I just had the same problem. I saw 3 Krynn colony ships coming into my sensor range and one close enough to set up a colony I missed. Next turn the shipyard was built on the new colony. Next turn a colony ship was rushed. I had to hit FoW command and see what is going on. They have 19 planets, 12 Shipyards, and 13 colony ships on turn 28. Most all the other AIs have about the same setup.`

I was playing my first game with Genius. I thought I better start off lower than the Godlike level I normally play in. After you said Gifted was as bad, I tired normal. I think so far normal is way too easy. On turn 40 I have 14 colonies and the most any AI has is 8, most have around 5. I also have about 10 tech to trade vs 2-4 for the AI major players.

Think I am going to try a smaller map with very few planets to test out the AIs other skills. Lets see if they build anything and put up a fight in ship combat....

I'll be balancing this over the next day or so. It's just xml numbers.

Glad to hear it's tougher!

I doubt anyone is beating the AI on suicidal with the new patch.  This was the first build with my main AI branch checked in. 

Post release I want to add several new difficulty levels so that there's a more gradual ramp up. Gifted is now too tough.

I'm glad to hear it's been ramped up!  Thank you!

Also, as an aside, having the highest tiers of AI being "too superhuman" isn't an entirely dumb idea, as I can see a lot of fun with multiplayer teams whereby players can team up against a super-difficult AI.

Keep it up,

It's not "just XML" when the AI still can see where everything is. It's a combination of both. It can see every planet, and its priorities say "if you see a planet and can reach it, colonize it ASAP" - so it does this hundreds of times until it either runs out of planets or money.

I might expect that on the higher difficulties, but they shouldn't be able to see every planet on Beginner (etc).

Ticket #AVR-846-40552

Brad, please keep the highest difficulties VERY hard.

While I usually play sandbox games at around Challenging (genius) level, I also like to create scenarios at the highest difficulty with a custom race on a custom map. I give myself starting advantages that allow me to survive early game (my homeworld would be "perfect" with 26 usable tiles and bonuses; starting system would have 2-3 worlds with 13-15 hexes to start; an economy, production, research, and morale relic would be near my starting system; just enough to allow me to survive the early part of the game.). Someone else mentioned cooperative multiplayer against a really tough AI, which sounds cool. It's fun to create scenarios based on the toughest AI the game can throw at us, one we wouldn't normally play against in a casual game.

A Request: When a new patch is released, can you please include whether the player must start a new game to get the benefits?  Sometimes this is part of the patch notes, sometimes not.

The AI can't see all the planets until beyond normal difficulty. its very very obvious, especially if you play on a pre made map.

Then explain how Beginner AI can send colony ships to planets outside of its sensor range. My ticket has screenshots and save games that prove that it does happen. Using "fow 1" lets me see their fow, and "god" shows that their ships are going into the fog. Then use "fow" or "fowtrans", and, co-incidentally, all dozen of their colony ships just happen to be going to planets. Even if that were a problem with using the "fow" console command, I can teleport a ship into their zoc and observe the behaviour.

Unless you meant that though they can't see all the planets, they can still see most of them?

Or they can see planets within their ship range, but not outside of it?

I apologise if I seem annoyed, but denying that the issue exists...

EDIT: Have some pictures!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n89djwdvumb3xin/fow_1_1_before.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3h17mchvlb63r84/fow_1_2_after.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6k7gw4ldem2wuj8/fow_2_1_before.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x0yokquibwjk8kr/fow_2_2_after.png?dl=0

Yeah I noticed this as well. I went and made a crack on my let's play video that the AI isn't tough yet. The first game I played on 0.97 Godlike the AI just wiped the floor with me. By turn 27 they had about 8 colony ships each, a huge resource advantage and were just devouring the map. 

I'm looking at your screenshots. They don't make sense to me.   How do you have FOW on and you are still selecting an AI player?

Ok, I figured it out.

The good news is that the AI doesn't know about the planets.

The bad news is that the STARTING colony ship does know about the planets (first turn, it hasn't been set yet).

Fixing now. Thanks!