Finding the game to be incredibly predictable, wondering what I'm doing wrong?

[canadiancreed]

So after playing this a few times, I'm wondering what I'm doing incorrectly that I keep getting owned by thie game AI.

First settings that I'm using are standard, with the level being the lowest it can be, and ironman on. I go with the friendly humans (start on Earth) as the race of choice. Few alien races, no advanced empires or fallen.

I find that the games that I play follow a predictable script. Start out well, explore, colonise, the usual routine. Run into an alien race, and they usually close borders and declare rival almost immediately regardless of disposition (fanatical zealots I'd get, but I get this even with what you'd think would be friendly aliens types.). Within roughly 50 turns, war is declared. If they're listened as inferior military wise, their fleet is about twice the size of mine. Otherwise about four to five times. They come in, plow me under, game over.

So just build a bigger fleet? Done. Empire expansion grinds to a halt, but I've got a fleet of about 500 or 600 in strength. Great. War declared as per before (I've yet to see how you don't piss off aliens simply by existing.), you do a cat and mouse thing (they seem to always be fast enough to escape, or smart enough not to engage even if you're the same size fleet wise), until you end up in their homeworld system, where your general instead of staying out of station range goes kamakazie and your fleet is lost (I thought it might have been the settings for engagement for the fleet, but it was set to passive. Aggressive? Would make sense). Rinse and repeat the end result.

So is there any way to stay alive longer then 100 tunrs? Because I'm sure I'm doing something wrong considering how well this game did sales wise. Help anyone?

 

[Repeats]

Some tips for the dangerous 30-50 year time period:

1. Always be at or near fleet cap. Don't take out neutral space fleets unless you have at least 3-4x their fleet power. Losing ships to them is expensive and could allow an opportunity for the AI stronger than you to go to war.
2. Every few years, you should be checking your neighboring empires military power (located in their diplomacy screen). If they are superior or overwhelming, give them free gifts (ie a free research agreement and a few monthly resources for 20-30 years). This will build trust, and usually will dissuade mean empires from beating you up.
3. Forge a defensive pact with at least 1 other nation that likes you. When AI's compute war outcomes, they take into account the sum of all of your alliance fleets.
4. Try not to rival many empires if you don't have to. This can build support for forging alliances specifically against you (AI takes into account Rival with Ally, etc).
5. If you are declaring war on someone, be very careful to look at who the opponents will be. Independence guarantees are hard to notice on the diplomacy menu, but a full list of enemy empires will be on the bottom of the declare war window. Unless you are uber powerful, never declare a war that will create multiple fronts on your borders. The multiple empires will pick apart your spaceports and bankrupt you quickly.

 

[Slynx]

So is there any way to stay alive longer then 100 tunrs?

ofc there is.

Run into an alien race,

depends on your race. if you're peaceful - guarantee their independance ASAP (and maybe trade in their favor too) to start building relationship. they are closing the borders because they have a penalty when you first meet(it'll disappear with time). and they might not like some of your policies. you can check it by hovering your mouse on oppinion.
if you're war-like check their strength instead. if it's equal or lower you can safely declare rivalry for a free influence and start preparations to kill them. if they are supperior - be warned. cuz they may try to declare war on you instead. better not provoke them (i usually send them some useless trades: research agreement, map (but not sensors) and etc) and start preparations to kill them even faster. before they'll be an even bigger threat.

So just build a bigger fleet?

bigger means at least few thousands. you need at least 1.5k to kill spaceport. and another few k to kill a fleet guarding it.
if you didn't expand enough to have a lot of spaceports...it'll probably mean go above the fleet cap. way above. sometimes 2-4 times.

(I thought it might have been the settings for engagement for the fleet, but it was set to passive. Aggressive? Would make sense)

you may set your fleet as passive. but if the enemy will come into range and attack - combat is inevitable.

 

[Derp]

literally just build more ships

 

[Dalinski]

Use your Star bases as a defensive hub. Its surprisingly resilient at the start of the game and you can often lure the enemy into attacking one while jumping them with your fleet soon after.

 

[TempusxX]

just build more ships than what you got, and as someone mentioned don't mess with neutral fleets till your fleet is several times larger than theirs

 

[Alblaka]

The only way to be overrun that early is to get badluck and start next to a hostile advanced AI start.
In all other cases, just expanding and maxing your fleet cap always provides protection.

Across 200 hours of play time, I can count up the times I was declared war on by a non-FE empire on a single hand. And the recent 2 times were during me fighting a AFE, with the AI forgetting it's own inferiority over some weird opportunistic thinking.

 

[canadiancreed]

Thanks for everyone that replied. I've given Slynx and Repeats advice a shot and it seems to at least be keeping the fanatics at bay (have three on my border, but with one wanting to ally upon discovery, it seems to have become a stalemate.). As I expected, I was missing something important