Best AI race (in your opinion)

Never had much of a problem with the Drengi, although my pet peeves are probably the Torians and Arceans. I am as neutral as the Arceans, but for some reason they seem to become my biggest problem 9 times out of 10 while the Torians are that last 1. Only in the most recent game I am playing have the Drengin become a serious problem, because for the first time ever they are actually putting effort into expanding which they usually are not very quick at in my games.

My true greatest enemy is the fog of war that hides all of the good planets. If I can't get that initial rush of colonies, I am in a bad way.

I play on gigantic and have stopped playing against the torians and the yor. They just get too many planets at the initial colony rush. At suicide level all races are difficult but the one that starts off with the most pop can really take advantage of the bonuses and these 2 races always give me a very hard time. They have 20 planets before I have 8. It is hard to catch up to them. Any of the other races have had times where they were easy or times where they are hard but these 2 drive me nuts.

AT the top, Arceans and altarians in no particular order. These guys always seem to do quite well.

At the bottom the drengin, with the yor the worst - dont know why this is, they should do well given their bonusses! (their miniaturization bonus is so good I ban myself from being the yor...why cant they do well?)

the others all seem to have their day, only these seem to consistently struggle/do well in my games

(usually large or huge, random the rest, tech normal, blind exploration, 6 or so races, suicidal)

Both Arceans and the Torians seem to do rather well in my games.

well until 1.11 i would have said it was the torians, arceans and Yor. But this gamei am playing now its definitely drengin, Korx, Arcean. I don't think i'm going to recover from the deficit i am in now however, miracles can happen. If only i could get enough troops out.

We can see lots of opinions for this on which AI are better... but the only TRUE way to find out is if someone runs 50 or 100 different random games where the AI opponents fight against each other.

Torians, Arceans and the Alterians on larger maps.

1) The Drengin

In all of my game, the drengin are one of the stongest race, playing a major role in lot of wars. Iny my first game at challenge level, it finished with the drengin controling half of the huge map, while me (terran) the altarian and the arcean were controlling the rest.

2) Altarian

Always strong in every aspect. They just need to play better diplomatic and get more friend.

3) Torian or Korx I put them there because they are never the first one, but always the one that follow you and get you more trouble when you are already at war...


The Yor and the drath are always the suckiest one in my games and sometimes it's ridiculous.

The Arceans are always strong, no matter what. Every game involving the Arceans has always had them in a position of strength. Maybe not #1 or #2, but never far behind (unless I'm dominating).

The Drengin have a pretty good shot at killing everybody if they get a few lucky breaks early on in the colony rush.

The Torians often do well, but they can't defend themselves worth anything. Their colony rushing skills are definately impressive, but that's about all the skills that they have. Once you're out of the early game, the Torians can be picked off. Or, at least, nibbled on.

Those are the real standouts. The Korx and the Altarians have a decent chance if they get lucky, but typically nothing on the Drengin. The Terrans have never been a factor in any game I've played. And the Yor are always sucking (whenever I'm not playing my modified Yor, of course), for no reason that I can fathom.

Am I the only one that has a game where the minor races are actually quite powerful. I dont get how they do that. They only have one planet. Probably because Im feeding them technology for money. Did i just answer my own question?

Ah, Torains and theier colony rushes... and poor defenses...

In one of my tight cluster, large map games, I succeed only colonizing Mars, being near the corner, while by neighbour Torians took 7-8 worlds around.

So anyway, after early insutrialization, I started military build-up, and to cut story short, I conquered 5 or their worlds before they built a single armed ship. But I did got Earth heavily depopulated. This was on Crippling difficulty.

Nevertheless, they do remind me how I play the game, if there are many habitable worlds. Luckly, there is no such agressive AI, like I was in this instance.

Usually AIs that don't succeed in colonizing anything become weaklings for whole game.

what about the Terrans as an AI? sounds like alot of you guys are playing as the Terrans often times.

