I Can't Win

posted on May 7th, 2010, 2:07 pm

Whenever I play as the Borg or the Federation and have an opponent as the Borg or Federation, I can never win with the medium skill level.  If I play as the Borg, I usually have the federation as the opponent.  And vise-versa when I play as the Federation.  By the time I get the resources necessary to destroy the opponent, the opponent already has more than enough resources to destroy me!  And the AI always seems to know where I am.  If I'm playing as either one on the easy AI level, I always win.  Anything beyond that and I always loose.  I'm pretty sure I'm doing something wrong at the beginning of the game that is causing this.  What can I do to at least keep the relative powers at about 50/50?

posted on May 7th, 2010, 2:14 pm

AI has a massive ship cost/time reduction, sometimes has ship moved to rank 5 as soon as they launch and does know exactly where you are.

Increase the AI cost and build time to the max in the advanced settings, that should level the field a bit.

posted on May 7th, 2010, 2:22 pm

the AIs above normal got some cost reduction, in order to compensate that they can't tech in order to be a worthy opponent. All AI's have to scout and research just like humans would.

posted on May 7th, 2010, 2:44 pm

In my experience, the best way to buy some breathing room is to raid the AI's mining.  And by that, I mean blow it's mining facilities to hell and gone.  If you have to sacrifice a whole fleet to pull it off, so be it.  It always seems like the AI scales back ship production heavily based upon how many mining facilities it's lost.

Klingons, mind you, have serious advantages in pulling that run off, with their full-frontal firepower, high speed, high rate of fire, strong hulls.

posted on May 7th, 2010, 2:49 pm

Hitting the mining should work, the AI has to rebuild them and can only build so many things at the same time.

posted on May 7th, 2010, 3:23 pm

Thanks for the tips.

By the way, why does it seem that the AI will go after the nearest resource instead of the easiest resource?  I used a different map this time and some sort of defence cannon that wasn't on either team destroyed every construction ship that the AI sent to that resource.

posted on May 7th, 2010, 3:37 pm

AI can be programmed to act smart, but it is still dumb.

posted on May 7th, 2010, 4:12 pm

Also, on the larger maps, by the time I find the AI resources, it's too late.

posted on May 7th, 2010, 4:37 pm

memorise the locations of resources and their proximities to starting points. a lot of maps are symmetrical and moons are easy to find. produde several scouts. scouting is always important, u will know exactly when and where from an attack is coming.

posted on May 7th, 2010, 4:47 pm

As mentioned above. Scouting is critical. Also securing as many moon pairs as possible, for obvious reasons. But with the mentality of "If I can't have them, no one can" meaning that if you can't mine there due to a high level of contention at least make sure the enemy cannot use those moons either. This way at least you can mitigate them from gaining the upper hand in terms of resources.

posted on May 7th, 2010, 5:14 pm

hey quad what does your avatar say, its too small to read the text.

posted on May 7th, 2010, 5:16 pm

hey quad what does your avatar say, its too small to read the text.

Yeah, um... im trying to fix it but the site isnt cooperating.

Its says "THE BORG. THEY CAN ASSIMILATE THIS!"

posted on May 7th, 2010, 5:17 pm

haha. what u mean fix it? its visible to me, but the avatar is forced to be that size, so there's no way you will be able to make it readable. maybe put the quote in your tagline.

posted on May 7th, 2010, 5:20 pm

Ok you mean it auto-scales.

I meant im editing the text to make it more legible.

posted on May 7th, 2010, 5:28 pm

it autoshrinks the whole image to fit. even if you make the text the size of the whole picture it will be practically impossible to read on most computers. my resolution is 1280x768, which is a common resolution i can just about read "the borg" i think having text in an avatar pic isnt a good idea.

EDIT: i see the change you have made, its just about visible, people with smaller screens or bad eyesight will be disappointed but good editing.