Hi,

The 4 colony limit isn't a hard one but you suffer discontent if you exceed it. This is certainly worth doing in the opening  but you shouldn't choose a government with elections because you might lose them.

I have no idea what happens then - perhaps somebody could post to explain precisely. But I doubt very much that it's a positive development.

Cheers,

Jon

Hi again,

Yes the AI bonuses have been ramped up, especially in terms of the ridiculous speed of their ships in the opening. I therefore went down from incredible to genius and if you give yourself some space in the opening and have a decent start then it can be fine. The map sizes got shrunk at some stage and so i went up from large to gigantic and have been playing against just 10 random opponents. The other thing I always do is to play without tech brokering so that you can sell techs, especially in the opening, to keep financially afloat. (Obviously, you sell them the techs which are least useful to them - happiness doesn't matter much to the AI at its difficulty level and defences against weapons you don't use are always good.) 

The evil trait that gives you ideology every time you capture a planet (is it slavers - don't have a game open at the mo) is wonderful if that's your style. I haven't actually played for a couple of weeks and can't remember what I liked most otherwise but others could certainly comment. The small starting resource bonus which I think the Slyne get is one of the worst. 

Cheers,

Jon

^^ What he asked  

Sounds like you might be on pre Crusade and or using mods?

He is using Gauntlet's mod.

Exterminator is a trait he made for the Daleks  .

He also strengthened a couple of "weak" traits.  Several of them grant one or another citizen.

I know in the base time travelers were the strongest. I don't think they still are. If I'm remembering correctly Gauntlets race mod has three, or four traits this may make customising, not a good idea. As far as Xenophobic you will also need influence starbases. The Ai is smarter. 

The pros to intrigue are also there cons.

pro is that farming is done, so the Ai has a more equal chance to farm as you. The con is that now carbon is even weaker next to everyone else. 

Pro is that now the Ai can better keep up with your expanding. The con is that it is now harder to colonise.

This is a pro con I never heard anyone complain about. Pro you can now control approval through taxes. The con is that now you have to watch your taxes. 

Pro the Ai is better at playing. 

Pro now you have meaningful governments. You have to choose your governments based on your playstyle.

 Success with the carbon based forms ? I noticed lots of food on planets so is there something else wrong with carbon? Maybe Im not playing well enough but getting early population is very hard with synthetic at least for me. Im trying to do so many things at once like getting galactic wonders etc.. I havent had much time to build pop. The SIlicon race worked ok but the constant demand for promethion was a drain. So I turned to synthetic.

Should I prioritize pop over buildings with Synthetics ?

I certainly hope AI would improve picking their government otherwise its a handicap on the AI which I hate to see.

Perhaps its best to play 3.04 with no intrigue until this is fixed.  You still get better AI but no govt drawback. Alas but then your government fun is gone.

thank you all for the feedback.

add anything you think is helpful.

JJ