I think I have changed my mind. The Torians are still the worst for my game setting suicide and gigantic as they just get too much pop and own too much. The Arcs seem to always do well. The game for the ai is solved in the colony rush which I always lose at these settings. Torians win it and then end up with an insane number of people. They are beaten later but it takes a long time to land enough transports to beat them. I have stopped playing against them because it takes forever to grow enough pop to beat them. Yor is only hard if you let them get strong late in the game. I made the mistake of too much trading with everyone to stay in a game and then at the end everyone had almost every tech and that is when they yor became dangerous because each ship they made was very powerful.

what about the Terrans as an AI? sounds like alot of you guys are playing as the Terrans often times.

The Terrans usually get their rear-ends handed to them. In all of the games I have played since 1.1, they are by far the worst race, because they just do not seem to expand or advance well at all. They might be better on maps with few habitable planets.

The Torians and Arceans are always on my "list of races to keep an eye on". Especially the Torians can grow to a huge bloated monster of an empire when left alone on a large enough map. The Arceans usually don't pose a direct threat, but for some reason they ALWAYS end up allying with my enemies, and they're almost always strong enough to pose a big threat on their own if provoked.

Next are the Drengin and the Altarians. Since I'm usually Neutral, these two opposite extremes are usually not my best friends. I dislike the Altarians more though, as they seem to be just a little bit more aggressive in their holier-than-thou crusades. Occasionally I manage to form an alliance with the Drengin. Probably just because noone else wants to be their friend. Both can be a PITA, but neither tends to become a serious threat on their own, unless left alone and blessed with a little bit of good luck.

The Drath, Korx, Iconians, Yor, and Terrans hardly ever become a serious threat in my games. Sometimes the Iconians manage to get a big alliance to go to war against me, but on their own they don't mean much. Occasionally one of them (most often the Drath or Korx.. in fact, I'd place the Drath half a step higher than the others in this paragraph) grows bigger than I expect them to, but it usually isn't too much of a problem to cut them back down to size. Iconians and Korx seem to be the least 'reliable' or races. Usually they're not worth much attention either way, but every now and then they get wiped out really really early or suddenly become a big player.

The Thalan, or the Buggies, as I affectionately refer to them, are almost ALWAYS my best friends, for some reason. They never become extremely strong, but I haven't had a single game where they started a war with me without me forcing it myself. They're often my most loyal allies, and because of that I have come to like them enough to protect them from harm whenever possible. Except when I'm crushing them for a military victory, of course, but that's another thing altogether.

Altarians really get my goat , slimy little goody two shoes who are ALWAYS in the top 3 in my games. Ive had my arse handed to me at higher levels by them on too many occasions. Thus i usually mark them for extermination early on.

They have no respect for neutrality, however i find that as a good race they can make a formidable and loyal ally.

Second to them i would say the Arcanites because in my early days of playing learning the game ect they always managed to get influence victories on me.. plus in one of my VERY early games hehe they successfully used a spin control centre on me lol i thought the situation was hopeless and surrendered to them.. now i know just how inflated the spin control centre makes the military graph!!!!!!!!!

hehe the ai was very surprising back in my early days,

No-one apart from me ever gets a chance to do well in my games . Seriously though, I find that it depends mainly on who gets the best starting positions.

The Altarian and Arceans. On every game I play they are always the dominate ai. The altarians always go to war with me as well so they end up dyind, lol. The arceans always ally with me so they always end up doing better.

Always the Altarians for me they end up colonizing 15 planets and leave me at a disadvantage.

Same for me every game as well: Torians, Arceans and the Alterians on larger maps.

The most consistently in the way of the AI species I've ever seen has been, with a truly extraordinary consistency, the Arceans, at least in my experience. I've never had a game with them in it in which they did not become the dominate AI race. The others tend to fluctuate a lot, but in general, I've drawn the following conclusions (playing on challenging/tough):

The Terrans can usually be easily dismissed. Though they often build ships with very strong defenses they expand poorly, have rather weak research, and are quite passive. Reliable trading partners, though, and for some reason they and my custom race are usually neighbors.

