How to make brutal difficulty more brutal: currently, at least on sparse stars, most successful early war strategy is creation of "no man's land" of scorched systems, then guarding it against enemy unescorted colonizers and outpost transports. Also AI usually doesn't guard empty border systems, which lets the player to station forces in them, then create outpost and carry out unexpected raid. So: 1) escort "range extenders" with main fleet if in range; 2) attack enemy gatherings in empty systems. Also 3) AI scouts can (and should) destroy enemy outposts, it is only needed to teach them to stay out of blast radius.
If you are afraid that these changes make the AI less fun, you can limit them to higher difficulty levels. What is really not fun, is being blasted by superior enemy, whose installations are out of reach because your neutral neighbor provides the range. I hope, when diplomatic requests from player to AIs will be implemented, there will be request to break open ports treaty with third party warring the player.

I've got an impression that AI, when contemplating war of conquest, counts on range from all sources, including open ports treaties with potential victim and victim's allies.

game_9871: An issue I've noticed several times, but have never bothered to report since it's mostly just a 'wart' rather than a real bug. If you re-establish diplomatic relations with another star nation on the same turn you diplomatically annex another star nation with which you had an active promise to sever relations with the nation you are establishing relations with, you get an oathbreaker notification telling you the star nation you just annexed will not be pleased- quite a feat for a government that no longer exists.

At least some argument might exist that immediately contravening a promise to sever relations after you annex the nation you made the promise to might be a morale issue amongst its citizens ('cozying up to the people that were our enemies!'), although I am uncertain this is a very strong argument. If no morale issue is created, the oathbreaker notification should probably be removed in this case.

Uploaded game "game_9891" shows that the trade deal made with the Phidi does not provide the amount of trade routes displayed on the diplo screen 3 instead fo 10

Also (this is an old one): Fast Tactical Animation effect is lost after game is restarted

zolobolo wrote:Uploaded game "game_9891" shows that the trade deal made with the Phidi does not provide the amount of trade routes displayed on the diplo screen 3 instead fo 10

Also (this is an old one): Fast Tactical Animation effect is lost after game is restarted

The trade thing almost certainly not a bug: http://stars-in-shadow.com/forum/viewto ... ?f=3&t=905

nweismuller wrote: The trade thing almost certainly not a bug: http://stars-in-shadow.com/forum/viewto ... ?f=3&t=905

The actual trade pool increase might be correct I havent checked that (seems like a lot of math )
Just saying that the description on diplo screen and actual trade pool increase do not match

Is there a modifier on Hard difficulty that lowers the actual chance of invasion success?
I havent played hard really so far so cant compare but just now havign a game on Hard and my invasions keep failing every time they are below 75% while the enemy keeps cpaturing planets with two hover tanks against 1 Hover tank and 4-6 militia in a single turn and without losses

Fleet destination selection should take distance stronger into account: the longer the distance the target should have exponentially lower value
e.g.: A target 1 Turn away should have x2 the priority then a target 2 Turns away and x4 the priority as a target 3 Turns away

Other metrics such as defense strenght, enemy fleet strenght and resource output should also alter a targets value of course but distance should be a strong factor that rapidly reduces target value while other factors should increase its value and in linear fashion to make sure that no target is every attacked from the other side of the galaxy even if it has huge resoruce output and is undefended

This is necessary to make sure hat time is managed appropriately by the AI when deciding on wher to send its ships
Time being the most important resource as a fleet is useless when travelling long distances no matter how many and how strong ships are in it

game_9896 shows the issue well: Phidi have sent their only (relatively strong force) to a target literalyl on the opposite side of the galaxy takign 13 Tursn to get there while their enemy is 3-4 Turns away from their owns systems

I think that missile point defense systems should be consuming ammo anymore (think I saw that for some races and was mentioned in hte forum as well)

In case of Gremak I have seen multiple ships burn through a limited set of ammo for missile PD as well... this might be a bug if this should not be the case of anti missiles anymore

But this brings me to a suggestion:
Have Extra munitions provide unlimited anti missile ammo (besdies increased normal missile ammo) - this way the module becomes very useful for ships using AM

Which is exactly the case on large ships where which need longer range to cover other ships due to their own large size (AM is trading in power for longer range)

Large ships also happen to have multiple system slots so Extra Muntions can finally be a potent alternative for shield: currently it does not make sense to trade in a shield slot on large ships for munition as they also need many missiles to make it worth which they usually will not have as heavy slots do not provide any bonus for mounting missile on them

Game_9898. Looks like AI, when deciding to attack enemy colony, doesn't take into account the presence of his enemy's allied forces. See battle for Acamar (topmost notification).
Game_9899. Pair of destroyers at Mendorn were reportedly refitted, but still inactive.
P.S.: I guess I know what happened with destroyers. Their refit was in the queue of Mendorn colony when I issued mass refit. So they vacated the queue, hence the notification, but for some reason required one more turn to apply the instarefit.

Game_9904. Why after I successfully defended ally's colony at Dunaman, the game offers me to bomb and invade it?

Why Tinkers use boring torpedos instead of their wonderful Vindicators?

Game_9907. Topmost notification says <ERROR> - <This is a bug>, probably because Orthin population of Yaluk III became content and was reconquered back by Orthin in the same turn.

Is there maybe a limitation within the game itself to have AI utilize stargates and that is why tehy are not meant to build them either?

I have written before that Imperials do not get the ETA reduction of their own stargate and that I have never seen an AI construct gates
But today I was thinking how that would work if they did: all systems get the stargate icon displayed independently from the owner right?
So maybe tehy are coded in a way that it is not possible to have several gates from several onwers at the same system? Need to test if it is even possible to contruct more then one by the player in the same system

If this is truly a fundemental limitation I would suggest to make their effect universal: All gates are connected to all gates independently from owner and also cosequently do not have an owner and cannot be captured (or are always automatically "captured" when the plannet is taken ower). They would also not particiapte in planet defense missions (there is no sesne for them to do so)

Thus the AI can build gates as their effect would be universal

The drawback is that the galaxy would loose its structure created by these intersellar highways but since only the player is doing that right now its still better then leaving the AI in a disadvantage, even the Imperials who should have this as a core benefit

zolobolo wrote:Need to test if it is even possible to contruct more then one by the player in the same system

Yes. I have already built four gates in a single system -- it's pointless but it's possible.