Scorched Earth AI policy??? Can anyone confirm?

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

Hiya people,

Since v.1.1, I have noticed that once I conquer an opponent's race planets (by force) most tiles are empty and that the conquered planet lacks almost all manufacturing buildings.

It has been suggested in the official GalcivII forum that the AI may be running a scorched earth policy- i.e. that if your ships get too close to an enemy planet, and the AI considers you will likely attack it and win- it will destroy those buildings useful for you.

Now, it would be cool if the AI would do so- yet I find it hard to believe, really- That would mean I wouldn't even need to invade a planet to cripple the enemy's military economy. Can anyone please confirm this?

 

[JJMax7]

I believe a dev. talked about this on the subject of the AI not REALLY cheating. Just insane computer optimization, comepletely within the rules. Check out that journal/diary.

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

uhm- I didn't argue that it would be cheating - just something that made me wonder how it comes to be...

 

[JJMax7]

I'm sorry, misunderstanding. It just happened that the subject matter fell in the same feature as the AI cheating. I didn't mean it was or wasn't. Sorry about that.

 

[cgrd]

I've only played two games since 1.1. The last game I played was a conquest victory. The AI should've assumed (and did, according to it's report in the Foreign Relations window) that I was warmonger and invasion fleets where common sights. The only time I saw a planet loose everything was in the end game when I used tidal disruptors to clear out a high pop planet with few losses on my side.

My invasion strategy though was to target high PQ planets with manufacturing bonuses first and work my way down to the small fries. The AI may not have wanted to loose the production required to attempt to stop me.