AI Concern

It depends on the AI type - some are "neutrals" which are supposed to stay in their system.

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Space Empires Depot | Space Food Empires!

Might be an idea to quickly change the flags associated with the neutral empires to allow quick identifying.
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I think I just had an evilgasm.....
The (now official?) Space Empires 4 Mod Launcher V2.26

hmm disabled neutrals, and now somewhat far into my game.
The AI has not really expanded much, and I have no clue where his fleets are.

Some of his ships can pack a punch, but a large number is unarmed, or won't fire or something.

Basically.

AI diff - Hard
AI bonus - Medium

So far..cakewalk.

oh, exept treaty spam..which is getting annoying.

Janster

I definately think the AI needs some work. Fortunately, I think much of the work can be done with mods. First off, the AI's ship designs are ineffective. With every ship being the same speed essentially, you simply can't face missile-armed ships using depleted uranium cannons unless you also equip your ships with point defence. And since point defence is not so good initially anyway, you're better off just arming your ships with missiles at least for the first part of the game until PD gets better.

Also, the AI needs to be much more aggressive about colonizing. I am expanding much much faster than the AI.

I'm hoping both of these things can be implemented with mods.
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The goggles... they do nothing!

For SEIV, the top AI was in the TDM Mod Pack. I saw a posting by the "T" from TDM. I just hope the "D" and "M" are around also. The TDM Mod Pack "defined" top AI for SE IV.

(This is not to say that only Tampa_Gamer, Daynarr and Mephisto wrote good AI's. But ultimately all the best AI mods were grouped together in that most excellent Mod Pack.)

The AI is really weak and Missiles and a +1 Speed will be your "I win button".

Hardest shipfights will be against colonyships, some space station and weapon platforms as the AI put Point Defense on them ^^.

And why are the neutral empires better defending their homesystems than the other ones?
Eee conquerd their 4 systems with just one Frigate and a transport ship, almost every turn a new planet. Amonkrie -> one frigate, Cue Cappa -> one frigate,...

It is like one ship to bind them all, to push them into ... but that is not the lord of the rings ^^

For some neutral ones, I had to built a fleet of 5 destroyers ( not much, but more than for the others ), because neutrals built troops on their planets, built platforms with missiles, built a lot of space stations.

Redbull102

AI get's slaughtered by carriers and fighters, the end.

My problem with AI is that they are random, yet not random. Meaning they make silly and random decisions regarding small and unimportant things, and do the same decisions regarding large and important things. Most AI ships of different empires are the same, planet developments are more or less same and so on. And treaties they offer, what they actually do in game, are the random parts.

This game -really- needed months of more work on AI, since at it's current state it is quite ridiculous

We all (even the beta testers) have concerns about the AI. I am limited in what I can say about the beta, but suffice it to say that it did not make sense spending hundreds of hours testing and re-writing the AIs when the game itself was too buggy to test those AIs and/or features were being added that would render those AI files at best obsolete or worse borken vis-a-vis a new version.

Having said that, the first TDM was not released until months after SE4's initial release (after things calmed down from a feature and bug standpoint). The beta testers have a number of feature requests in to Aaron that will hopefully boost the AIs long-term strategic memory and I have no doubt that AI mods will start to pop-up soon, its just a matter of time!

In the short-run, I have found that limiting the number of AIs, getting rid of neutrals and starting with a 3 or 5 planet start, are all things that help the AI.

-TG

I started a game with the following settings:
-12 Empires (11 CPU); uknown number of neutrals.
-Medium CPU difficulty.
-No CPU bonus.
-Medium tech cost.
-1 Starting Planet.
-Good starting planet stats.

I turned "View all empires scores" on so I could see how well my early game tactics fared compared to what AIs are doing.

