Is it me or did they AI got a tad smarter?

*bump*

oh and bt they way, when i tried to edit thepost above, it said i didnt have acess?!

reason can't edit post above is after so time gone by it lock you out of editing it.

It is much harder. The planetary building now is above the "sub normal" building it used to do. This means if you play on masocistic or above it really does pull away in terms of economy and production.

Added to this the AI now seems to want to gang-up on a civ, not necessarily against the player, but the player is not exempt. When it is the player being singled out it really does not leave you much chance now.

As a result I can't beat the game on conquest only- suicidal any more (well not in the 3 attempts I've had). I've beaten it on masochistic but I did have fairly favourable conditions. Has anyone managed a conquest win on suicidal on v 1.2 yet?

It seems a bit smarter to me as well.

Challenging is actually a bit more challenging.. the torians just managed to get half the galaxy on a gigantic map relatively early in the game...

in a word YES!

Jut finished a tough level medium game, though i won the torians and altarians led some interesting attacks on my planets. Unfortunately for them i traded early and got ahold of kanvium which made my ships rather tough to kill, hehe.

Kudos to SD! for great AI

Yours in Plasma,
Star Dagger

Much smarter lately. The best is when you play cat and mouse games with in-coming transports... They actually see my fleets, and run away... LOL

Plantary improvements are way smarter as well. Although I've seen the Arceans seemingly not initialize and just build farms...

Has anyone noticed if the campaign got harder? Because I was playing it on easy and I lost the first mission and the alternate in about 20 minutes each, which didn't happen before I got the patch.

i knew it was smarter! (thought i was getting dumb or something). before beta 1.2 i could easily destroy any civ on challening... was starting to get boring really... but then, i downloaded the pacth and started a new metaverse game and i was like "did the YOR just took 3 of my planets in a single turn? " it went downhill from there. after that tried another game and now it was the drengin?! yay! time to kick some AI butt again

you see when you start winning, you kinda let our guard down, but when you start losing you begin to develop new tactics.

great job stardock!

I am impressed too. I lost my first game of GC last night. The Altarians came at me with huge fleets with superior weapons and kicked my butt. I think the Yor were even stronger! I might have to step back down to Painful for a while until I get a handle on how to handle the new AI.

Great job Stardock!!!!!

*bows to Lord Mark*

yep, definitely smarter. its actually building useful buildings on its planets now, instead of endless embassies/entertainment, which gives it the equivalent of a few 100% manufacturing and research bonuses over 1.11

I definitely got a nasty shock on my first game with 1.2 - i can still feel the pain...

Mark

Yes, it's smarter. I don't know what kind of tweaks they did, but it made a HUGE difference. The AI is no longer the pushover it was, even in v1.1. Great job, Stardock, you guys really outdid yourselves with this one!

The AI is a lot smarter. I have still seen a few quirks, like being a few years into a game and the Drath have yet to build any ships with weapons.

I still haven't lost at Tough difficulty yet, but I definately can't move up a step to where the AI gets bonuses.

the only difference that i have really noticed is that the AI sets up its planets MUCH MUCH better .... and that brings with it many obvious advantages

Nooooooooooooo ...
The Arceans and two minor races just wiped me off the map !!!!
Please, please StarDock ...
DO NOT make the AI any smarter .... it is killing me !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nooooooooooooo ... The Arceans and two minor races just wiped me off the map !!!! Please, please StarDock ... DO NOT make the AI any smarter .... it is killing me !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lol

Oh yeah, its harder. The Torian Confedeation keeps wiping the floor wiv me before ive got any decent ships

Heh. Just got creamed.

Let my guard down for a couple of turns, and there were the Drengan with fleets of 60 power beam weapons attacking three different systems at the same time.

Heh.

Might have to tone down the difficulty for a game or two until I figure out how to work with the new AI.

Good job Stardock!

I'll add my praise. The AI in my current game (they're on "Intelligent") is much better. They're doing all kinds of complex political maneuvering. Right now, it's my Thalan-Dratha alliance against the Arcean-Iconian-Torian axis and the Arcean-Drengin-Korx compact. Fun times.

smarter.. I like it....

While I'm not quite sure what part of the improvement I've seen is from moving up a difficulty (normal to challenging) and what part is from the patch, I've noticed the ai has suddenly gotten incredibly effective in the colony race. I abandoned the first game I tried as I was taken by surprise at how fast the ai develops. In my second game I was lucky enougth to start in a corner that only two ai's were close enougth to stand a chance at stealing planets from, so I colonized ok. Haven't gotten far enougth to see what else the ai has improved at yet, although the galaxy as a whole seems to have been colonized at an alarming rate.

So far though I have to say good work.

I would like to know what, exactly, was improved (notplayed 1.2 yet..)

So far, we have heard:

- Better Planetary management
- Transports have evasive tactics (finally!)

It's a bit more aggressive, yeah. Like xpyre said, it tends to gang up on you from all sides like a pack of hungry piranhas. Luckily, I picked some really strong military bonuses with my lovable little Yor before going on my military crusade on my first game on challenging with the 1.2 patch. Needless to say, they were begging for mercy before I finished mopping them up one by one, dragging and screaming

A couple more:
Faster ship redesign
Faster ships
Gifting ships to me that I can actually use!

That said, I am in the mop up stages of what seems like a relatively easy no-doubt win. I have gotten better too . One thing I have learned is that I can buy peace if I offer a planet. This is a good technique when fighting multiple opponents with lots of ships. Getting a powerful AI ally, means all their better play swings to your side. Whammo.

1. Definitely better planet management-- though I still find the AI ignoring bonus tiles, setting up a technological capital on a planet with no research tiles, installing 4 farms on a planet with only 6 usable tiles. I still have to tweak most conquered planets.
2. Faster on the AI colonization. I spot colony ships in my space much sooner. I don't always get there first.
3. Harder to get an Influence victory. I had to go for a Tech victory as they were resisting and I was getting bored.

I just did my first masochistic game (which was in 1.2) and the AI is pretty impressive. I barely won thanks to some strategic alliances and lots of micro management. I almost lost to someone getting a technology victory! I had to take out that race fast and thankfully others joined me.