Advice for Incredible AI difficulty?

from Stardock Forums
I'm in my second game on incredible difficulty (first was a mess) and I must say it's damn hard to overcome the huge bonuses the AI gets on this level. War seems to be inevitable, and when it comes it's damn hard just to survive. Some things I've noted so far:

1. You need a good start.
2. It certainly helps greatly if the AI's are fairly balanced in # of planets between them. If one gets the upper hand, he seems to pick on the player :p
3. You need to squeeze every dollar you can out of selling tech to minor/weaker AIs.
4. You can't waste time/money on military techs, IMO...better off just buying Shields/Dreadnaught + a few others.
5. You need to be clever in wartime (raids, grouping transports, etc.)
6. If possible you need to have the AIs weakening each other with wars.

Any advice from someone who has beaten Incredible?
420 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Get as many planets as you can, +15% pq will turn class 14 planets to 16 right off the bat which will be very useful. Play the AI's against each other as best you can and try not to get involved in any wars unless you're in position to launch a quick strike at several of their planets.

~SDC~
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
i won with a fairly good start and early access to two military resources. this was on a large map.

1. get as many trade goods (just lease them as soon as they're available) as you can and sell/trade them with the AIs.

2. avoid war at the start of the game, even if it means paying the occasional tribute. once you have battleaxes, feel free to start pissing people off.
3. military resources. these are VERY helpful.

cheers

h
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
wow...I'm impressed...incredible dificulty...last time I played I got gutted by 3 Idiot and 1 Beginner AIs...
And I had the impression that I got smashed BECOUSE I was trading tech for money....so I'm kinda confused...you say that you need to squeeze every coin by selling tech ?...that seemed a huge mistake in my game...
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Trading tech for money is the key to my economy (although I haven't tried AIs above Intelligent, yet). Just refrain from trading KEY techs (the tech for your best warship, an important trade good, etc.).

- Ash

~SDC~
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Trading tech for money is good, however you don't really want to give out battleship tech to people who are still using frigates as you need any advantage you can get.

~SDC~
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
well, I planed the game like this :
-me good guy, altarians as allies. (altarians as normal AI)
-yor and dregin badguys, first thing to do is KILLKILLKILL.(dregin sub-normal and yor as beginners)
-the bigheaded green guys hanging around as neutral and I was thinking about getting a alliance with them to win or another thing except kill'em. (to idiot level so they don't bother me too much or attack me and spoil my good intentions)

And I did the stupidest mistake of trading every last piece of tech with the Altarians, my allies, and they waited until we crushed the bad guys and then they realised they don't need me anymore and lowered the boom on me. THAT was the moment when I regretted I traded tech with them. So I guess trading techs like dreadnaught or rangers is a big nono.

So I allied with the blue guys
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
You may out-medal me, Norin, but I still post faster than you. ;)

"So I guess trading techs like dreadnaught or rangers is a big nono."

Until you have Avatars or Overlords, yep. The AI gets much harder to get along with when it has no one else to occupy it's attention except you.

- Ash

~SDC~
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
"and they backstabbed me...las thing I was expecting from an all-good race!"

Think "Holy Crusade". Good doesn't necessarily mean unwilling to get their hands dirty.

- Ash

~SDC~
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Yeah, its all these extra medals that are slowing down my response time :)

~SDC~
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Well, I was trying like hell to please them...I was choosing all the good options, I was trading with them extensively, I provided assistence for them when the asked, etc...
but the thing that pissed me most, was the fact that they seemed a lot weeker than me for 98% of the game and after we took out the badguys, BOOM ! suddenly they have swarms of rangers and dreads all over the place ! Wich was even more upsetting since I took from the bad guys 8 systems and they took only a small pathetic class 17 planet, so...there...they are just some sneaky bastards, whimpering and asking me for help when they actually don't need it.

I'm pissed. I swear, next time I'm allying with the dregin empire !
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Also, it goes pretty much without saying that if you're playing for a tech victory, once you start getting really close to Beyond Human, it's probably not such a good idea to trade your high-end techs to the AIs. That's basically letting them right back into the race to the Final Frontier. :D
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
The AI can't get a tech victory, so you have nothing to worry about there :)

~SDC~