ender1983

Join Date 02/2006

How to beat a crippling AI

I thought to help out newbies with some pointers and to those who are wondering how to beat the AI on painful or crippling difficulty levels. I play as I line out here, and after a few victories against high level AIs, I find it to be increasingly easy to beat them. In fact, the AI is still pretty dumb, it misses obvious exploits and strategies, and is really no match for human ingenuity. That doesn't however negate the fact they can still put up a helluva fight!!

First of all, you need practice and experience. If you find that you are having a hard time beating the AI on normal, you are probably not ready yet, and the AI on higher difficulty settings feels very different from the one at the lower levels.

Pick your universe!
Try it out on small or medium first. There aren't too many planets, the game develops quickly, and you get a better feel for the AI. Also, with few planets, there is less time spend micromanaging your empire. In a huge or gigantic universe, the AI will have the definite and unwritten advantage of never tiring of micromanage. It will tweak and maximize every planet under its control, and do so every turn. I once started a tiny map against a genius setting AI, loaded cheats, gave myself load of money and revealed the map. I paid close attention to how the AI in the first stages of colonization operates and what it researches and tweaks its colonies.

Pick your enemies!
Which ones you choose aren't really that important, but don't pick too many at once. Try it out with 4 or 5 at a time. Also consider their ethical alignment and the one you have in mind. If you want to play as good, pick altarians and torians and the drath, as they share your alignment and are therefore less likely to declare war on you. I've seen a couple of times I play evil and the Altarians, apparantly out of nowhere, decide war on me because of my evilness.

Which starting bonuses and abilities should I pick?
Distribute your picks among Diplomacy, Economics, Morale, and Research. Highlevel AI's own you with their economies, especially in the beginning, it is therefor of supreme importance to have a healthy econ. to start with. Research is also of great importance because the AI seems to trade and share a lot of tech among themselves so often you have to compete against the combined research potential of 2 or more aliens. Strong economy and strong diplomacy skills are very important for reasons explained in the next section.

Politically, I usually choose Technologists or Industrialists, as I do not pick manufactering bonuses in my abilities, Industrialists give a nice boost nonetheless.

I have found it is imperative to not underestimate to importance of Morale, and I always pick a medium or high Morale bonus to begin with. Morale is sort of a universal boost. Its primary role is determining population growth and (low morale, less potential) economics because it also determines how high you can set your taxrate.

Starting the game!
So you are all fired up and anxious to send out those colony ships to show those pesky aliens whose boss! But hold on, not so fast! First take a deep breath, and look at the minimap. Observe how those stars are distributed, and see where everyone starts. If you're pushed in a corner with virtually no stars in the immediate surroundings - don't bother playing. If you are confident and very well experienced, you can later on always experiment, but for starters, pick a good starting point.

If your minimap looks okay, proceed with the next step, if it is worthless, get a new map by pressing CTRL+N until you find one that looks promising.

Now you have a map that looks just right for your future empire. The next thing to do is make a quicksave. Now, destroy your colony ship, and use your Flagship to explore around nearby star systems and scout for useful anomalies.
The thing to look for when you scout around are resources, the nearby star systems, and not in the least anomalies. It can be a killerboost if you just happen to have a 2500bc anomaly just under your nose, just make sure you get there before the AI.

When you look around, chart potentially useful systems, it pays to mentally make a plan of colonization. How many ships in which direction, how fast to get there (based on the distance to the aliens), and also important which systems not to bother with, either because they have no useful planets or because the system is too deep in alien territory.
The especially nefarious can always speed this up by loading the quicksave in cheat mode and press CTRL+U to reveal the map and immediatly spot where all the resources and frisky planets are. Just don't forget to load the map again in normal mode.

And so it begins!
Having noted mentally your plan of attack, or if you decide to go it by chance, here it begins. Prioritize the planets, if you have a rich cluster somewhere, send your ship there first so that colony can churn out colony ships fast. The key here is to be fast. Don't bother with millitary production to make the ships. Just buy them, but don't loan! Go to the income screen, maximize tax revenue, but don't let moral fall in the red zone, but aim for in the low 50ties. Next, set millitary spending to 0, while distributing 50-50 among research and social production. Millitary spending at this point is useless since you are buying the ships immediatly and building up your infrastructure is more important.

