Guardians, and why don't the comps. deal with them

[djinndw]

Here's a question about guardians...

Why don't the computer empires go after them? I've played a few games where a guardian has blocked off a whole arm (in a 3 arm galazy) and the comp. plyr right next to it leaves it alone the entire game.

One edit to this question, is that in my current game, the NO's ignored my planets close to them, but went through a few other plyrs, to kill a guardian that was blocking my back-side... Now that was a suprise... (this was shortly after I had total war declared on them in the senate)

[DeckPrism]

All I can say is that I have seen the AIs take out some guardians. In a medium difficulty 1.2 game. First they obviously have to get to the right tech level 20ish. Then they need enough excess fleets, maybe implying a period of peace. Galaxy size and number of players may be a factor too; if they really need the extra real estate. Finaly, they could be deciding to keep them as barriers as human players sometimes do.

If you then got invaded through that back door I'd say that was an amazing manuver by the NOs. Otherwise, odd.

[djinndw]

yeah.. I've never seen it done, no matter the circumstance...
one game, I had a comp. plyr stuck in btwn 2 guardians... wouldn't come out to play... it was also friendly with those it could talk to on the other side of the guardians...

I'm currently playing a 1.2.5 Hard small cluster game. The NO's have been quite active since I had them booted from the senate... that, I think was my big mistake... They've been pounding me every turn since then. I can't seem to hurt them either, except with missle volleys, and even then, they shoot most of those down...

on top of that, the other 2 majors races decided that I don't belong anymore either... one was a former ally... grrrr...

The NO's now randomly pick a direction within my empire, and go.

[grandIthkulman]

bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

[Patton1942]

I've seen the AI take guardians as well. I do believe that Deck is correct in that they are reluctant to do so, but will if and when the conditions are right. Remember, the AI doesn't use the missile ship like a human player. It just doesn't realize how easy guardians are to kill.

Instead it measures things like comparitive beam strength of its fleet to those of the enemy and will often retreat before firing a second volley, which would have killed said guardian.