I am on about my 7th 1 vs 1 AI game now, the lastest game was against a hard AI with the latest beta3 patch.
- The AI expanded rapidly to other systems this time, much faster than I did.
- My first encounter was a capship battle with the AI having more frigs but me having the stronger capship... The AI did something smart when it was losing it phase jumped to an adjacent system and when I followed it the damn thing jumped back again, and again and again. Now whilst you could argue this is a good move to waste time, keep the capship alive and send re-inforcements it was poor gameplay chasing the damn thing to and fro. I think maybe there should be some antimatter cost to phase jumps though Im sure there's a downside to that.
- Next battle the AI was struggling to find enough units to fight, and I marched on to its home system. The game was won at that point really but it still took ages to finish off the rest of its fleet which can get real boring after a while.
- My ships seem to be behaving themselves now and obeying orders.
- I just ignore the pirates they don't seem to be much threat as long as you have some defences.