Best Mods & settings for single-player game?

[Sockum]

I've been playing SE4 Gold now for a couple of months, and lurking on the Boards for about the same amount of time. I'm enjoying it, but I still haven't quite figured out what the best Mods and game settings are for a challenging single-player game against the AI. In particular, it seems that the AI in the late-game, once a lot of tech has been researched, is very weak and doesn't build in the numbers necessary to be competitive.

I just finished a couple of TDM games that were interesting and much more compelling than the standard AI. But the same late-game issue of not building enough powerful ships seemed to happen there as well.

I've read through the FAQ a couple of times and haven't seen anything specific to this question, so here I am:

Any advice from the pros out there about the best Mods and/or Races to use for single-player vs AI games? Any settings or tweaks recommended to make the AI more 'intelligent'? I'm not really interested in multi-player games, for a variety of reasons I won't bore you with here.

I get that creating challenging AI is difficult, so maybe there isn't a good answer to this question but I thought I'd ask and see what happens.

Sockum

[Grand Lord Vito]

Try AI Campaign Mod...
It plays great solo

The way you are talking, try starting with a low AI Bonus at the most for your first game.
For AIC Adv. Trait options 1 thru 4, just try opt 1. Don't forget the top one also
Or just take the Terrens or Phong examples for Moderate play and edit to your likeing.

Build alot of StarLiners to transport your pop.

LINK > AI Campaign

[ June 01, 2003, 22:18: Message edited by: Grand Lord Vito ]

[Fyron]

If you are looking for a challenge, try playing Pirates and Nomads mod with TDM AIs (converted to P&N with the program SJ wrote for that) as a Pirate or a Nomad race.

[Suicide Junkie]

And of course, there is always multiplayer via PBW.
Humans will always give you a run for your money

Pirates&Nomads links are below.

[oleg]

AIC is IMHO the best mod for solo play.
This is why I think so:

It is indeed not easy to mod SE AI. One of the reasons is the way AI calculates how many ships to build. It is primarily based on the number of colonies (with some minimum number reserved). The computer bonus does not come directly into account. If for example AI is programmed to build a cruiser per every two planets and it has 100 planets, it will build 50 ships no matter what (if it has enough resources of course). But the same 100 planets produce 5 times more resources if AI has bonus ! So, what should Ai modder do ? Make AI build a lot of ships for high bonus game and go broke in no-bonus game ? Or be safe and let AI underperform at high bonus but not get bankrupt in low-income game ? As it is, there is no way to make different AI files for different bonus games and let AI automatically decide what set to use. SE AI files must be universal, which automatically means underachivement in high bonus games. This is exactly what you are complaing about - AI does not build enough mean ships. In fact, one can relatively easy mod AI to work much better than now in high-bonus games, but it will not do any good at weeker settings !

John Sullivan decided to solve this dilemma by modding AIC in a way AI has a bonus even in no-bonus game. It is always on steroids and extra AI bonuses are only for extra enjoinment

[ June 02, 2003, 00:16: Message edited by: oleg ]

[Aloofi]

What Oleg said, and in the settings use an small quadrant, with 4 AI races ( so you don't have to scroll in the diplomacy window ) dificulty Hard, AI bonus in medium.
Don't use neutrals, they are trouble to the AI and a bonus to you.
Chose the AI races manually, so you make sure you don't get any "friendly" AI, like the Cue Cappa or the Toltayan.
The AI always fight better on small quadrants.