I hesitate because.......

[ductape]

ORIGINAL: licker

ORIGINAL: Zakhal

Is the AI any good? Does it provide plenty of challenge even after you have learned to play the game?

The answer is 'it depends', but generally the answer will probably be 'no'. Of course there are lots of different ways you can set up your games to give yourself additional challenges, though that kind of a challenge is somewhat different in nature from the AI being challenging in and of itself.

Though is there a game you feel has an AI which provides 'plenty of challenge' after you've learned the game?

AI War: Fleet Command
http://www.arcengames.com/aiwar_features.php

amazing AI, massive fleets, like MASSIVE. thousands of ships. It IS an RTS, but a pretty nice one. Not like Distant Worlds at all, but if you like space games i can recommend this game too.

[Gertjan]

I agree with those that said that AI ship design automation needs some improvement. I hope that's also on the list!

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: ductape
AI War: Fleet Command
http://www.arcengames.com/aiwar_features.php

amazing AI, massive fleets, like MASSIVE. thousands of ships. It IS an RTS, but a pretty nice one. Not like Distant Worlds at all, but if you like space games i can recommend this game too.

So far I have skipped AI:War because I dont like RTS games that have tons of units. However I put the demo to install from steam just to see how it feels.

[Gertjan]

But why do you like DW then, it also has tons of units

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: Gertjan

But why do you like DW then, it also has tons of units

I thought many of them like civillian units were automated. But if the games combat consists of thousands of small combat ships that you have to control manually in real-time then Im not really not interested.

The difference usually comes in how you handle the units in the game. Total war has thousands of units too in realtime but the units are divided to max 20 standard-sized groups.

If distant world has tons of ships I would prefer i.e
to build and manage squadrons of ships not individual ships.

And thats the first problem I have with i.e AI:war. Click one time build one ship. I have to click thousands of times of build thousands of ship. This is not how I want to manage a strategy game of this scope. I want more meaningful gameplay.

[JarlFrank]

It doesn't really feel like an RTS, maybe like one of the Paradox games because you will often make use of the pause button, and gameplay isn't hectic like in Warcraft.