0.16 Observations

[azpops]

1. When a naval unit is used to capture a city there seems to be a problem. When you move the naval unit into the city, you capture it, but the naval unit is immediately moved out of the city. If the naval unit has any remaining movement points, this is not a problem, but if you have used the last movement point to move into the city you can't move the naval unit back into the city leaving it undefended. Is there a reason why the naval unit is moved out of the city upon capture?

2. Alien AI. This really burns me and has caused me to quit several games in disgust. Before all the alien hives are destroyed I need to send out colonizers with 4 or more combat units to protect it and even then it is often not enough to keep the unit and the city it builds alive. The AI factions however, can send out totally undefended colonizers, build cities near hives and the aliens simply leave them alone. I find myself fighting constantly to keep my cities alive and the AI factions simply spread all over the map with impunity.

3. Units with movement orders. I would really like to see these units move at the end of the turn instead of the beginning. The AI factions and aliens move and then my units move before I have a chance to cancel the movement order if I see they will be moving adjacent to an enemy unit. This can be very frustrating since I would have canceled the move if I had had the chance.

4. Building only one unit per turn. This has really changed the game for the better. AI factions still seem to be able to build a unit every turn, wish I could, but at least now they don't have massive armies to contend with. They still have a good number of units, but a little more in line with what I am able to build.

5. Research. I find myself barely able to keep up production as it seems I am constantly micromanaging mineral production to stay in the positive. I am often able to keep only 2 or 3 colonists as production and even fewer in research. This makes my research and production pretty slow. The AI factions however, not only produce a unit practically every turn, their research is moving along at blazing speed. I often find that I have barely entered the mechanization period and the AI factions are already into the transcendence period. I always turn off research victory as if I don't an AI faction will always win before I get much of a chance to build any type of civilization. I tried playing the Togra University to see if that was any better, but with the -25% penalty in combat I found I died rather quickly to the more aggressive factions.

6. Movement. I would still like to see the movement values of mechanized units increased. A tank unit should have at least 2 MPs. A seeker unit should have 3 MPs. I have found that seekers are great for searching the map, but after avengers and other more powerful units are available I stop producing seekers. They have little value later in the game versus the more powerful units.

[azpops]

Another thing I forgot to mention. When upgrading a unit, the original name of the unit remains after the upgrade. For example, when upgrading a strike air unit to hurricane, after the upgrade the unit name remains strike instead of hurricane. I know I can go in and change the name, but it would be nice if when upgrading to the next level the computer would change the name.

[DTC666]

All of the above. Sea creatures, I have one aspidoch siiting in a hex for 26 turns while I use a tank with a long tom to blow it up. Surely they would not just sit there and let you kill them.

There seems to be nothing to do with the sea, a facility to mine for the ever elusive minerals would be good, and create floating / underwater cities.

[void]

Alright thanks guys, we're currently over some larger changes that should fix city sprawl once and for all in a very elegant and realistic way.

Unless the alien aggression is set above average, the native species should attack AI factions at the same rate as the player -- which from my test runs is the case. Also, what difficulty are you playing on? On moderate the AI factions gain only a minimal morale bonus increasing resource output between 4 and 8% (based on how well the player is doing). While the AI does reallocate colonists each turn to maximize resource utilization, it's not as good as it could be and I have some more optimizations planned before release. Do you feel the game is currently too hard?

[azpops]

Do you feel the game is currently too hard?

It isn't too hard, it's just that the AI has such a definite advantage with regard to production, research and aliens failing to attack them. On at least the moderate level, I'd like to think I have an equal chance as the AI, but it sure doesn't feel like it. In my latest games the AI factions seem to be able to produce units in each city at least every other turn if not every turn. These are units with good weapons and armor. My cities can only produce units about every 5 or 6 turns. This is because I have to allocate so many citizens to mineral production to keep from going negative that I have very few left for research and unit production.

In my last long game (over 350 turns) I found myself having to go in to each city and allocating only one or two citizens to unit production. Almost everyone else was allocated to mineral and food production. It was taking me 10 to 20 turns to build units whereas the Ai factions were producing them every turn of two. Without use of nukes and black holes I am simply unable to keep up with the production of units that they can produce. I am overrun by sheer numbers of units. And mind you while they are producing all these units, they are also producing all the city improvements, too. I just don't know how they do it.

Would it be possible to turn off fog of war and allow us to exam AI faction cities so we can see exactly how we match up to the AI in a game? I'd really like to see if my observations are correct by being able to examine the other factions during a game.

[SephiRok]

I can assure you that apart from the morale advantage given based on difficulty and the transfer of production/research between items there's nothing magical the AI does.

There are in fact plenty of things he could be doing better.

I'll see what we can do to let you guys mess around with the AI and cheats.