The game is just TOO easy!!!!

[Spino]

GalCiv 2 is a good way ti go, in that the higher difficulties actually made the AI smarter rather than just adding additional resources to a moron.

It also has the various choices of what you want included in each game.

I don't want an AI that's necessarily more aggressive, just one that will surprise you on occasion with sneakiness rather than just spamming elite stacks. Stuff like cutting you off from your allies, building up it's own coalition and isolating you diplomatically before invading, that kind of thing.

Well most people who cry for a better AI opponent simply want one that 1) behaves sensibly and 2) behaves more like a human than a jacked up ENIAC on overdrive. Understandably 1) is far easier to achieve than 2) but the fact that some developers can do both leaves us wondering why the rest don't make a bigger effort to do so as well.

The lackluster AI in E:TW and other strategy games only illustrates the massive differences in design approach between most developers and Stardock. When Brad Wardell & company set down to design the Galactic Civilizations series they deliberately set out to create an extremely effective AI opponent for the single player game. A strong AI was considered one of their top priorities and they applied an extraordinary amount of intellect and resources in order to achieve their goal. As many people have mentioned, this effort SHOWS. The fact that Brad Wardell cut his teeth as an AI programmer didn't hurt either...

The folks at Stardock knew that if they provided a challenging AI that did not need to resort to cheating in order to make a good show of it would go over well with gamers and they were right!