So far, I'm producing 45,000+ Research a turn, quadrupling the nearest enemy empire. Another empire was outproducing me in Intelligence, but I easily captured their Huge Intelligence Compound planet, making me double the next highest Intelligence producer. In pop and resources I at least double the next best empire. In every other category I'm leading. I have 170+ tech levels while the nearest AI has around 65.

The AI needs some serious work. This is my first game of SEV, and I wasn't particularly good at IV. I thought a medium AI would give me some challenge, but it really doesn't.

This game is going to be incredible once the major flaws are patched. I'm looking forward to the day when that happens. Mods are also looking to be quite awesome.

Yeah, i don't play anything but hard, high bonus, hi research cost and medium map with medium amount of comps. no neutrals (everyone knows neutral's are gay ) and 3 starting planets make it fast paced. usually go for about 1 mil research points and 3000 racial points. it make sthe game quite interesting to have the enemies start with destroyers and lvl 5 cannons and i'm using my little pea shooters on lvl 1 frigates! still by turn 10 or so i'm far above them in score. I think the problem has something to do with how they get colonies and so on, they just seem to grab them very slowly compared to human players.

As we all know, the computers suggest some really random treaties for seemingly no reason. Recently, one added the No Reasearch clause, for both empires. If I accepted, we would have both been stunted for all of time. I think that the computers accept some of these ridiculous clauses and suffer as a result.

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With all these people, you would expect one of them to carry an iguana around...

AHHHHHHHHHHHH AI HAZ NO BrAiNZZZzzzz MaKen ThEZe AiZZZzz HAvE sOmE BrAiNZZZZzzz NeEdZzz MOdDErZZZZZzzz

AHHHHHHHHHHHH AI HAZ NO BrAiNZZZzzzz MaKen ThEZe AiZZZzz HAvE sOmE BrAiNZZZZzzz NeEdZzz MOdDErZZZZZzzz

DualZZZZZ postZZZZZ inZZZZZ oldZZZZZ threadZZZZZ. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

I KnOWzZZZZ ItZzz FuNZZzzzz

The problem is, in games on hard, with many CPU ennemies empires and NO neutrals, by turn 30.. on 9 ennemies, only 6 have control over more than a single system. I used the omiscient cheat to see all systems at all time.
i expected to see them expanding like wildfire..

3 are behaving "like" neutrals. Only that their ships go around the galaxy. And its always the same teams!
That brown team that breathe methane.. their symbol look like a eye. ALl they do is turtling on a single planet.. sending scout frigates everywhere.
The yelow one take his system.. but dont get out to colonise.
And then the yellow/orange team. Same problem.

And yes, treaties are often broken, about half the time "no research" is there.
Only today did i got one awesome treaty, with 30% trade, no aggression, and some harmless stuff like no solar destroyers..

And i too, find that neutrals have a stinger on the defense.. in my first game, i managed to conquer with ease about 60% of the galaxy (in a big galaxy) with 6 races under my rule. I had a 3 fleet of about 20 (mostly obsolete,due to low casualties) ships going at various invasions.. and only neutrals managed to destroy some of them.. their weapons platforms were blowing my first few ships appart.
And only a single neutral team managed to have troops that came equiped with weapons. All other races have lots of unarmed troops..

Without ammo, nice guns are just sophisticated clubs.

HaZZZ HaZZZ HaZZZ! ZZZ

BrAiNZZzzz MaKeRZzzz ArEzzz FuNZzzz TrY WorMhOlE BEaMzZZZ ThEyZZzz MaKeZZzzz ScRaMBlEdZZZzzzz BrAiNZzzz!!!@!@!@!@!@!!!!!

BrainzZZZ!
(I might just do a zombie race now )

YaYZzz

Trying to get in the last wordZZZzzz?

Problem with races with Crystalline Race Tech.

They will give up a 3 star system . . . . with no fight or little trade. . . . Why! When I pick Crystal Tech a three Star system Is a gold mine That I will go to war over. . If it has planets/ astroids. This needs to be fixed. . . One good system can supply 50% of a large empires needs. .