Smidlee

[quote]There seems to be varying accounts on the a.i., with some claiming it as being extremely difficult, and others calling it a pushover.....Meh. I rarely believe those who say they plow through 20 hard a.i.'s with the greatest of ease......but that's just me.Anyway, I'm not entirely certain how "cheating" a.i. will make the experience better. It will still conduct the same tactics, only it'll be creating ships faster. Further, it's not like you're out thinking a wily opponent, just strugglin

One of the problems I have with AI running away is it often doesn't work. I can still destroy their fleets (or planets) by chasing after them between planets. AI badly needs to be better at planets defenses so it can retreat it out numbered fleet to them and make a stand. Just running away isn't a good strategy since there is nothing to keep me from following them and blasting them away.

If "bigger is always better/wins" than why not just end the game after conquering over 50% of the planets?

I believe a better idea would be to scale how tough defense and planets are relative to map size. A large map defenses needs to survive longer so you huge fleets have time to respond from greater distances compared to small maps.

[quote]It's simply impractical to be able to defend in wide-open Huge maps with few or no chokepoints. You can defend but never advance, or you can advance but only if you lose other planets.[/quote] That's where strategy come in. You can't have your cake and eat it too. At least with the AI and when I have a huge empire it's no big deal to loses a few planet if I can wipe out an AI player (at least destroy it's capital) as this is much closer to victory than gain a few more planets.

I like the Fleet % system because it requires a little more strategy. It like in chess you have to be careful when you move a pawn since they can't move backward , the same with increasing your fleet size as the cost can't be reversed.

[quote] While an effective strategy, it's really kind of boring, takes for EVER, and isn't much fun. I'd prefer on a really big map to have a higher fleet cap so I could coordinate my defense better while still having a viable offense. [/quote] Yet increasing the fleet size in reality only makes your small number of fleets even larger so to make defense weaker. Also as some players here noted sometimes it better to sacrifice a few planets

Yes, just "lock teams" so you don't have to fool with missions. (if you have "unlock teams" you got to do the missions in order to keep all of them from ganging up on you which can be tough on large maps) To some gamers having 3 AI vs the player is an even match.

I agree that AI isn't too good 1 vs 1 for any game. Like in most game the only way to have a 1v1 AI challenge would to give the AI a head start.

I agree with rfc2460 also. It sounds like smart playing with the AI. If you play multiplayer do you think they would sit there and let you destroy their fleet when they can clearly see them outnumbered? Also you noted that 7 siege frigates winning over 7 turrets when 7 siege frigates is a lot bigger investment on the AI part than your 7 turrets. I do want it possible for the AI to be able to take planets when it has the bigger investment. So SD/IC please, I beg you, don't dumb down