The AI will still be AI, just a better AI...ORIGINAL: HectorOfTroy
ORIGINAL: MasterChief
I second this. For example, from the end of WWII until well after the cold war the US Navy's paradigm was stuck on open ocean conflict centered around the carrier battle group. Like all paradigms it took a lot to shift focus.
So each race could have their own military paradigm, which can be shifted, but only at significant cost.
This feature would add a lot of immersion to the game.
But then if you know what their military paradigm is you could easily counter it. Eg. Dhayut prefer carriers as they are an insect race. So you build your own carriers with fighters and ships with point-defence, strong shields, fast, that can chase down carriers and destroy them.
I fought the Dhayut yesterday, and I knew exactly how their fleets looked after a while. It would not matter what kind of fleets they were, they were predictable. Just like they could predict my fleets, but my fleets were not so easy to beat. It was a clash of titan blasters...
The main difference between myself and the AI was that after the war I bought 15 extra cruisers for each of my 3 main battle fleets. As far as I know, the AI did not strengthen its fleets... My fleets was not strong enough to take down a spaceport and 3-4 defensive bases quickly (so I used two), but neither where those of the enemy when the colony also had a 20 ship fleet helping in defense...
And credit to the AI. I jumped a large empire which was at peace. I knew of course that this was not the best idea in the world, but I wanted the fight. And they would have taken good colonies if I did not have rather excellent defense at the likely objectives (2000 strength fleet, 4 defensive bases at least medium space port, 20-ish troops on ground). They did indeed manage to land the odd group of 4-6 troops and kill a defensive base and get through the zenox shields of a medium space port. On the second of three incoming fleets, or whatever [:D]