I've just started Achilles Heel for the second time this week, the first time was pre-latest patch and on Tough difficulty. I did reasonably well and held my own and even at one point looked like I was going to win. After the new patch came out I install it and restarted this mission on Normal level difficulty, immediately from the outset I noticed bazaar behaviour from all the AI, thing I had not noticed in the previous games.

I decided to use the following strategy to win the game I colonised only the southwards and southwestern planets and left the allied AI the north ones... Now what is barzaar is the AI not building ANY colony ships AT all. This puzzled me from the start as I take planet after planet. Eventually after I had settled for about 30 turns I noticed only the Altarians had colonised one of the remaining 4 planets. Why isn't the AI colonising more!!?!?! I noticed also the Torians becoming incredibly powerful with just one world! Enough to create a big green blog around their space.

The first time the Dreadlords decide to show themselves, I see a lone DL transport making a beeline for my middle western colony! I figure if anything it is a fluke I decided the AI was being a bit to cheeky and reloaded, playing from a few turns before. I build a cheap defence fighter in orbit but this time the DLs attack my core planet! FFS! How can it see it is even colonised let alone undended from their homeworld! This is completely different behaviour to the Tough level, on that level the ai first scouted the area well in advance with fighters, scouts and escorts before sending in any ships, and this time they are sending in long long long range transport almost 3 whole sectors away from their Homeworld without even knowing whats out there! That seems well dodgy, especially considering that they are attacking only me at this point. Of course I immediately reload and try this again, but this time something even more amazing happens.

I build 2 fighters and send one to the core world in the centre of the south of the map and keep the second to guard the planet. So in theory both planets are defended, this time I see the transport heading east across the middle of the map instead of coming straight to me, so it must know in advance the planets are defended. But a turn later 2 escort ships appear and attack the middle western world destroying its defender, at the same time a second escort heads to the core world to attack that defender, this is a huge distance to cover and a huge range for sensors to see. So I send the defender fleeing but it is caught on the edge of the map and destroyed! So the DLs can pretty much see you no matter where you are, and get to you from their homeworld. This is in direct concradiction to the last game I had on Tough level, my winning strategy there was to out range the enemy and use their lack of sensor cover to my advantage, which worked temendously.

Now is the UBER freaky part, the DL transport that was heading eastwards travels straight through the AI middle without even being challenged and then after pasting 4 worlds! 2 of which were undefended, makes a south turning and head for my Homeworld!! OMG! What cheeky fracker are they!!!!! So I rush build a fighter and manage to intercept just 1 sq above my homeworld, but then the DL ships apparently taking the same course to me as the transport pass through the AI allied sector without incident and proceed to destroy MY economic SB! WTF! I'm miles away yet the DLs directly attack me leaving the other AI alone! This is barzaar, then the ai ignores the Altarian military SB to the north of my planet and start to kill my freighter lines! I am god smacked to say the least, eventually a few turns later one of the escorts disppears but the other one sits on my door step ignoring everything around it including SBs fleets, undefended worlds, ships, freighters, transports!

WHAT IN GODS NAME IS GOING ON HERE!

Did the AI remember what I did to it last game or something!!!! LOL!

See link for the amusing screenie of my current turn!