Loving the game so far!
Some random thoughts and comments...
I stumbled onto pretty much the same strategy as CLA Russian's by my third game (all computers bright or better, small galaxy), and it definitely worked. Not sure if it will hold up at the "intelligent" level, and my strategy was a bit different from CLA Russian's, but the result was the same: comfortable wins at the normal and bright levels.
Again, maybe this changes at the intelligent level, but at the bright level and lower the AI opponents don't seem to trade tech aggressively. After surviving the initial expansion in good shape (the AI is awesome in the expansion portion of the game), I switched for a quick while to a research-heavy spending ratio (something like 10-30-60) to give me some quick techs that the AI didn't have. Then I went to the opponents (mostly the good ones) and traded for techs, adding in some extra 50-month leases for supplemental cash (The AIs will pay a lot more in 50-month streams than they will in 1-shot payments.). The minor civs were really a big help here, as they were loaded with cash and often had some pretty good tech early in the game. All the extra trading has the added bonus of giving you solid relationships with the other two good civilizations.
The result is that a short way into the mid-game, you've got most all of the techs that the other players have (I hesitate to trade too much with the Drengil: they scare me), and you've got a significantly larger stream of income than the AI opponents do. You can now pour more money than the AI opponents can into research and domestic building, which serves to compound this lead, as you sell off low techs for cash. I didn't amass the cash that CLA Russian did, and instead gave away a lot of tech to friendly civilizations to build strong relationships, but the result was the same: I never felt threatened because I was just too far ahead of the AI opponents, and the trading had built such solid relationships with two civs that I felt they wouldn’t interfere when I went to war with the other ones one at a time.
Some other thoughts on the “bright” level, which may or may not apply to the “intelligent” level:
1. Computer opponents expanded incredibly well, but they ignored the 13- and 14-point planet systems in the expansion. I gobbled most of these up and immediately set them to soil improvement, and very shortly after that added the habitat improvement upgrade (you can get this tech fast because it’s easy to trade for or research yourself). This left me with a significant advantage in planets by the mid-game, and also had the benefit of allowing me to expand my range into even more distant systems. The result is that you meet more AI opponents, and can trade more with them, etc., to fulfill the above strategy. I find the opening game to be extremely well coded with regards to AI strategy and tactics, and this was the only way I could get a solid advantage in empire size at the beginning of the game.
2. The AI seems to send unguarded clusters of transports on invasion runs. Maybe this changes at the next level up, but it was sure easy to tear apart invasion forces at the bright level. Interestingly enough, the computer AI was very good at destroying these formations too (in the last mop-up war against the Drengil, they fought brilliantly against overwhelming odds by sending fast, nasty frigates into my home sectors to nail transports, etc.). This combination of AI resulted in relatively ineffective invasions by AI opponents both against me and against each other, as most invasion forces seemed to get wiped out before they could invade. There were quite a few wars where a superior civilization didn’t take even one system when fighting a much weaker opponent. Again, I’m guessing that the AI tries to stack support with transports at the full-out AI level?
3. A very minor thing, but the friendly civilizations seemed to have difficulty getting around roadblocks I set up, and furthermore, didn’t seem to get pissed that I had set them up. I used this tactic to prevent a friendly civilization from taking an unguarded minor planet that I didn’t want them to have (it would have made them too strong, and I wanted the planet myself but wouldn’t be able to get there for a while with transports). I could only get four ships in front of their cluster, but I figured that would at least slow them down enough until I could get a fifth ship over there. Movement wise, the four ships should not have been able to stop the force, but the AI never cut across the diagonal to keep going, so four ships ended up being enough. Politically, they never got upset that I was in effect blocking their force from getting the planet, and 8 million troops happily went back and forth for a couple of years before the Drengil eventually declared war on them and destroyed the entire force in one turn. I invaded the planet a couple of years after that. It seems like the game could benefit from some code that would take offense if friendly ships consistently blocked three or more adjacent spaces of a particular craft over a period of time, and movement coding should be modified to cut the diagonal to get where it needs to go. Again, maybe this changes at the next level up.
4. One thing that has been mentioned on these boards is the idea that war could be formally declared rather than just start by attacking an enemy ship or planet, and that there be penalties for not doing so. I think expanding only this concept would be a very good thing, and serve to make the game more challenging. For example, in my last game, I had very good relations with the two good civilizations for the entire game. Peaceful trading, good commentary, etc. However, the slug-thingies (I forgot their original name) had started on a system with four 15+ planets, had grabbed two more good systems in the expansion, and now were ready to invade the huge home world of one of the minor civilizations. This would have made them a clear threat to my empire. I noticed a stream of unguarded transports heading toward the unguarded enemy planet, and managed to get three ships nearby. Diplomatically, I asked them to make peace with the minor, but they wanted an incredible amount of money/tech to do this. I said screw it, slaughtered the whole force, and launched a massive assault on their home system, wiping my “friends” from the galaxy in a few short years. Yet my reputation stayed exactly the same as before (53, neutral), and no one got upset at this. Early on in the game I found metal with my survey ship and proceeded to wipe out a number of colony ships and constructors from the neutral civ. At least the second act (wiping out colony ships of a nation at peace that has done nothing to you) and most likely both of these acts should have brought severe diplomatic penalties with it, both in terms of reputation and relations with other countries. In short, I should have had to think twice about the penalties for acting like an asshole and attacking friends or unknowns without good cause, or without giving warning of my actions.
I firmly believe the developers want to make the game a great one, and in no way mean this post as criticism of the game. Also, it’s unfair to draw conclusions based on a handful of games at less than the AI’s full tilt. I only add it here as food for thought for players as they get past the brutal early stages of the game, which is where the game clearly deserves its reputation of being extremely tough. However, I encourage you to try these strategies once you get past the beginning stages of the game. They definitely work. Also, if anyone has played at the intelligent level or higher, I’d be interested to hear which of these AI weaknesses disappear at the full strength coding level (intelligent) from players that have played at that level. Do the AI players coordinate their attacks more forcefully? Do they trade tech more aggressively?
Lastly, I have a question about the Metaverse. I’m confused as to what actually gets posted when you post the score. Does some statistical replay of the game get transmitted to Stardock so that they can analyze the game, or is it just the score? If posting the score would somehow help describe the strategy, I’d be happy to post in the Metaverse, but the score itself seems to be more determined by galaxy size than other factors (my bright level win in the small galaxy only got a 138, while the same type of win against beginner opponents got a 125. Interestingly, an alliance win in a normal, small galaxy only got a 108. All of the games seem to take about the same amount of time, game-wise.)
One other thought that came to mind…
Is it possible, because the computer is thinking during the human move, that the computer plays a better game on faster computers? Or plays a worse game if you make your moves really quickly, therefore denying it time to think?
Sorry for the long post, and thanks for a great game!
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