Why does the AI seem to not put defenses on ships?

Yeah I see that alot too. They got ships that have like 20 dmg and move 2 with no defense...

Well I guess I'm not the only one.　I'm still curious about why this is though.

scratch what I said... I saw the korath put shields on their units in my previous game... but I was using missiles so they were still screwed.

me neither. I also noticed in my games that computers aren't really good at producing and researching either. one time I saw a recruitment center on a 300% production bonus tile... I mean... WTF. in the end I usually end up starting the war with little or no war techs and in the end having way more then them... it seems they simply are building up their military since the beginning of the game, claim they're the mastaz, then go to war. And when they warships get low, peace agreement, spend a couple more years building up and repeat process.

The AI would be AMAZING if this were the case. give the AI a goal, a goal reasonably accomplishable under his current circumstances, then give him/her the capacity to take steps to accomplish such a goal. Like, lets say he wants to colonize a world but its far out of his colony ships' ranges. give him the ability to change the <AIValue>###</AIValue> tag in the research screen to something else. So in this case the Value of a life support tech would increase tremendiously. (sp?)

Oh and one more thing. It would be awesome if self proclaimed "good" civilizations actually stood up for the weaker civs in sandbox mode instead of having low relationships with the small civ because the small civs military is so much smaller, then going to war simply because they know they can crush the small civ. I mean... come on... does that remotely sound like a civilization that has seen the light?

Yeah I think what the AI needs for research is a to-do list.  Also, there are a couple of rules of thumb that I tend to use.

For example, if a particular tech that I want would take longer to do than the next pure research tech (which gives improved research facilities) I do pure research first.  This means that, while I research that awfully long tech, I am upgrading at least some of my research facilities so that when I'm done the other things which have had to wait will go quicker.

Also, when research is finished on things like miniaturisation, weapons, and HP-bonus components, it's important to check and see if you can make a ship design that does more or less the same as an older ship, but using a smaller hull.  Smaller hulls cost slightly less to make, and don't use as many logistics points.  Big fancy warships take longer to make and may not be effective as a low-tech design that can simply take more punishment.

Why should they bother?

You - the MUCH smarter human - must defend against the overwhelming numbers & values!

I agree w/ the poster 100% about researching defences. The computer always far surpasses me in weapons research (they have graviton drivers and phasors while I'm still messing around with basic rail guns), yet I can still come out on top in most conflicts because defences are so quick to research, and yet the AI never bothers with it.

Re: Zyxpsilon: that's one view, but when gal civ2 first came out the developers made a big deal about the AI opponents having a human-like feel about them. 

Yep, but in GC2 the easiest winning condition is Conquest - thus, why AI opponents are much more efficient at attacking with than defending their ships & fleets which, IMHO, qualifies them as much human-like as it can get.

I feel that the AI needs a few ships behind the front lines watching out for fast enemy transports.  Sending wave after wave of attacking ships is all very fine and efficient, but if there's a possibility of losing planets then it's quite possible for the war machine to lose some essential components like money and production.

But that is one of the funniest parts of the game. Wait for the AI to throw ships at you and then blindside him by launching your troop transports you had parked behind that big old moon. Watch as his largest planets fall to you while there is nothing he can do about it Pure evil!

It seems to me they just put all they ships on auto-attack. because I see like 10 fleets rushing after 1 target when they only need like 2 and could have the other 8 attacking that battleship I have coming their way. yeah I put a bunch of my ships on auto-attack just to see what happens... they all went after 1 target skipping up closer targets I was like WTF!

So instead of the computer researching techs by the whatever has a high <AIValue> tag they could actually research things that they need. Because at the moment all I see them research mostly is weapon techs resulting in the current scenarios.

I'm seeing the same thing. I should of had my ass handed to me, but my ships having D and theirs not means I can just plow through the ships of a technological superior enemy. Just seems to be the majors though, the minor races are all using D.

This thread is screwed up in IE7, could a moderator please fix? I had to use FF to post this, I assume the problem is the OP was posted having used M$ Word html.

Also messed up in IE8.

I have the AI build defenses on their ships. I do play challenging/tough, with "Force AI to use max CPU" enabled. Just the last game I played, the AI managed to counter my ships using lasers with the deflectors.Or, are you talking about later in the game, with larger vessels that are essentially all attack?

And this is something that really needs to be done, make the races more like their ethos. I am sick and tired of the Altarians declaring on me.

Sorry if the first post is screwed up. I did copy-paste from MS Word for spell check. It shows up fine in FireFox though.

I think that no matter what, the AI should be forced to not research terror stars untill they have finished everything else on their tech tree. This would be one way to un-gimp them. I think it would also be good to have them spend at least a third of what they spend on weapons on defense. This would make it so their ships would have even attack/defense ratios, and they would be a little harder to just cut through if they are doing as much research as you.

I think that the AI should be able to change to a more appropriate tech in wartime if what they are researching now is going to take longer than ten turns to complete, unless they have an edge in weapons and defence technologies.

Also, it needs to be realistic about how likely ships are to survive one round of combat with those added defences.  A single defence module with the ability to block one point of damage per round just isn't going to cut it on a ship with very few hitpoints, unless the enemy has very small fleets of pop-gun fighters.  Typically when I design low-end fighters it's with just a single weapon and some life support if necessary, because if they're vaporised in the first round then very little production has been lost.