Hi, only a few days into my first game, wanted to give a bit of early feedback.
In our game, 4 of 8 players went AFK soon after the game start, they probably never logged in. I’m guessing a lot of newb games start with some AFK players.
When the AI takes over, it does not play by the same rules and completely outmatches new players. In particular, it gets research levels that are simply not possible based on the stated science and experimentation levels, which I was monitoring closely.
Of the four remaining players, I think two more are on their way to AFK timeout, probably on account of being swarmed by the AI once it took over.
I started in a position completely isolated from the AI so it wasn’t really an issue for me, but now it looks like this game will end early with me defending against the one remaining player until he is destroyed by the 3 AIs around him, then as the last remaining human player, I will quit - on about day 5.
I’m guessing the AI is tuned to make it more challenging for regular players, but it makes for a really bad first impression seeing the AI “cheating” in newb games, it feels like the few days I have played so far were completely wasted.