I played a 3 player FFA in multiplayer tonight, which I lost as usual. I lost mainly because it quickly turned into a 1vs2, me being the "1". That's ok, I can't prevent that from happening. However :
- One player quit the game early on. I didn't even notice, but an AI took his place. WTF. I've had to fight against an AI the whole time, while the human player built his army and started to whoop my ass on the other side of the system. I never wanted to play against an AI. I can't think of a strategy game where an AI will automatically and necessarly replace a human player when he resigns. That's just ridiculous.
- The AI just won't abandon. He just keeps building dozens and dozens of useless LFs, which routinely get destroyed by my LRMs and my capital ship. I must raze each and every one of its colonies and each and every building before it's defeated. This takes a lot of time (we're talking about at 45 minutes here) when any player would have resigned and allowed me to concentrate on my other opponent.
- But it doesn't stop there either ! Even when the AI is supposedly defeated (no planets left, player icon in diplomacy window has shattered glass in front of it), it makes no difference ! It will still attack you with its remaining ships. I left a few krosov frigates to destroy his last colony and moved my fleet to face my other adversary, but meanwhile he built a Dunov. After the Dunov was complete, his lost his last planet and was defeated. However, the Dunov started killing the Krosovs and rasing the planet afterwards. I didn't have time to check if he actually colonized it, but WTF ! In any strategy game I can think of, when a player is defeated, first you get some feedback like "player defeated" (none in Sins, you need to check the diplomacy window to be sure), and secondly his remaining units will either be destroyed or stand idle. They certainly won't start attacking !
Anyway, I'm a bit frustrated by my defeat because I feel like I wasted my time against a stupid AI that wouldn't resign and wouldn't even accept defeat once I had delivered it onto him.
While we're at it, what's a good counter against mass HCs ?