alco75

Join Date 03/2006

AI builds defenders with no weapons or defense

Version: 1.2
Mode: Campaign (only just got around to playing it)
Missions: 1 and 2
AI: Drengin
Level: Tough (Intelligent)
PC: irrelevent as is not a hardware/crash/performance problem

On both the first and second missions, the Drengin AI was building defenders with no weapons and no shields. Not just once, but turn after turn after turn. There were no military starbases in the area of effect either.

All I had to do to beat the two missions (and this is on Tough!) was surround the planets with Beam=1 fighters and each turn, blow up the useless AI defenders. Wait until Planetary Invasion, rinse and repeat.

Anyone else experience the same thing?
Anything that can be done about it?

It's not exactly making the campaign much fun.

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Sorry, man, lots of us have complained about that before. The good part is after about the third or fourth mission you get larger maps and they aren't so vulnerable to this before.

The final mission in the campaign also plays like it was never playtested after the AI was complete. Just warning you.

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This also happens in sandbox mode.

My speculation is that the AI builds "empty hulls" (no weapons/defense) early on as an intentional strategy so that once it researches the weapons techs it can simply spend money for upgrading and have an instant, effective fleet rather than having to build from scratch.

Not the smartest strategy perhaps, but a strategy nonetheless.

Pre-v1.2 this seemed prevalent to me because of the once-a-year ship design the AI did. With v1.2 the AI can design ships more frequently (from what I've been told with the "Enhanced CPU-intensive AI algorithms" active). So I've seen less of this in v1.2 sandbox mode.

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The reasoning behind it is that at least there is "something" there in orbit so you can't swoop in with an unarmed troopship and capture the planet without a fight. But the AI still does it far more than neccessary.

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Exactly. I do it myself.

But unlike the AI my defenders stay unarmed throughout the game...an unarmed hull has no maintenance cost.

Also, if you make a beeline for Eyes of the Universe like I always do, you can use them later on to keep an eye on things.

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OMG exactly the same thing happen to me and it was F***ing anoying!!!!!!!1

Same settings, v1.2, mission 1 and 2 on tough.
OMG for 6 years the AI built defensless "defenders"

, I just built 2 or 3 ataking small ships with 1 atck BEAM, and just kept destroying all their defenders and military, and mining starbases. This is so stupid to me since they couldve built MUCH MORE ADVANCED ships than I could. They always had 1 or 2 more advanced beam weapon technology cuz I was just taking it easy and sitting back and geting bored

It wasnt until the year 2227 when they developed Medium Scale building that they started doing Frigates with 19 atck beams damge. By then they had phasers 3 and I just kept on stealing everything they developd and kept reaserching separate technologies. This also brings another question, why didnt they upgrade their starbeses, if they had done that, it wouldve been A LOT more dificult fot me to win!! they had 2 military resources but I just kept on destroying everything they made, everytime I destroyed 1 they made another1 insted of reinforcing1 with 8/1/1 atck I wouldve been in trouble. LoL I finally ended the damn mission cuz it was soooo boring. I expected the campaign to be VERYYYY hard, cuz it was hard on GalCiv1. Guess the AI need help from you guyz, make them build good defenders when they have weapons, even if the weapons they have suck ass. Im going to start mission 3 now, I better get a good "challenge" this time, but I doubt it since the altarians are said to be helping so theyll keep em busy I guess for a while.

Monc34

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This seems to happen a lot to me since I read a post about this same topic. I used esponaige and looked at the conversation screen, and I found out that everytime the AI does this they haven't researched any weapon tech, I think they are just supposed to build defenders even if they don't have weapons. Also everytime this has happened I was playing on tough or above.

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Im going to start mission 3 now, I better get a good "challenge" this time, but I doubt it since the altarians are said to be helping so theyll keep em busy I guess for a while.

Just get past mission 3 and your gonna start facing the dread lords, that's when you get a challenge. They got fighters that do 250 or more damage, and soldering of like 2000. But unfortunatly they don't use no dang defenses.

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and I found out that everytime the AI does this they haven't researched any weapon tech, I think they are just supposed to build defenders even if they don't have weapons.

I understand what you are saying, but by mission 2 they alrdy started with better weapon's tech than I do, and I started with laser 3, all I had to do was research laser 5 and start pounding their asses, while they stood there looking, "Lord Kona, 2 Bogies have appeared on our radars, what shoudle we do", kona= send our unarmed ships to intercept, o wait, WHAT?, unarmed??... a strong sound came in through the ecom, BOOOOOOMM. " Sorry sir our whole fleet is gone, wonder why???..."

that was for a whole 6 years on and on and on, and at the begining they really got ahead on weapons tech and defenses, but still nothing. maybe kona was taking a nap or something like hitler did on d-day and couldnt give the order, for 6 YEARS LOL

Guess he shoudlnt have had that strong vodka the day be4

Monc34

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I understand what you are saying, but by mission 2 they alrdy started with better weapon's tech than I do

What I was talking about was regular games not the campaign, sorry for the confusion.

