Does the Terran AI ever do well?

Never seen the humans do that well but I play huge maps. Only time they amount to anything is if another AI surrenders to them and they usually botch that as well. For how the AI is writen, I think the Terran was redone a bit last patch but as far as which are similar I have no idea.

yeah the humans are there own ai and is shared with some varitions with one or two other races and you can see a correllation between the races that do bad most of the time and those that use the human derived ai

The Yor have upgraded versions of both the factory, and economy buildings. These advanced structures causes several problems for the Yor early in the game. The first is, they take longer to build, and thus, they will continue to consume resources until they are finished. The second is, the factory structure has an upkeep cost 1 higher than the basic factory, so this consumes extra BCs, thus slowing the economy down. The third is, these resources could be better spent on other things, like building ships for expansion.

I hope my insight has been useful.

The Yor are typically behind the curve in the early game. It's not often that they get rolling, but if they do they can be an absolute nightmare--their extra racial bonuses allow them to build heavy-duty ships and make very effective use of even a few worlds. If they take out a neighbor and get any real size they can become a very serious threat.

The Terran, on the other hand, are somewhat improved, but not quite there yet. Certain AIs just seem to work better, such as the Altarians and Torians, who are consistently strong competitors.

The Terran in my opinion could become a serious economic and research monster. Just last game they declared war on me while having 1/2 my strenght and were able to seriuosly hurt my economy because of trading, and in my weakened state the balance of powers shifted and 2 other races attacked me. I was in a three way war that i couldnt stop because the terrans were now safe behind my enemies lines and kept supplying them with powerful ships and new techs. It was quite annoying i have to say.

I've been playing as the Yor lately and I really dig their starting techs and free bonuses so no complaints about them. The Terrans never seem to do well in my games either. They're usually the first to end-up as cannon fodder. It seems the good races are the ones that consistently do well in the game. I finally have a game where the Korx and Drengin are dominating the galaxy, but only after many-many games where they were the first to fall. I've been pulling out one of the good races (Torian or Iconian) because the "good gang" seems to always win with all present and accounted for. I suppose that's what makes playing "good" alignment such a benefit.

You guys seem to have different experiences from me. The Terrans used to be utterly pathetic in my games, but since the V1.3 patch they have done really well. They were the dominant race in my last game. The Yor and the Drengin have done well in my games ever since I moved up to Challenging difficulty, and seem to get better against the other players with each step up in difficulty. I've started going Neutral lately because the Good races often get wiped out.

Im going to star off by saying that I started playing GalCiv2 the day it came out at normal difficulty and on small to large maps. After a while of figuring out what are the best strategies for winning on those maps and getting an idea of what to build and research and in what order, then I jumped to tough. I was delighted to know the computer then took preemtive action when more than 2-4 transports are close or within their borders.

I started a game around the first week of september that was my first GIGANTIC Galaxy game ever, since I never wanted to play for a long time, but then I thought to myself, no matter Ill beat it whithin a week, boy was I wrong...   

That game I also made it my first to be played at a higher difficulty than tough, I jumped painful directly to Crippling. So there I was sitting in front of my computer thinking to myself, man Im going to loose this game for SURE, and Ill never play crippling or painful diffiulties ever again, but a month later, Im still playing that game(cuz I dont play everyday, you know...   , its 1.31 if any1 is curious).

Just to clarify, that game Im still playin is a Gigantic Galaxy, Crippling, abundant all, stars, planets, habitable planets, anomalies,it is a loose galaxy, with slow research. I had the all races in except for Iconians, since 1 race cant play, and Im a cutom race. There are 5 minor races from the begining, Jessuians, Carinoids, Scottlingas, Dark Yor, and Snathy.


Now the reason a play loose or scattered is cuz of defence, culturally and militarily, and there tends to be more habitable planets the farther from each other they are.

The point Im trying to make in all of this is so you can understand not everytime each race turns out to be in a better position to win cuz of random aspects of the game, I know the AI is very important also but Ive played many games, and at some point every1 of them have won.

In this game Im playin there were 3 powerfull races since the begining, but before I get to that Ill show you a picture telling you where each races starting point is.





