So this was fun for a while but...

First, are you sure you are playing the Hard AI, not the Unfair AI. The Unfair AI gets some resource bonuses. (2x I believe) other than that, you could try recording the match and then replaying it to see where the AI's pass you, since it seems that they are doing one thing that puts them ahead of you, you could simply watch the recording and find it.

I'm sure other's will have more advice, I'm still learning the game (although I've beaten the hard ai before) so I expect others will have more specific advice.

Yeah I tried recording once but it stopped recording after 9 seconds, I'm not sure why. maybe I'm building too many defenses, I should probably focus more on fleets.

Like Legolan said, the unfair Ai gets resource bonuses, if you are playing unfair rather than hard. Additionally, it seems like you are taking on multiple AI's at the same time. If you don't want them to gang up on you you will need to complete there missions and gain favor with them, to the point where you have a ceasefire or alliance with one and can focus on the others. If you are trying to take on multiple Ai's solo then it just comes down to grit, micromanaging, getting a solid build order practiced, and strategizing.

You say you never invest in pirates, but pirates can keep 1 faction busy while you deal with another. Also, Ai's won't attack or will retreat if they calculate that their fleet will lose. Try building some static defense and hold positions on one of your fronts and keeping the enemy busy with pirates while expanding and nullifying another enemy with your main fleet. Also, comps rarely re-capture those extractors in the uncolonizeable asteroid belts. As a vasari player myself, the key to getting a quick early advantage is strong manual scouting and the seizure of these extractors with your scouts.

Good luck

This might sound obvious but try fighting less hard AIs than 8 or 10 (as indicated in your point about rank change). It'll probably by easier. Start back at 1v1 then work up again.

Ok, so I just finished (read: quit) another round and I noticed some things.
First of all, I didn't invest a penny in defenses. Nada.
It was going well for the first 30 minutes of the game or so, even better than usual...
So I had a huge a mount of assailants and some carriers with a couple of sentinels and two cap ships. I had upgraded the missiles quite far by the time I finished, and even a small fleet was able to take out huge fleets on its own.
Now, the frustrating part was when I backed up one of the Advents into three planets, one roid, home, and an ice planet. I obliterated its economy on their home and was seiging them, they were surrounded. Then all of the sudden they came up with devastators, three cap ships and carriers out of nowhere! They used devastators on one of my planets and destroyed one of my cap ships (which I had retreated to that planet becuase it was about to die) while they distracted me with their fleet at their home planet(pretty impressive for AI I must say), I was able to take out the fleet but they managed to take my planet. Grr... So I decided to screw the sieging and move onto their roid and obliterate their economy there (I had barely researched my own destroyers but had built none so far). I did so, and then out of the blue, another huge fleet came after I destroyed their roid! How is that possible!? They must have had at MOST only three extractors! How could they produce a bigger fleet than I could with four whole planets?! Take into consideration I already had one refinery and had researched 4 levels of advanced mining... how do they do it?!

Another thing I noticed, about 80% of the time I get stuck between ice planets. Three or four at a time, one time I didn't even have a roid next to me. I don't know if I'm just unlucky, but that happens to me very often. Then when I try to do the missions to make allies, I ally with one faction (which is usually the once closest to me)and EVERY OTHER FACTION wants me to do something against them... OR they ask stupid things like destroy 4 defense buildings in the first 20 minutes of the game...

I will try using less players which is something I had already thought about, but it just seems so unfair how for some reason hard AI (yes, hard) is able to overpower me so easily when Normal AI was a breeze... Also, I've noticed some factions will go ACROSS A WHOLE SOLAR SYSTEM just to attack me, ignoring every other faction in the way. So for some reason I always end up the punching bag of three or four factions even when I try to complete as many missions as possible. Did I mention the missions are pretty stupid too?

Argh. I like this game, but I can't enjoy it like this...

