11-03-2005 21:13									#1
	Solo games and whats up with Miriam Tired of ads?

I have recently been toying with games on a tiny map using only the original 7 factions. I put all the other settings on "average" and pick the Spartans

My custom rules are

-- I cannot build any Special Project EVER except the Cyborg Factory
-- I cannot ever build any naval or naval transport vessles but may build probeships and steal those of others-- Since probeships are expensive this means you are slower getting out to meet the others
-- I must win by conquest
-- NO FM ever ( I don't want it to be TOO easy to tech my way to a win)

Its actually a bit of fun since I pretty much have to allow my enemies to bombard my coast ( the NO FM rule means more limited money for bribing)and if you get stuck alone, you can't have any victims until you get up the tech tree and can start terraforming land upwards.

Anyways, now that I am playing SP again, I am noticing a bit of a pattern.


Miriam tends to dominate the other factions on a tiny map. She is frequently conquering . But I have also noticed some odd tendencies in her builds. She seems to be in LOVE with (6)-1-1 artillery and will send groups of 4 and 5 of these out towards me with no conventional support. Now these are dead meat against even my elite rovers but it gets doubly silly when I have airplanes or worse choppers. Why does she build such crap units-- particularly if she has airpower? I expect bad decisions from the ai but in some games I have killed literally 100 of this unit and she persists building them. arrrghhhh.

	11-03-2005 22:04									#2
	Mim's not the only one.... Support Apolyton

I've had games where my advance Impact rovers have just been inundated with Prog 4/1/1 units. They seem to just come, wave after wave, out of no where. I literally sat in one position for 20 turns just plinking the units off, flying a jet overhead every now and again to rest my unit. Typically the Prog's build infantry with Res armour, but every now and again they get inot a situation where the AI algorhythm controlling builds falls in love with the "Best Weapon/1/1" design....

Personally I can't stand playing just a random pickup game anymore because of this and other "idiocyncracies" the unaided AI's get into the habit of doing (not to mention the Random Game Generator itself), and is also one of the reasons that I build my SP Challenges, which is that I can then control to a certain extent what the AI's will do. Its also fun seeing what new things I can coax the AI into doing, as well......



D