Lame tactic

It's probably really difficult to make the AI distinguish properly between you fighting the same war and happenin to be the one who gets the planet, and you deliberately sneaking around stealing the planets from them.

I certainly agree on the second point though. (Assuming they don't, because it's possible I've just missed it.)

There should definitely be a "dibs" function. Coordinate your war with your allies, negotiate who will get the spoils, and assign diplomatic penalties to those who don't hold up their part of the bargain.

I haven't tried planet stealing but I've had it happen to me when an AI was fighting the same empire as me. I got so pissed I demanded the planet in Diplomatic chat but when they refused I declared war on them took it and several others before they begged for peace.

I haven't tried planet stealing but I've had it happen to me when an AI was fighting the same empire as me. I got so pissed I demanded the planet in Diplomatic chat but when they refused I declared war on them took it and several others before they begged for peace.

LOL

They don't respond because no borders in the game. The borders you see are influence, not physical.

It annoys me too.

Unless there is a bug though, they are suppose to prepare for any ovious attacks at Intelligent or Higher Difficultiies.

Yea I know they should make the infulance areas be like in Civ 4. They are boarders of your empire are also the culture/infulance reach. So unless you have like an alliance with the AI they can't come in your area and you can't go into theirs. Other wise it could spark a war.

Yea I know they should make the infulance areas be like in Civ 4. They are boarders of your empire are also the culture/infulance reach. So unless you have like an alliance with the AI they can't come in your area and you can't go into theirs. Other wise it could spark a war.

So would you have to beat each of your neighbors to get to there neighbors?

it needs to be fixed somehow or another it is really gamebreaking. I started a large galaxy with 6 races on incredible and I was getting manhandled by the AI(which is good). Until I scraped up enough to bribe the yor next to me to attack the torains.
All I did was make 10 troop transports for my entire military and sat them next to the good torain worlds. Finally when the yor started taking out the defending fleets I took them over and basically doubled my empire while they did all the work. I then got the yor to do this with terran and did same thing and again with the dregin vs the korx...

every other part of the game is pretty balanced except for planet taking. Influence is very well done as its not powerful enough to take over AI's core worlds but forces them to lower there tax rate and waste money/space building happy centers. For research +diplomacy can be unbalanced, but not always if you dont get a monopoly on it.

This game would be perfect if when u kill all of a defending fleet on a planet u can claim the planets "airspace" by moving into it like it was yours. This way the comp would stay there untill it sent its transports blocking you from stealing it. I also think anexing an entire planet should take more then 1 week , It should have a certain amount of turns where its conflicted after the first assualt , and if you lose airspace control, your anexing fails. So basically to take over a world you have to kill defending fleet move in to take control of airspace then defend it for 10ish turns against enemy fleets or you don't get the planet.

Hopefully this is patched as it takes all the challenge out of the game for me, when I can win easily on the highest diff setting by doing the same thing every game.

also I wish they had an auto influence/credit balance for when you trading for techs and stuff, its annoying having to set the slider every time, especially when you have to trade each by itself becuase for soem reason whenever your trading in groups it goes down drastically in value.

That's a little melodramatic. Game breaking? I don't even agree. Why shouldn't I follow some enemy force? They do it to me. I'm a soul collecter!

One of the races kept threatening me because i had fleets in their space and i built 2 influence starbases near 2 of their planets (pl 18 and 12). Ended up in a war with them over it. Most my games i play the other races get annoyed if my ships are near them or their planets. Odd you can follow and snatch planets from them.
Maybe my issues were a 1 time thing

The Ai has bribed you to war with another race, built only troop transports, parked them next to the race's planets you were bid to war with, then immediatly after u killed there defense, they stole the world from you, becuase you, like the AI took about 4 turns to get your transport to the planet, which by then was already taken?

It's game breaking becuase you can take over an entire empire with spending very little in the military department, and also weakening the Ai thats fighting for you at the same time. It's too easy to do and works every single time i have done it on the hardest difficulty.

The AI does react to having forces/bases near there planets, of course. But its just slow in doing so, which is a problem on the smaller maps. Also considering that out of about 12 games I have never seen the AI build a military ship that moved over 4 parsecs(even when they have all the tech), making their military reaction even slower.

another lame tactic that bothers me that the AI doesnt see is I'll trade a crappy ql 4 planet in the center of my empire for techs then get it back from influence then trade again, get back,over and over.

I remember Brad saying that Influence isn't borders, planets are borders. Go past their borders and you'll pay for it. Influence they aren't bothered about, which is fair considering whenever my allies surrender (cowards) my planets are either in Drengin or Yor influence, while I rush to reserach some new techs to annhilate their military with. I've noticed the sneak stealing thing too, couldn't be bothered to take care of the Dark Yor, so let the Torians do it. Then claimed a rather nice 21 planet, which became 24 with my neutral bonuses. And they seem to judge military might on number of ships, numerous occasions I've had a large army ready, but all phasors and weak shields, when the Drengin have had powerful deflectors and some basic missile techs to go with phasors. They could have wiped me easily, but asked me for peace, allowing me about 4 months to build up a fleet of ships with nano rippers, who tore them to shreds.

