Slitherine

So I've run into a problem on almost all of my sessions thus far: Extremely hostile AI players, and being overwhelmed by their units. After meeting an AI, they usually demand a tribute from me within a couple turns of meeting me, no matter how strong my military is. Whether or not I meet these demands, the Solar Dominion and/or the religious faction declare war on me. They always bum rush me with way more units than I have, no matter how many or how few cities I have established. They always seem to be able to make more cities faster than I can, more units faster than I can, and better units faster than I can.

On my last playthrough, I pretty much blitzed the research tree in favor of Titanium armor, hammerhead missiles, and then tanks and goliaths. I had two cities, but I focused on them so that they each had a strong production base and strong defenses (3+ infantry and/or ATV units, with bullet and missile weapons). The SD and the religious groups both declared war on me, and hit me with 3X more units than I had been able to build up. The SD had tanks before I did, and the religious group had over 10 strike fighters attacking me. This was all around turn 70. By turn 133, I was wiped out.

I can never get them to play nice with me. Is there some strategy to interacting with the AI that prevents this from happening? Is there some strategy to building cities and/or units that allows me to have a fighting chance against the AI's units? I'm at a loss.

All of these playthroughs have been on medium difficulty settings, and I played as Imperium every time. If anyone could offer some suggestions, I would be grateful.

2 cities arnt enough. More are needed for volume of units and training. You look weak to the AI, and you are weak comparatively so it rolfstomps you. Warlike factions are going to be warlike..if you dont like that choose different opponents.

I try to do whatever is necessary to maintain peace between them for a bit, until I'm built up.. then it's time for revenge.

I put troops in my cites to guard them and don't venture out much until we get a strong military.

Growing your faction is a science. It took me a few experiments to figure it out. In so many of my games, the AI had so many more cities than me and they were all twice the size of mine. This struck me as odd because I always focused on strong expansion and growth. I knew that the change in difficulty affected the morale of the AI cities, but morale affects migration among cities, not overall faction growth per turn.

So I tried to expand slower than I was instead of rushing for colonizers. In your case you might need to speed it up. You can't expand too slow or too fast. If your faction has 1 city, It will grow pretty fast on its own. If you wait till it is size 8 (±1), then the second base will grow pretty well because it will get a lot of immigration from the first city. Contrast this to the situation where you expand twice really early and have three cities each size 2-3. For some reason, they will grow very slowly (this was my problem). Also, I try to make my second city (first new colonizer) come from the tech that gives you a free colonizer, "Colonization Fervor" because it doesn't subtract a growth point from your capital and it's free. So now the two cities grow (with the majority of the growth channeled towards the smaller city because of it's better morale). When the smaller one hits 8 (±1), I go for a third. The third will grow even faster than the second did because it has immigration from two other cities. If this pattern is executed well, the faction will grow a good pace and eventually you'll be able to get new full-sized cities quickly. Since the beginning is slower this way, it will also provide time to get some flamethrowers, field training, and formers.

If you do this strategy too slow, then you won't have enough cities to get decent research and production which are the two things that will carry you to victory. If you do this too fast, you'll have a lot of cities that are too small and small cities don't yield enough research or production either.

Remember: Don't be afraid of bad morale. Even if you get a city unrest notification. Don't worry about too much. Morale is simply affecting migration which is not a bad thing. It helps your smaller cities grow faster. The smaller cities will typically have better morale because they have plenty of habitation and no pollution yet. Yes, poor morale will have a penalty on production, mining, farming, and research... but it has to get pretty bad first. By the time it gets pretty bad, you can get pollution processors facility which will bring the morale back up to good enough shape to not hurt your production and other things that much. You can also lower taxes as a faster way to boost morale it if you'd rather.

Also, the decision-making of the AI is pretty black and white.

For neutral factions (when you first meet them, assuming they don't automatically hate you for no reason), they will make simple decisions. If you have some map explored, they will likely agree to trade maps even though technically they don't know what you've discovered. If you have decent research output they will likely agree to a research pact. If you have decent income, they will likely agree to a trade pact.

I recommend focusing on two things (the easiest is research and exploration)... let me explain. So make sure you have good research early (in the beginning of the game it only takes a few citizens placed as researchers). And send 1 unit to go around in a boat exploring the coasts. Then when you come in contact with them, start with your strong points. Offer a research pact and then to trade maps. If they don't have a predisposed hatred for you, they will likely agree to your offers. After they agree to the first two offers, they should be a little cooperative. Since they are in a good mood, they will likely accept public praise and become friendly after you praise them. At this point, they will say yes to open borders, then a to non-aggression pact. They will likely be "generous" at the end of the conversation.

There are two reasons why this wouldn't work:
1. They have a predisposed hatred towards you (this is a dice roll in the beginning and perhaps influenced by faction ideologies, but I haven't seen the code).
2. They would have been neutral, but they are at war with faction that you just became friends with by using the above strategy and they don't like that you publicly praised their enemy.

With these people, just take it slow. Since there's a cool-down for many diplomatic actions, don't go offering everything right away... they're just gonna turn you down or demand all your money. So the first time they turn you down or make a ridiculous demand, just say goodbye for now. Why? Because you're gonna need to entice them to like you. You may need to give them a gift and/or pay them to agree to some pacts. So go spend 85% of your money on upgrades and production. This is effective because the bribes/gifts/tribute are set levels of % of your cash balance. Now that your balance is lower, you can give them a gift without it costing thousands of credits. Offer them a gift, then offer them open borders. Offer your research pact and pay for it if they require. Then publicly praise them. Then offer a trading pact and/or non-aggression pact. The trick to to gradually move change the "Reserved" description up to "Friendly" or even better: "Generous". It may take multiple turns, but it will be worth it. Disclaimer: Depending on difficulty and other random factors, this may not work.

I like to have research pacts with everyone on the planet. Why? Not for the research bonus. I like to see what bonus the get from me vs what bonus I get from them to determine who has a greater research output per turn. This way I can stay on the cutting edge. Plus, the first nation I attack is usually the one that is closest to me in research output (or ahead of me if that's the case).