Having done so, go about a few turns and buying colony ships. This will give you about 5 colony ships in the first 7 turns. If you are lucky, and stumble upon profitable anomalies, you can send out as much as 3 extra ships. If you are supremely lucky, there also happens to be a minor race in the neighborhood.

If you have progressed a few turns, and are starting to run out of money, you should by now have researched a few techs. Go to the minor races, and talk to them. Persuade them to buy your tech, and since you hopefully have a diplomacy bonus, you should get big buck$ from it. The higher your diplomacy, the more money you can get for tech trades, or any trade at that.

More money means you can buy more colony ships, which means more planets. By now you have colonized some planets and are out of money, and AI ships start appearing. Let them colonize your 'mars', a level4 planet has no value and in many cases they just flip to your side in mid game.

A warning about Loaning!
Beware of loaning! Do it only after the utmost consideration, especially in early or embryo stage, because if you over do it (say, 2 or 3 times) you can be sure financial death awaits you. Against the lower AIs it might not have been a big deal, but the higher levels sure aren't so forgiving! The constructor rush.
All the way up to here you should have busily explored, or in the strategy I lined out, you already know where the fat resources are. You also, by massive social spending, should now have a planet with a couple of factories on it. Crank up millitary spending and rush to make some constructors, aim at making a constructor within 4 turns, and send them to nearby resources. Don't bother in the slightest with far away resources, you can be dead sure the AI or the Minors will long since your ship reaches the spot will have snatched it away. In fact, if minors get it, so much the better - it simply means they are keeping it warm for you while you are busy elsewhere

Such nice people, these minors.

All the different resources are very important, except possibly influence, unless of course an already powerful alien has control over it, or if you are aiming for a cultural victory. If you discover an AI beat you to a resource, quite likely because if they don't have many planets they adapt by controlling all resources, don't despair, but plot to take them down.

If you are confronted with that alien sitting unjustly on that precious economic resource, and it is still early game, there is plenty of hope yet. You should have researched lasers by now. Research a lot more so you have a bit of advantage over the others. Build a simple attack vessel, and simply seize control over that resource. Naturally they declare war on you, but that isn't a big deal yet. Wait a few turns, trade all the tech you have with all the minors for money, and you should easily have a 5000 credit surplus.

Now, because of your superior diplomacy (it really is a big help if you built the Diplomatic Translators achievement first, not too hard, and doesn't cost much, in fact you can often buy it outright), offer them your tech and money, and they are easily blinded by your majesty and accept peace.

Effectively this means you just bought their resources for a couple of 1000's. In any case, don't make the fatal mistake of waiting it out, because the AI is very clever to quickly upgrade their mining bases with weapons, and in the early and midgame your ships are no match for starbase defences. If you decide to take down an armed starbase, its going to be a very costly and lengthy affair since you most assuredly need a fleet of ships with your latest tech.

What next?
So you have colonized a majority of star systems compared to the others. Now it comes all down to your skill in micromananging them and by deploying clever layouts. For example, if you have this planet with that hammer 700% production bonus, hesitate not to designate that world as your production capital and throw it full with factories. This is a huge help, because having such a world and place enables you not only to produce capital ships at a moment's notice, but also to grab that galactic achievement within a mere couple of weeks.

So specialization is the key. Another very important aspect is to place those xeno farms on your planet, 1 on each at the very least, and those with farm bonuses are excellent places to put those economic structures like trade centers and stock exchanges, they bring in a lot of revenue, and this brings me to why morale is so important.

If you have a bunch of planets with farms, you can have a very large population base. If in addition you have well developed morale skills, you can consistently charge them with sky high tax rates and they still are happy. Having this constant flow of a lot of money enables you to put your industrial pedal to the metal, and set your industrial spending way above 65%.

I often have it so that after midgame, I can at the very least run my empire at constant 90% output, and still earn cash.

