Does this count as a bug? I just destroyed 57 ships without a scratch

You are fortunate not to have fallen into their trap.

may want to have more details, of course though, if you had numbers on your side thats possible.

There has been talk that the AI will sometimes not initialize properly, this seems to be one of the cases. Had they expanded to many other planets?

No, the problem is that the AI's only design new ships ONCE a year, so if you bull rush them early, all you have to fight is defender class ships.

One year between ship upgrades may be sufficient for mid to late game, but early, on a small map, it makes even high difficulty levels easier.

I believe this is supposed be changed in 1.2, so that the AI design ships more often.

Cheers,
Reaver

No, the problem is that the AI's only design new ships ONCE a year, so if you bull rush them early, all you have to fight is defender class ships. One year between ship upgrades may be sufficient for mid to late game, but early, on a small map, it makes even high difficulty levels easier. I believe this is supposed be changed in 1.2, so that the AI design ships more often. Cheers, Reaver

That's odd, it's been my experience that Smaller maps make it harder. I find Larger maps make the AI easier to deal with even at really high difficulty. To each his own tho.

One year between ship upgrades may be sufficient for mid to late game, but early, on a small map, it makes even high difficulty levels easier.

That's odd, it's been my experience that Smaller maps make it harder. I find Larger maps make the AI easier to deal with even at really high difficulty. To each his own tho.

Well, both points are true. Smaller maps give the AI it's advantage over the player with its number crunching ability, but one ship a year really hurts them. Whereas large maps means that the ship thing isn't as much an issue early on, because it's harder to rush, but you can use tactics like "turtling" that the AI can't.

I personally prefer larger maps, for the same reason Damium does. They're easier to deal with, but the new AI makes small rushing too tempting anyway.

Surely the number crunching thing is more important when there are tons of planets? Since for a small empire, the human can micromanage every planet, but on Huge/Abundant you'd get pretty bored if you tried doing that for all planets. The computer doesn't get bored, so can micromanage on any map.

True, but this advantage is negated by human tactics. The computer doesn't know how to turtle up ships and planets and secure itself the way a human can. Plus the much lamented-about "declaration of war". The AI plays it's best game medium maps.

If you go into a battle with a large amount of ships against very few you might be able to beat them with out a shot fired back so this is what I Suggest either smaller fleets don't exaltly know why anyone would do this or two wait for 1.2 to come out with the upgrade for simultaneous fire of defense and attack ships.

The point is that defender doesn't have a weapon. But they had weapon technology and simply never built ships with it. The one year thing explains the problem -- that's way too long before building new ships! They should do it every time they get a new weapon/armor technology.

-- hintikka

The point is that defender doesn't have a weapon. But they had weapon technology and simply never built ships with it. The one year thing explains the problem -- that's way too long before building new ships! They should do it every time they get a new weapon/armor technology.

Only on slow tech. Every tech is a pain. The timing is designed so you can tell how old a ship is. IE if you're in your fourth year and you find youself facing a "Drengin defender m IV 14374" it means it's a Drengin made ship, designed for defending planets, built in the fourth year of the game. This allows you to keep track of the latest model, so you know what to design against.