I've noticed the same thing. It's pretty rare to see the AI actually defending their strategic resources, although I'm imagine that's more of a problem with their lack of starbase upgrades in 1.0x than anything. I haven't tried the 1.1 beta yet... gonna wait until it's all there instead of learning a new system that might not carry over in its current form.

Playing with the full AI, Intelligent I think it's called? I can never remember the names since I play by difficulty. Tough is the one I'm on. It's on my metaverse thing if I can ever the medals to show.

Anyway, it's so easy to beat the AI to them. Take the Federalist + Max Econ bonuses and you can easily afford to buy the constructors that you need. Get a few sensor ships out there and badda boom. The AI seems to almost always take colonization of a crappy 4-6 world over a strategic resource. Just gotta plan your game ahead and its golden.

As far as defending them? They do a lot better, but the way they guard strategic resources is still bad. Something needs to be done about it.

This is on the 1.1 beta, so hopefully the kinks will be worked out.

Heh, the problem with them not guarding starbases effectively is that they don't research starbase defenses until turn 200+. This is on 1.1b... and by turn 200, on a medium map, the AI is getting his a$$ handed to them by me, so it's already too late.

But yeah, I gotta hand it to them... they grabbed ALL the resources in my game except for one which was right next to my base. I thought I could afford to wait to grab it... nope. I had to buy a consructor before they snagged it on turn 7.

Make the AI tougher by having the research starbase techs early on (there's a mad dash for miniaturization tech... but starbase tech is way better). Hell, I destroy the AI with fleets of Tiny hull ships the entire game using a few quality starbases (sure I plug about 15 constructors into each one, but who's counting? )


The AI either has to start using military starbases effectively, or seriously nerf them (they are by far the most powerful items in the game, next to morale resources).

Also, Armor Plating is a bit overpowered for my taste at Size: 15, Cost: 3, Defense: 1... shouldn't it be cost 30? My final "uber" ship configuration uses this armor, to bring my final cost per ship down to 60!