AI Cash and Big fleets

[johnrj6]

So I have power out the wazoo but still hard to keep from running out of juice as soon as a war starts. The AI can field huge fleets that are often 2 or 3 times the size of mine. I have more planets and they are much more developed than the AI planets once I get one through peace. AI planets are not doing anything with their pops other than food and maybe a power plant here or there.

My questions are how does AI build huge fleets and how do they never run out of cash?

 

[henzington]

You aren't building enough energy buildings.

 

[stumason]

AI gets bonuses depending on the difficulty level, so perhaps that is why?

 

[scaper12123]

For some reason, the AI is just better at managing their economy. In the future, you're gonna want to have every possible tile that doesn't specifically have minerals be dedicated to energy. Like, seriously.

 

[stumason]

For some reason, the AI is just better at managing their economy. In the future, you're gonna want to have every possible tile that doesn't specifically have minerals be dedicated to energy. Like, seriously.

Nah, you don't... Obviously, you need some tiles dedicated to energy, but you don't need to spam your planets with them. There are other sources of energy income, like mining stations and solar panels, for example. On some planets, I don't have any power stations at all and generally run a surplus even when the Fleet is out of dock.

I do use Alphamod, which adds a slew of new buildings, many of which actually use a shit ton of energy themselves. But modded or vanilla, if the AI is better at managing the economy than you, then something has gone badly wrong and you don't need to spam power plants.

Like I said, depending on difficulty level, the AI gets a bonus to all it's productions and other stats, from energy and minerals, to research and weapons. That is how they can field bigger fleets without having to carpet their planets in power plants.

 

[Voidlord]

I would recommend building Power Hubs on all your worlds if you have 3 or more Power Plants down. The little boost can be pretty handy.
Research power plant and power hub upgrades when you need them as well. I have had one game where is went from hovering around +1/+2 EC, then upgrading my core worlds power hubs to level 2 jumped my EC production to +50.

I would also recommend getting the Cosmic Ray Catalysis reward as well a 5% boost to all EC production is pretty nice. It's the reward for Observing Space Amoebas

 

[stumason]

I would recommend building Power Hubs on all your worlds if you have 3 or more Power Plants down. The little boost can be pretty handy.
Research power plant and power hub upgrades when you need them as well. I have had one game where is went from hovering around +1/+2 EC, then upgrading my core worlds power hubs to level 2 jumped my EC production to +50.

Indeed, power hubs are a must with any power plants - add in a capacitor whatsit for extra beans. I stick them on all planets with just a couple of power producing buildings. Set them up right with the Planetary capitals to get adjacency bonuses and you're golden.

 

[General Retreat]

With power hubs, it's actually always beneficial to take one whether there are any other powerplants or not. The base yield is fantastic (IV plant has the same output as a 2nd tier hub). The percentage increase is a cherry on top.

 

[Playwars]

Am I the only one thinking that the Dyson sphere was implemented parly because of this issue ? This way you could negate that rather annoying aspect of the game, even if it would cost a lot.

 

[Diezy]

I actually feel the other way around, especially in late-game, that other empires seem to fall behind in fleet size, compared with what resources they have at their disposal. Some far-flung empire holding a good 1/5th of the galaxy barely drums up some meager ~70k fleet, while we go around with a 200k doomstack to match Awakened Empires with. When Empires Awaken, or crisis stars, I'm the only one who's ready for them, they're disproportionately powerful compared to other empires.

Though AI does a good job early and around mid-game, the first few decades, when we fall behind some. It is a bit later that they just forget to make more ships. ._.

They don't have too much of an "Arms Race" mindset, if their neighbor or someone w/o non-agression has Overwhelming fleet, and they have resources, and are Hegemonic Imperial or some other conquery AI, then they should do what they can to get their fleets to be "Equivalent".

 

[Voidlord]

I actually feel the other way around, especially in late-game, that other empires seem to fall behind in fleet size, compared with what resources they have at their disposal. Some far-flung empire holding a good 1/5th of the galaxy barely drums up some meager ~70k fleet, while we go around with a 200k doomstack to match Awakened Empires with. When Empires Awaken, or crisis stars, I'm the only one who's ready for them, they're disproportionately powerful compared to other empires.

Though AI does a good job early and around mid-game, the first few decades, when we fall behind some. It is a bit later that they just forget to make more ships. ._.

They don't have too much of an "Arms Race" mindset, if their neighbor or someone w/o non-agression has Overwhelming fleet, and they have resources, and are Hegemonic Imperial or some other conquery AI, then they should do what they can to get their fleets to be "Equivalent".

That is actually a good idea!
It makes a lot of sense, surely your Rivals would try keep up with you fleet wise, even if they are not that aggressive

 

[Drakonn]

So I have power out the wazoo but still hard to keep from running out of juice as soon as a war starts. The AI can field huge fleets that are often 2 or 3 times the size of mine. I have more planets and they are much more developed than the AI planets once I get one through peace. AI planets are not doing anything with their pops other than food and maybe a power plant here or there.

My questions are how does AI build huge fleets and how do they never run out of cash?

I've had this problem at times as it seems the AI has no problem abusing the Fleet Cap. Three planet empires with 60 Corvettes, 17 Destroyers, and at least 5-12 cruisers seems out of whack. Granted they were good planets but I couldn't match them with 7 planets. Fleet Cap needs to be a hard cap. Full stop. Especially on something like Normal difficulty. Higher than that player's choice.

 

[Diezy]

Some good advise would be to almost completely avoid building mines on your core worlds. If it's Energy/Mineral tile, Energy always comes on top. Don't neglect science, though. If you're already rich, it's okay to use the blank tiles for science. You don't really need too many minerals, as rebuilding your fleet will take ages anyways. What you'll want to do is have Energy to maintain a very big standing force, which will lower your losses in battle on its own!
-The only exception would be in early game, if your starting systems are mineral poor. Temporarily building some extra mines to makes ends meet is good in that case, as well as moving pops from the power plants over to the mines, to have heaps of minerals to do stuff with!

Also there's Kinetic start vs Energy start. One thing that makes Kinetic better is that you might be spending plenty of Physics time doing Power Plant and Solar Panel research. Shields and Ship power, and the sensors are also in Physics. Energy weapon-focused playthroughs didn't feel too much tighter on tech, however.

Finally, I wait with the real ship spam until Engineering Bay/Crew Quarters come up. Just having any Admiral lying around leading your fleets has a chance to give you Fleet Logistician, which makes you support an even bigger doomstack! Until that, we try do only peaceful expansion, and use some Defensive pact for deterrance. Just build enough ships not to fall into Pathetic/Overwhelming so that it deters them.

Also Ordered Stratocracy/Mega Corporation are pretty crazy and push fleet size even further. A nice thing about Junta/Stratocracy is the better Admirals, which adds more maintenance discount, on top of the maintenance discount you already have.

 

[Drakonn]

Don't rush Tier 2 buildings either. I've been doing that lately because I thought it would be better but early game it actually hurts quite a bit and you don't realize it (had to have this pointed out to me in another thread)

 

[LordMagus]

Don't rush Tier 2 buildings either. I've been doing that lately because I thought it would be better but early game it actually hurts quite a bit and you don't realize it (had to have this pointed out to me in another thread)

Haha yep, have to prioritise more T1 and mining stations first.