I read Konstantine's AAR in which he chose non-optimal traits and had more fun than other games. Too many games have the flaw of offering overly powerful options and combinations which spoil the game, and also limit the options (why choose any of those obviously lesser options?). We want to choose powerful traits, even though we know it's less fun in the long term. We can make 'bad choices' so as to not win too easily, but that contradicts our drive to optimize our choices to win. A more palatable option is to simply not offer the powerful options. Player feedback can determine which are overly powerful. I'd rather have a selection of interesting but not powerful choices to choose from. This applies to combinations as well: you might offer two traits, but choosing one locks out the other. One thing that I consider a common mistake in tbs games is the assumption that the AI has to play by the same rules as the player. We know that AI capability isn't up to the challenge of replicating a cunning human yet, and thus it needs boosting to be even remotely competitive. Those simple bonuses tend to feel like 'cheating'. The goal for an AI shouldn't be to simulate a human player, it should be to provide a good/fun challenge. That doesn't require following the rules the human has to follow. It should be possible to create a different, but still predictable set of rules for the opponents. They're aliens, after all. Maybe they can't comprehend the concept of 'money', so they aren't limited by financial growth. Maybe they don't have the concept of 'self', and thus no morale issues, and make different decisions in tactical and strategic combat. By not limiting the opponents to human player's rules, you have the flexibility to create more interesting opponents. Regarding traits, AI races could have different trait options than the human player. Imagine playing as race AAA against race BBB. Race BBB seems to research at double your rate, and their ships seem to be 50% larger per class. You then start a game as BBB against the AI AAA. You don't see any options for double research, and your ships are normal size, but the AAA now have traits you never saw as options, and are way more challenging of a race than when played by a human. I wouldn't consider that cheating if I knew from the start that AIs play by different rules, especially if it meant that the game would be more challenging and fun. So, feel free to give AI races a different set of traits and combinations allowed. I think you'd get more players posting their fun AARs than you would get whining about 'cheating'. I haven't played ISG yet (no linux version), so I'm not sure whether there are negative traits to counter positive ones. For example, choosing 'research bonus' automatically gives you 'slow growth' or 'weak ships' or some such thing. Negative traits (also known as weaknesses) could provide interesting options. A problem with systems where you buy traits and can choose negative traits for more points is that there are usually some negative traits that are overly weak, which everyone automatically chooses. There are ways around that, such as randomizing the negative traits available, although I suppose some players will just restart the creation process over again until they get what they want, unless the negative traits don't show up immediately. Just thinking out loud here...
Welcome aboard @Excited Photon I Know you haven't tried the game yet but I just want to take a few minutes to address some your post. Very true, but we all went through great lengths to identify any such traits and eliminate them. In the end, there are many options available, and a player can create truly unique and distinct factions without there being one over-all sure-fire choice. This was harder to do than some think, and we hope we did a good job of it. But keep in mind, the hours I have with this game, they play a role in why I choose the set ups I do. No... but at the strategic level at least, it is the AI that will teach you a thing or two. There are many negative traits, selecting them gives you more points to use on positive traits, it's a great way to give each individual player freedom in creating something personal and unique.
Another suggestion for how to make the AI races more challenging without feeling like cheating: give them 'lucky starts'. I'm sure we've all encountered the AI race/nation that started in a really bad location, even to the point where they can't grow at all. Good for a laugh, but it makes the game less fun than it would have been with a serious opponent. So, in the spirit of 'not requiring the AI to follow exactly the same rules', add a bit of code to make sure that they have a reasonably good start. It doesn't give them starts that they couldn't get by random chance, which would feel like cheating, but it's just a statistical bias to avoid starts that are less fun due to opponents crippled by bad luck. Human players have the option of hitting the 'new game' button if they get a bad start. This just simulates that for the AI. A more complicated option: generate the AI starting positions after the human player's, which allows you to make the AI positions equally strong, or stronger or weaker relatively. This lets the human player accept a poor (no useful planets or resources in range) but interesting starting position knowing that the AI races will also start off with a chosen level of advantages/disadvantages relative to that same poor start. A side benefit: it also avoids the temptation to keep hitting 'new game' until you get a really awesome start. If you just want to crush weak opponents easily, you could chose to give the AIs disadvantages relative to your starting position. Players can also choose the fully random option if they want surprises.
This is how the game works now. On any difficulty above the average difficulty, the AI get more favourable starts. On the absolute hardest player difficulty, the player gets an unfavourable start as well:
One thing I noticed is that the game can select your custom races for the AI, so you can make overpowered ones and not play them. I made one called "Researchers" with +2 RP per pop, etc., but didn't play them. Then I ran into the AI playing them about twice as far into the tech tree as me without actually cheating.