The AI starts to look beyond its borders.
If you have expanded correctly and sufficiently in the colonisation phase, you will have cornered some aliens, and high-level aliens don't like to be cornered. As a result they grow sour with you, and eventually they will declare war. Having the insight to predict when the AI will declare war is important. To do so, keep constant tabs on your diplomatic relations with the other races, often also looking at the rundown of positive and negative factors. As research progresses and the aliens start building their fleets, keep a close eye on what offensive weapons they pick and where they concentrated their defenses.

Trade is important. It keeps them happy,and you get some cash. But no matter how much you trade, if your millitary rating falls below theirs, they will declare war. If you notice everyone starts to grow weary of you, and you are not quite ready yet to pump out that defensive force, the only option you have is stalling. Keep them happy, pay tribute, give them tech, whatever it takes to smoothen your relationship.

Now the millitary rating is the primary statistic the AI uses to determine if it should go to war with you. Your millitary rating is defined as follows, the combined Hitpoints / 10 + Attack Points + Defense Points of your entire combat capable fleet. The total figure Att+Def+Hp of all the races combined, devided by the number of races, gives the average of this figure. Your Millitary rating is just the percentage of your figure to that average, 100 meaning exactly the average.

If your rating should fall below half of the others, you are seriously risking war.

Midgame
You are now at the stage where everything seems to be going according to plan. You control on average the most planets, have some mining starbaces, and are catching up in the technology gap, and planets are fully developed and upgrading. This is usually the time when some aliens decide you've been around long enough and finally declare war. I've run some tests, and it became apparant that beside the usual preventible wars by giving stuff away, there are also resolute wars. I've tried giving them everything, with relations in the neutral zone, yet they still declare war the next round.

By now you should know their millitary strengths and weaknesses, and obsessively focus on their weak spots. If you have only beam weapons, focus your millitary research on shields and mass drivers, etc.

There is however no single-way-fits-all approach, since the attack strategies and layout of weapons are as diverse as the races themselves. The drening seem to pack their ships chockful of beam weapons and no defences and creating a frightning attack potential. The Korx on the other hand seem to go for the balanced approach. Just watch what they are doing and adapt.

If they do attack, your fleet should be capable. Maximize military spending and turn out those defenders (all weapons no engines). Take your main fleet in enemy territory and seize their outlying planets. The AI still has a tendency to leave their own space wholly undefended, so grabbing their planets shouldn't be hard at all. Once you grabbed a few, sue for peace. Take advantage of the time by upping your defences, preparing the next invasion, and repeat, this should work well.

Another strategy I've found very helpful and quite amusing is this. If your opponent has few planets, but a massive millitary, make a few transports and some solid attack ships and equip them with fast engines. Send them in the middle of enemy territory, which is of course undefended, and attack and grab their planets. By carefully planning, saving and reloading and a bit of luck, you can take out an enemy race within 1 single turn despite their huge millitary.

In this fashion, they diminsh and wither, and you gain their planets and strengths, and at a certain point there isn't really any doubt who is going to win anymore.

Putting it all together.
Play clever, plan ahead, anticipate AI movements and don't let them catch you with your pants down. Keep your millitary at a competative level, not best, but competative, while focussing heavily on research. Once you are so much ahead of them researchwise, you can produce invinsible ships.

In the early game up to the midgame, minors play a very important part. They have plenty of cash, and little tech. You can give them tech at a pricelevel 3 times higher compared to the usual big races. Whenever you're short of cash, go to them. If, at some point, the alien races decide to elimate the minors, act first. Lign up some transports to their planets. Let the aliens do the dirty work by clearing their planet of ships, so you can take them at your leasure (after, of course, getting them to give you one big check for the last time).

Don't get down or panicky in the early game. The AI has a killer economy and you quickly fall behind, so rely on superior numbers: starbase control and number of planets, so you can catch up and surpass later. This is why diplomacy bonuses are so important; the ability to keep the AI happy until you are ready for them.

If some of you will find some points in here to be useful, my mission is complete

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Sure helped me!

Only one question - why destroy your starting colony ship?

Thanks!

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Ah yes, I forgot to mention that

Its because of the autofocus thing, I am turn after turn redirecting my survey ship and every time the game throws me back to that idle colony ship. I really wish they'd turn that annoying autofocus off.

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Hi!

why destroy your starting colony ship?

