A good option is Systems of War, where you have each of the 4 players in their own separate systems (2 roids, 2 desert, 1 terran homeworld), and then the center which has a bunch of resources. Ideally you will be able to quad-starbase the star, thus locking it down, and a substantial number of mines around the star (if playing as Advent or Vasari) would also be most effective.

[quote who="unicatsins" reply="1" id="2607201"]i would take a larger map where you can get more than 5+ planets. On small mapy your economy is very low. /endquote

This is really rather irrelevant, as the player's economy isn't going to be what wins the game, it will be the skill with which a player manages their units and their empire.

Probably the biggest reason why harder AIs are "harder" is simply because they get more cash. So, in all reality, "Hard" AIs aren't actually too much harder than Normal, they just get more money (in many strategy games the AI is the hardest part to program, so the devs instead give it more money). The idea behind it is that if the AI does something incredibly stupid (like most AIs are apt to do anyway), it can easily recoup its losses.

EDIT: had to fix it due to stupid quoting issues. 

 

"I don't grin like a moron, I grin like a sociopath."

If you're not able to beat a hard AI, then I suspect you have some very specific weaknesses in your game plan that need to be addressed.  Without knowing exactly what those weaknesses are, it is difficult to suggest a game plan or a map that would favour you.

There are some entrenchment replays floating around that might help you out:

http://www.filefront.com/15602939/CompStomp.record

That might give you an idea of how to pace yourself to defeat the AI.

Shield boosting power is nice, but at the end of the day it all comes down to firepower.  It's still pretty easy to roll an AI as Vasari, particularly in entrenchment with their lovely starbases.  You can get away just fine with overseers and skirantra for healing as Vasari.  Heck, the replay I posted is me crushing an unfair within 30 minutes with a well timed starbase rush.

Shield restore is overrated.  It certainly works, but it's not worth sinking two capital ships to get the combo, IMO.  My personal belief is to bring overwhelming firepower.  If the enemy is reduced to space junk before they get through your shields in the first place, you don't need shield restore at all.

If his problem is primarily in resource management, advocating a multiple capital ship strategy is probably only going to dig him a deeper hole.  Without knowing his precise difficulties, I would not recommend this approach.

If you have a fully upgraded starbase, brute force isn't going to take it down.  If it's an AI, a fully upgraded starbase (especially one with fleet backup) is essentially an "I win" button that the AI will never beat, so this is a moot discussion.  Honestly, I'd prefer to have some hoshikos, a few repair bays, a few hangers, and an Akkan (for targeting uplink so the starbase can hit Ogrovs) as support rather than the Dunovs.  Anyways, bottom line is that you don't need the Dunovs to get this to work, and IMO you're better off saving the cash and spending it on firepower.

That's just incorrect.  Advent's shield regeneration gives you 500 points of shield healing to every target nearby once every 20 seconds, whereas the Dunov's shield restore gives you 750 points to a single target once every 11 seconds.  Advent's repair platforms are also equal to the TEC platforms until the TEC sinks money into 2nd tier upgrades.  So while the Advent platforms are weaker, it's not significant.

on a small map, hopefully you have about 1/3 the map colonized, and a good trade chain in the works before you smack into the ai.  hopefully you smack into that AI at a choke point, and create a bottle neck, and then go back and colonize the rest of the planets on your side of the system.  If he cant get past the 1 or 2 choke points that tend to develope on small maps, you dont need to place defences on your back worlds.

once you choked him off, make sure your trade chain is long, and planets that might make the trade chain shorter, have NO trade ports (use them for your lab worlds)... trade is so important... it really is, expecially as tec, and get gets oh, so much better with developent mandate.  when you start seeing your credit income at 100+ per second... and can keep it there, i think you will find that you will have no issues crushing the ai. 

Don't worry about it.  Pace yourself and learn the different unit types at your own rate.



That's a pretty typical mistake.  You want to be as frugal as possible, getting by with the least amount of expenditure.  Every penny you pinch goes towards extra units.  As I said, it's all about bringing overwhelming firepower and torching the enemy fleet.

While technology can be very valuable and useful, the vast majority of technologies really only pay off for large and established empires.  Smaller empires should pick inexpensive technologies on the low-end of the tree (1-2 labs tops; exception granted ONLY for special ability and unit prototype research).  Select higher-tech choices sparingly.

