questions about Intrigue

Hi,

The 4 colony limit isn't a hard one but you suffer discontent if you exceed it. This is certainly worth doing in the opening  but you shouldn't choose a government with elections because you might lose them.

I have no idea what happens then - perhaps somebody could post to explain precisely. But I doubt very much that it's a positive development.

Cheers,

Jon

I took the plunge and got intrigue out of curiosity. Is it me or does the AI colonize much faster in 3.04 ? I had it set to incredible and by turn 10 the Arachnid had 5 planets to my one. That is unusual for my past experience. I noticed tech allowing more colonies and I can't research them for a long time. but it does not matter if you only have 1 LOL.

maybe I could succeed if i gave my race the ability to colonize extreme worlds. That would give me a chance.

how did they get 5 colonizers and population for all that ? wow. I guess I gotta turn the difficulty down. serious bonuses going on for AI. I'll be dead before the age of war.

What are the best abilities for my race to have against hyper AI ? I chose Time Travel, Exterminator, Synthetic Race, Can't recall the rest except I got a free Commander which helps to accelerate my ships.

JJ

Hi again,

Yes the AI bonuses have been ramped up, especially in terms of the ridiculous speed of their ships in the opening. I therefore went down from incredible to genius and if you give yourself some space in the opening and have a decent start then it can be fine. The map sizes got shrunk at some stage and so i went up from large to gigantic and have been playing against just 10 random opponents. The other thing I always do is to play without tech brokering so that you can sell techs, especially in the opening, to keep financially afloat. (Obviously, you sell them the techs which are least useful to them - happiness doesn't matter much to the AI at its difficulty level and defences against weapons you don't use are always good.) 

The evil trait that gives you ideology every time you capture a planet (is it slavers - don't have a game open at the mo) is wonderful if that's your style. I haven't actually played for a couple of weeks and can't remember what I liked most otherwise but others could certainly comment. The small starting resource bonus which I think the Slyne get is one of the worst. 

Cheers,

Jon

Are you sure that you got a free Commander? Did you get him at game start or at some later point?

I maintain this thread on the steam forums ...

https://steamcommunity.com/app/226860/discussions/1/1696046342872548776/

... that lists the effects of all the racial abilities. Your post tells me that I might miss something (no ability known that gives a free Commander).

What is Exterminator ability? Is this from the core game without Crusade expansion?

Strongest abilities IMO are:

- Time Travelers (gives some endgame techs that you can trade to the AIs early-on for much needed techs)

- Xenophobic (massive research boost)

- Ancient (research boost and healing hulls)

^^ What he asked  

Sounds like you might be on pre Crusade and or using mods?

STARFARING gave the free commander

Yes I use GRM and Exterminator is an ability that gives +50% military +20% defenses and negative on diplomacy, it comes with the Dalek Race. But you can use it with any you make.

I used it to counter the negative 50% from Xenophobic. However when I tried to remedy the negative to diplomacy (exterminator) by making myself likeable it did not seem to help. All races hated me pretty quickly. Perhaps the diplomatic hit is greater than mentioned. The plus 2 to diplomacy should have offset it I thought.

v3.04 now

JJ

He is using Gauntlet's mod.

Exterminator is a trait he made for the Daleks  .

He also strengthened a couple of "weak" traits.  Several of them grant one or another citizen.

Well, that explains it of course. So no free Commanders in vanilla.

Xenophobic Ship Production penalty can be compensated easily through Militant trait, Engineers or Government Ships at your key worlds.

This is exactly why Xeno is so problematic (= OP). Instead of just giving them -50% Ship Production they should have doubled the cost of all ships for them.

I know in the base time travelers were the strongest. I don't think they still are. If I'm remembering correctly Gauntlets race mod has three, or four traits this may make customising, not a good idea. As far as Xenophobic you will also need influence starbases. The Ai is smarter. 

The pros to intrigue are also there cons.

pro is that farming is done, so the Ai has a more equal chance to farm as you. The con is that now carbon is even weaker next to everyone else. 

Pro is that now the Ai can better keep up with your expanding. The con is that it is now harder to colonise.

This is a pro con I never heard anyone complain about. Pro you can now control approval through taxes. The con is that now you have to watch your taxes. 

Pro the Ai is better at playing. 

Pro now you have meaningful governments. You have to choose your governments based on your playstyle.

Shame the AI has no clue about this. I have had AI at turn 150+ with 30+ colonies decide colonial, imperial or media assimilation is the best government for them, this is probably due to weighting issues and said civs either not going for tech that unlocks governements (each civ should have a favoured government and beline it when ever possible) or simply the combined weights for the early governments is trumping later government weights (unlikely).

 Success with the carbon based forms ? I noticed lots of food on planets so is there something else wrong with carbon? Maybe Im not playing well enough but getting early population is very hard with synthetic at least for me. Im trying to do so many things at once like getting galactic wonders etc.. I havent had much time to build pop. The SIlicon race worked ok but the constant demand for promethion was a drain. So I turned to synthetic.

Should I prioritize pop over buildings with Synthetics ?

I certainly hope AI would improve picking their government otherwise its a handicap on the AI which I hate to see.

Perhaps its best to play 3.04 with no intrigue until this is fixed.  You still get better AI but no govt drawback. Alas but then your government fun is gone.

thank you all for the feedback.

add anything you think is helpful.

JJ