Frog, Cari: Any improvements to mid/late game AI planned?

I'd have to agree with the social structures issue. I've had planets defect to me where the AI had been building one of the big, expensive morale improvements when they hadn't even built the cheaper, just as effective ones.

I agree wholeheartedly. Also later game diplomacy and peace treaty negotiation needs some work. This is total cheese but I discovered you can conquer an AI without culture bombing *or* military engagement, just so long as your military is substantially larger than theirs. I did this to Torian's - all you have to do is "give" a different AI the "attack Torian" in the diplomacy screen and then go negotiate a peace treaty with the Torian's asking them for as many star systems as they'll give you (I also got all of the end-game techs after 4D philosophy this way - I was woefully behind all the AIs in research). I did this over and over again (they had about 40 start systems I think, I was getting about 3 a turn). Then suddenly after about a year or two of this they were willing to give me like 10 systems, which was all but one. I went to war with them again the next to get the last one, but they refused a peace treaty under any conditions and then surrendered to me the following turn. I've also noticed that minors are quite frequently willing to give you *everything* they have in exchange for a peace treay, even if that means they get wiped out.

My personal opinion is that the AI starting positions at genius and incredible should be nerfed somewhat from where they are, but the AI intelligence later in the game should be increased substantially. I think it would make for smoother gameplay. I find it somewhat frustrating that it's essentially impossible (in my experience anyway) to build any of the useful trade goods or wonders against 5 genius AIs. It shuts out a huge part of the game for players who want a serious challenge.

My experience with crippling gigantics has been that you have to play extremely carefully for the first 10 or 20 years in order to overcome the AI's starting position advantage, but then there's a point at which the game becomes basically a cakewalk as you dominate everyone else and it's just a matter of time while you wrap up your chosen victory conditions. It'd be nice if the playing field at the outset was a little more level, but the AIs remained competitive till closer to the end. For example, in my current gigantic crippling the arceans have a military that is (according to the military graph) nearly double the size of mine. However, they show no sign of deciding to just clobber me (relations took like 4 years to go from neutral to cool - I have 10 trade routes with them but it's still under 10% of their income), even though I'm flipping roughly 2 of their star systems every three months. I would much prefer if they would massively build party palaces to counter my onslaught or get fed up and pummel me into the ground. But only if they didn't have such a rediculously advantageous starting position to begin with.
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What size map do you play most often on, Xavier?

On anything bigger than large with difficulty below incredible, I can concede one trade good, usually the diplomatic translators, and build all the rest. Most of the time, it is the minors that construct the wonders. There is a small chance that it is the Dregins instead.

After the first trade good is finished, I will have met all the minors and bankrupt them by trading them all my tech. This doesn't work on maso, but the majors extort enough to prevent further trade good construction.

I can throw off the majors by declaring war on them and sustaining the war for long periods of time or bribing the strongest to go to war against the rest. These tactics screw up their economics entirely, and it's easy picking from there. On maso, I have to resort to the Alpha strike, because my military is too weak.

As for gigantic maps, with a +2 speed pick, good scouting, and a good sense of intuition, you'll get the better starting position.

Gigantic crippling is my most common right now, although I've made more (abortive) attempts at maso. It's possible my opening strategies need work. I find it impossible to build enough colony ships (on abundant planets) to expand enough while at the same times researching enough *and* getting my military strength up enough to prevent AIs from making demands I cannot meet, leading to wars I cannot win. The problem I had earlier in my current game was that in order to stay militarily competitive with the Arceans (you should see the games military graph, it's rediculous) I was spending 45% of my revenue just on upkeep. I suddenly realized that Anti-matter missiles have only 1 upkeep and can get an attack rating of nearly 400 if produced on a strong planet, so I bribed the Torians to go to war with the Arceans with like 50 dreadnoughts. That released my economy from the iron grip of my military industrial complex and allowed me to try to catch up in tech, but by this point in the game every single wonder and trade good was already gone. The only reason I was able to remain competitive at all is that about 4 or 5 years in the UP voted to distribute 10 techs to all races, which caught me up substantially. I have not once had more tech than any AI, including the minors (I suspect they're trading with other majors). Again, it's entirely likely I made a mistake at the outset.

If you play maso, you're going to be playing catch-up until fairly late in the game. I think all of us maso players concede most of the trade goods and wonders to the AI, and are always using clever tech trading to keep up technologically.

