Unnamed's Mod version 1.04 Available

Thank you very much! I'll give it a spin this week and see if the AI manages to keep minerals in stock longer.

Awesome Unamed, looking really good so far.

Good work. The AI seems to do quite well in my little test game.
One small problem I have found in the carrier design: they have no additional supply storage. Therefore most of their fighters will be launched without supplies and will be useless.

Here are some observations from the Finite Resources game I've been playing: (still in progress, but the writing has been on the wall for a while now)

The AI that started nearest me and negotiated a trade treaty right away is still there, and still slowly expanding. As they don't breathe the same stuff I do, I've mostly just colonized my atmospheres in the region and some of the large/huge worlds they showed no interest in...they should really research the other colony types, some nice real estate slipped by them! Oh, and the Ruins worlds too...I snag those ASAP as a matter of course, doesn't everyone?

That AI appears to be functioning, marginally, despite the late year. It isn't doing great by any stretch, but it hasn't completely shut down either. They have a few ships flying around, purpose unknown - I should really get some long range scanners in their travel path. Frigate class is the only one I've seen from them. They've opened up a new colony (ice only) each year or two, approximately, and now span about 15-20 systems.

The other AI's I've encountered seem to have either starved out or are operating on a shoestring budget...I'm not sure I've seen any ships from them, though that could be partially because I have lousy visibility in their areas. I never deployed my spy sats in this game. One AI did seem to spread out a bit farther before going broke, the other only made it to a couple other systems. (too bad, too, there were some sweet planets a couple systems away from them in both directions, their atmo type, huge/large, high minerals, one even had ruins)

I'd say that the improvements for Finite Resources games aren't enough to save the AI's bacon, still. Part of the problem might be the high concentration of satellites the AIs like to build fairly early on (when the tech is too lousy to be effective anyway) though it's hard to tell from just one game.

I don't know if it's just me, but only that first AI showed even the slightest interest in a treaty, ever. It could be that I'd gotten too large before meeting the others, not sure, but they refused anything I sent them. I can't compare that to the stock game though, I never bothered with treaties in SE5 stock since there was no reason to even pretend to be nice to the stock AIs. But if the AIs in this game had accepted trade treaties, they would have gotten at least a little resource help from it...something they should have been too desperate to say no to.

I'd say they need to research more heavily early on, get the planet utilization techs before they starve out and can't implement them, and they also need to research the other colony types earlier so they can expand more readily. If they don't have enough worlds to research and mine, they can't get to the techs that will let them sustainably mine into the mid-game.

I started a new game with your AI. Out of habit, I gave them a low bonus. Bad idea, and I'm happy to say it. Although my empire is far from defeated, it's very difficult for me. I've become too complacent after facing stock AI too much.

Keep up the great work!

-----
Space for rent - please contact owner

Unnamed,

Every little bit is very much appreciated! The improvements you've already made are a big leap above stock.

I'll have to check how much bonus the AI was getting, perhaps I neglected to set that for this game.

I am actually playing a game of your mod 1.04 , the ministers of my empire are all under computer control , except for the research and i noticed that my fleets have only 1 ship which is ridiculous , i thought that later in the game tehre would be more added but after 42 turns , still have 1 ship only in my fleets Is it possible to fix that in your next version ?

Stardate 2408.4:

AI are expanding nicely, have a balanced economy with enough resources, good mix of ships.
Research: nobody has researched destroyers or ECM until now!
More intel points than research points generated (I believe that offensive intel is of very little use to the AI).
Ship/unit design: point defense is available (level 6) but not used in ship/unit designs.
Fleets are used but sometimes fleets have no ships (seems to be a general bug as I have seen this in Balance Mod too).
Construction: still many units, which leeds to "no cargo space available" messages.

Keep on your good work!

One small request; a .zip download....... I can't do anything with .rar's

After playing more of your mod, there are a few issues I've noticed...

Militia troops don't have weapons. I'm not sure if the AI's constructed troops have weapons, either, because I've had very long ground combats between AI's at Processing.

The AI does focus a great deal on intel, perhaps too much. If the AI's replaced 1/4th of the intel facilities with research facilities I think that would cause a noticeable increase in expansion.

The Sithrak and I have, uh, 'shared' one of the systems for almost 3 decades now. He has built up almost 200 units in that system, but hasn't assaulted the two planets I have in that system. Is the AI capable of ordering unit groups to assault planets?

The Sithrak also attacked one of my systems with a fleet with about the same ship count as my entire empire. It attacked one of my planets and dropped troops - fighters from a carrier - to my planet. However, the fighters were all lanched immediately after the battle started, so nothing happened. The fleet then immediately left.

Still, your AI is many factors better than Stock, and I will continue to play your mod for quite some time.