As you can see, that is what the game looked like not more than 50-60 turns after the start of the game. Following the white arrow wich means that is North, then I can now tell you the drath are top left, arcean and korx at middle top, altarian covering a frakking lot of sectors with top right and middle right, yor in middle-middle, thalan covering middle left and bottom left, TERRAN covering part of bottom left and bottom middle, me covering a small area of bottom middle, Torian covering part of top right middle right bottom right, and drengin covering the entire area of bottom right.

Now, you can understand the terran are VERY powerful in this game, with a lot of leverage over my decisions, they are second place, torian are first place, and altarian third place. I in the other hand spent most of the early stage of the game as 7th place. I dont know if the computer has ANY bonuses at all in this difficulty, but they must have some bonus either economycally or manufacturing-wirse, cuz they had a LOT, and I mean a LOT of frakking colony ships. Each race ended with an avarage of 40-55 planets, except the Torians wich had 66, and the drath that had less than 30, and I had 27.

Now I knew that if I was going to win I need technoligiesm, militarily, economicaly and manufacturing-wise to kick their arses. So I started trading my ass off on every frakking corner of the galaxy trading every technology I could for good techs. After a while of doing most social development, cuz I knew if I wasted time with military I would just loose to the more popwerful races. I chose to go chaotic evil to ally myself witht he drengin wich have powerful weapon techs far sooner than any1 else. But this backfired cuz my neighboring races where mostly good races, well in fact it was a tie, 2 evil and 2 good naighboring races. So I had to make a choice, and after punishing all those ppl on my newly colonized planets, I reaserched the very important ethics tech, and went neutral. This bought me some time, but eventually the Torians were mad with me alrdy so they declared war, and I though to myself , oh shiiiit, Im dead, but for some stroke of luck, they had all their fleets at the other side of the galaxy with movement points of 6 and a few with 8. They were naive and stupid enough to leave the border planets undefended, so I gathered an army, and took 10 of their border worlds, and some very important techs, cuz by this point I had spies among all races(essential to win techs), and lots and lots of transports. But once the transports I had were used, (transports were of 500 troops each, so it took many tranports to get the 10 planets) I was undefended with no fleets at ALL, and their fleets were aproching, not that it would matter since my planets were undefended alrdy, so they took 7 of their worlds back. I was desperate, so I decided a compromise is in orther for me to survive, so I gave them most of my money, less than 8,000 anyways, 4 of my very unusable 5 class planets, and a few techs. A miracle happened cuz they agreed, this couldve been cuz they declared war on the drengin wich took many of their fleets to dust, cuz the drengin have a powefurl fleets of their own. That gave me a lot of time to do social work and I built a powerfull but not that expensive defender prototype class, and built about 30 of them to defend my empire and have a couple of fleets.

After a while of the torians trying to conquer planets from the drendin, wich at first succeded but then failed cuz they retook them, I rebuilt my economy and prepared for an invasion of the yor, but I didnt get my wish cuz they probably noticed I was very weak militarily and didnt give me a chane and declared war first. Bu then another electronic miracle happened, cuz they declared war 3 weeks BEFORE the UP meeting taking place, they conquered 2 of my border worlds, and then BOOM the UP meeting came, for some reason they decided to vote if the races would like to have a GALACITC wide cease for for all wars, most voted yes, the yor and torian voted no, but their votes didnt help cuz it passed, and that gave me enough time to rebuild my military. Actually a bug happened in this turn, cuz a yor transport was still headed to a border planet of mine and it TOOK IT !!!!!

But nevermind that planet I had enough money to accelerate my social works, and I built a lot of powerfull fleets with a few tech I traded with the drengin cuz they were friendly toward me, probably cuz they had a few trade routes with me and I was evil once   . So I declared war with the yor, and destroyed their resource starbases, and took most of their fleets by surprise and I had the upperhand, I retook my border worlds and I took 25 more planets, wich gave me a much needed diversity in shields for defence against terrans, and mass driver techs I needed if I was ever to invade the terrans later on. Then the torians and the altarians declared war on the Yor, LOL!!!! But it was to late for them, I had taken my rewards and they surrendedred their other 20 planets to the altarians. But in the midst of all this actions, my transports mustve gotten TOO close for confort to the terran border cuz they declared war on me!!! Another miracle happened, wheew!!!