The same thing applies for defense.  You want to get as much bang for your buck as possible.  The problem I see with what you're doing is that you're spreading yourself too thin.  A hanger on every planet means you've spent a massive amount of money on defenses, but on any one planet those defenses aren't very strong and probably won't change the outcome of a major battle.

If you need to defend a larger area, your only option is to have a standing fleet.  Trying to defend ten different planets with static defenses is futile.  Think about it; no matter which target the enemy attacks, 90% of your defenses are elsewhere and won't have any impact on this critical battle that will decide game.  However, with a mobile fleet you can direct 100% of your forces towards these critical battles.

Defenses should be used tactically.  Use them as speedbumps to delay the enemy and give you time to react.  Use them as havens where your fleet can retreat and regroup if it's outnumbered.  Unless you're literally swimming in cash, trying to defend your whole empire with defenses is just not feasible and will bankrupt you.



The size of your empire and fleet totally depends on the layout of the map and your own strategy.  On a typical random 1v1 map, you should have 6 or more planets by the time you're making military contact with the enemy. In terms of technology and unit levels, that really depends on your strategy and approach.

For me actually playing with vasari is easiest way to win hard ai even 2 of them ( 3 teamed allied to kill depends much on map you are playing on. U need good planets near you and only one choke point. 4 is impossible without ally on your side. That means human ally and double sb on choke points. Again it depends on the map u are paying.) 

For instance they got movable sb which can reduce frontal attack and they gave phase missiles which enable you that u don't have to deal with ships shields especially if u go against guardians. True they have nothing for buildings to kill really quick but they have very strong bombers which if u have enough of them they are good enough (again with phase). They also have overseers who with some  AM research 10 of them can heal your sb indefinitely if u don,t get hit by 20 ogrows or so and if u have air cover.

PS It might be easier at start of if u get 2 hard ai's with teams locked since they will throw some of their fleet at each other.  

Here is how i play against 2 allied hard ai as vas. Other races are similar you just need to incorporate races strength in what u are building. 

First i build carrier with fighters on them and then build sb on choke point planet where he's going to attack. U need to be really quick if u go against 2 of them) I don't expand too much. Buy some upgrades on my sb and build another carrier with repair ability, build repair around sb it and some cannons with reintegration disabled ability. While ai's attack I keep lvl up my caps (repair and fighter ability which consumes no am) and do overseer, am, armor, hull and phase research. Build 10 overseers to heal your sb as soon as possible. Don't forget to keep retreating your caps near out if damaged and repair them. When my research is done i build another 2 kortuls caps or another 2 cariers depends what fleet ai are attacking with lvl them and up as well atleast to lvl 6.

As vas it's good to have resource collection by your cap option so be sure u research this and cheaper ships option.

After all this is done my 4 caps should be lvl 10 all so now i build fleet of mine layers some assailants and carrier frigates if you can get 7 military labs go 4 subverters. I don't go 4 heavies because if u don't have enough of them they are useless (that is 20+). U need bombers now so switch ur caps and carriers on bombers but leave 10 fighters in ur ships hangars especially if ai has mass flak. Let them out when they are down to 5 or less. When I attack i stay near gravity well edge lay mines between his fleet build sb and when sb build and some upgrades on it i go kill his structures and sb which are definitely build. Keep building overseers u should have 20 by now. And keep researching military tree. I go 1 planet at the time now. Kill planet build some trade next one ..... etc.

You got upper hand by now and game can drag out for a while since vasari are terrible against buildings and almost 4 sure u need sb to counter AI s better income research and faster building ship speed. So u need a lot of bombers if you are going to try without sb. But in the end you will need one to defend when you move on to next planet

If you Play as tec its  harder since your sb is sort of useless or not so good. TEC sb is really good online since opponent never knows if you have Red Button on it. AI just rebuilds too fast so RB doesn't work there. Make sure u build plenty of hoshikas with disable weapons on them and repair around ur sb especiall if u go against tec or advent since they got building destroyers.

Advent is much easier with their spin and meteor on their sb + you can build culture on it and lvl 3 culture upgrade is really strong. But as advent u need to get some ilum spam soon otherwise ur sb will die and some guardians with repulse to push ai's fleet to yous sb.

 

PPS Not sure how it works against 1 hard ai but against 2 building fleet too soon is waste of money since it will definitely die.