Lemmings, Schools, and Wabbits.......

from Stardock Forums
I have to be missing something either that or there is a large neon sign over all of my planets saying "Free Lunch".

I have had a train of ships from 3 races chasing my survey ship halfway across the galaxy, and throwing themselves relentlessly into mine. Completely ignoring each other even when they have been at war.

One of the last games that I played I lucked out and started in the corner of the map well away from everyone else. Well it didn't take very long for the rest to sniff me out. I even kept my survey ship in close to avoid detection. No joy, darn big flashing sign over head.

A couple of games ago I decided to move the entire human race to a desolate corner of the universe at the start of the game. My survey ship that was on point ran right into a school of colony ships. This is in the first 12 months of the game with all of the other races set to Average Intel and Game Play set to cakewalk.

I just got done playing a game a little while ago and I had two races camped over my planets, torching every ship I built and they both had to be breading like rabbits since they were throwing an average of 6 Billion troops against my meager defenses a turn. Over and over until I was toast.

Heck my luck is so bad I even seem to get messages from myself (Terrans) and something about fuel for the winter.

I don't know if these are bugs or not but I would like to know what I have to do to get a game going that lasts more than an hour. And yes I tried playing with the settings for the Aliens Intelligence and the rest. I even tried to play against a group of poor Forest Gumps and I still had all of them at my front door right about the time I finally got done researching the universal translator.

Have a great weekend all!

Chris
200 views 15 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
One last thought for the night. The game normaly will end the next turn after your last planet falls, but I don't think it should if you have one or more loaded colony ships still out and running.

Night

Chris
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Chris,
I know the feeling... and even if you survive... they have occupied all good places. It shouldn't happen at cakewalk anyway... ;)
Gherardo
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I'll be working heaviy on the AI now that I'm back.

I can honestly say that the AI makes no distinction between players though.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Chris,

You didn't start playing your first game at the most difficult level, did you? Try cakewalk for yourself and dumb for the other races for the first time or two to get the hang of the game, then start increasing the difficulty from there.

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
No Jack.... I didn't, and the problems that I described above were all at Cakewalk and Average Integence and below.

Chris
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I always start at the easiest level and move up as I become more familiar with the game. The AI does seem to be have a great advantage early in the game but falls apart mid game onward. This was true at the cakewalk level, and it seems to be true at the easy level as well.

Playing as the Terrans, I've also received threating messages from myself. Some kind of death wish, I take it! LOL
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
I for once have a game going that I could possibly win, would have allready won it if there weren't a couple of ships stuck over a pair of planets that I would very much like to own. So I'm trying to go for the technological win if that is even possible at this point. Heck I can't even go for the trade win at this point because of those stuck ships.... Gerrrrr Not Fair... Oh well I guess that is why we are all sitting around playing a Beta LOL If everyone keeps playing and finding glitches this is going to be one fantastic game come the end of the year. The settings this time were Cakewalk, All races Good, and all races Idiots, and a real small galaxy. They still tried to all take me out without any provocation but I was able to fortify one of my worlds (Found a 26) and hold on till I could build some Dreadnaughts. Brad I know that the AI is not supposed to tell the difference between the computer players and the human, but it seems like the lets declare war on those pink fleshy humans switch is safetywired in the on position at some times.

Time to go do Real World things ;)

Chris
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Chris,

One thing I have noticed is that the other races seem to concentrate on the weakest smallest race first. Since this game is still quite primitive it is more of a conquest game at the moment. And Brad has made comments about the AIs not being up to more than conquest just yet (he reported he was working on it).

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
I have a game in a giant galaxy where the computer players were too busy warring with each other to notice me (until I accidentally attacked one of them anyway). Once I came to their notice we had all kinds of red lines drawing odd shapes on the Treaties screen though. Everybody was at war with at least two other civs except the Yor, which was at war with everybody except the Toroians.

Something I have noticed is that the AI seems to prioritize on attacking non-combat ships. My sigular Battleship has only been attacked once in the 15 years it's been in service.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
I added the threatening messages bug to my list...it might just be getting the wrong variable passed in or something easy to fix like that.

The AI players do tend to get into multiple wars...I don't think that they check to see if they're already at war before declaring war on someone else, which should be a consideration, although not an absolute limit. Obviously, some of the time the Drengin will be able to take the Arceans and the Yor at the same time, but others it should reconsider.

For those of you having trouble, you might want to try playing with less races. It can sometimes be easier, because you don't have 5 separate economies cranking out battleships, and trade can mean more, but on the other hand, then the AI has less other people it might choose to wipe out first.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
My comment was mostly to note that the AI do attack each other, and not just the human player. The multiple wars thing isn't too surprising, although they should check to make sure they can actually sustain two or more seperate wars before starting them.

The AI may want to consider attacking things besides colony ships and transports from time to time though. I can't recall seeing them attack a combat ship if there were noncombatants around to bash.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
The one thing that surprised me was the fact that even though I set all of the races to good, and they just sent a trade ship to one of may planets. Two turns later they are at war with me, and within 10 turns so are all of the rest of the races that I have bumped into. If that makes any sence. I think that if a race is set to "Good" that means that they would only retaliate after an agresseve move on my part. The other thing that I can't seem to figure out is how they can crank out transports so darn fast. I have to go through a lot of tech to get them, and they seem to have them within 10 turns. Not to mention the schools of Battle Ships that swoop in prior to the school of Transports. I have had the AI send 5 transports in a row each with more troops than the last. This is on the cakewalk setting with the AI set to Good/Idiot.

Chris
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
It would make sense that good races might attack neutral ones. It also makes perfect sense that good races would attack evil ones, even if the evil ones were minding their own business. The opposing races do seem to get a head start, but are unable to maintain it once you start collecting purple nebulas!
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
Chris,
the computer AI researches straight for transports and then battleships as far as I can see. Transports is only 2 steps away at the start and with research focus can be reached in 10 turns.
I assume everyone knows to change their spending to 100% for the first turns? You start with 1000 credits and this is best spent by cranking spending to max. This allows for a rapid start-up. Also, a fairly common start-up move is to change all spending to military and research. You can then crank out colony ships every 2-4 turns (per planet) and research transports and battleships very quickly.

Once you have spent your 1000 credits, don't forget to reduce spending back to a sustainable level and change you sliders when all planets are colonised.

Paul.
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
In the next build, alignment will matter more. Brad's been working on the AI. It's really cool. :)