They really need to work on this logic. The AI is all to quick to declare war. There are usually other civs just as close and often weaker, but they all decide to declare war on only me! And no matter how large my map, I always seem to be set close to those darn ugly Krynn. They and the Terrans always want to quickly declare war on me. Even when I trade with them to keep them pacified. And I'm constantly building warships but my military standing keeps just getting weaker and weaker. i'm playing on Normal, not Crazy or Beat You Down level. It even happened on Easy, but I used that to get an idea of the tech tree so I could get the necessary tech to compete.
The AIs probably do declare war on each other as often as you, but you don't notice because you don't care as much. As for why they'd pick you over a weaker target, they probably like the other guy better. If you can't hold your own militarily, you need to do better at diplomacy. Get the actual diplomacy tech, so the AI will like you better, and form non-aggression pacts where possible. If you need it, take the neutral ideology pick which guarantees 50 turns of peace.
Instead of being fun like GC2, it more frustrating and annoying. The AIs just build up fleets and declare war like out of this world. (oh, it is a space combat game. ha!)
There wouldn't be much challenge to the game is the AI just sat their waiting for you to kill them, would there?
And they took all of the funny little fun things out. Like the cute explanations of technology and the diplomatic dialogs by the AI.
I thought a lot of the tech explanations in this game were pretty funny, actually. There are some good ones in the Drengin tree. The first-contact interactions can be pretty entertaining, as well.
And what happened to the miliatary starbase? they nerfed it. I cant get it to support my weak fleets. And you just cant keep up with the AI early with fleets and tech.
I don't remember GC2 military starbases very well, but you can definitely keep up with the normal AI in tech and production capacity if you manage things properly.
They original Galciv was promoted as the AI didnt cheat, it just made better decisions. They seem to have thrown that idea out the window and set it on fire. This AI seems to cheat more than a rich person getting a tax refund.
The AI doesn't cheat at all on normal or below, except that they get a break on stationed ship maintenance. It always amazes me how quick people are to jump to this conclusion.
Is it just me or do others feel the same way? Am I playing in a really stupid fashion?
Well, the game is consistently winnable on godlike, even without broken alliance victories, so you've definitely got room to improve. If you wanted to upload a save, I'm sure there are several people around here (including me) who could give you some advice.
