Okay, call me crazy, but I've been making (semi-)serious attempts at Double Godlike for some reason and I figured I'd start this up to see how you would go about it.
For the record, I say 'typical' setup in the thread title because I'm not trying to cheese this out in any fashion, but doing it straight up.
I'm also wondering if I'm missing something, most games I last less then 30 minutes.
The setup I'm using is a follows:
AI Difficulty 10 for both, Random All Non-Technologist
80 planet map, Realistic, Expansion Enabled
Complex Ships, all enabled except Astro Trains (they tick me off too easily)
All Minor Factions Enabled, No AI modifiers, 1 AIP per 30 mins.
No AI Plots
So far, my record is 2:55 game time with no systems captured, although I did have the command station down on the first system I was going to capture, I was not able to actually clean the system out and get a command station built. (Map seed 1002441406, I took the teleport stations. AI 1 was a Tag Teamer, AI 2 was a Tank.)
The strategy that (sort of) worked for me this game was to unlock Mk II & III teleport stations and Mk II MLRS turrets and spam build them around my command station, leaving the warp points undefended. This requires harvester exo-fields to avoid your harvesters getting destroyed.
This however put all my knowledge towards defense, leaving me to have to capture my next system with only Mk I units, which I ultimately wasn't able to do even if this was by far the game I stayed alive the longest. (My second best game I only stayed alive about 45 minutes as compared to 2hours 55minutes.)
Having tried about 15 games now, generally with a different strategy each game, I've tried most of the strategies I can think of.
Tractor + Turrets on the warp points, Fortresses, Mines, Ships only, different specialty ships, etc.
So, I now toss this out to you guys, what's your "super-defense" strategy you would use to survive at AI 10?
D.