and if I could offer any advice, go for a Ceasefire, then move your ships into position to attack the ai's capital  

BTW, what is this about locked teams and such? Do missions for one computer and he'll ally with you quickly enough. Sometimes a bit of a gamble, but I've had cooperative treaties with AI's last throughout the game. And I've had them broken. But the system seems to 'work'. At least in 1.05 with no mods.

Khardis,

I haven't tried that since 1.05. It was such a pain getting even one guy happy consistently before they started ganging up on me that I just locked the teams. Perhaps I'll try a game with unlocked teams.

Wow when I first got the game I wanted to throw it out the window since I didn't understand everything and everything looked so new to me. I kept playing and now I can finally beat it on hard but it took me forever lol. Don't worry your not the only one.

So... In an earlier post I asked if I should challenge myself more by either playing on hard difficulty or taking on two AI's. Well... I'm glad to report that I decided to do both and set up a map against two AI on the hard difficulty setting... and I won! It was pretty tough, but I managed to pull it off.

Thanks for the responses guys.

Two AI on Hard, I'm impressed, but I just got this game on Saturday, I think I'll crack out one more Easy AI, just to figure out all the mechanics some more then bump up the AI for a challenge. Side note have anyone here ever played the 4X game "Stars!"?

Just curiouse, it wasted many a night of mine.

A friend of mine and me teamed up online and fought 2 normal AIs for the first time. At the beginning my Solar Empire was almost destroyed when suddenly a huge blue fleet tried to poop on my planets. I called for help and learned that my buddy didn't know how to jump between solar systems... and never researched the technology for that.

But... I survived. I rebuilt my fleet and began to invade the solar system of the blue AI. And it went... okay. I managed to get a hold in there and slowly pushed his fleets back. Saddly the defense of my home system was lacking... and the yellow AI assaulted me and managed to kill off my dead asteroid fortress.

Again I called for help. This was the time when my "buddy" told me he couldn't help me because he was allied now with that yellow guy.

In the end "we" still won that match against the AI. I could turn the tide of battle while my friend was goofing off chasing pirates and conquering their bases to get the "awesome" credit bonus.

Still it was fun.

meg good job, i never finish my AI games, they always fight til theyve got nothing, but i mean NOTHING left...... in fact.. i dont remember me beating any AI thusfar.... i just quit after i kil his fleet, main planets (research bases etc.etc.etc.)
and the boooring bombing stage begins

Actually, I'm currently in the process of trying to win the game with just my culture. I've managed to secure two chokepoints between myself and the enemy and I've been building broadcast centers like there's no tommorow. lol

I'm playing the TEC on a random small map. It's loads of fun... I love building up my empire. I don't think I'd last 20 minutes in a multiplayer game though. My pace is too slow. lol

Cheers

  sweet first day with game.    I skipped the tutorial though lol played 1 enemy on easy. got 1 planet 1 hour into the game lol aint that cool.   I had 30 ships protecting my secondary planet main planet was isolated with 1 jump point out. got attacked by monster fleet even for easy that was hard. lol they wiped me out and took my planet and I built some gauss cannons protecting the front of my main planet. built 30 more ships while the cannons took the front. all i could do was defend and build some weak ships and some more gauss cannons. but i got through and built a cruiser. I figured out how . but the unit commands were kind of like starcraft even the building commands but everything else was great. they destroyed me after they made another monster fleet lol. 5 hours on easy attacking 1 enemy. hahaha thats sad about 2 hours protecting my main planet   and 1 hour attacking them   . then i got attacked and they killed me in 1 hour. lol slow resources with only 1 planet. but it was fun so i made another game with 3 computers lol made one my ally killed the enemy in 5 hours lol.

sorry i didnt put paragraphs in the message.

the toughest battle for me was the Battle for the Vasri Homeworld, the advent where my allies and they where about normal agreesors, visari where hard fortifiers and the final battle took forever (like 1 hour) long until i said "FRACK THIS! FIRE THE NOVALITH CANNON" it was funny cuz it looked like he visari where beating the crap out of my allies and me until boom they just died

lol nice    aah i forgot all about the novalith  ( could have use it on the enemy

One very important thing when playing against more than 1 ai, give them what they want. My previous normal game against 3 ais, I did not do that and became the most hated person in the system, after an 1 hour of constant firefighting and pinprick the first breakthrough by the enemy was death for my empire. By appeasing some of the ais, you actually divide them.

I agree completely with Yatxhee. If they like you, they will most likely hate each other more. So the time they waste killing each other gives you the time you need to build up your fleet to kick everyones asses. At least, that's how I managed to beat two AI's on the Hard setting.

Take care.