Who is the biggest threat?

from Stardock Forums
Well I've been slowly upping the difficulty to the other empires in the game and before I try and take them on in the higher ratings I want to know who you guys feel is the biggest pain in the imperial butt. Is it the uppity altarians, the evil drengin(who like giving me virtual hugs a lot in my current game, very creepy), the laid back talarians, the trade mongering arcaneans(i love their music), or the metallic Yor? Since my first game was set with all of them on fool, they all never attacked me really. Mostly because I was simply trying to get all the tech so i could read all the funny descriptions when before i knew it, i started a game of dominoes so to speak. i had somehow managed to have an overwhelming amount of influence and could only watch in horror as i completely absorbed 4 empires in only a few years. at the rate their systems were rebelling to join me, i would never finish the seemingly endless tech tree. luckily, the talarians ( i think thats their name, its the bug eyed green dudes if im wrong) were stuck in the bottom left corner and their systems were all rather distant from all the others. i breathed a huge sigh of relief and continued to go about my tech happy path. as an after thought i sent all 10 of my trade routes to their 3 systems, and ended up providing them with 92% of their income. needless to say im quite sure i wont have to worry about them at all as i AM their economy.
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
the altarians and the Drengin tend to be the most skilled AI's. Since i like playing evil, its the Alterians that give me the most problems, i think i had only 1 game ever that the Alterians didnt declare a war on me.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
According to Stardock, the amount of time coding each AI is in the following order:

Dregnin
Arcean
Altaran
Torian
Yor

In my experience playing on Genius, the Arcean are typically the most difficult to beat. I think is mostly because they tend not to always be in a war like the Dregnin.
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I would rank the AIs in difficulty:
1. Altarian
2. Arcean
3. Torian
4. Drendin
5. Yor

The Yor are so useless, that they are almost always the first major off the map and frequently don't even manage to outlast the minors. I typically play with the Yor at one higher level of intelligence than the typical AI for the game I'm playing. It still doesn't help them that much...

The Altarians seems to be the best at the long term game and if I can't get them involved in some useless early wars I have problems.

The Drendins would be tough, but one races seem to snub them in trades (I can always make the most by trading with them, no matter what by alignment) and they always get involved in continual wars that typically cost them too many resources to get ahead.

The Torians can be annoying in that they get along with everyone else so well....

Just my two cents,

CypherPax
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
the biggest threat is the one you don't see sneeking up on you.. watch your backs... ;p

~SDC~
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
well i just started a new game and im evil in this one, demonic in fact. ive just found the altarians, luckily they're really far away and my best buddies the arcaneans are in between us. hopefully ill be able to use them as a buffer state. at least until i can move a sufficient force down there to deal with them of course.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I think there's universal agreement that the Yor are the weakest race.

There's a lot of disagreement over which race is strongest, and it probably depends on your play style. For me I'd say its generally the Torians.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
I think there's universal agreement that the Yor are the weakest race.
End of quote


While I do agree that the Yor may be the weakest race, the developer is inclined to disagree: http://www.galciv.com/play.html

In the first example game, the Yor simply crushed him with no mercy. It was a bit smarter than the other players, but not by that much.

In the fourth game, the Yor was the leading superpower for the majority of the game. The only reason he survived was because he managed to capture Overlord Technology, as well as knocking out four starbases.

Since the Yor AI managed to push the developer into a corner twice in a row, I guess he felt that its basically developed enough. ;)
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Well im guessing that either those were two incredible flukes or he's using metaverse algorithims or something. In every single one of my games the Yor are the red headed step children of the universe. It's like they end up rusting right at the start and the next thing you know theyre a third world power throughout their (almost) tragically short stay.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Yor AI has the simplest programming, and therefore one dimensional. With an early advantage, the Yor can do quite a bit of damage and dominate late game.

Yor AI does find it difficult to win because its low priority of trade and willingness to get into many wars. If the Yors do not win early on, they are slated to lose later in the game.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Lol Binsbergen.
Mine would be:

1.Torian
2.Arcean
3.Drengin
4.Altarian
5.Yor
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
I would rank them:1. Binsbergen
End of quote


yeah, but how much effort was spent coding the ai for that one?
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
well i got the idea that the Yor are gonna be little more than a glorified minor race, but other than that it looks like itll all come down to how you play the game i guess.
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top

yeah, but how much effort was spent coding the AI for that one?
End of quote


I would say, at least fifteen years, but not all of it was for playing GalCiv and not all of it was effective programming. Still the best, though. Go figure.
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
My ranking:

Arcean
Torian
Altarian
Drengin
Yor

I always play with the Yor boosted in intelligence level just to give them a chance. I usually play as good or neutral, so perhaps if I was evil more often I would have more troubles with the Altarians.
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
Heh, In one game, the Yor ended up with 3/4ths of the galaxy with only the Torians and I left...

Everyone else surrendered to the Yor. LOL

~SDC~
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
The Arceans definitely seem to be the best AI race in the early colonisation rush...(leaving aside the starting position).
Luckily they are not too warlike; preferring to research trade stuff.

The annoying thing about the Altarians and Torians is that they always seem to end up in an alliance. If you last into mid/endgame, you'd best view them as one civ.

The most dangerous aspect of the Torians is their focus an research.
And for some reason the Altarians seem to get Battleship faster than anyone else.
Both decent opponents.

Drengins might have a lot of AI programmed in, but they usually run out of steam midgame. Predictable too.

Yor: everyone's punchbag. I guess their internal OS is prone to crashing ;-)

von Schmidt
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
As for me:
(all quite close to each other)
Arcean
Drengin
Altarian
(far below)
Torian
(even further below)
Yor

It should be noted that Drengins are more efficient on smaller maps IMO. On big maps, Altarians are better.
On really big maps, Torians manage to become a power worth watching, but their utter inability to land the adequate number of troops on your planets makes them laughable. Yor will have been destroyed or surrendered to someone else since a long time in most games.
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
Ive also noticed the Torians having a rather good late game. Here i am establishing trade starbases along my routes and all of a sudden my sensor drones finally uncover the Torians, and after a huge jump in espionage funding and continued scouting, i eventually find out they have about60 some colonies. yet because of their odd placement,i was the only one able to reach them at the current tech rates, and they seemed to have absolutely no defenses to speak of.

One odd thing ive noticed is that while the arcean always tend to be semi-peacful traders, theyre described as "proud warriors". So far i have yet to see them start a war, let alone finish one they got dragged into.
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
Drengins: Tough initially, esp if you play good. No problem once you make it to dreadnaught.
Alterian: Very tough on evil players, will declare war without hesitiation if they are ahead (even slightly) militarily.
Torian: My favorites. Very peaceful unless provoked. Tend to be good traders and researchers. Almost always ally with Alterians. If you wipe out the Alterians you can ally with the Torians if you are evil. Or if you are good a 3 way alliance is possible.
Arceans: Traders/producers. Can be quite crushing. Get PQ bonus and production bonus (tends to pick these, I don't imply that they 'cheat'). You have to overcome these advantages if you want a shot at beating them. Can be 'nice' to good and evil empires.

Yor: Pathetic. Never had a game where they made a difference.

In terms of who I would eliminate first:

Drengins (strong early game)
Arceans (strong mid game)
Alterians (strong late game)
Torians (always nice to me - not a threat)
Yor (the galactic joke)

Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top
Another thing that might affect the way we rate these is what alignment we set them too. I always have the race's alignments set to random so the races usually do different each game.