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Blah.

Got around to trying the campaign and sure enough, defenders with tons of shields and no weapons. Of course the Drengin has nice weapon techs!

In fact in the 2nd or 3rd mission they summarily wiped me out because I got careless, didn't expect to see 4 beam attack frigates taking out my fleets.. And in the next mission they sit there building those stupid 0-attack defenders that have 30 beam defence or something.

I play on Painful with 1.3X beta..

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Well after mission 3 youll get the dreadlords, so it isnt as easy as mission 1and 2, still beatable and enjoyable, but a little harder.

Im playing 1.2 on tough, and Im ending "Salvation", I think it is level 7, dunno for sure, but since I started playin the campaign, I havent lost 1 time. At the middle of salvation I really thought for a couple months ingame that I wasnt going to win, but then the dreadlords decided to stop ataking my starbases and went to the drengin and that bought me some time, and here I am, I crushed the Yor LONG AGO, infact the first I killed so I could reach the Drengins Planets, and the drengin have 6 planets, and I have 5, 1 of them in range of their core worlds, just taking it easy now. I plan to get 2 drengin planets, then kill the damn dreadlords that have 26+ shields so my ships cant even penetrate them, and even if they do, it only does 2-5 damage, the got 22HP, and 250+ atack, so Ill build a LOT of dreadlord killing fleets, and wipe them out of the starmap. After that, maybe take Uthon, but that would be an easy way out, so ill conquer the last planets, and maybe theyll surrender.

Monc34

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just wait for the DA campaign... that will be something..

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BTW:
Got those pesky dreadlords, built 1 fleet of 4 dreadlord killers, with 3 AERON missle defense, and 5 nanno rippers, sneaked atack the planet when they went out to kill my newly built starbases, but I had built 8 starbases with military resources so it took them a while to reach them(its a gigantic galaxy mission), meanwhile they left the only planet they had with 1 really tough defender, but I got him with his pants down, and good for me I brought 4 transport with 1 trillion troops (1000million), and I conquered those assholes. WOHOO

Now Im just fooling around with the last drengin, Now ill get 10 transports and conquer the drengin in 1 turn, not even going to give them time surrender.

Monc34

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In the last mission of the campaign now.. You only really go against the dreadlords in the last 2 missions, so up to that point the campaign is worthless. Even when DR first shows up, capturing the Drengin planet you're supposed to take is so easy they never have time to do much.

All you have to do is to research soldiering tech until you can counter drengin 40% soldiering advantage and you're set.

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I experienced this AI-Defenders-with-no-weapons thing last night with a non-campaign game (Tough level). OK, so the argument of keeping something in orbit to prevent transports landing is fine I guess, but there is no reason for the AI to start building Defenders with defenses and no guns! That is just a waste of money, since a ship with 0 weapons but with defense points is still completely vulnerable. I experienced this in my game where the Drath starting building Defenders with no weapons but did have point defense. The other AI races noticed this too, because the race building garbage defenders had 4 other races declare war on them.

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Especially when they DO have weapon techs alrdy researched...
If they put just 1 weapon, and use all other space for defnses, they could have a fightin chance, that is if they have the Fleet Manager. The first 2 campaign missions couldve lasted like 5 more additional ingame-years if they wouldve done it that way.

Also, i just finished that Escape mission on "TOUGH", then I thought the last mission was going to be difficult too, but what I did was decommision all fightin ships, let the survey ship in auto servey, and research all the Soldering techs, and just send a bunch of transport to the dread lord planet. They didnt even build 1 ship, not even to defend their planet. I build so many transports in like 2-4 turns, that It looked like a caravan of ships going to conquer them, but you know what??, all those ships I built didnt get used, cuz 1 transport full of 1000 Billion troops was enough to conquer it. That mission didnt even last 20 months, in fact it was 19 months, by July of 2226 The DLs were conquered. I guess No1 tested this mission

Monc34

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Hey, How can I see the Campaign movies again????

Any1 know??

Monc34

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I havent seen this one yet, Atm I have rather the opposite problem, right now the Drengrin's Heavy fighters and Frigate class ships are easily destroying squadrons of my Top-of the Line Dreadnaughts, 125+ Weapons 30-40 on all 3 defences. There ships use Black-Hole Eruptors(of course). My equivalent to there frigate is the Flanker-X, which is weapons in the 80ish range 20 to all 3 defences, they are usually to first to go, and my dreads might last a little longer, There dreadnaughts seem to be able to destroy whole units of mine single-handed(sometimes), typical mix(mine) might be 1-2 dreads 1 large and sometimes a few mediums, My Units are not doing well,when I outnumber them. Were both at max tech.

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Maybe you just havent played the first 2 missions of the campaign??

And it also happens at the begining of every game, is just that when the AI gets enough planets, the money will start raking in, and theyll get medium hulls, and then the problem ends.

Monc34

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