You are (not actually that) ripe for conquest

[Refurbished Hamster]

I hope there are plans to adjust the NPC's take on how powerful PC civs are. I constantly get war declared on me by NPC civs who think I am "ripe for conquest", and then I just murder them with minimal effort. It's a little silly. It didn't bother me so much until I got Crusade. Before, it just meant an adjustment of sliders for a while, to pump out extra ships. Now, though, I have no such adjustment to make, so if I'm geared toward not making war, I have to start tearing down buildings to make ships faster, just to end a war that the other faction probably wouldn't have actually started, had he a brain. Oh, and for bonus points, can't tear down many buildings.

I'm guessing these changes were to make factions more distinguishable but, in reality, it doesn't work. Instead, the effect is reversed. Peaceful factions have to pump out warships like crazy so before they get war declared on them, so that they can build the correct buildings without consequence. It's silly.

[Dray Prescot]

Quite true, if they can not get to you in a reasonable number of turns, then they should not declare War on you. Although the State of War does affect Diplomacy.

added: Maybe, they could declare a sort of Cold War with you, i.e. no Diplomacy or Trade or Trade Routes, any ships of the other side nearby will be destroyed. Plus disliking your Allies/Friends and favoring your Rivals. This would used against Races too far away to fight a conventional War of warships and invasions.

[FullAutoAttack]

Yeah, I also think the AI only looks at what ships you currently have and not what your potential is (like the Japanese did in WW2).
I usually run with a small amount of ships and the AI declares war all the time then I ramp up production and destroy them.

I also don't think they take into consideration how much better your ships are, I use mass reducing tech and 1 of my ships can take on 5+ of theirs because I can pack more into them.

And finally when I kick alien butt and they want a cease fire they should offer something in return. Right now they offer nothing and I always refuse.

[Red Earth]

My testing indicates that your military strength is simply total attack power of all your ships. Ship size doesn't matter, and neither does accuracy, range, fire rate of weapons or any other stats of the ship. The bonus ships get from military stations does count. I don't know if the free drones paranoid civs get count though.

[Porkins]

Originally posted by FullAutoAttack:

And finally when I kick alien butt and they want a cease fire they should offer something in return. Right now they offer nothing and I always refuse.

That is a feature that feels like it's "missing." It'd be nice if their peace offiering brought you to the negotiations table, rather than being a "yes or no" as it is now. I need some compensation when a race declares war on me and I have to put them in their place, haha.

[FullAutoAttack]

Extactly - The AI will not accept a ceasefire for nothing if they are winning so why are they expecting the player to do so.

[Astasia]

Make a military spacestation flower and spam some cheap weak tiny ships to plop in the middle of it. With minimal effort you can bloat your percieved military strength into the stratosphere and keep the AI at bay for most of the game.

[Refurbished Hamster]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Make a military spacestation flower and spam some cheap weak tiny ships to plop in the middle of it. With minimal effort you can bloat your percieved military strength into the stratosphere and keep the AI at bay for most of the game.

That's news to me. They always seem to ignore spacestations. They care about military stations now? I guess that explains why they keep building them.

[Astasia]

They don't care about military stations. They care about the ships being buffed inside the military station effect radius. A few good military stations can turn 1/1/1 tiny ships ships into 200/200/200 monsters that scare the pants off the AI.

[Refurbished Hamster]

Ah, I see what you mean.