I just tried to play a FFA with 5 other hard AIs and I just found it impossible to win, this is mainly because all the AIs with which you don't have a Non-Aggression have you as a priority to kill. It does not seem like a FFA but rather like all against the human. The first such FFA I tried to play was a disaster. I had all 5 players simply assaulting me together in cooperation.
In the next game I tried my darnedest to make as much alliances as possible. At the start when you can increase their favour towards you mostly with resources, all seemed to go ok. However this is generally not enough to get a non-aggression going so you need to do more tasks for them. The tasks that they give you however are just insane. They always ask you to destroy fortifications and buildings which means you have to overextend to achieve anything. And even if you do manage to ally with one or two, they just love asking you to attack your new ally for more rating, or you simply end up losing rating from them.
At some point I had managed to get a non-aggression with 3 AIs which gave me some valuable breathing space, as the other 2 had already banded together and were sending huge waves against me, while I had no one backing me. So I had to concentrate all my resources for defending one chokepoint. All the three of my allies were constantly giving me quests to attack either my other allies or destroy fortifications from the two others (impossible). Eventually, as I couldn't do any more quests, one of them broke the non-aggresion and attacked me from behind. There was little I could do at that point, especially after the other 2 attacked me with a huge fleet (about 3 times the size of my defenses+fleet) and it was game over after a majestic battle .
The AIs seem especially annoying as they seem perfectly capable of making alliances among themselves without any difficulty.
So my question is, how do you deal with this? is there any point in playing with many hard AIs FFA as they'll just all gang-up on you? What kind of strategies do you have to keep alliances? Is there a way to gain favour without doing quests? I tried bribing them but it didn't do squat.
PS: I was playing Vasari.
They gang up on the strongest empire. Every AI you have some kind of cease fire/peace treaty with will go bug another AI, so that's 2 out of the picture. I generally keep the AIs on one side of me with alliances so I can dedicate to fighting on one front without worrying about my back-end planets.
And I pretty much exclusively play 9 Insane FFA (except Entrenchment beta which has some performance issues to make it not go so well )
I did try to do the same, but I was certainly not the strongest empire (looking at the stats). How do you retain you alliances when the AIs ask you to either break alliances to do quests or go on suicide missions?
You try to be quick. Don't scout out too far in the beginning, let the AIs find you first (they don't give you missions until you've "met" them by seeing one of their ships) to give yourself time in the beginning to build up and get your economy going. Don't over-expand either, as the kill missions only start coming if there's a target within 2 jumps of any of your planets. If you do it right, you can get a cease fire with just giving resources. With the timer on those, I usually get 2-3 closest AIs in a cease fire, and then for the third round of missions I just see who's easiest to please. Often 2 of your friendly AIs will ask you to attack the same target (might be your third partner). Kind of easy in that case
You don't have to do every mission, either, as the time goes on. They won't break a cease fire until your happiness drops below 35% or they run out of everyone else to fight. If you get a few successful missions in, you can easily fail 1 or 2 (so an hour or so) before you need to worry.
The AI may have an easier time allying with themselves, but they also cheat with you a bit since they're very loyal once the treaty is made. And very predictable
I see, I didn't really know about the scouting. I generally made three scouts and sent them to explore everywhere
I'll try to start another game and sit tight in a corner to avoid meeting everyone else
Yeah, they tend to gang up on the human empire and form non aggression treaties extremely fast. Even simple games get hard when you are simultaneously attacked by different empires on different fronts. Selecting the teams so that they are locked at the beginning makes the game far, far easier. You can still unlock the achievements this way. Its how I did it. Playing on multiple star system maps also can buy you some time in the beginning because most empires will not be doing much interstellar travel before you have a functional empire.
Sins is pretty forgiving when you turtle as well. Its usually death in most 4x games in that you usually need to be expanding on some front. The AI will strike areas they see as weak, so it is advisable that you dont park your defense fleet near the front. Instead park it a jump away and the AI will continually underestimate your fleet pressence if you kill all the scouts within the first system. Hangers and jump inhibitors help a great deal in closing down the AI info on your empire.
I dont bother with diplomacy at all in the beginning. I turtle, build a second 'invasion fleet' and then stick to hitting one faction. This incidently causes the remaining factions to like you more just by fufilling the missions by chance. Vasari really reward patients as those phase jump gates make moving one defense fleet pretty easy among a solar system.
I go for a really slow start. Doing tons of civilian tech research for my economy, tactical structures for defensive combat, and just a cap or two to expand. Then I start on the military research and bidding on the pirates.
Throughout this, I usually build a couple scouts and let them auto-explore. If I meet the AI early enough and do the resource missions as soon as they pop up, I can often get at least two (Enough to get a cease fire) before the destroy missions. I've had peace treaties with all nine AIs at one time.
I end up with an excellent economy, full military/civilian research, and few or no enemies. So I let my cash reserves build up, sending my caps around to level up, and wait for some AI to become less friendly. Then I spam a massive load of ships from a few planets in a matter of minutes, crush them, and go on a crusade across the galaxy, stabbing my allies in the back one at a time.
Btw, I use the + and - keys to speed up and slow down the game. While it might take five or six hours to complete just one of these, in game time is usually somewhere around twelve to fifteen hours.
Ah, didn't know about this. It might help in battles and large empire managing
You can't slow down beyond the speed you start at, though. Plus speeds up, and minus goes back down to default You can try setting it to Slow in game options before you start the game, though.
Seems almost sacrilegist to change game speed. Thats what save and pause is for. This is and I hope not ever Command and Conquer.
nex time put locked teams on then you dont have thoose problems
I'm a purist - I never touch those.
agreed.
Heretics.
I didn't know they were even there.
That's okay then. You have been enlightened.
still, let's burn him to be sure.
Hey all, I just happened to be wandering by with this bottle of spirits and this handy box o matches.
So what are you all up 2?
Can I borrow this for a second? I think the fox could use a tan.
Uh... fur doesn't tan.
This is where being small, fast, and agile come in handy.
Which is why we burn it off, first!
For once, I am thankful for work. If only 'cause of the pyromaniac.
You aren't safe there, either.
Hiya, I kinda have the same problem, I cannot beat even 5 Hard/Unfair AI's on a huge random map... heh .
I can do fine with Diplomacy and economy, my problem is Military Comflict, as TEC.
Can anyone tell me What Kind of fleet to have Beginning Mid, and EndGame?
Thx,
Koda0
With the TEC, it's actually pretty easy right now. Just get 2 Marzas, a Dunov or two to keep their shields up and you're good to go. Just wait for the enemy fleet to all be in range of the Marzas' Missile Barrage ultimate, and let it loose. The AI is pretty bad at interrupting them, so a full-lasting barrage from both is pretty much guaranteed to knock out all the smaller ships.
That's a bit too cheap for my liking, though, so I usually use one at most, supported by a pair of Dunovs (one to recharge shields, the other for EMP blast/fighter suck and recharge shields in a pinch). A good helping of Hoshikos (about 1 Hoshiko per 5 combat ships) and a few Cielos for target uplink (10ish or so, they don't get targetted too much). Your capital ships and heavy cruisers will draw the most fire, and the Hoshikos can keep them up quite well along with the Dunov's shield recharge for the caps. Your LRMs will be very brittle and die fast to enemy heavy cruisers, so try to take out those first. Zap enemy capitals antimatter with one (or both) of your Dunovs early and it'll get rid of a lot of their annoying abilities. Rank 3 of the EMP blast drains 450 AM, so 2 zaps will deplete pretty much anything.
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