Correct, it can be used for scouting nearby stars in the opposite direction your explorer is heading.
BR, Iztok

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I use the starting colony ship to colonize mars.

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Very helpful, tx

Question/Commentaries:
1- I'm always a little frisky to sell techs to other races including minors cause I know those races can always sell my techs to other races I'm close to war with... So when I sell techs I usually sell to everyone in one turn so at least I'll make all the profit there is to make; or I just dont sell at all.
2- Do you think you should sell your diplomacy techs? or is keeping the other races lower on diplomacy for longer more important?
3- I play a race with +50% research/+50% manufacturing with industrialist.... which makes me a manufacturing freak and helps me lower my production cost (cause your race and government boosts dont cost for extra production, whereas the starbases does) ... but I often end up with a couple of races declaring war on me (I play at challenging)... what are your strategies when fighting a 1 against 4 war?? So far I've tried to bargained other races into attaking my ennemies and I'm trying to "liberate" those 10-12-sized capital worlds...

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Game settings: Tiny map, otherwise default. 1 opponent, set to incredible. Relations are set to 'at war' and will not change, i.e. I refuse any peace offers. It is far too easy to exploit the AI otherwise.

Custom Race: +30 economy, +50 military production, 1 point left over, I tend to pick luck. Political party Federalists for a total of +50 economy. Techs: Hyperdrive, New prop techniques, ion drive, xeno engineering, xeno research.

Strategy:

Turn 1:Immediately buy a xeno lab, set spending and research to 100%, taxes to 49%, begin researching Impulse Drive. It should be done in 3 weeks. Set flagship to auto-survey and send initial colony towards the nearest system that will increase your range.

Turn 2: Buy factory.

Turn 3: Buy factory.

Turn 4: Impulse drive is done, you should be able to design a colony ship with an effective speed of 7 (no support) or 6 (with support). Create both variants.
Set military production to 100% and start building the longer ranged version. It should be done in 2 weeks (this is why we take the +50 mil ability).

Turn 5: Hope that you managed to get a good nearby planet with your initial colony, if not, keep it moving, it has plenty of range. Also hope that your flagship found some money. This is not vital but makes things easier later.

Turn 6: Send your new colony ship to the nearest star to the enemy homeworld. Depending on luck and starting positions you may get there in time. Note: if you see a really good planet (15+) along the way, grab it, but otherwise keep going. At this point you should have around 3700BC and be losing 35 or so per turn. You can keep pumping colony ships for quite a while.

Turns 7+: Keep sending your fast colony ships to unclaimed stars and look for habitable planets. Since you are producing 1 every 2 turns it will be very quick. Take planets near the enemy and backfill. Prioritize high quality worlds. If you see economic resources design and build a fast constructor to take them. The other resources are not crucial at first. Try to restrict the AI to 3 to 4 worlds. This is possible but requires luck. More likely they will get 5. Most should be shit though.

When you have colonised all you can, set social spending to 100%. Specialise worlds, but focus on economic improvements with a few dedicated research planets. When your treasury gets low, switch to 100% research and get economic + military techs - you will need them - the comp, even with 4 worlds to your 9-12 will still outproduce you at first. With the huge advantage you have from the landgrab, though, it is pretty easy to win from this point.

The economic bonus means that you will be able to keep spending high. This is essential. Try this strategy and I garuntee that with a little practice anyone can beat incrdible/suicidal

I'm doing well vs 2 AIs on incredible in my current game. If I win I'll post a report - colony rushing is too powerful in my opinion.

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It's okay, except that most of the strategies described have apparently been adressed in the latest build (there's a link somewhere to download it) according to the release notes :
- AI much pickier about what it trades
- Minor races much less rich
- AI defending better its home sector.

If anybody played with the latest beta build (after 1.0X) please report these exploits have been adressed.

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Hi!

How to beat a crippling AI

The next thing to do is make a quicksave. Now, destroy your colony ship, and use your Flagship to explore around nearby star systems and scout for useful anomalies.
...
Just don't forget to load the map again in normal mode.

Why just don't start the game with the "cheat" option, press ctrl-u, generate a colonizer at every habitable planet, a battleship at every AI's planet, start colonizing and killing those AI's ships, and voala, you've won?
This is a bad advice you're giving to newbs. The rest... I agree with some, and with some I don't.