-----
Space for rent - please contact owner

Unnamed , Actually after exactly 50 turns , i have 7 ships 3 organic colony ships , 2 frigates ( unit hunter patrol and scout),(ship building and fleets are under computer control) the only fleet i have has 1 ship only (the unit hunter one) like i said to u in my previous post , i'm playing my game with all ministers under computer control , except for the research , I don't have that fleet problem with the Balance mod , i have a lot of ships in my fleets

Like u said i think u need to ferret it out , please fix that cause i really like your mod , the game even with no bonuses to ai players is more than challenging thanks for that

..Unnamed try to start a game with your empire having all his ministers under computer control except for research and you will see there is a problem there building attack ships and putting more than 1 ship in fleets , hope it will be fixed..

oh one more thing when i click on the empires tab and go to comparisons i can see all the otehr empires plus mine , in my game i have 11 empires and the number of ships goes like this :

my empires has 7 ships and bases
the other empires : 28,11,27,7,13,11,13,23,22,0

so there's a problem there that the ai for human players doesn't build enough attack ships (when for that human player has building ships and fleets under computer control)

no problem for the units through i have 355 units so far
the 10 other empires have : 321,203,912,294,421,627,54,84,635,0

the problem seems to be for human players having everything under computer control (except for research as i said)

Thanks for the .zip and link, I thought I had tried there app before and it only worked for a week unless you gave them like $20 for a key.

I really hope the AI is more of a challange, I play BM with a small AI bonus and they get a descent start but by turn 50 I have cought and past them up to a point that they are no longer capable of defending againt my fleets. During one battle it was 32 of his VS 13 of mine and I didn't loose a ship while destroying his entire fleet.

Well unnamed could u then in your next version of the mod , make the computer building more combat ships then , so it could add more ships to fleet ? (like i said for human players having all ministers to computer control (except for research in my game now)

Playing my first game with your mod and the AI is making much better use of units, 50 fighter guarding a warp point is a tough nut to crack but my issue is the AI empires are driving me nuts with treaty offers. Even the guys I have treaties with send me a new offer every 2-6 turns.

I have used your mod and it is a lot better than stock. I have retrofitted you AI into a mid game around 70-80 turns. The stock AI game by that pt was a joke; so I "forced" 3 other civs to surrender to another AI. I played with stock AI for 10 turns like this. To my surprise the AI hardly expanded or improved; although it had more than 1/3 the galaxy open for colonization. I put you AI in and the AI civ expanded in 10 turns by 21 planets from 47 to 68; pretty good. The AI Also expanded its units from 200 to 1000. Is that too much?

OVERAL Good Job

I am also currious what the AI moods mean?? "insatiable" or "apathetic" or "terrified"?? what do they all mean?

The more extreme the wording, the more extreme the mood. Not sure but I think insatiable is on the "I'm going to kill you" end of the spectrum.

Generally mood is just a reflection on whether they'd even listen to what you offer, or just space your envoy.

Unnamed, I've started a new game and this time made sure the AI did indeed have a bonus, Medium. This time, despite Finite Resources the AIs are doing a much better job of growing...too early to tell if they'll starve out yet but they're expanding faster than I am which is saying something. Does the bonus give them a bonus to their resource production, then, as well as their construction rates?

I also realized that another way to keep them from totally stalling out is to alter the settings.txt value for minimum resources a planet can have...so planets in this game I just started can never have less than 1k. Should help a bit with the whole mineral starvation thing, if they get down to that point. At least it'll make it so they can nearly always squeeze out a colony ship to continue looking for new sources. Won't impact my play at all, since I almost never drain a planet.

Hey Unnamed,

Gotta give you props on the AI upgrade (using 1.4) . I've started a stock mod with 4 custom computer empires (always wanted to be the empire versus the star trek universe). I gave the AI the biggest starting bonus, and wow....

Is it possible to beat the AI with "all against the player" and "biggest bonus"? The AI is horribly kicking my butt in research, and I have ALOT of research points (like 175,000+). The AI appears to be trading techs with their neighbors, and advancing VERY rapidly in tech, even with lower research (like 45,000). Its very cool though, I am loving the challenge.

Relic

Unnamed:

Is it only 200k? Oh, yeah...I've been playing with high research costs so long, I forgot. Grin.

Does the AI ever do asteroid mining? Or for that matter, uninhabited-planet mining? That could help it too, if there's a way to script that. Though, as I type this, I'm suspecting your response will be that there's no way for the AIs to know how to drop one large sat with a miner component above each unclaimed planet/asteroid in a system...

Besides the annoyance value of finding whole systems stripped out already when the player first finds them, it would give the AI an additional source of mineral income.

So far, the AI has been pretty efficient in keeping me rocked back on my heels. I'm not a master player at all, but the AI has healthy combos of destroyers, miners, and carriers. They use multiple types of ships (not just masses of frigs and destroyers). I cant keep up, its a struggle just to survive.