I don't think he's playing multiplayer Sin. Unless all three AIs attacked you first, I don't think that's possible to be honest. Could you upload the replay?

Diplomacy did make the game a bit harder because the easy AI no longer just sits there and lets you build up an Empire for a half hour. They'll now expand and send small fleets at you from the get go, but they have a resource handicap so you should be able to out produce them if you're playing as well as it is. Also all the AIs have serious issues against upgraded starbases backed by repair platforms, so if you must turtle (and you really shouldn't) you can certainly get away with doing that after you have a few planets.

In fact, i find it more easy now that when it was the original sins... well, as for the AI, it is not so much stupid that before ( except suicidal behaviour against starbase )...

You don't post about the map size... if you play a 3 vs 3, on small map, you will have directly contact with a potential enemy... best to play on bigger map to give you time to buildup your empire but beware, once you encounter the enemy, they will have more that only 3 capital ship due to the large amount of resource on large map...

Some strategy who have work before will not work anymore in actual sins version...

As for rebellion, it will open door to plenty of new strategy... one of the faction, once the titan build will be able to survive without home planet, eating resource of planet encounter and transform them in death asteroid... a other faction will be able to transform their homeworld in a Fort Knoxx with the help of super defensive ability from their titan or research who increase for free capital experience without combat if they stay in their own gravity wheel...

Sure, Rebellion imply that player will need to create new strategy for win but it give your more choice... hey, there will be a capture the flag victory condition too... where you need to colonize and defend a planet for some time for victory... in function of victory condition chosen, strategy will change too...

I agree that sins is not a easy game but it is why it is a great game... you throw easy came to the gargage bin after a few hours because it become boring... with something like sins, you can play for thousand of hours and discover new strategy...[/quote]

Ya it was a 3vs3 ai game and the ai did gang me with 3 capitals.  But not 1 ai all three of them used there capitals.  Linda cool in a way but a huge shock for an easy game I was using to relearn the game.

Definitely good for learning the advance techniques, even though online plays very differently than AI (much more intense, defenses far less useful). Here's some for 1.34.

Honestly, sins seem to be quite easy enough.

For speedy colonization, build akkan first. You get one free capital each game. So build that capital dock first then an akkan or whatever else you wanna build first. capitals dogpiling you, nothing much you can do about it except build those repair docks and attempt to outlast them if they're attacking you and your home planet.

Cobalts is really fragile but is available immediately, they're the conscripts of tec. Advantages of cobalts is that they're easy to build reswise. Those javelins is difficult to amass quickly early in the game unless you snagged a 4 crystal icy world next to you.

Its great to have fighter protection. I like building 4 hangar docks per world if possible. Not super early in game, no, but after some res gets rolling, yes.

Astroid fields is protected by 2 militia on normal and easy too i believe. u need like 5 cobalts to colonize it, with an frig or akkan whatever.

And Militia defended planets, how much you'lll need varies. 10-20 for overpowering them quickly.

One nice thing about akkans is that you can basically cast armistice to buy yourself time. lvl 6 akkan required i believe. I've used akkans to race trhough an defended planet to reach an planet of mine under siege before. had like 3 akkans in that game

Other thing, don't underestimate those dunovs.. i learned that they're awesome for kicking strikecrafts around. i see 8+ bombers heading for my capitols I target a random nearby enemy structure or ship and zap it, and watch those bombers crash n burn on the magnetized object, you can magnetize enemy ships too.

Even Kols is easy to spam with a flux field set up If your kols happens to get focusfired, it can tank quite good. If its lvl 6, pop the finest hour then pop phase field 2nd to get antimatter moving as quickly as possible. and spam that phase field til kol lives or dies. Well, not sure on what happened to you but it happens. I was focusteamed upon by enemy once cuz i just had to colonize that pretty terran planet in outer star systems that enemy also had eyes on cuz its pretty.

be active in your defense, even when your stuff gets blown up , build new stuff! be daring, don't be afraid to set up a new repair dock in middle of firezone between ur ships and enemies. one of the stuffs that let me outlast the ai.

Really, that happened all the time for me in original Sins, but I find myself able to ally with way too many or even all of the AIs in the current version of Diplomacy...

I'm playing with the difficulty settings in Rebellion a bit, making Easy easier than it is now, while making Hard and above a bit more challenging. Not sure how this will pan out yet, however.

I hear they added a taser attachment to your keyboard and for every so many ships lost on difficult settings you get an electric shock of progressively higher voltage.

To be fair, starbases go down fast. The AI, at least on the unfair/cruel difficulty, is very adept at taking them out. On hard it's almost trivial to defend a planet using only a star-base, and possible a few support ships to back it up.

What is possible is limited, so I am merely attempting to tweak numbers in the existing framework.

Yep, can't auto play the game anymore.

THE AI IS TOO HARD!

You're doing it wrong then