And so it begins!
...The key here is to be fast.

First task is to design faster colonizer, speed 3 at least. With enhanced hyperdrive tech you can put 3 engines on it for a speed of 4. Don't bother much with the range, if you can't get there faster than the AIs, they will take them anyway.

Don't bother with millitary production to make the ships. Just buy them, but don't loan!

You can afford to buy 2 or 3, then you'll run out of money for maintaining your colonies and building upgrades. You assume you'll get someone to sell him tech. What if there are just mayor AIs, that already have all your tech, and won't trade with you their best ones?
The key of cost-efficient expansion is to start normal building of colonizers on your HW. With 3 factories you can pump out a colonizer each second turn, for 16% costs of buying one. So you buy first two (and 3 factories), the third is already produced in the turn #4. With first three you grab best planets, with others you fill the rest.

...you have progressed a few turns, and are starting to run out of money, you should by now have researched a few techs. Go to the minor races, and talk to them. Persuade them to buy your tech,

Trade that tech to EVERY civ you know. With the amount of tech trade they're performing, you can be dead sure each tech you've sold to one, will be literarily "passed around" in just a few turns. There are come exceptions, but in general this helds. So don't sell techs you're the only in possesion of, or you see as a key to your success.

The AI starts to look beyond its borders.

Be prepared, check military graph each turn. If it happens your close neighbours are building warships, you need them too, but just to increase your mil score to about 2/3 of theirs. I usually put 3 lasers on a small hull, maybe impulse engine (those are warships anyway), and just keep them orbiting my planets. When I go to war I use medium hull with weapons and some protection.

if you have this planet with that hammer 700% production bonus, hesitate not to designate that world as your production capital and throw it full with factories.

Such a planet finishes all building really fast, and thereafter you're losing all your money you put in social production. The bugger the output, the more you lose. Also, if it happens your ship needs only 10mp to finish, and you're pumping out 150 military production points, is the cash for 140 also lost. Can you afford that? And do you have there a free tile to "grab that galactic achievement within a mere couple of weeks." for every achievement? There are many, and with limited building space I find about a half of them just about useless.

Midgame

Take out the weakest first. Minor civs are the best for that: excellent planets, no more cash from them, and if you dont do that, AI will. The key to warfighting is being an attacker, having fleets with bigest possible firepower, and only as much defense to match their average design. Early fighting is easy: AIs still use their early-build heavy fighters you shouldn't have problem wiping out with your new heavy fighters with some defenses, or medium hulls with more weapons (my very successfull early design was a FF with 5 mark5 lasers, 2 shields, and a warp drive). Don't hesitate to take any advantage you've get. Avoid destroying heavily armed starbases, go for their planets. When the last one is gone, ALL their ships an bases are gone too. So be prepared to launch an invasion to a planet without defenses. For that I usually employ transports with 2 invasion modules, a range extender, rest engines - usual speeds are 5-8. They hang behind warships, but just in range of the planet I want to take. When invading, don't hesitate to use mass drivers with the first invason on a planet with lots of pop, or big soldiering bonus. The destruction of installations is employed only if the invasion is successfull. If not, you just saved next 1-2 transports.
HTH.
BR, Iztok

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that idle colony ship

Why on earth (hee-hee!) would a colony ship ever be idle?

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@Japata
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1) Yes, selling tech can be risky. But it is most important in the early game, and if you sell tech, keep in mind all the aliens tend to share it, so sell it to all at once for maximum profit.

Don't worry too much about them getting too powerful. It's not after a year before anyone is capable of waging serious war and the aliens will research that tech eventually. So why not profit from it at the same time?

2) It depends. In the beginning, no. But eventually the gap closes because they research diplomacy also. And remember, if you start with 20% bonus, and get the translators, you're always assured to be 45% ahead of them.

3) Prioritize. Some aliens who declare war just don't seem sincere, and sometimes they don't even actively attack you. Others are a big nuisance, but if you are not ready and you are attacked, make sure you have plenty of resources - extra tech or money, after a few rounds before serious damage has been done, it is often possible to buy peace so next time you're prepared. And indeed, persuading others to attack your enemies is helpful as well. But again, the best way to prevent war is to keep a competative military. If yours is high, they won't attack. If its nonexistent, its impossible to keep them from attacking.

