Are allies useless late game?

[EnDSchultz]

So I was just playing a game with the Beyond Extended Universe mod and noticed something very disconcerting. I had formed a number of mutual defense pacts, although of those perhaps one or two actually had enough military power to be useful. In any case, it was pretty late game, and I had a fair number of automated fleets running around doing raids against my enemy as they saw fit. My allies, however, were paralyzed. Their fleets were stuck in interstellar space, constantly changing their intended destination as the attacks by my automated fleets came and went.

This went on for years. A fleet of mine would attack some remote mining station, their fleet would set in a course to help, but the mining station would be destroyed before their fleet could even engage warp. So my fleet went on its merry way, and their fleet would choose a new destination, and the cycle would continue.

I can imagine this wouldn't be as much of an issue in the early game when everybody can only afford one or two fleets, but once the galaxy's well developed and my empire has hundreds of ships zipping about, allies seem incapable of making up their minds and end up being totally ineffectual. So I guess the only reason I have to make friends is to prevent them from becoming enemies instead. Sad...

[Miyuki]

i have witnessed this happen to my own fleets as well, but eventually they do get to a target - or run out of fuel heh.

its interesting to see that actual alliances were removed at some point. defense pacts with more than 1 race can be problematic.

[aaatoysandmore]

Kinda just like we would do they kinda sluff off from the main battles and just like you remain friendly until they can take advantage of you or exploit your wars to get something they want.

Like I been friends with these dogfaces nearly the whole game. Made a mutual pak deal with them and helped THEM when they had thier butts in a crack. Now I've been at war with this uraquan faction for the longest and was about to prepare to try to take their capital once again. When out of the blue here come these dogfaces and stopped at one of my planets suking up my gas and an invasion force you would cry if you saw coming at you. I know where it's going because that's all that is left in that system the CAPITAL. So it USED me well until it no longer needed me and I'm pretty sure that's what it's going to do as it is at war with this faction as well but hasn't served up any help for years while I've been whittling down the capital.

So I think the ai knows what it is doing it just appears dumb. Isn't that the way of all deceit? I had the strongest military power ratings the largest fleets everything and then this war has taken its toll and these dogfaces are going to take advatage of it.

If you want a good game or at least this one has been. Load up I think it's a 700 star system (has about 7 star clusters in it) with these characters

1. Ketarovians
2. Kherons
3. Dilarians (dog faces)
4. Atuuk
5. Irgishoc
6. Aargao's
7. Uren's (the hell faction I've been tryin to conquer the whole game)

I actually put 1 more faction than I intended for a system this size, I forgot about me in the equation so you could drop the Atuuk's as they are never a threat in any game I play. The last 3 factions are though. [:'(] Set all races to be "distant" from you and you start on an edge. Even with that setup I got a chitty start as it was a pre-warp game and I was put on a planet a million miles from anything. It took me awhile to break out of there and get to a star cluster. I like star cluster systems best.
Even so I got about 30+ planets but those dogfaces had like 44 last I checked.

[Apheirox]

... so actually this thread has nothing to do with allies being useless and is rather about fleet automation being wonky. Which it is - automation in this game is a recipe for disaster and frustration.

You could have helped this issue by disabliing automation of fleet formation and sending only small task forces rather than entire fleets against enemy targets, though. In general, if you let the automation control your warfare you won't accomplish much as the automation AI will make terribad decisions.

[aaatoysandmore]

I smell a word war coming ^^^. [:D]

[ASHBERY76]

MDP are useless because the A.I empires and yourself can get peace straight away with no consequence.The A.I generally will not help for long.

[Shark7]

It depends. If you help them along, they can be great.

Currently I'm playing a game where I have set up a number of locked 'teams' where groups of 4-6 empires are allied together permanently. I have noticed a few things:

1. So far, no empire has been completely destroyed in this game. The allies do come and help defend the empire that is under attack, and do so effectively.
2. Allied teams are using coordinated attacks, even if the allies only send in non-transport ships to help deal with enemy ships and defenses.
3. It has been far harder for me to run away with the game as the player. I simply can't single out an empire and over-run it, as I will be attacked by all their allies as well.

Some things are negative as has been pointed out as well.

Also, I do a one thing to help out all my allies and make them more helpful to me. I steal the compressed fuel storage tech from the Haakonish, then share it with my allies. After that, fuel issues are much less of an problem.

[aaatoysandmore]

Shame on you for stealing from the AI. [:'(]

[Shark7]

Haha, I have no shame. Whatever it takes to win. [;)]

I know a lot of people don't like to steal research from the AI, but honestly, its just another tool for you to use.

And remember, if brute force doesn't get the job done, you aren't using enough.