All of the sudden the thalans became CLOSE!!!!! I OBVIOUSLY became allied with them, and they took care of the terran's VERY POWERFULL MILITARY, and Im talking POWERFULL, 600 atack and 300 defense fleets, and many of them, when I only had a fleet only close to 120atck and 100 defense.

So they bought me like 50 turns or so, and this is about middle 2228, I had agents steal master Hulls and I rushed to research huge hulls, and THAT was a great thing, cuz I started pumping out 90 atck and 120 defense ships, and when put together they had about 400 atack and 200 defense, then I just researched logistics, and powned the terrans fleets, but then the FRAKKING torians atck me AGAIN, so I gave the terrans a peace proposal but they refused , so I gave them incentives    , 3 of my 5 class planets, plus a couple techs and 7,000 credits. Then I took care of the torians fleets with my huge hulls, then the drengings surrendered to me after I gave them a lot of money, ships and techs to help them, guess a friendship with the evil me was getting the better of them   .


I took care of the torians, and after taking many many planets, I gave them peace so as not to allow them to surrened to any1 since all victory conditions are off, and I con only win militaryly, and also for metaverse score you know    


The thalans made the terans weak, but cuz I wasnt fightin they gave them peace. by then the snathy and dark yor were gone, conquered by the torians, and the jessuians had a miracle of their own, they stole ALL the Torian's techs, so I bought most of them, and the scottlingas did the same later on, and I bought more techs then. The funny thing is the event was saying to me they wanted the techs for planets, but I had enough money to convince them otherwise.  


By then I had about 70 planets, but the torians still had more than I did, they had about 90 planets by then, the terrans had about 55, the thalans also were in that range, the altarians were begining to get powerful, with about 89 planets, the rest had about 40-50, bu the drath were lucky and unlucky at the same time, they were on a far off corner so NO1 could conquer them cuz of range, but that was their curse also, cuz they only had about 20-30 planets.


Later on in the game the torians and altarians became close and had an alliance, this is about 2230, a little later the korx completed the first triple way alliance I had ever seen since I bought the game. Then the drath were so far off from every1 they got lucky again, maybe cuz they didnt have any borders with the big powers that they got close with them, completing a four way aliance of good and neutral guyz, but no1 wanted to invade me, cuz by then I was very strong also, and the thalans are first by then so no1 wants a war with them neither.

Until the times of the GREAT GALACTIC WAR came >=]

It began with me allying with the 3 minor races left. The terran decided it was justified to keep their empire pure, so they invaded the jessuians, wich triggered a domino effect, cuz the thalans for some other reason invaded the torians, wich were allied to the korx, drath, and altarians. That made the 3 minor races declare war with the big powers, wich in turn all other Axis side(korx, altarians, drath and torians) declared war with me, wich in turn declared war with the thalans, the lucky guyz here are the arceans, their the only 1 not allied with anybody, but Im tryin now to get them close to turn them to my side, by now the torians are nothing more but a dull empire only great in memories past, less than 40 planets remain on their side, the altarians a once truly proud race, are now less then 30 planets, the terrans remain only cuz of my mercy of letting them live, they ramain with less than 25 planets, the drath have made peace and come back to fighting many many times, but they have less than 20 planets by now. Now, the once dull, manipulated, laughed at, coerced, and treated like less than shiiit "animals" are on the verge of galactic conquest and assimilation, the Sqeot' Lantanya' Yak remains SUPREME with over 190 planets on its side, is on the verge of a new era of enslavement through manipulation, and ultimately control of all once major homworlds.


BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

      



Monc34 is back

You guyz can see from this picture that they really got owned.      





Monc34  

I started a game around the first week of september that was my first GIGANTIC Galaxy game ever, since I never wanted to play for a long time, but then I thought to myself, no matter Ill beat it whithin a week, boy was I wrong...

Good story, thanks for the write up.