The Drath are often quite pathetic, and are usually the first neutral race to fall out of the running. They can build like crazy, but their research is terrible, and as a result, so are their ships.

The Iconians can sometimes be irritating, but usually they're just mediocre. They don't make good use of their research abilities but they do go very, very heavy on offense, unlike most of the other AI's. On the other hand, this makes them much easier to kill, and I generally have tech levels that are at a generation ahead of theirs, so my defenses can absorb their attacks with ease.

The Torians I haven't fought much, but they're proving to be a severe nuisance in my latest game, having overrung most of the southerly and easterly parts of the galaxy. I guess I'll develop an opinion on em by tommorow.

I generally rather loathe the Alterians; they tend to make a very large number of demands and usually just end up pissing me off after just a short while.

The Krorx're wimps. I've never seen a game where they've been a credible threat to anyone.

The Yor are the most... enduring of the evil races. That being said, they, like the Krorx, are almost never a danger to me, or anyone for that matter. Typically wiped fairly early on.

And finally, the Drengin. I've never seen a race get such promising starts and flatline so quickly. The Drengin are always the first to go in games in which they are present for me, but before they vanish from the universe they always have the strongest everything. It's quite clear that if everyone and their brother didn't immediately attack them, or if the Drengin where able to hold off on fighting for a while, they'd probably easily beat out the Arceans for my top slot.

And that pretty much sums up my response.

Oh yeah, I knew I forgot something - the Thalans!

Uh... actually, I have nothing to say about them, now that I think of it. They've never really made an impression...

So far as the voting goes on and the polls have yet to close on the top 3 AI races

Altarian - 8 votes
Arceans - 15 votes
Drath - 0 votes
Iconian - 0 votes
Korx - 1 vote
Terran - 0 votes
Thalan - 0 votes
Torian - 12 votes
Yor - 4 votes

What say you all?

The Arcean seem to be winning by a smidgen over the Torian. If I was a SD man I may put up a poll on this on the login. Just on a hunch to see which AI needs some catching up or reigning in.

W/R
Suralle Straykat
Kat Lord @ Large

This weekend again was more about the top 3. The Yor were on the north and east upper side, the Drengi were in the west and center dominating the Torian and Iconian, but having a hard time with the Altarian. The Arcean were in both the north east corner and northwest corners having had the Drath surrender to them in the first year. The Pryde were in the south center and southwest sharing the center with the Terran who had the south east corner.

The invitations kept flying in, join us we are going to smach so and so. Part of the problem was I had taken alot, I mean 80% of all the "Evil" choices when I was colonizing, than took a huge cash inflow from a random economic windfall and researched Xeno Ethics paying for... "Good" (ho-de-hum, its a feature after all ).

The Drengi than teamed up with the Yor against the Altarian, after their fleets moved off the time to strike was at hand so I haded them their lunch by taking over both Torian homeworlds and the Drengi homes. They quickly sued for peace which I accepted as the new fleets had become slightly strung out and the home fleet had been used to take over the relatively weak worlds of the defunct Torians. Besides my maintenance fleet nothing was protecting my rear and the Yor did have the range to strike at my first line of native planets.

The Arceans had not been silent though and as I was taking over Drengi they had wiped about a dozen Yorian fleets off the fact of the galaxy.

Needless to say, the Altarians were lost, the Drengi surrendered to me shortly after the Yor backstabbed them and in the end it was the Arceans, Terrain and I for a technological victory.

W/R
Suralle Straykat
Kat Lord @ Large

Basically 1, 2, and 3... again. Arcean, Yor and Drengi. Things that make ya go hommmm.

As far as challenge I play with the balance of Altarians and the Korx, then Arceans and Torians which are so annoying taking all the trade good in the beginning. Then The Iconians and the Yor because Ultimate Logistics is so good! then everyone I haven't mensioned fallows them.