The thread title is "AI" not "Al".

I have been experimenting with different play styles recently. I got pretty upset at my lack of Crystals, for example, so I went and played around doing nothing but aiming for good crystal allocation right off the bat. Researching nothing but crystal-efficiency upgrades. By the time I got there, I was squashed by the enemy - and the endgame graphs showed that I spent triple the amount of resources on research over anyone else. Obviously not the path to take.

So I decided to play another round. This time I decided to focus on money - first I researched the "cheaper" techs in the civic tree, and got my trading posts up and running as soon as possible. "I'll just buy my crystals," I thought to myself. Obviously setting up my game with no goal other than gaining money, my military development was slow. My expansion was pretty darned slow, too. I had taken 6 systems/asteroids when I finally found my co-inhabitor of my system, with quite a strengthy force - it seemed he colonized his one token dead-end asteroid system, and that's it. He had spent every dime on military ships.

Interesting strategy, but my overwhelimg financial backing would prove a quick end to that.... In theory, anyway. I decided to go easy on the poor bastard and not send anything his way except Light frigates.

I watched as he piled on the defenses - he started with 30 lights, which soon became 15 LRMs and 15 Hochis, followed by a smattering of capital ships of all types. I kept sending wave after wave of lights, and he kept being able to rebuild, I couldn't quite squash him. His strategy finally ended up on massing huge amounts of light carriers and Capital Carriers. So many fighters in the sky...

This endless bouncing back and forth allowed me to keep his planet in a stalemate position, and it also entertained me while I researched *everything on the tech tree*, both civil and military. Just to give you an idea of timeframe.

I finally tired of the AIs antics and swooped in with a rediculously sized force, and stole his two planets.

The whole time, I had been attacking on one front - I'd build up 30 lights (from one factory, for a time reference) and launch them. He had a 2-jump backdoor to my undefended homeworld - one that would take me 5 jumps to defend using my route. He could have sent a few machines in behind me and I probably wouldn't have even noticed until it was too late.

Why was this AI so timid as to not take any more than 1 system in the initial "landgrab"? Why did the AI not sneak in my back door? Perhaps a random roll determined him to be timid?

Fast forward, I've now conquered two capital planets in the adjacent star system. I was all truced up, waltzed in, cancelled the pact, and watched my poor old "friends" lose their best planets. Around this time I decided to go for dinner.

In my original star system, I had no defensive structures, and left no defensive military force. My fleet sized was maxed out; 50/50 split left defending the homeworld planets I had just taken. I left my two fleets idling in orbit, not even bothering to build any structures.

When I came back 3 hours later, I noticed my ships were largely untouched. A few missing flak frigates told me there was some action in the past, but other than that, all was quiet. My gaping-wide backdoor to my original star system hadn't been traversed. I was fully expecting to maybe have one planet left when I returned from dinner, but instead I was lavished with 3 hours worth of trading post income and resource collectors.

Getting somewhat frustrated, I took a look at the map to see which AI came out on top. I signed some truces, got some intelligence sharing deals, and noticed that all the AI players were right where they were when I left. They all had blown all their cash on in-fighting, and they all had the same amount of planets as before. By going for dinner, I missed out on 3 hours of infighting toward no purpose.

I decided to see if I could influence the battle; turn the tides. I picked three AI players, each in a different star system, each in a broke, deadlocked battle with another AI player (and one of them, I had just stolen his home planet). I gave each of the three 100K in monetary hexagons, and about 5K each of ore and crystals. Then I decided to have a cervasa (sp?).

Alas, I fell asleep, and returned 6 hours later. What did I find?

THE EXACT SAME AI STALEMATE.

I had three really good friends in the game, but all of them must have blown their cash on women and beer, because they sure didn't spend it on a bone-crushing fleet of doom. Heck, the poor bastard I stole the home planet from, he didn't even try to backstab me. What a doofus. I left the prime terran planet undefended! Turns out he was defending it for me. Anytime a scout would enter my system, he would swoop in with his fleet and blow it up for me.

I'd say gameplay went over 12 hours total on this one, and in the end the only system I lost (despite them all being undefended) was the dead-asteroid that used to house the pirates in my original star system. Apparantly, the brainiacs in my civilization rose up against my tyranny and stole it back as insurgents. Bastards. Well, I hope they enjoy a long, long future of economic glory with their new nation I have dubbed "Stupidia," based on the most lonesome, derelict, and closest-to-the-sun rock they could find. And yes, I checked, there wasn't even any subterranean caverns to give them a population boost.

Morons.

Anyway, I pull this message up short here. What do I recommend to prevent this from happening? How about making the AI take more risks. They seem to be playing a very, very safe game - resulting in stalemates across the board.