Greetings folks,

I started a new game last night. I wanted to share some observations I have had regarding the performance of the Ai. My settings are my usual:

• Insane, tight clusters.
• Abundant Stars and Abundant Planets. 
• Hab = Rare/Rare
• Occasional resources, except anomalies which were common. 
• All ai including four custom ones. total of 14 AI plus myself for 15 players and full minors
• No Pirates, I was playing with Pirates on but found until we get other options for them they are more of a hindrance early game than anything else. 
• All ai on Gifted, I was not sure as I hate handicaps, I hate even more the lack of FOW the ai gets. 

So for this map there should be about 50-60 total habitable planets, if you figure you get 600 planets on Abundant and I am on rare which is 10%. Please check my assumptions but this is about what I figured. On turn two I found a class 25 Ghost world. Founded that, and went Benevolent to get my 2nd colony ship. I also bought a sensor wagon on Turn 1. 

Around turn 60 I ran into one of the custom aggressive Ai I created, the Klingons. I bought one of the colony ships headed to a planet I wanted and would not reach. The power score at this point was me at 90 and them at 134. He had 8 more techs than me and 3 more planets. He was aggressively building mining bases, colonizing and fielding a fleet of military ships. 

At turn 62 I used my survey ship to attack and destroy a 2nd of his colonizers thus starting a war which is still on at this time.

WAR. I was finishing up Missiles thinking I was going to kick his arse. Me in my smug awesomeness! I created 3 fleets of 4 small laser cutters. These I rushed to his encroaching area while I finished missiles and then switched to medium hulls. I also had my ghost world filled with research labs. I switched to full research there to help get techs fast. 

My homeworld has my Manu capital on it. I was cranking out ships and my ships had two hyper+ drives some defenses and 1 stinger. I fleeted up before leaving. He had two major worlds encroaching far to my east area  and it was there where we had at least a DOZEN fleet engagements. I was glorious!

The Proto Durantium driver as mentioned in other threads is (in my opinion) are a tad out of balance. With 12 damage and 6 mass they are hands down unbalanced. I created interceptors with one each and two thrusters and two engines and rushed these to the front. 

Notes about what the Ai was doing:

• He fleeted up his ships. I fought and lost and won against fleets of 2, 3 and 5. 
• He was NOT stupid. He built proto driver ships en masse, and Proto missile ships. 
• The Ai chose to mine Durantium a lot, only after I destroyed his sources near me did he change blueprints. 
• His fleets were strong and sought out my weaker fleets. 
• When he saw transports coming instead of engaging my fleets he sent his fleets in orbit around vulnerable planets. 
• He defended his shipyards with fleets there as well. 
• His research switched to rush medium hulls. 
• He is following the Driver line of weapons. 

I then ran into the Iconians. They are above BOTH of us by about 70 points! 

On Turn 143 I finally cleared the area and took his two planets. I have two mangled fleets to defend and he has now shown up with medium proto driver fleets. Where is he getting his durantium? I must stop his supply! I am now working the 'northern' area which  has both him and the Iconians gobbling up planets. I do have 4 up there. Currently the Iconians have 26 planets to my 19. Amazing! Did I mention the number you can colonize is set on RARE?

I want to point out that this is perhaps the absolute most fun i have had playing Gal Civ III since I started in Alpha. All the Ai are doing FAR better, and I am 'forced' to war to be able to expand. I am worried about the Drengin and hope they are on the other side of the galaxy. I literally had to go to war to keep my planets from getting colonized by the Klingons. The fact they have no FOW and can see all the good ones while I cannot feels un fair but the fact is now  these Ai are now a considerable challenge to me. 

Hats off to Brad and Co for giving me a game that I want to quit work and run back home t play!

Ill update the progress later this weekend.