How to beat AI

[Lailonn]

OK so i started mu 3d game and so far i really enjoy this game. 20h in two days thx to weekend ;)

Problem is AI's fleet. It seems that they have 2-3x bigger army when i have bigger empire and i'm using all fleet slots. Whe ni fight with 2 AIs they attack me on both sides but when i have allies i dont see any help at all.

I'm doing sth wrong or what?

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Are you building starports around all your planets? Are you researching starport upgrades? Are you upgrading all your starports? Are you researching techs that increase your fleet cap? Is your empire bigger because you have more planets, or because you cover more area thanks to outposts? Is your ship tech research (weapons, shields, drives, engines, power) falling behind?

If you are at war with two AIs and they attack you in two different places then that means that either one of their fleets is weaker than the two would be together. This is a opportunity for you to potentially defeat one fleet, then repair and reinforce, and then defeat the other fleet. Of course if each AI fleet is 2-3x your power then you probably won't be able to take advantage of that opportunity.

I would recommend setting the number of advanced start AIs in your games to 0 until you are doing well enough against standard AIs in your games to feel that you need an additional challenge.

[Lailonn]

-Are you building starports around all your planets?
Yes
-Are you researching starport upgrades?
Yes
-Are you upgrading all your starports?
Yes
- Are you researching techs that increase your fleet cap?
Yes
- Is your empire bigger because you have more planets, or because you cover more area thanks to outposts?
Planets
- Is your ship tech research (weapons, shields, drives, engines, power) falling behind?
No, i can wipe out a bit bigger enemy fleet. But they come with more fleets same size
-I would recommend setting the number of advanced start AIs in your games to 0
Already done that

I might be wrong but i dont see how enemy could afford 2-3x bigger armies. If they would have bigger empire then OK but nope

[Bumbleton]

the AI will often exceed their fleet cap for a little while in order to outnumber the enemy, you can try that too, so long as you can afford the extra maintenence cost

[Exarch_Alpha]

It´s ok if still learning to simply reduce the number of advanced AI starts, and probably standard ones as well.

[Lailonn]

Still its not my problem. When i can afford let say 200 ships and 2x smaller empire have 500 i cannot win.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by Lailonn:

I might be wrong but i dont see how enemy could afford 2-3x bigger armies. If they would have bigger empire then OK but nope

Yeah, I don't know how to explain what you are seeing. Based on your response, I don't see anything that you are doing wrong. Like CaptainGunner said, maybe they are just building past their fleet cap. If that is the case then you might be able to hurt them economically if you ignore their fleets and take out their starports and energy mining stations.

[Daywalker]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

Originally posted by Lailonn:

I might be wrong but i dont see how enemy could afford 2-3x bigger armies. If they would have bigger empire then OK but nope

Yeah, I don't know how to explain what you are seeing. Based on your response, I don't see anything that you are doing wrong. Like CaptainGunner said, maybe they are just building past their fleet cap. If that is the case then you might be able to hurt them economically if you ignore their fleets and take out their starports and energy mining stations.

they do you can check this via console by switching to the empires there overcap there fleetpoints massiv

[Ficelle]

Humans playing...
Build a power plant, then a labo, oh and some stations.
Build another mining station, a new labo and a farm.
I need a new colony, so lets build that too
Build a corvette just in case to have 4 or 5.

AI playing
Corvette, corvette, corvette, corvette, corvette, corvette, corvette, corvette, corvette,
At cap, no problem until zero energy income, so lets go for more.
Corvette, corvette, corvette, corvette...

When the 2 meet, guess who is stronger...

[Xiane]

Also don't forget the AI is designed to cheat like nobodies business. Take my recent game, had a civilization enter space faring on my doorstep. In a few turns of declaring war and heading over with an early game fleet of corvs and destroyers not only does it have a space station up, it also has a fleet to match my own.

And that's on normal with no advanced AI. Supposedly when the AI is given no 'additional help'. I call BS on that. Even on normal its obvious as all get out that the AI is given resources a human player is not. I mean seriously, being able to mass produce a fleet with ONE planet to match a more advanced empire with 4-5 planets?

As much as I love these 4X titles, the obvious artifical difficulty gets old sometimes.

[Super Arthritis ⁧⁧ ⁧⁧Man]

Originally posted by Lailonn:

I might be wrong

[[Kartell]Captain Data]

The best "performance test" is to cheat by yourself.

In that case, my "only" cheat is gamebreaking - I start with a complete ringworld - that's 12 Gaia worlds in one system with 25 tiles each. It should be absolutely gamebreaking, because you won't need any other system to expand, you can concentrate all your economical and military power in one place. Unless you get the attention of a fallen empire, you're nigh invincible, can field three "doom stacks" at once and even if you get them moving, you still shouldn't be too deep in the red numbers.

Even if you're outmaxing all sections of your ringworld, the next two or three most powerful empires (sans fallen empire(s)) are somehow able to field a fleet that's not much weaker than yours. If you can field 3x 20k fleets, expect the AI to bring at least a 40k fleet. That's also true if the AI has less planets of worse quality than you have with discontent, unemployed pops. Where do they get the resources fielding such a fleet?

Things get especially weird with certain mods: I got one that gives additional buildings and space stations plus more space ships. It also features a special "mining center" and a "energy center" building - you can build only five of them or so and only one per system. Both double mineral / energy output of all colonies in the system in question. In case of a fully developed core world, it's game breaking, because you easily can have >2000k energy / mineral output (before "tax"). And if you max out your fleet ... well, somehow the AI is able to field a fleet that's just a bit smaller, but should still cost a fortune. How does the AI keep it up and running?

That being said, I guess the AI simply gets a bonus depending on the player's performance. Who knows, maybe without my super ring world, the AI wouldn't field 40k fleets, but caps at 10k? O.o.

[[Kartell]Captain Data]

*double post*

[Ivo Shandor]

All 4X games cheat. ALL! They have to as the AI isn't as smart as a human so they need the cheat fleets and resorces to balance us out smarting them. I know it sucks, it really does as fleets spawn out of no where.