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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:27
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I love this game, but there are several points I'd like to raise and discuss.
It seems to me that the beginning stage is all. I mean that once I got my game running, the challenge seems not too big, (ok maybe at higher levels, I'm only at Painful).
Here are my issues, stored in various categories, namely: military strategy, influence, and diplomacy.
Military strategy:
It doesn't look like the ai, even with a big tech lead, knows how to wage a war. It does attack resources, but that's too easy to exploit (beef a starbase on a resource and put a defebder there, shoot attackers as they come while you strike at another nearby planet). I didn't see yet any coordinated assault on two of my worlds or something such. It certainly doesn't defend well given relatively equal resources/firepower.
Influence:
Building up influence is too powerful. Although opponent empires do try to counter it by building cultural improvements, and maybe destabilizing too, they do not seem to see influence buildup as an act of war. Furthermore, influence, when you flip a planet, causes you to gain the whole planet population, which may be huge, whereas transports only carry a few troops (you never get 20 billlions in a single transport).
Also most of the time, the best defense against influence is also offense: Build up your own. That means that when using influence only defensively (to prevent your worlds from flipping), you can cause the opponents to fall to your culture. So that's basically a very efficient weapon (for everyone to use).
I know that systems can flip back after you conquer them (damn I-League!), but using mass drivers etc. can prevent the influence plague from spreading (conquer, wreck the world in the process, let it flip if it likes to, rinse until it is a low planet of no use).
Diplomacy:
Tech-trading:
I understand you won't want to sell battleship or dreadnought tech for cheap, even considering the time/cost it took to create, but does the ai have to value Defense Theory so much? It's almost impossible to trade it early, but it takes the same time as many other starting techs to research.
I don't understand what value the ai puts on techs. It takes into account the cost of the tech and whether it is military or not, but I am not sure that's bright enough...
Anyway, I always get between half and 9 tenth of my income from tribute paid by the ai to get techs. You don't even have to be good at tech in order to do that. Just sell everything around. I finished a game where I researched only 66 techs out of 150 I had at the end of the game. That means, in a tech victory, I researched less than half my techs. I traded all others. It seems to me that the ai doesn't want to sell its techs too much, but when you have several trading partners (at least Arceans, plus 2 co aligned civs, plus the cash cows-minor civs-), it is way too easy to get money and techs by diplomacy.
Should the ai, particularly a minor civ whose techs are all bought from me (and thus who doesn't research much) be ready to pay 55bc for 55 turns to get the HyperComputer tech which increases their (unused) research ability? I think not, but am currently thankful they do.
Going to war and making peace:
In my games, the little guys agree to peace too easily. I once extorted about 60000bc from a minor civ in a war where they had destroyed a freight and I hadn't done anything. I just said "boo" and they gave me all their bucks and influence. Sure, I won't kill such a cash cow, but they would have survived anyway as I wanted to trade with them. I just declared war because my allies asked me to.
At war diplomacy:
It seems that a civ you're at war with will still pay you tribute. Although it allows to make some diplomacy while at war and remaining at war, which sounds cool, it seems a bit silly. I certainly don't want to send 200bc per turn to a given civ I am at war with. Considering asking tribute over a long period reaps about twice as much as asking for a lump sum, it is almost always better to ask for a lengthy tribute (like 10bc over 10 months) over an immediate cash (about 40bc in one month, which is much less than 10 times 10). If the tribute was suspended during times of war, it would make the decision much more interesting. A bit like "regular" trade I suppose (though I still have to trade a lot).
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13-04-2003 02:51
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