Let me know how that plays out for you.  I'm assuming you have the Tech rate and game rate at normal?  I tend to play both of them at very slow which would indicate why I'm only about half way through the tech tree at turn 290.  Good luck at squishing the Drengin

Exactly why I asked the question of why he was only playing against synthetic races.

I don't consider it an exploit at all. I do it. I was going to have the AI start doing it as well.

Well said.  I am ok with the 3 constructor exploit and sensor buoys too. I use them and can't win on the highest difficulty.  Should be easy for someone to prove how awesome they are, bad the AI is.

That's really not an exploit? haha seems a little OP then! compared to it's benevolent equivalent.

But in all seriousness - do it! Start another thread, specify the exact map settings and rules, and see if anybody can do it. 

I'll give it a go! Got nothing else to do this weekend

that "100 planets in 40 turns" thing wouldn't be possible if the "colonizer" trait couldn't be used to rush a free shipyard. the 100 planet empire would also crumble pretty quickly without the "patriotic" trait. and planets with 1-2 B pop aren't terribly effective unless you use the thalan tech tree (hives). so i guess it has nothing at all to do with good/bad AI - just a custom faction that utilizes a combination of somewhat overpowered effects.

Awesome can't wait

I guess that's why my lost games aren't showing up. Maybe I should play them to conclusion rather than quitting when I know I've been beaten.  I lost several games, some early on with "beginner" selected.  The only ones that show up are the wins.  Makes it look like I'm better than I am.

So far, suicidal has been a real good challenge and I might have to dial it back a bit.  I've lost 4 games so far and am working on losing a 5th. :) 

That's 100%. The AI is doing fine IMO.

The AI with a ton of buffs is doing fine, yes. It's not exactly doing an outstanding job on a level playing field though. Functional, but not hugely cunning - I'm looking forward to Froggy teaching it a few tricks like the constructor-to-colonizer one.

Tech trade? 

Pirates? 

I haven't used any of these exploits: sensor buoys, 3 constructor exploit, carrier spam, but since devs are saying they are not exploits, then I suppose it is OK to use them

Eat some lead paint

Quoting Frogboy, reply 12

What's your Metaverse URL? I'd love to see some evidence.

How do you get a Metaverse URL? 

Oh I beat the GODLIKE AI by just staring at the game with my Clint Eastwood glare. I don't even have to touch the keyboard or mouse because I'm that bad ass.

I would like to know your settings. Maybe do a stream. We would all be interested in seeing your abilities.

I heard Chuck Norris plays GalCiv3...

Only on insane maps, with 99 godlike AIs and he finds it too easy. This is while taking down ISIS/ISIL and cleaning up various street gangs. Oh, he plays GalCiv3 on a Microsoft Pro, the original. The extra power of the Pro 3 makes it too easy as well.

In GalCiv II threads like this happened all the time.

And you'd finally get the person who did this to post their save game and it was the same story. They created a bunch of crippled custom races to play against and play as a OP'd custom race. Then they'd use some diplomacy exploit that was incredibly tedious to use (i.e. where they figured out they could get a trade of 1 to 1.001 and repeat infinitely).

In Fallen Enchantress, we had a player who bragged how "stupid" the AI was and what they had figured out is that they could design a unit that moved slightly faster than the enemy and thus, over the course of an hour, could win any battle by endlessly kiting.

When making the AI, there is a certain amount of "theater" involved.  We've talked about this theater for the last 20 years on this series and usually it ends with someone asking "Please give me a gaem setup option where the AI plays as bastardly as possible).  The problem is that it's a non-starter because the time it would take to write that bastard AI I could have made the AI a lot smarter in a way that most people would notice.

No one is winning on Godlike unless they're exploiting the system massively. And we're not inclined to cripple the game for the literal 99.3% of the population to get around that.  

Right now, the AI's biggest issues involve:

1. It doesn't use its planets nearly well enough
2. It "sees" too much (working on this for 1.1, I absolutely hate the crippled FOW it has -- anyone who thinks it's an advantage that the AI can see the whole map is not thinking like a programmer, it's a huge pain)
3. It currently does not have enough local strategic understanding.  That is, it's a good global planner but it's not a good local planner.

These are all things that just take time to do. Practice and gathering more data from actual players. Same as GalCiv I and GalCiv II.

Not yet, but I'm trying. Vanilla race against vanilla races with no exploits.  Although I think that's my ass on the platter coming this way again.

That's what makes this such a great game.  The AI will continue to improve based on our own experiences.  :) 

Tbh, I found that I could win really easily just by pressing ` and typing Colonize All. Frankly, I think this is too easy and should either be removed or the AI should be allowed to do it too.

