AI military strategy

[LDiCesare]

I agree with yin. I play most of the time incredible (usually losing) and genius (usually winning) ai's, and they don't often make coordinated assaults. They do recognize targets, like starbases when they can see them, which need being taken out. They will use their fleet effectively, but the ai doesn't use its transports in an intelligetn manner. They don't invade. I once gave a loaded combat transport to an ai just next to an unguarded enemy planet, and the ai just moved the transport to its own base instead of invading...
On smaller maps, with less decisions to take, the ai seems to be better able to focus. Gigantic maps are mostly a joke, as the ai will send troops years after you rebuilt a ship to destroy them all (on genius).
The ai also needs to defend its worlds better. They tend to move their ships out of the planet and let them there when they'd be better of defending in orbit. Also, they should upgrade and stop building colony ships, transports and freighters in industrial quantities. They should also sometimes stack a ship over a starbase to help protect it.
Overall, despite all these weaknesses, the ai is quite good, because it manages well on econ, tech and diplomatic sides. Just tell it not to attack scouts with AMMs and all will be fine.

[Eric S]

My 1.03A lunch game had the Arceans (set to intelligent) bringing in stacks of one transport escorted by 5-8 frigates, which is nothing to sneeze at this early in the game. The Yor, however, also intelligent, were piece-mealing their attacks similar to what you're describing.

[LDiCesare]

I think the different ai's are coded so that some race may behave more cleverly than the others with regards to military action.

[Master Marcus]

The AI is a bit tougher since the recent updates, so there's hope for some military challenge in the months to come - I'm not an expert player like many of you, I can't win at crippling - and now I find my challenge at tough the same way it was at painful before 1.03. Reminds me Civ 3 in a way.....with less AI cheats. They're gradually upgrading the AI and I like the updates process so far, aside the load crash bug found in 1.03A.057.

[Pyrkaige]

The recent patches definitely seem to have helped with some of the tactical movement and attacks, although much more is needed in that department. It sounds like those sort of changes are in 1.04, "All AI players more intelligent in tactical combat" according to the notes so far. Once it's out of beta and we can all play it, I imagine it will make the combat side a good bit tougher.