I suggest that during the late part of the initial expansion phase, research a couple techs that none of the AIs own, and use them to bribe all the AIs to go to war with each other. This will hopefully keep them too busy to be able to back up any extortion threats they make, and also it slows down their insane rate of research.

It's really nice to see another maso player here, there are far too few of us left.
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Yeah, I discovered in my current crippling how important it is to keep the AIs at war with each other. This leads me to ask what funding % people use for military/social/research in the very, very early game (at maso difficulty on larger maps - the game is quite different for the small ones). I've had success on crippling with something like 80/0/20 to start to pump out those colony ships, moving to 60/0/40 in the later expansion phase and 0/50/50 or 0/60/40 (maybe 10/50/40)as soon as I've claimed all my systems. The problem I've had with this in maso gigantic is that once I've colonized everything, the AIs decide that clobbering me would be fun. For example, in one game the Torians declared war early. I managed to arrange for them to be at war with 2 other AIs as well before their fleets got to me. Took them over a year to get any fleets to me, in which time I was frantically researching and building warships. Then their battleships showed up - my highest tech was battleaxes. Guess what, I got owned. They wouldn't consider a peace treaty even if I offered them EVERY start system and starship I owned .

Tech trading is essential, and for that you'll need to be close the leader in research. You'll need Ray to give you some advice there. I can keep up early on, but later I fall behind so far behind. Once you get past battleship, it's pretty much over.

No, you need advice from our Maso legend, Staffa the Incredible.

You will see I've yet to win at 1.05 Maso at Gigantic and Huge. For the smaller maps, I've consistently used the Rush and Alpha Strike strats to hit them before they could transform into human-eating Maso monsters.

*kneels at the Staffa temple built on my home planet*

"Please, oh great one, impart wisdom upon me that I may better slaughter my foes"

Actually Staffa has never won one on Huge either. It's been thwarting him every single time.

The great Staffa visits our realms infrequently nowadays.

But he had dispensed his wisdom generously on this board. Though some of his musings were of a different age, significant portions remain relevant to seekers of knowledge.

Do a Search for Staffa.

I agree with the earlier posters who say that the AIs biggest weakness is inefficient starbase usage. At least one major AI should have "culture bombing" as one of their strategies.

Another problem is that the AI doesn't appear to appropriately adjust the value of techs, trade goods, and resources as the game progresses. They should be adjusted up or down based on game conditions.

Corvette tech after Shields has been researched is overvalued. Corvettes are useful, but not essential. Interstellar tactics is undervalued.

The problem right now is that the AI isn't flexible so as along as it doesn't have so many advantages that it runs away with the game, a human will win eventually once it drags on for a long time.

I've won on Huge/rare. Or rather, I would have won on Huge if I had the patience to finish the game, but any map above medium gets pretty tedious for me. I had a *really* nice start in that game though.

Ray, I think we play really differently. My most successful strategy is basically diplomatic. I just patiently play off the other empires against each other, maintain good relations, build social improvements, trade for tech in order to maintain parity, and wait. When an enemy empire starts to weaken due to the wars I've arranged for it to be in, I get my fleets into position and declare war, hoping to grab its best worlds within a couple turns. And obviously with all the fighting going on I can grab resources. My games generally last through Avatar technology and it's not unusual for me to do the final mop-up with Overlords.
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And the hijacking of this thread is complete

My opening gambit is to rush my neighbours before they can defend themselves properly. I then bribe the others to war before surprising them with hopefully an Alpha.

I'm trying something different in my current Maso Gigantic. Chose morale, economy, PQ and diplomatic picks to see if I can have a more peaceful game.

It's interesting to see that such different strategies can work out, even at masochistic. I don't even really build a military until fairly late, and just depend on occasional gifts and trade to maintain relations.

I'm working on a single-sector maso game right now, I think I can pull it off.

You should post some tips vincible

Let's start another Maso Strats thread in Strat Forum and continue there, guys.

Getting back to the original subject of this post, if I may.

A spot of modding to reduce the maintenance cost of the various planetary improvements does a lot to keep the AI vigorous and competitive up to and beyond the dreadnought stage. I play at Normal or Challenging and now find, after 5 minutes modding maintenance costs downwards, that the game is no longer decided by the time I get battleships or often even dreadnoughts. It seems to me that there is not a problem with the AI but there is a problem with maintenance costs.

The improvements are mostly not worth the upkeep so just reduce the upkeep so they are worth building because the AI will build them regardless.

My 2 cents.