AI/player restrictions

[Mike]

What is the AI allowed to do that a player is not?

Can they send colonists anywhere they have scouted?

I just started a Med/Hard, and immediately colonized a world 3 parsecs away without scouting it, since it was the only planet in range.

A Meklar scout jumped on the planet 3 or 4 turns later, and I didn't have a scout on the planet.

I scouted the Meklar homeword at about the same time, the AI only had 30 scouts sitting on it.

But, suprise suprise, a couple of turns later 28 Meklar colonists overrun my new colony. The Meklar homeworld was 6 parsecs from it. I spied on them for three turns, and saw no tech advances at all (I thought maybe they had hit an artifact planet, but it wasn't the case).

To make up for being so mean, MOO gave me a red artifact planet 1 parsec away my next game. Just IT9, but I won't complain. I've got a snapshot of my new binary system, SOLDARRIAN A, but looks like I can't post attachments.

[dathon]

Anybody, player or AI, can send troops to a scouted planet, provided there is a colony there. Thus, if you wanted to, you could stage an invasion of Meklon since you scouted it, though that would probably end your game rather quickly. This is why it is CRITICAL to keep a scout in orbit over all possible worlds in the early game.

-dathon

[Mike]

I actually tried to send troops to Meklon, but it said I only had range tech 3, and needed 6 to send troops there. I think I also remember not being able to send troops to a hostile planet, in a different game, because I lacked planetary tech.

I've got the game saved, I could post a screenshot if someone would enable attachments for me, please.

In the meantime, I'll keep a scout in orbit. Anyone build empty smalls (no tanks) to save bc, for orbiting new planets?

[dathon]

Oops, didn't read your post closely enough; I missed that Meklon was 6 parsecs away, so I thought you were asking a different question. It has been my experience that AI transports have no range restrictions. I cannot state this definitely, though. I do think that the AI is constrained by planetology tech like the player, though, based on the fact that they tend to leave colonies at hostile worlds alone until they have the applicable tech.

-dathon

[Catwalk]

You can circumvent the environmental requirements with Hyperspace Communications, you can even send colonists to asteroids It's also been my experience that they leave hostile worlds alone, but I think they're able to launch invasions at them.

[AlanSHB]

I've seen no limit on AI transport range at all. This has led to some fairly amusing moments, including watching a bulrathi transport travel the entire length of my empire on a huge map to get to the last of the hated darlok's worlds on the other side of the map. They only managed to scout the darloks world when they were allied to the extinct meklar some 100 years previously and had no range better than r4 at that point and yet they somehow loaded up the can of bears and sent it on a 20+ parsec trip.


Just assuming that any world the AI scouts is going to get troopers until they lose some in orbit isn't a bad way to play.

EDIT:typos