I found that building FAST cargo ships with 4 x type 4 phasors from the beginning tends to win me the game VERY easily! I have yet to see the dreadlords even use defensive tech yet, they put everything into weapons.

Yet another exploit that works wonders... Sod the big hulls, all you need is plasma/phasors/warp drive and you've won!

J

I think Pherguson has a nice idea about claiming a planet's airspace. It's more realistic, it fixes the exploit, and it gives greater strategic opportunities.

Well simple answer to a 'lame' tactic: don't do it!

Why not just tweak the AI setting such that the AI will not mount a planetary strike without following up with a tansport? Essentially make it so the AI shadows their own fleets with troop transports and after clearing a planet of defending ships then orders in the transports.

I love the airspace option. Allow an attacking ship to park in orbit over someone else's planet. If that planet builds a defensive ship, it automatically engages in combat with the new ship getting first strike. This way you can leave a fighter or something in orbit long enough for your troop transports to arrive, and if your "ally" wants the planet they''ll need to take out your blockade ship (declaring war).

I agree with the airspace option. That makes a lot of sense both from a strategic and realistic sense.

I'm thinking this post should be ignored.

y?

A few additions to combat / planet invasion changes.

After a fleet attacks a planet and destroys the defending fleet then an option is givin 'The defnses are down would you like to claim this planet. This would then be a sphere of control and any other fleets enetering it would become an act of war.

The attacking fleet would have to remain around the plaent to keep the claim to the planet. (really simple implementation to - 'attacking this planet will take 5 turns' puts the fleet inactive for 5 turns then the planetary invasion as normal.

#1 Make an invasion take five turns, the transports would need to seige the planet and remain on the same pc without being attacked.

This slows down invasions and planet hopping. And prevents several exploits of stealing planets. Also another weakness of planet defence is that defending fleets are often very slow 2pc speed. I make fleets with a speed of 10 and fast tansports. My fleet and transports go right past the defending fleet and take the planets from behind them. I've taken over serveral AI's on the highest difficulty with this technique and taken all their planets without engaging any of their fleets.

Also add this in for starbases. Make a starbase need to be sieged by an attacking fleet for a turn equal to the level of battle stations. SO a level 1 station, 1 turn. a level 4 - 4 turns.

Again this would be a really simple implementattion. Just when you attack a starbase.. 'do you want to attack this starbase, will take 4 turns' the fleet is then disabled for 4 turns -(unless moved , this cancels the attack) then the attack happens the same combat as before. This prevents starbases from being taken out when fleets are nearby and greatly increases their power.

I found that building FAST cargo ships with 4 x type 4 phasors from the beginning tends to win me the game VERY easily! I have yet to see the dreadlords even use defensive tech yet, they put everything into weapons. Yet another exploit that works wonders... Sod the big hulls, all you need is plasma/phasors/warp drive and you've won! J

Medium hulls have nearly as much space as cargo. Large, more. Especially miniturised. And if you face a dreadlord "Fleet" you're buggered and just wasted a lot of credits for no survivability. Wouldn't try this on the siege mission for sure.

Unless there is a bug though, they are suppose to prepare for any ovious attacks at Intelligent or Higher Difficultiies.

On normal they'll call you an idiot for doing stuff like that. (Although they do mention their general is too stupid to respond)

Maybe its not possible to write a good Sandbox AI with current software. As soon as a game comes out, you always hear about people that find some lame repetitive tactic to win. The trouble with software is that it can't adapt in reality. I guess we have to have the devs acting as nanny to make it adapt via patches.

Still one would have thought that a game with a closed set of rules like, that it would theoreticaly be possible to create a decent Sandbox AI. The idea is cool though, since I'm sick of playing "AI" games like Warcraft 3, where no matter what strat u do, the comp auto counters it....kinda pointless for a strategy game then:P

I think the relationship between territorial borders and influence area is a great deal closer. Remember that as far as the 'interplanetary council' is concerned your influence area and your controlled space are synonymous. For example if they happen to pass the law taxing colonies inside someone elses borders, you will receive a sum for each colony or space station within your influence area, and the same goes for the survey ship law etc etc. The idea that a races planets form the real border is probably a misconception based on sensor range. Just because you are within someones influence area does not mean that they see you, even if you can see them. If they aren't fielding a large number of ships, or haven't researched better sensors, there is a very good chance that they will miss you until one of your ships is near a starbase or planet (which both have large sensor footprints).