Help with genius level AI's

Black Shade: have you considered joining G.R.O.S.S. to tell those sissy aliens you mean business?


I have noticed early in the game if you can build one or two starfighters, it keeps em off you just long enough to get going. Also, though we know starfighters stink and are useless, the puter doesn't know the difference between a real military and a paper tiger.


Also, if you give the aliens gifts, you can at least control what they are getting. For example. They used to hit me up for stuff I didn't want to give. Result. war. Now, I give em a little something, then they still demand it but the result is I get a lil reprieve before they declare war.


It would help to know what size you are playing too as the strategy is a bit different per size.

well, on the empire thing, im not sure really what the point of an empire is (other than exchanging strats or havin ppl to talk to...).

I play on large-huge usually, my current game is gigantic but i dont like gigantic because i usually have 2-3 hours of mop up (soooooo boring) on AI's that are totally defenseless but never ever surrender ( i dont think ive ever had an AI surrender to me if i was the one killing them, even if their military rating is at 0, and mine is say 370). And i try to appease the most powerful civ by giving them a gift here an there, but the only thing i can really give them is money and influence since at the time when they declare war, they have a tech lead. I tried the star fighter thing a few times, and it usually doesnt work out to great even with them parked at a planet for the extra attack. Their military is still 3x-4x higher than mine.

Empireing is just another level of metaverse competition. You're in it with your mates instead of alone. Plus it's people to talk too, exchanging strats. Some like to write funny and good stories. Etc.

I've never foreign powers surrender either. I've tried being the most friendly with em, ripping em up militarily, etc. What I usually do to mop up is get into war, then demand planets for peace.

I used to get caught flat footed like you all the time. I started building the corvettes and starfighters before I wanted to. It probably costs 1 or 2 planets or 3 even. But on Gigantic that's not so big a deal. That solved it for me. I still get some demands but usually from civs across the map that can't reach me. By the time they can they are more than ready for peace. hehe. And do send out frieghters as fast as you can. They help too.

Also what might also help you is going for corvettes early, then exchange the tech for tons of other techs.

I usually go right to trade in the yellow, then right to the tech that gets you aphrodesiac, built it and trade it all around, then go right to corvettes and trade them all around. It gets you some bux. It works on everything except tiny maso where you just get hemmed in. There I go for the vettes right after I get to trade in the yellow and forget getting any early wonders. Got to or you'll be at war fast.

Oh and one of the things that is very hard on Maso and crippling is I almost have to meet a minor real fast or I can just about kiss the game bye bye. I send out scouts right away.

yeah, my tech strat is very similar to yours. I guess ill try rushing for corvettes in my next game. I whole heartedly agree on the minor civs, they really help me out catching up in tech.... minor civs are my friends

I've noticed that the puter goes for the defensive ships tech first though like the defenders and the battle axes.

If you can get to defenders fast and get some, that will help too. But you won't be able to trade that tech, the puter gets it quick too.

oh another couple questions on something that is bugging me:
#1. Is there a way to have your planets switch their military production based on the gov. that planet is using?? If both my normal planets and my production planets are currently building constructors, but i want to build overlords,I dont really want my crappy planets to start building overlords when i hit the military swap button.
#2. Or if i set my funding level to 0 on the economic slider, have a single planet still get funding (i.e. i set my social funding to 0 percent, but i still wanna finish a wonder or trade good a planet is building)?

oh.... 3rd question (with a question in a question: is there an edit button for these posts?):

what is the point of mars and saturn... why bother programming static planets if they are useless?

Regarding post #7 both questions to my knowledge, I haven't found a way to do either. It's either the global swap.

regarding post #8. There is an edit button. It appears 3rd from the left. But you only have 15 minutes after you post untill it disappears.

Great Thread . . . I've been taking notes again!

The static planets sometimes are rejuvinated due to events like 'discovery of pre-cursor artifact that raised pq of all planets by yad yada' and other happenstances . . . Also as in reality most planets don't seem suitable for colinization (although Carl Sagan (RIP) and Steven Hawking may disagree with me) . . . LOL

Maybe they did it so Sol wouldn't be too good a system to start out with.

But I'm with you.