The AI... when will ìt earn its "I"?
When I started playing SE4 three years ago, I found that it was a game with great concept, mechanics and customizability. However, the AI was a joke then. A couple of weeks later, Aaron made a significant improvement to AI agressiveness, which made the game playable in single player.
But since then... nothing. Or very little. In single player, your adversaries are still if not braindead, then at least seriously deranged when it comes to their military campaigns. Aaron and the modders did a very good job improving AI resource management and building programs. Mods like "AI campaign" have taken this a step further, giving the AI "unfair" advantages to further improve its strength. However, this approach does not yet solve the fundamental problem of the SE4 AI. It is like an already very muscular bully who gets some more anabolics. Beefed up like this, he comes running at you and you think "oh,my, it's over now for me", but 3 meters in front of you, he tuns around and runs somwhere else.
This is excatly the behaviour of the SE4 AI. It just does not follow through. In my current "AI campaign" game, again and again I had 30+ Jreaner ships entering my border systems which were virtually undefended. I think "oh,my, it's over now for me", but 3 squares in front of my planet, his fleet turns around and leaves through the next wormhole for somwhere else. This happens again and again. Basically, if you are not extremely unlucky with your starting position, the AI never offers a challenge.
I cannot imagine that it would be so hard to change this behaviour. Basically you would have to somehow drastically increase the priority of an ennemy target, once it has been acquired (thus only very, very urgent new threats would have the AI abandon its previous targets). The current AI behaviours largely decreases gaming pleasure in single player. I imagine, that it is probably to late to expect Aaron to again tackle the AI in SE4, but I just hope, it will be significantly improved in SE5.
Anybody any thoughts on this (same experience, different experience, infos on SE5 AI, ...)
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