Worst AI decision(s) ever?

[dmm]

FOTFL!

This sounds like something directly from a US Civil War battle. "Coordinated attack??? What's that?" At least you got troops on the planet. During one impt battle in the Last year of the war, the Union general in charge of the main assault division was such a stupid coward that as soon as the battle started he found a bomb shelter and got "bombed." (That's drunk, for you non-Americans.) Needless to say, events at the front did not go as Gen. Grant had planned.

[wr8th]

That shipset looks like something from MOO2!

DMM,

That wasn't the battle of "The Crater" near Petersburg, VA. by any chance was it?

Also reminscent of Gen. Burnside's intrepidity at the bridge that now bears his name near Sharpsburg, VA (Antietam). Ugh... political appointees.

[ 08 May 2002: Message edited by: wr8th ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Actually it is the Rage shipset. Everything except for the BattleMoon, of course

[dmm]

wr8th,
Yes, I think it was. Certainly "The Crater" was a brilliantly planned and horribly executed fiasco. Another aspect was that there was a specially-trained "colored" brigade that was supposed to spearhead the assault. They had rehearsed it for months. Then at the Last hour, Gen. Grant put them toward the rear of the assault. No one knows why. It was political, certainly, but was it for fear that the "coloreds" would be slaughtered and he would appear to be using them as cannon fodder, or was it for fear that the "coloreds" would get the honor of dealing the CSA its death blow? Or some other, staggeringly stupid, reason that our 21st century minds can't even think of?

Or was it the AI?

[PvK]

I still remember way back before Version 1.25 even, I think, playing a game where I was letting the AI handle most of my empire, and I was trying to win the game ONLY (almost) by designing superior ships for my empire. Anyway, the AI sent a huge fleet of our ships, nearly half the fleet, it seemed, in one big armada towards the front line system where battles were raging. Great... except... it decided to take a "short cut" through this damaging warp point which er, just happened to lead through a... er... black hole system... OH NOOOOooooooo! Yep, so I get to watch dozens of our ships get shredded on the warp point, only to end up getting sucked slowly into the black hole, most of them either unable to escape, or worse, able to hold their ground until they run out of supplies, meanwhile costing maintenance...

Nonetheless, I still think one of the cooler aspects of SE4 is that, despite the AI's weaknesses, a player can take over just part of an empire, and let the AI handle the rest. In this way, the player can see how much of a difference they can make if they are only controlling a limited part of an empire, such as:

1) Just one particular fleet.
2) Just one particular system at a time (i.e., the emperor has to be present to take direct command, or the player is a regional governor).
3) Only reseach choices (mad scientist).
4) Only ship design (master ship designer).
5) Only construction.
6) Only diplomacy.
7) Only the military campaign against a particular enemy empire.
8) Only tactical combat.
9) Only intelligence operations.

Or, any combination of the above.

The other thing to recommend this mode of play is that it generally cuts the time required to play down to a small fraction of the usual time, even in a large and advanced game.

PvK

[Skulky]

I have never had quite sucha horrible experience with my AI but i did once put a whole fleet of say 115 ships under its command during a simultaneous battle against a group of 1 large planet, and 3 moons so they had lots of interference. My fleet moved around aimlessly for a while while my troop ships went in and got shot. I think it was b/c the AI didn't know what to do with the empty moons (empty of weapons colonized tho) so taht was its own thing.

Wow im rambling agian

[oleg]

"by designing superior ships for my empire. "

He,he,he. You did't do a good job then !
unstable warp point does only 200 damage.
Scatering armor + stealth armor gives a full protection for your ship internals. If you also have few repair ships in your fleet, and you MUST, fleet can fly through Black Hole system !