Now I've read the dozens of threads of people that are disappointed with the AI in this game, and I agree with them. When 1.03 came out, I made a new game on Point Blank, the smallest scenario, vs one "Unfair" enemy, and it still felt like playing against an infant. I colonized my asteroid very slowly, then moved over to the AI's home with like 12 light and my cap, and what did the AI have? 3 light and 5 siege (?!). Of course he runs the moment I appear and I get to destroy his frigate factory and extractors, and it's good game. I should probably add that I'm *really* bad at this game. When I play it against a friend in multiplayer I feel like the world's greatest noob. I have *no* idea what's going on in combats or what I should be doing at any given time, I keep looking at my resources to see that oops I have 13k credits and like 200 available fleet supply but I've been forgetting to build stuff, and so on. In short: I still really suck at this game. And yet the highest difficulty AI, "unfair", is unable to even inconvenience me.
So I've been thinking: yes, the AI sucks, and yes they need to fix it, but for the time being what with the game getting such insanely good reviews and so many people saying they don't play multiplayer, there must be *some* way to play the game against the AI so it becomes challenging! My question is: how do *you* play single player? What settings, what map, etc. Basically I'm looking for the game options that will make the AI a real threat, if those exist.
Also, has anyone pointed out to Ironclad yet that releasing and SDK that exposes the AI routines might help them? Firaxis released their SDK for Civ4 very early in the game's life span and some dedicated players set up the "Better AI" project which became a huge success, so much so that it was incorporated into the second expansion pack. I'm sure there are resourceful people in the community here as well who could whip that AI into shape.