Okay. Had my first crash to desktop on turn 116 (trouble ticket submitted) so seemed like a good point to make some comments.
Playing as Terrans on an insane map with all opponents, all minors, and two custom races. All planet settings on abundant and everything else on common. Difficulty set to Challenging.
1) AI is MUCH improved. How do I know? I'm getting my butt kicked.
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I have 38 ships and 47 colonies. My tech is just a little behind the other players and I conquered 1 minor race.
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The Iconians have 70 ships and 95 colonies.
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The Yor have 43 ships and 71 colonies.
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The Drengin have 374 ships (half and half warships and colony ships) and 206 colonies! Holy sheets, Batman! The Drengin have declared war on me and their colonies are closing in on my border. Be interesting to see if I can hold out. BTW, how are they holding up their approval with so many colonies?
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Haven't met any other majors yet.
I got so used to the dumber AI in previous builds that I took it waaaay to slow this time. I am pumping out colony ships and warships like there's no tomorrow and I'm the only player (that I've met) with extreme world colonization, so that should even things a bit if I can survive the Drengin.
The malevolent perk where the player gets an overload class ship on every colony may be a bit overpowered. I'm also trying to figure out how the Drengin got 206 colonies already. That puts a whole new meaning to colony rush.
2) The barren world colonization bug is fixed. Thank you.
3) Getting scratchy sound (popping noises) during some transitions (like opening up the diplomacy screen).
4) The empty resource tile bug I reported in 5.1 is still there.
5) Diplomacy is much harder. I find the AI less willing to trade tech than in the past, even after I researched diplomacy techs. Minor races are still willing to trade starbases.
6) AI is still colonizing in my territory resulting in five converted worlds so far for me. Not that I mind so much them giving me free worlds without the need for colony ships, but doesn't seem the wisest thing to do. Only a malevolent race with the ideology perk that prevents flipping should do this as a regular strategy.
7) I still can't tell if morale relics are affecting planetary approval. No indication on Planet UI Approval popup.
8) I can see stars change color on the minimap even though I haven't revealed them on the main map. I was able to locate most of the other major players that way (i.e. Drengin - red stars, Yor - purple stars, etc.)
Well, I'm going back to see how long I can survive. Write more later. (206 colonies? Mommy!)