All Custom Races I put into my game I make sure they are using all their potential with different advantages and weaknesses.  I make sure they are races I myself might choose to play with (even if I don't really want to).  No fun to make them push overs.  In fact most if not all my custom races are kicking the @$$ of the Chosen Races included in the game.

He provided his metaverse name/steam name in another thread. He isnt listed on the metaverse and doesnt have a single victory achievement.

https://forums.galciv3.com/466851/

I have to say tho, after winning a few times on tough, moving on to suicidal is quite the jump in difficulty, never got owned so fast :/ 

Good, it's working. I actually like this game and I'm trying to get as many people to figure out the exploits that I've figured out so Stardock will start fixing it. To answer someone who is asking how to do it:

Map settings: Immense or larger, 10 or so AI. Abundant, abundant, abundant.  Godlike (whatever, doesn't matter).  Don't choose tight clusters.  This worked better btw before they totally nerfed the number of planets and star systems.  But it still works even now with a decent start. 

Custom race: Colonizer and Patriotic (duh).

Put all of your points into useful things like Dense ships or Fast ships or More Military Production or Ship Range, or Fertility. Take points from the useless things like "Resist Planetary Invasion," or "Influence" or "Economy" (who needs that?) or "Tourism" or "trade Roues," or "Faster Ship Repair."

Thalan Tech.

Starting from turn 1, put ALL of your points into military production of colony ships. Rush buy maybe a factory or two on your homeworld.

Get Pragmatic, 3 free constructors and convert into colony ships.

Next 3 ideology points go into Benevolence Free Colony Ship and all the way up to level 3 of that tree. Follow that by getting the Benevolence research tree to level 5.

Every time you colonize a world, Colonizer will give you a free shipyard. Use that shipyard to immediately start producing more colony ships. PRODUCE NOTHING EXCEPT COLONY SHIPS. IF YOU GET LUCKY AND FIND THE HIVES TECH WITH YOUR SURVEY SHIP, RUSH BUY HIVES ON ALL OF YOUR WORLDS UNTIL YOU'RE CLOSE TO RUNNING OUT OF MONEY.  Also:

USE SHIP DESIGNER TO MODIFY YOUR COLONY SHIPS. USE CHEAPER, LESS ENGINE COLONY SHIPS FOR THE WORLDS NEARBY AND LONG RANGE MORE ENGINED COLONY SHIPS FOR THE ONES FAR AWAY. YOU WILL BE EXPLORING WITH YOUR COLONY SHIPS (hence it's a good idea to get sensor bonus as your civilization bonus).  Your colony ships AFTER the first 7 or 8 colony ships should all start with about 0.5 population on each.  

For tech, hope your survey ship finds some for you. Emphasize two types of techs:

1. Hives (the best early game building ever)

2. Better engines.

If you manage to find techs with your survey ship, trade with the AI for the SMALL hulls tech. With the small hulls tech you can build MUCH cheaper colony ships.  Even if you don't find it, you can trade techs with the AI using the resources from the planets you colonized.  Get SMALL hulls tech AND engine techs AND military production techs.  Those are your priority.  Even money is useful for rush buying.  

But the key is that every time you colonize a world, you set that world to produce more colony ships. As a result your growth becomes exponential. 7 colonies by turn 10. 14 by turn 18. 28 by turn 26. 56 by turn 34. 100 by turn 40.

Of course to do that you have to get a little lucky like finding free tech with your survey ship. If you don't get lucky you'll probably end up with 60-70 or so colonies by turn 40.

Also, the AI is dumb, so sell the resources you find on the colonies for useful AI tech like Small-sized Hulls and increased ship range, and production techs.  If you have Hives tech, you can also trade with the AI for money so you can rush buy Hives on your new colonized planets.  

But the crux of the strategy is very simple: You do whatever you think will help you build more colony ships faster.  Everything else is unimportant.  

Sure, whatever.  Try my strat in good faith and see how it works.  If possible, try it BEFORE the 1.02 patch.  But it should still work with the 1.02 patch with loose star clusters, though not as well.  Listed the strat above.  

I got a kick out of this post. Its easy to rush a race with some effort ona  small map, godlike on maybe a tiny. The game as a 1 off vs 1 ai or maybe 2 ai isnt bad. But thats not the function of this game. Your pitted against a ton of ai.  and if they are godlike you will lose on anything larger then small. Why? Because on godlike they know more then you. Unless you use a cheat, or as I refer to them a dev tool. As a starcraft reference you can play 1 on 1/2 quite easily, but the bread and butter is being a cog in a galaxy with many races. Thanks for the chuckle btw

@marigoldran All the devs ask is that you win a game on godlike. 

I for one don't see your strategy working at least, if you neglect military godlike AI makes short work of you. 

Last time i played godlike i had a ton of AI fleets destoying my shipyards by turn 100.