The AI Strikes Back!!

[DirectorTsaarx]

I'm playing a non-modded game, with stock AI (hard difficulty, high bonus); started "non-connected" (which means the AI researches SM pretty early), and it's been fun. I set "see all players scores" on, so I can track the AI I haven't met, and the Terrans have an insanely high score (I'm around 1M, and 3 or 4 AI have about the same, while the Terrans have a score over 3 or 4M - possibly more!). I am NOT looking forward to meeting the Terrans this time...

BTW - I had to "help" one of the AI's around turn 75; their score hadn't changed in 10-20 turns, so I did some checking & their maintenance was riding near 99% of production, mainly because they had 10 Rock colonizers, and no Rock planets in their set of systems. So I had three choices: have them build a warp-opener to find more systems (which would wreak havoc on their economy); scrap the rock colonizers (and probably have them build more); or retrofit the rock colonizers to gas giant or ice colonizers, so they could colonize a few more worlds. I used the third option, and they improved for a while; but I think they've leveled out again, which probably means they haven't bothered to create and use warp opener ships. Oh well...