.

[tweek]

Hunpecked said:
I'm still new to the game and have only played against the AIs so far. In my experience the AI races aren't bad for AIs, but generally are still no match for a semi-experienced human player. Certain game settings, however, can improve the AIs' chances:

(1) As Douglas has suggested, play against the top races from the AI Deathmatch run by Master Belisarius. Five of the top six finishers are found in the TDM ModPack; these are the ones I'm playing against now.

(2) It seems unmodded AIs will accept trades even when at war. Don't use this exploit.

(3) Play a semi-generic race, i.e. don't Min-Max your race aggressively.

(4) Select "Team Play" during game setup. The AIs will all declare war on the human within a turn or two of first contact.

(5) Play with simultaneous movement and strategic combat. Sequential turns and tactical combat give the human player a big advantage.

(6) Give the AIs a bonus. As I recall, the AI Deathmatch was run with low bonus for all AIs. Players should start with "Good" homeworlds.

(7) Play in a smaller quadrant. The AIs tend to expand slower than human players, but in a small/medium quadrant conflicts start before the AIs fall far behind.

Some combination of these settings should challenge or even overwhelm a new player; they can be adjusted as player skill improves.

Wow. I was just going to ask a question about game settings but looks like you have read my mind.

All of your points seem fair. However I think number 4 a bit tricky. I mean it sort of predetermines the political strategy, i.e. everyone declares war on me no matter what I do. Nevertheless since I havent played the full version yet I cant really have a point of view.

Thanks a lot anyway - the first game I play will be with those settings (exept 4 I guess and tactical combat issue).

Tweek

[NullAshton]

Its hard to keep peace with other empires. They keep trying to colonize in your system. Annoying to say the least.

[Kamog]

Yup, SEIV is an excellent game with a lot of depth and replayability. Very addictive, too. The A.I.'s on the full game are much smarter than the ones in the demo. It is worth getting, absolutely!