Try playing online - then you will REALLY know what it is like to be a punching bag for 3-4 factions You think you have the upper and then someone comes along with a fleet they have been building up while you and the guy you are fighting slug it out...

perhaps these magically appearing fleets are ones that are sent out on attack runs on other comps and come to the rescue when you start demolishing their home turf.

I've seen this kind of thing before. for example one of my AI allies kept losing capital ships from an enemy I kept pulling hit and runs on, who seemed to have no fleets at all but that was only because he was spending his time ripping my comp ally a new one.

Just a thought though maybe you kept watch on his fleet movements, but I've never noticed any "unfairness" from Hard AI

"perhaps these magically appearing fleets are ones that are sent out on attack runs on other comps and come to the rescue when you start demolishing their home turf."


tommyth3cat is almost certainly right. If it is true that u had more resources than the comp upon destroying their fleet,then their suddenly appearing massive fleet must have been in exsitence prior to your attack and was just preoccupied with another comp. Upon your atack, the comp thought that their homeworld might be lost and recaled their previously offensive fleet to deffend its territory. (the comps main objective is not to win, but to stop you from wining.)

Hi!

Check the costs of researching refinery and 4 levels of advanced mining. Now convert these costs into ships AI had and you'll probably be close. AIs tend to quite early research bigger fleets, what drops their income afterwards, but they still have big fleets anyway.


Unfortunately diplomacy in this game is broken. If you don't lock teams at the creation of the game, ALL AIs will at some time stop attacking each other ("sign" peace treaty), and you'll become the only one they'll be at war with. Even worse: since you're the only one that gets missions, and at some time you'll get missions you can't do, there's a big chance you current allies will turn against you thereafter.

So either lock teams, or play with only a few AIs.

BR, Iztok

I say screw the AI and come play the real game--online multiplayer. Of course, if after locking the teams you still haven't figured out how to beat the hard AI, you might not do so well online. However, you'll still find plenty of newbies online who want to play other newbies, so give it a try. Wouldn't it be nice to have human teammates you could talk to and coordinate with?

It just sounds like you're annoyed that it's hard. I mean, it is labelled HARD ai after all. Normal AI is pretty easy, it's just time consuming to mop everything up, you're just used to it rolling over, you just need to up your game.

Are you committing all your fleet in one go? Also why did you ignore the AI taking your planet? Lastly, did you just quit without a fight after it took only one of your planets?

Sorry, that's incorrect.

A smaller example: you vs. AI vs. AI vs. AI. One of the Sins "rules" is that every faction must always have at least one enemy. If you get an ally with one of the three AI's, it *must* have one of the other AI's as its enemy for this law to be true.
----------------------------------
OctopusRex (hies) has it right. Sins is a game where you can EXPECT to lose the occasional base or planet in bigger furballs. It's actually more fun to take back your world from those vile other factions than to just steamroller them outright.

-- Retro

Hi!

If. In last three 1.05 games with 3 unlocked AIs I tried recently I couldn't. Because AIs didn't start with easy missions (give ...), but with hard ones (destroy ...). In only one occasion out of ~10 I got "give 1000 credits".
If those hard missions would be "destroy ships", I could fulfil them (there were many ships thet kept harrasing my border planets), but going out and destroy tactical structures of one AI, while being under constant pressure from two other is kinda hard. Being #1 early in this game sucks. Will try to be #2 in the next one.

BR, Iztok

You are aware that there are a couple people that chronicled their 1v9 Hard AI wins on these forums right?
The only thing i can think of is if u're dumb enough not to realize that until you research civilian upgrades on your planets, they are each losing you money instead of gaining it.
From my point of view, you should be getting upset with yourself, not the game.

Adama, that insulting post was entirely unnecessary. Even if that's the cause (and I don't think it is), there's nothing in the tutorials or early play that says that civ infrastructure is the absolute first thing to do after capturing a planet and it's easy to miss. It doesn't make ANYONE "dumb enough".

