Good idea / bad idea?

[Red_Dwarf]

I recently gained Korabbian spice. I am HUman and the most powerful empire. The Zenox Technocracy and the Zenox Monarchy are friends and the Gizureans are, well, being Gizureans and are at war with the ZM. The Giz are slowly spreading out and I'm afraid of them gaining too much power if they defeat the ZM. Should I share the spice with the ZM, or maybe the ZT as well? They're both in only eight systems each. The war appears at a stalemate but I'm not sure how reliable the comparison really is.

[Pipewrench]

Sounds like your having fun,

Role play the whole thing

Just an example
ie:
trade the spice to ZM and help them with their war.
Trade sanction the Giz and pay pirates to raid them.
Create diplomatic incidents with small clashes that lead to limited combat.
Mine very close to their growing sphere of influence to create friction.*edit (find out the type of planet they colonize and mine fuel around where they might expand)

Send spies in to blow up their refueling areas that are close to the front lines.
Explorers can be used as watchers inside their territory.

A great soap opera in the making.......

[Nedrear]

ORIGINAL: pipewrench

A great soap opera in the making.......

Sadly this approach is more close to reality than anything else. That is no roleplay, that is simply extended politics. Increasing diplomatic friction is a standard for war hungry nations wanting to blame the other. Machiavelli would be proud.

[Pipewrench]

lol[:D] So true.

When and if (fingers crossed) we can bring the AI up to these levels is the day that this game will really be an absolute gem. True reasoned espionage and strategic planning against you would be worth an expansion in itself.

[Apheirox]

ORIGINAL: Red_Dwarf

The war appears at a stalemate but I'm not sure how reliable the comparison really is.

Sorry, I'm going to be a real downer here.

The problem is that stalemate will never end. Due to problems with how the current logic of automated fleets work as well as certain aspects of diplomacy the AI is extremely inefficient at waging war. Even if the Gizureans had a considerably larger military it would take ages for them to take over anything more than perhaps a few cruddy systems. Basically, what will happen is the Gizurean fleets will spend so much time refueling/travelling back and forth/attacking insignificant targets (such as sending a full-sized fleet to destroy some remote gas extraction station) that no real progress will ever be made. Couple this inefficiency with the fact that all empires, even the highly aggressive ones, will sue for peace after a relatively short period and you have the receipe for a completely static game where no empire will 'ever' be defeated (maybe one will, eventually, but I've never seen it happen - it will likely take several hundred years of game time).

From a roleplaying perspective you should of course trade the spice.

[Bingeling]

From a roleplay scenario you should trade spice once you have supplied yourself well. Unless you have a really best buddy out there.

I think the AI has become a bit better in Legends, and it will probably attack a "forward" colony of some quality quite hard. Nothing that can't be stopped, at least with a warning, but I did not find the rots AI to do that too much. Of course, it also depends on who declare war.

The AI is very fond of deploying resupply ships in distant corners of the world, and run around chasing fuel. But I noticed that the enemy was quite fast in rebuilding gas mines in the single war I had in my latest game. Which made sense as I killed all that I could find. In previous games (rots), I have also seen fleets on 2-3 attack chains, which is not so bad.

The AI should be able to judge fleet firepower and resource types, though. You usually don't need at 20 ship fleet to kill a mining station. I am also unsure how well scouted opponents are. It is hard to do brilliant raids if you know of exactly 1 colony and 1 mining base.

[Pipewrench]

Apheirox,

It's not a downer when your speaking the truth. Hopefully they can bring the AI's ability up to make true strategic decisions.

[twinkypillow]

"From a roleplaying perspective you should of course trade the spice.

Is there a way to actually control trade?? perhaps unchecking the trade box in the empire policy screen?? (anybody know what that does anyway?) and then how would you control it if possible?

on that note, if you want your resources to be sold more.. do you select high or low "control restricted priority" in the Empire Policy Screen..??

[Pipewrench]

deleted

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Apheirox
The problem is that stalemate will never end. Due to problems with how the current logic of automated fleets work as well as certain aspects of diplomacy the AI is extremely inefficient at waging war. Even if the Gizureans had a considerably larger military it would take ages for them to take over anything more than perhaps a few cruddy systems. Basically, what will happen is the Gizurean fleets will spend so much time refueling/travelling back and forth/attacking insignificant targets (such as sending a full-sized fleet to destroy some remote gas extraction station) that no real progress will ever be made. Couple this inefficiency with the fact that all empires, even the highly aggressive ones, will sue for peace after a relatively short period and you have the receipe for a completely static game where no empire will 'ever' be defeated (maybe one will, eventually, but I've never seen it happen - it will likely take several hundred years of game time).

Hm, the AI I've played against in Legends is certainly capable of conquering other AI empires and I've watched it expand through doing that, including conquering homeworlds. This may partially depend on settings though. If you have repeatable examples of complete AI boneheadedness, please feel free to upload the saves for us along with a post in the tech support forum and we will give them a look.

Regards,

- Erik

[Bingeling]

The AI is able to conquer other empires just fine, just not to degree that a human player is able to do it. I find the attacking AI much improved in legends, in particular if they are the ones declaring war. Which makes total sense.

Pumpkin: You can choose to trade rare spice/fruit/fluid with each nation from the a checkbox for each of them on the diplomacy screen. The setting you keep asking for influences how happy the AI is to trade away the spice (that is, how happy it is to check those buttons).