Have you ever been beat by the AI?

Baron Munchausen · #1 July 20th, 2002, 10:10 PM

Nope, never been strategically defeated by the AI, although it can win the occasional battle here & there. It's just too simple-minded, and never presses the advantage when it has it. That's why I think we need more game features to keep human players busy. Space monsters, pirates, etc. When life gets more complicated you'll have more trouble using your superior thinking skills to whip the AI.

capnq · #2 July 21st, 2002, 03:19 AM

Quote:

pick a race that looked good in the quickstart menu, start playing (just what dificulty does it usewhen you do that)

A Quick Start game always uses the same default settings that you see on New Game/Set-Up. It doesn't remember the settings you started the Last New Game with.

DirectorTsaarx · #3 July 21st, 2002, 07:44 AM

I actually had to concede defeat once; I had an AI race on either side of my starting systems (Ukra-Tal on one side, Xi'chung on the other). Life was pretty good at first; I set up trade & research alliances with both, I had colonies everywhere I could get to without going through the AI's space, and then the AI decided to claim the systems I'd colonized. And backed up their claim with warships. Since I'd been playing fairly peacefully, I hadn't bothered to mine the warp points or build weapon platforms. Well, the AI came through with warships and started glassing planets. And not just one per turn, the AI would actually hit every colony in a system in one turn (sometimes it would take two turns to hit ALL the colonies, but the AI was following through on that second turn!) Anyway, I spent a number of turns building up minefields and had minelayers constantly replenishing the minefields, but the AI eventually had enough minesweepers to make that tactic useless. I did manage to get a plague-bomb-armed ship to a Xi'Chung colony, and the population was wiped out by the plague, but that was a minor victory. I eventually got tired of fighting a defensive war, and conceded defeat.

I think that was my one and only high-bonus game. I've stuck with medium bonus since then. (Always use high difficulty, of course; large (254 system max) galaxy, large number of both AI and neutral races, 5000 racial point settings).

I've also gotten in the habit of putting minefields at every warp point entering my territory (and the more strategic warppoints within the territory as well). I'm still pretty lax about weapon platforms, but I haven't had my head handed to me in a while, so it hasn't hurt me much.

Ragnarok · #4 July 21st, 2002, 03:07 PM

Actually, I got to thinking, although I've never been beat by the AI. I was getting beat once in a game. I was using the Devnullmod with Space Monsters. I was about 2 systems away from the home of the Monsters and they started coming at me with their - for lack of better word - "things"

. I probably would've lost that game, but I accidently saved over it with another game I was playing. Which stunk because I was enjoying that game alot. It was a great challenge. Maybe after I finish the game I just started with the TDM races I will start another Devnullmod game and see how that one goes.

Master Belisarius · #5 July 21st, 2002, 03:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ragnarok:
Actually, I got to thinking, although I've never been beat by the AI. I was getting beat once in a game. I was using the Devnullmod with Space Monsters. I was about 2 systems away from the home of the Monsters and they started coming at me with their - for lack of better word - "things" . I probably would've lost that game, but I accidently saved over it with another game I was playing. Which stunk because I was enjoying that game alot. It was a great challenge. Maybe after I finish the game I just started with the TDM races I will start another Devnullmod game and see how that one goes.

Suggestion: If you really like the challenge, don't play with Large galaxies against the AI. And don't forget to select AIs vs Humans.

Alpha Kodiak · #6 July 21st, 2002, 04:10 PM

The toughest situations I've encountered (and yes I've lost a few of them) are when I've encountered an aggressive AI early. At that point in the game the AI doesn't get as confused about what it is doing, so it seems to be able to focus on you more, while you have less depth to use as defense. Once an aggressive AI with any kind of a bonus is in your home system with a fleet early in the game, you are hurting.

Ragnarok · #7 July 22nd, 2002, 03:00 AM

Well, I'm now 3 years into my new game with the TDM AI and myself. Right now I'm in fifth place overall. I went the first 2 years without finding any empires but I recently found 3. One nutral, the Phong, and the Abbidon. I'm in a Trade and Researh alliance with the Abbidon and the nutral race. But the Phong are starting to give me hell. They got the Acid weapons and crap so they are ahead of me by aways. They are in first place if that tells you anything. I'm holding my own right now. They arn't pushing TOO hard. If they tried they could break into my system easy. But they won't come near to taking out my whole empire. Which is 9 systems 49 Planets. 28 ships and 1412 units. So I should be able to hold them off pretty easy. I'm working on mining warp points all over the place. I had my main planets build 100 mines each, and then build mine layers, so that helps. It took them 9 turns to build the mines. But this is pretty tough so far. I'm looking forward to finishing this game.