I play gigantic suicidal abundant all games pretty much exclusivly. They usually take me three to four weeks per game. In pretty much every game by the end of the colony rush I'm absolutely last in everything. Most times I really don't see that I have a snowball's chance in hell of winning the game. But if you hang in there, grab what you can when the opportunity arises, struggle and delay your opponent when he's kicking your butt, run away to conserve your fleets for a better opportunity, eventually something happens that gives you the break you need and you begin to gain the advantage. There's nothing quite as fun or exciting as winning a game that you thought was a lost cause.

But back to the OP's original question. Yes, on average the Terrans tend to be weaker than most but I have seen them become quite powerful. In my current game they're the research powerhouse and have the largest military but they haven't become aggressive so I'm content to let sleeping dogs lie, particularly because I'm simultaneously at war with the Korx and the Iconians, each of which have more planets than I do.

Monc34, a question.

I see you have all three weapon types on your ship. How does this work when attacking? Do you get all three types firing at the same time each volley? If so do you get the sum of the different attack types all on one target or do you get to target a different ship with each different weapon type?

I haven't tried this in quite a while but IIRC only one of the weapons types would fire in any one round and the weapon types would alternate from one round to the next. If so, it's probably a waste to bother with the low attack value mass driver.

I haven't tried this in quite a while but IIRC only one of the weapons types would fire in any one round and the weapon types would alternate from one round to the next.

AFAIK, the animations cycle through from round to round, but all weapons do fire every round. Do bear in mind though that each type is a separate roll against the enemy defenses, then all rolls for that ship are combined into one line in the viewer (it should light up the icons for the types involved in each volley).

each type is a separate roll against the enemy defenses, then all rolls for that ship are combined into one

Then this should be advantageous because more rolls would tend to average out and avoid the especially unlucky (and especially lucky) round. Also this would be useful against multiple opponents since one may have one defense and the other a different defense but neither have both.

I've tended to, and I think this is what most people do, build ships with as much attack value of one type as possible. It's overkill if they have no defense for your weapon, but you can usually overwhelm someone even if they have good defense for your weapon.

it should light up the icons for the types involved in each volley

This is what I recall not happening (I could easily be wrong). I remember only one weapon type icon lighting each round and cycling the next round. This is what made me think that only one type of weapon fired each round, which in turn is what caused me to give up multiple weapon types in favor of concetration in a single weapon. I'll verify this later tonight.

I've tried going both ways on the weapons and ships seem to do better for me when they have everything put into one weapon type, especially when the selection is based on some intelligence. Often, I'll stockpile cash so I can "switch guns" just before going into battle. Seems to give me an advantage.

ships seem to do better for me when they have everything put into one weapon type, especially when the selection is based on some intelligence

Clearly, having all weapons in a category for which your opponent has no defense is best. But in v1.31 I'm seeing more AI ships using multipile defenses than I did in v1.2. I'm also seeing less duplication of weapons types by different AI's in v1.31. I had a number of v1.2 games where the only weapon I faced the whole game from 6 different opponents were missiles. Not so in v1.31.

I'll stockpile cash so I can "switch guns" just before going into battle.

I do this as well, however, if you keep over 20K in your Treasury your income goes down 20% to 30%. That's a pretty big hit.

All in all, there's nothing really wrong with concentrating in one weapon. After all an attack 600 ship does pretty good against a defense 300 ship. But if you split this up into 200 in each category, I'd like the one (or two) categories of 200 vs 0 better than a single 600 vs 300 category.

Actually, we're getting far from the OP's topic here. I want to check out whether or not multiple weapon icons light up during the same round. I'll open up a new post about multiple vs single weapons type ships with the results. Or if someone else wants to open one up I'll respond there with what I find out.

[edit]
kryo may be able to split the posts about single vs. multiple weapons types off into a new thread. If so then we could keep the train of thought that started this. If not, no big deal.
[/edit]

kryo may be able to split the posts about single vs. multiple weapons types off into a new thread. If so then we could keep the train of thought that started this. If not, no big deal.

Nope, can't split/merge threads (wish we could).

All my terran Own

Actually, we're getting far from the OP's topic here.

Damn threadjackers:p

Still, nice to see some people are seeing the Terrans performing well, I'll keep including them in my games and see what happens.

I've seen the Yor become a nightmare, but since I play Terrans, I couldn't tell you how they do.