Are some computer races randomly chosen to die off quickly?

from GalCiv2 Forums

This is what I'm observing in my games.

It seems that, assuming the difficulty and personality of the AIs are similar of the same, that the races who comes out the strongest and those who come out the weakest tend to change from game to game.

For example, in one of my TA games, the Drath Legion is my biggest enemy while in another, they die out quickly.

The name in that sentence is changed often. Sometimes, the Torian Confederation came out on top. Othertimes, the Drengin Empire came out on top too. The list goes on.

In every game, does the game set an AI race that will become your biggest rival in terms of power?

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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Regardless of how well tweaked an AI is, it tends to die off quickly if it doesn't have many worlds nearby to colonize, and particularly if it's in a very tight pocket in between two or more other races.

In other words, the spawn locations, with respect to the planets generated, have more of an effect than almost anything else (exceptions: that bug where AIs failed to build planetary improvements, that bug where AIs failed to research/build fighters) in determining who your rivals will be, and who will get their brains splattered all over the floor.

As this planet generation is pseudo-random, your rivals should change somewhat from game to game.  While the planet generation and spawn locations could be better chosen, it's not precisely that the game has chosen AIs to die off sooner-it just makes it more likely.

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I see.

So, with fewer initial AI opponents, will all of them have the opportunity to develop to be mighty enemies?

And the spellchecker in these web-browsers needs to get better!!!

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Other than the geographical factors that Sole mentioned (astronomical factors?)  There's the fact that any given AI could simply follow a not-so-great strategy.  It may spend poorly.  For example, I've noticed that those races sending out an early constructor seem to have a big lag in putting out colony ships.  So, if they start near a resource, they may hamper expansion by buying a constructor, or something.  They could also get sidetracked in research and spend a long time researching techs that don't help early development.  So they go early for some expensive tech while others are getting all the early bonuses and basic improvements going.

Those kinds of things can be hard to come back from.  I've seen the AI make those mistakes and still manage to come out strong, but not often as a top contender.

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I find that it makes for a much better endgame if races aren't equal in strength. The starting position helps to ensure that, but I often find it lacking and turn on "randomise intelligence" to make sure that some races are better than others... (Wow, that sounds... wrong...)

Too often have I played a game where, after I finally defeat my nearest neighbour (I prefer playing on a setting that will almost kill me), the rest is suddenly easy pickings because I have doubled in size (by eating the previously meantioned neighbour) while they kept eachother in check. Randomising intelligence gives you a new "boss" to fight after your first enemy.

Additionally I think it's great that it changes which races do well and which wither and die. Don't want each game to be a repeat of the last, do we?

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

It is worth noting that which races tend to do better or worse seems to depend at least somewhat on which races you play as. In almost a dozen games as the Terrans, both with and without tech tree fixes, I've never encountered strong Drath, yet in my very first game as the TA Drengin they crushed me overwhelmingly.