Has anyone noticed the ridiculous pirate strength you get in a really long, long game, after you have every tech? I have to keep wiping them out because I'm the only civ that can make fleets of huge ships large enough to even hurt the guys. I'm talking they have a combined total attack of 900+ and total defense of 900+. So, I have to whip up mega fleets that do at least 1100+. It sucks, because the maintenance is horrible, no one else can stop them, and the pirates can wipe out a starbase fully loaded like nothing. May as well build 'em outta paper for all the good that thye do against them. I understand that the pirates must also get better as the game progresses to pose some threat. But when pirate fleets are more powerful than any fleet in the game but your own, and even at that, you may win, but you will lose a huge ship or three... maybe it's a little overboard. Maybe I should play the pirates................. to answer your question, no. But I have seen random war started against me from some random political deal, like a citizen of mine kills so and so in the Altarian government, then AT THE SAME TIME, some unknown entity gifts them with an incredible number of ships, literally tripling their military might and all of 'em going after my resources and other starbases. Is it possible, that just because your civ is doing well, the game overcompensates to generate a little drama or challenge. I mean, tripling someone's fleet in one turn and forcing war with them... a little overdone, I think.

Either the AI is consipiring against you, or the game is using the same algorithm for each race to decide where to put ships in relation to your empire.

I would bet it's the latter. It's like a cat sleeping on the living room floor that suddenly jumps up and runs into the dining room for no apparent reason. If I make any sense out of it I'll let you know. It does seem like they're anticipating trouble from me (a reasonable assumption) and they want to have fleets in position on an undefended flank. I may be implying a bit too much rationality to AI behavior here, but maybe not.

Interesting Mumbles, very interesting. I never really pay attention with as much detail as you but I will have to give it a look now.

Has anyone noticed the ridiculous pirate strength you get in a really long, long game, after you have every tech?

Not to stray off of the OT but I kind of enjoy this, unless I am totally engaged in all out galactic warfare, then it gets a little bit difficult to handle them. It's nice to try out some different ship designs on them and gain some experience as well  

I've noticed similiar behavior one time - 1.31. There were several different aI fleets (different races - I was at war with 4 at once due to alliances) heading to attack my weak arse Korx fleets in my space, when suddenly, they all turn tail and dissappear in the FOW. When I sent out a scout to see where they were going - they were all setting coarses for an empty spot in space. Weird - but I'll not complain since if all those fleets did attack me I'd have been toast (Especially the Drath who had double my military ranking at that point in this game and had jumbo mega death dealing ships I had no answer for at the time). I monitored them for a few turns - they never changed paths, but eventually they all stopped before getting there - and sat there idle for several weeks. And gave me time to rebuild and negotiate some peace treaties. I speculate that there were pirates or Terran ships (my ally) there at one time - that were destroyed or moved but the aI search algorythms didn't clear for some reason and the aI kept heading there after the bogies were gone.

Maybe the Thalans came up with a new chocolate cake recipe, and invited the Yor and the Terrans to come check it out. After all, who doesn't like chocolate cake?

Since 1.3 I have noticed that the AI likes to park fleets of ships next to my starbases

The only starbase is the one in the screenshot about 11 parsec's away from the magic location. Plus it's the Terran's SB.

Maybe the Thalans came up with a new chocolate cake recipe, and invited the Yor and the Terrans to come check it out. After all, who doesn't like chocolate cake?

Yes, but chocolate cake doesn't go with beer and I just *know* that's what the last Terran ship is carrying.

If you use hops to make it, then it's beer. If it doesn't have hops, it's not beer.

Coffee beer. Sounds interesting. It probably would go well with chocolate cake. You don't drink it warm do you?

Shoot, morons, they blew the cover on the burlesque house...

Hope they don't find the bro..nevermind, ignore that player behind the curtain.


By the way, other races building starbases in your territory are likely going to be economy bases to enhance their trade routes. Interestingly, I've seen them do this quite a bit if they've got more than a couple lines heading to your home system. The minors are ridiculous about it. I couldn't park fleets anywhere near Earth without triggering a war with the Andians, and after I blew up the bases and reminded them I could splat them like bugs, they rebuilt the bases, and we'd be back at war in about ten turns.