Oblivion, one thing you might wish to do is let the first wave of pirates come and instead of throwing money into a bidding war, build a bunch of turrets and keep your capital ship handy to mop up all that experience. But the key is getting an ally.

Iztok, either you have had a bunch of really bad luck or you're playing too perfectly or something and the AI's missions are harder as a result. I can't recall ever getting a first mission from all three AI's which was kill- or destroy-based, although I've had a few kill-ships to start and they're generally easy. Dunno what to tell you.

-- Retro

Phew! Well, it looks like I have a lot of things to respond to!
First of all, I would like to comment on my LAST game after my last post, which was a pre-defined map and 4 player FFA (on hard). It was somewhat too easy. There was a lot of pressure in the first half an hour or so of the game, and then I had one of the factions creeping up on my back (which I could have repelled if I wanted to but I wanted to focus on overrunning this one other faction) but I JUST IN TIME managed to secure a ceasefire that allowed me to focus on one AI and pretty much let me snowball through the rest of tha game (somewhat disappointing considering how much trouble I have with 8 player and 10 player FFA). Ok, so now onto replies.
First of, I would LOVE nothing more than to play online, unfortunately, I can't do that on my campus internet. It's complicated, don't ask, I just can't.
Second of all, I'm not an idiot and some people can be REALLY condescending and patronizing. I understand that in the occasion where I completely surrounded (read: COMPLETELY surrounded) my AI enemy into one planet, they might have ALREADY had had a big fleet, my question is how did they do it even though I was churning out units as fast as I could, and how on earth were they able to churn out TWO more capital ships? I know they didn't have any becuase I had already been to their home planet and was bombing it when I had to pull my units to defend one of my other planets, which is when those two other ships came out of nowhere. I lay some of that blame in defense/research expenses for this.
Third, I understand it's labeled HARD, but games should also SCALE appropiately, it shouldn't be snoringly easy one setting and extremely difficult in the next one up. In all fairness, maybe I just need more practice with multiple player maps.
Fourthly (don't bother telling me it's not a word, don't care), you say people have had 1v9 games? Congratulations to them! I would like to know how seasoned veterans of 4X/RTS games do it and would be very glad to learn. I'm not saying this is a BAD game, I said I ENJOYED it, if you read correctly, I just dont UNDERSTAND all the mechanics because I've never really played any 4X games before.
Lastly, I usually don't spend money on pirate bidding wars because usually, I just don't have to. And in any case, I'm not really all that scared of pirates unless it's early game and I am in a pickle from say, two fronts, and the last thing I need is pirates harassing one of my roids, then yeah, I'll probably freak then.
And no, I don't just "give up" after I lose a battle. I try to efficiently assess whether or not my fleet can take on the incoming fleet, and if not, at the very least I try to asses if I can take down a cap ship or two. When all else fails, retreat to a safe spot and rebuild. I do this until it's CLEAR that I'm in the losing seat and that every other AI is out there gunning for me and I start losing planets left and right.
I appreciate all comments, however some people shouldn't be so rude. I don't think anywhere in my posts I came to complain about the game, I was just expressing my frustration with MY failure. I came here to ask for help, nothing more.
I'm going to try my next game to be 6 players see how well I scale from there from 4 players and hopefully I'll be ready for 8 and 10 player AI's soon.

Most of us are not calling you an idiot we are just attempting to explain that you may think you understand how the AI plays but I've played 10 hour long games and they still surprise me sometimes. That being said you really need to record a game where you think they are getting Cap ships out of no where because like you I've had that feeling before, **WTF it's 20min in and they have 35frigs and 2 Cap ships?**

It all comes down to the fact they play like a Bot not a human, things you spend time researching they probably forgo and they mostly focus on fleet building anyway so even though I get the WTF feeling sometimes I have to remember I'm playing a more efficient player(for the most part, in longer games they seem to lose their punch)

Kind of off topic, (sorry!) but how the f do people win 1v9 hard ai? Or 10 player FFA? Or locked 1v1^9?