@cicadian
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Sounds good that strategy, thats how I'd opt to play it on a large/huge/gigantic galaxy, but I wonder if its really suited for small/medium sized galaxies. I always see the AI just buys the colony ships, and you run serious risk of them getting the goodies first. Of course, if there are just too many planets to get in a single sweep, yours is the way.

@Basentay
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I base my experience on 1.0X.09, the beta, not the one just realized. I'm anxious to find out how far reaching the consequences are.

@Bitenc
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About the cheating. Yes, I knew when I wrote that it was bound to be controversial. But of course I'm not telling them that my way is the way. I just thought it might be helpful, if you first attempt to beat them, to do it like that. To quit cheat mode is only so you won't be tempted to just 'give money' if things go bad.

The speed thing is very, very valid. But my points were based on a small/medium galaxy with a decent number of opponents. Naturally, in a big galaxy, different strategies are necessary. Thats what makes this game so special!
The point about making some fabs first is also a good one. I should have stressed it more. But what I had in mind was my previous experience of being swamped in AI colony ships within no time at all, thats why I stressed the buy part so much.

The tech trade: yes, I forgot to mention you should trade the tech with everyone. Maximize profit, since they are exchanged with others anyway.

The social production 'bug' about losing money. Thats why specialising is so important. First off, unless I can easily afford it, I won't let those huge manufactering centers produce mundane ships, they must out killer ships, and I design them so they take about 3 to 4 turns to complete.

Thanks for the reply, very useful

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Ahhh the ole Civ IV Tiny/Small map exploit to beat the highest difficulty. Well I have never accepted that as a win myself. You haven't won the difficulty until you've beaten it on the most advanced settings of that difficulty. Meaning Gigantic map with all the races and common everything. None of this abundant everthing so the human player can get a huge colony base early in the game. THEN when you can beat that on the highest difficulty come back and talk to me.

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I started reading, but then realized all there was is a list of ways to exploit the game to your advantage, not tactical strategy.
Using those kinds of advantages I'm sure it would be far more simple to beat the hardest difficulty levels. But why bother?
Only choosing races ethically aligned? Well that's nice and boring. Saving and exploring before restarting?

This is not a list of strategies and tips, it's a list of cheats.
The AI is not that difficult on the higher levels, but it is much more fun. Personally I stick to Crippling mostly because it feels a lot less like work and intense micro-managment is not neccasary. Using these "tips" it seems to me it would be much more work than fun.

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Ender,
I have only tested my strategy on small and tiny, so I know for certain it works on those sizes. There are more planets on medium and up, which means that the AI will get more. This may make it too strong.

Also, after a certain point you must stop producing colony ships in order to build up your infrastructure and research. On incredible, the AI will build a very strong military very quickly, even with very few planets.

Noxins,
My strategy does not include any sort of exploit. In fact, I deliberately set the AI to be at war with me at the start to avoid expoiting it diplomatically. Doing so would make the game too easy.

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One thign I got from this thread, aside for little finess in ym strategy, is the knowledge I am a genius at 4x games. I ahve already deduced all these strategies after few games. I'm glad to see other people take note of this, makes me all the more confident.

I Just haven't fine-tuned my startind tech pics yet. I'llt ry the one posted here. One thing I tend to do is pick +2 speed. But at higher difficulty it may not be worth the pics, 50% military is probably good, thou I try to pick more econ bonuses.

As far as the tech selling, yes that is what I did myself. However, I tend to do it very very selectively. I would sell the ai weapon techs for the weapon im developing defensive tech for, and never sell them any defensive tech for the weapon's i plan on using. One thign the game could use is automatically select the maximum amount of credits the AI will pay for something, it gets to be such a pain workign witht he slider as the difference between AIs can be staggering with some paying 2x as much as the last one.

