Lost my first game last night |
Being an old SE4 die hard, the AI has not been a challenge. I've still enjoyed the Role Playing (yes, I RP against the ai...) but last night wanted a challenge.
So, in addition to giving the AI full bonus, 5000 racial points (of which I only use 2000) and many AI races, I also checked off "AI vs. human".
Ouch. It still may be winnable with these options, but I neglected intel. Big mistake. I also got a bad starting location, but by the end of 20 turns, every turn was:
Plague on planet x
riots on planet y
Ships 1, 2, 3 lost movement
Ships 4, 5, 6 cargo bombs
I tried to build intel, but my colonies were rioting, plagued or became their own empires! Finally it became clear I couldn't keep up.
But at least its a challenge now...
Lost my 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th games in a row!
I may have to try a normal game under 1.20. Has anyone noticed the AI doing better in 1.20? Maybe its just the game settings (max AI bonus, All AI vs. humans, max AI) but even using every exploit I can come up with, I cannot win the game.
Its the Intel. I can win militarily, but the intel LITERALLY takes my empire apart! They instantly make treaties with each other to share communication channels. One turn I am at war with 2 or 3 neutral AI, then BAM! I'm at war with 8 AI, most major races and I've got 50,000 intel points against me.
Ouch.
It's the Gang Bang
Iron Giant,
It's the gang bang all AI's versus the human that tilts the game in favor of the AI's. The total AI intel early on with the max bonuses is too much to overcome. I'm trying a game with just the max hardness and bonuses to make the AI's more challenging early on. It will be nice when the AI gets improved and actually plays smarter.
Omnius
Lost several times
After doing some minor tweaking to the AI, I've managed to lose several games now. This is without giving the AI any bonus beyond what I use.
It seems that the AI does not do several things very well at all, chief amung these would be exploration and colonization. After tweaking the number of exploration vessels and increasing the demand for colonizers, the AI started spreading fast and far, and was able to build a sufficient empire to challenge me.
I've had to back off from the full mod, however, as it also causes the AI to be highly hostile to ALL forms of life, including each other. Peace treaties were impossible, even amung each AI, and the quadrant always quickly degenerated in to all-out warfare. I need to delve in to the political AI structure to see what I can do about that.
oooohhhh look a quote....
The root of the problem as far as I am aware is that the AI only has one value when it deals with other races. How angry it feels towards them, this is increased by just about everything, from loosing colony ships it continues to send through gaurded warp points to having other races ships in its systems, to having its daft treaties refused. It is decreased by having successful treaties and I think it decreases over time if nothing happens to piss it off.
That is why it is impossible to end any war as the act of being at war makes it angrier and angrier so less and less likely to accept any form of treaty that will end the war.
The AI needs at least one more variable to make a contrast that will allow it to make rational decisions. I have called for the adding of a contempt / fear variable, where when the AI looses ships it not only gets angry but also starts to fear that oponent and the higher the fear variable the more likely the AI will be to accept any form of treaty, or offer anything to stop the war that is hurting it, also the more contempt it feels for the race the more likely it will be to accept a treaty that favours it, such as being given technology, migration, comunication channels, star maps even colonies.
The AI also needs for the diplomacy to be weighted, such as accepting a no research or intel stipulation is something that it will be extremely loath to do, but it wants as higher trade agreement as it can get, I would put limits on this that you have to have a less than X% treaty for a year before it will accept a greater than X% treaty, sort of a building of trust before a de-restriction of trade happens. Giving the AI such a weighting system which is modified by anger and fear will allow it negotiate for more realistic and acceptable deals.
The lst thing that comes out of this is migration needs to be altered, the AI needs to understand that lets its people move to another empire helps the other empire, and that getting other races moving into its empire is good (basic rule, but you can add in some xenophobic races who hate this idea, or races that want to absorb other races borg like, whilst others want to spread their own race to other planets and try and take them over).
The migration game mechanic also needs altering, so that migration will also remove domed populations from colonies when / if atmosphere breathers move to that planet. I think it would be easier to a game mechanic to do this than try and make the AI do it with miniseters or some other method.
The fact you lost because of
Lost my 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th games in a row!
The fact you lost because of intel doesn’t mean the AI has improved, it’s just mathematics : the AI had more intel points than you had. If the AI had really improved they would have crush you militarily and technologically.
Btw there is no AI improvement listed in the 1.20 changelog. Actually, it seems there has been no official real AI improvement (except bug fixes) since the game has been released…
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Feel lucky earthling ?
Intel
I tried jacking up the AI in my last 1.17 game and found the beginning to be challenging. I made sure to build up the intel and was able to avoid getting trashed through intel. I was bummed that the game only lasted 71 turns before choking. It seemed that jacking up the AI's just got them into trouble areas quicker.
Omnius