I mean, tactically, it's totally doable. I've tried it before as Vasari, and I made it to the late game with a managable econ and 2-3 very good trapping fleets. Then I tried to fight something, and my Crysis-capable rig simply fell apart. 1-5 fps, I couldn't even micro because most of the commands weren't going through, with all graphical detail on low or disabled. Am I unusual in that response to 9 (I killed one of the comps early) unit cap fleets existing? How can you even stand to play it to resolution?

Just to comment real quick, you might need a better processor. Graphics cards will only carry you so far on this type of game that requires intensive computing for the AI.
Anyways, I just paused a game that's been going on for two hours, 6 player FFA and I think that's just about the right difficulty for me. I managed to spread myself to about 6 planets within the first hour and I think I spread my fleet too thin cause I am getting reamed by pirates (they took one of my planets) and three other factions (one of which I screwed over early game). I decided to take a break though because I'm frankly exhausted, and also because the one factions that I messed up from early game started retreating (I think that was their only fleet left and I destroyed their cap ship). Also one of the other factions retreated and left their destroyers (or planet bombers or whatever they're called) and I'm just sending back my fleet from fending off one of my other planets... Anyways, it seems like I might be able to recover (even though I have a second wave of pirates coming in). In any case, I think I found an appropriate difficulty for me to pick up= 6 players on Hard AI.
If anyone else has any suggestions as to how to become a better player at pumping out units faster, I'm all ears. That still seems to be my problem.

PS: I'm aware not everyone was being a bully, but some people honestly acted like I was being a complete idiot when really I was just frustrated.

I just tried my first 1v9 game today, and i know what you mean the problem comes from lack of processing speed/huge number of ships, i would imagine. My CPU is pretty cheap so about 2 hours in it was getting choppy maybe like 17-19fps.

I started up a new game with Small Fleets setting in Game options so that should keep it smooth for longer. I want an epic sized fight for the galaxy but i don't want epic slow fps either. So i can live with smaller fleets, it makes it more interesting without a tidal wave of ships anyway you really gotta be strategic about it.

Yeah, I thought about trying small sizes too. The problem I have with that, is that a lower cap on total ships doesn't allow for any fewer ships in my defense fleet(s). They function in a very specific way. Nanites cap, Evac for gravity bomb, Marauder for the speed. 150 there no matter the fleet size allowed. It also takes around 25 enforcers to reliably 1 volley non-HC ships, which is also quite important in chewing through those fleets as fast/faster than they can replace them. By the time I've got a workable defense, I fear I'll have no room for any ships to actually attack with =/

It could be a cpu problem, an optimization problem, or even a configuration problem. Wish I was more of a guru on that stuff. I'm running a Core Duo 2.66, 2g of ram on XP.

I'm actually surprised that you slow down then... i have a AMD 64 3500+ 2.2ghz and same ram as you. well now im dying to know what the major factor in the fps drop is in 1v9 games.

Good thread. I'd just like to add a couple of things:

1. When setting up the AI, the type of opp ( aggressor, researcher, etc) can make a big difference in the difficulty of the game.

2. Size matters. I like playing small fleets and fast everything else as I find it easier to learn how to use support abilities. However, Vasari, for example, seems to be at a disadvantage when using small fleets.

I have a quad core and the frames are smooth 60 at the first hour or so of game but start chugging into the 20's later in the agme especially when huge battles are taking place (hundreds of units at a time). I'm surprised you're chugging with a C2D as well, but it could also be background processes like antivirus and such that are bugging you down. Finally, the video card will also have an impact depending on how high your quality settings are/how old your GFX card is. Also, maybe you should try re-strategizing to deal with smaller fleets? Just a thought. Remember that they TOO can't use big fleets, not just you

I play every game on the small fleet setting now, I find it makes cap ships more important.