Finally who can give me a good breakdown of a colony? Usually I have been reactive to what's there. In my last game I tried to increase the pop and happines of my colonies but I ran into a problem where I ahd more money than I could spend, which really is a problem when you think about it :/

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Handome, talented and modest

I Just haven't fine-tuned my startind tech pics yet. I'llt ry the one posted here. One thing I tend to do is pick +2 speed. But at higher difficulty it may not be worth the pics, 50% military is probably good, thou I try to pick more econ bonuses.

+2 speed will guarantee you the best planets, however without +50 military, you will not be able to afford nearly as many colony ships. Also, your economy will really suffer relative to the AI on incredible.

In my opinion, the best ability at high levels is economics, hence why I take the maximum possible combined bonus. You will run out of money very rapidly otherwise.

Finally who can give me a good breakdown of a colony? Usually I have been reactive to what's there. In my last game I tried to increase the pop and happines of my colonies but I ran into a problem where I ahd more money than I could spend, which really is a problem when you think about it :/

I tend to specialise my planets. Most of my high quality worlds will become economic powerhouses with 3 economy buildings to 2 factories to 1 entertainment centre/farm. These will also make a fair bit of military prod, so you can put a starport on there in a pinch.

Middling quality worlds will mostly be production centres. Factories + starports only. I will also use 1 as a manufacturing capital.

Low quality planets are my research centres. 1 - 2 factories, the rest labs. 1 slightly higher quality planet is my research capital.

Obviously you must take bonuses into account as well.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2415

If you're pre-scouting the planets, you're not really beating the AI are you? I mean, THEY still have to go out and scout. That's a pretty big advantage.

To me, beating the AI would involve not having to reload a game at all.

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Voqar

Join Date 03/2003

+21

Well of course if you:

1 - Use cheat codes (probably don't but you did mention using them)
2 - Pick your opponents favorably and otherwise setup the game to maximize every advantage for yourself
3 - Exploit the game in ways the AIs do not

...then you're going to win regardless of difficutly setting.

If you want a real challenge play without customizing a certain win and play without exploiting.

You may have some good points but overall this reeks of aged cheese.

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If you're pre-scouting the planets, you're not really beating the AI are you? I mean, THEY still have to go out and scout. That's a pretty big advantage.

To me, beating the AI would involve not having to reload a game at all.

I realise you were responding to ender here, but I am able to use the strategy I outlined to beat the AI consistently on incredible without any sort of exploit.
Also, I do not reload games except where I have made a non-gameplay related mistake, such as accidentally clicking the turn button when I am trying to click in the corner of the minimap

I just wrapped up my game vs 2 incredible AIs on a small map. I will post a report, in the style of your gameplay examples, as soon as I have typed it up. This could be a while, as I type about as fast as a quadraplegic monkey.

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Look I think there is a bit of misunderstanding here. My little guide was meant for those who are new to this game or want to get started in beating higher difficulty AI. Obviously if you get the feel for it, you may do away with my exploits, its not that big a deal.

I am a bit surprised at the violent reactions I get from some... relax dudes, its just a game, not life and death and I'm just trying to help out. If you don't like it, fine, and if yuo have something to say about it can it be more than just -mywayistherightway- and everything else is cheating please?

I prefer to see constructive debate.

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If you're pre-scouting the planets, you're not really beating the AI are you? I mean, THEY still have to go out and scout. That's a pretty big advantage.
To me, beating the AI would involve not having to reload a game at all.

Quoted for Truth. Pre-scouting is super lame.

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So again, please note that prescouting etc isn't an integral part of my guide, merely a suggestion for those finding it difficult to get started until they can manage without. So don;t condemn the entire post beforehand simply because I mentioned it as an option for the newcommer.

If someone has something to say about the 99% of other stuff, I'd be very interested to hear it!

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I'd like to add something.

Even if you have a "bad" starting position, look for other aliens who are near you and are equally in a "bad" position. I've only played on painful, but the AI is ill-equipped to deal with a determined rush for his homeworld. As soon as you can build a tiny fighter with an engine and a gun, send a squad of 6 of them to control territory and take the homeworld.

Homeworlds are much more powerful then normal planets, and often the AI will already have build a few capitals there. You can then take the other planets of your enemy.

I only tried it twice, but it's somehow effective when you seem boxed in.

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