How do I stop the hard AI from ganging up on me (or survive when it does)?

So, I've gotten bored with stomping the AI on Normal. I've tried playing some games against a Hard AI instead, and while I can beat it in 1-on-1 or even 1-on-1-on-1, I'd like to play with more AI players on a larger map. But the hard AI always allies with itself against me! My games go like this:

~0-30 minutes: I colonize a few worlds and start building a fleet and infrastructure.

30-60 minutes: A few forces from comptuer players assault my border worlds. My fleet manages to hold them off, but because I'm being attacked on two or three fronts, I don't have resources to spare to counterattack, and it's hard for me to continue growing my economy.

60 minutes: Five computer fleets, each containing at least as many ships as my entire empire, attack all my planets simultaneously. I either surrender or spend 15 minutes being ground into the dirt.

I know I'm probably not building up as quickly as I could if I had a little more expertise at this game, but how can I
possibly defeat a fleet that's five times my own? The only way I've found to survive is to lock the teams when I start the game, but that feels like cheating and also means the whole diplomacy aspect of the game (such as it is) is shut down. I can't run the missions the computer hands me ("fly across the map and destroy structures owned by player X") without leaving myself open to attack, but that seems to be the only way to prevent the Allied Fleet of Doom (I've successfully used this approach on small maps with 2-3 computers).

Does anyone have any advice? I'd like to be able to play single-player games without having to choose between a cakewalk and a meat grinder...

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

I actually find a slow start very successful. The AI gangs up on the most powerful player and you don't get 'attack' missions until you're within two jumps of enemy territory. I usually have enough time to get two 'give' missions from multiple AIs, enough to get cease fires early on.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Do what they do in multiplayer games... quit.

Successfully updated karma reason!

The AI is dumb. Make ships, lots of ships. go kill the ais.

Seriously that is the way. And you know the ai's are going to gang up on you if it is ffa unlocked so try and find choice planets for tactical structures and frigate factorys, send in frigates passed the front of the ai to mess with the ai's economy, use cap ships to bomb planets to attract ai fleets to the defence then run (position the cap ship so it can flee in the direction you want). Always be attacking. DO Not lose the planets where you have your frigate factories. Consider putting most of them 1 planet behind the front lines, keep you milstations deep in your territory

There are lots of viable strategies, Keep your fleet at #2 or #3 to have a slightly better economy than #1 and replace your loses asap.

At the start all ai's are enemies, raid them all if possible with small sacrificial fleets, do not expect them to come back just keep them moving deeper into the enemy teritory looking for trade ships and structures easy to kill on raiders path and avoid fighting ships that shoot back ( the ai will waste money on hangers and point defenses so watch out for these, especially the hangers). Then start to chose which ai you want to accept missions from. Do not sign trade alliances with AIs that are not right next to you as you trade ships will suffer attacks as they go through enemy territory. Although sometimes you can sign trade alliance with every one but this is risky.

The ai is really dumb, you can park a carrier in a gasgiant and kill trade ships, the ai will take a while to react, it may never react.

Keep building the metal only frigates - while using the crystal for the high tech ships and research- for raiding behind the lines but distract the guarding fleets with serious fients so that the low tier frigate can get through when phase inhipitors are built.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Major Stress

Join Date 05/2006

+161

Split your forces up and hit em from different directions. This confuses the hell out of the AI. Attack one world, and when the AI jumps in "run away" like they do, but hit another world with your other fleet while your first fleet is running away. Then watch the comedy unfold

Successfully updated karma reason!

Kitkun. great advice. i didnt kow tht they group on the most powerfull not necessarily the most human. I also didnt know there was a 2 jump limit to raid missions. thats powerfull knowlage.

Im sure every one has "how to play" advice. not to mention the few who simply want to put in their mindless "OMG i made a funny" response but the first response was the most usefull. I am just now advancing to hard computers and I thank you for the advice.

Successfully updated karma reason!