Difficulty

I think it might have something to do with the designs the computer builds for ships also. I had the ship design minister on for one game and it was pretty horrible. The computer kept putting lvl 13 uranium guns on my attack ships even though I had lvl 37 phased-energy weapons. I forgot to check on the damages for both, but i'm thinking the lvl 37 is gonna do more. I ended up having to design all my ships anyway.

I too was a bit annoyed at the AI(I know the mods will make it better...so not too worried about it)But I'll let you know anyway.

I had set up a game with a large quad map and the AI set on hard with a medium bonus. After playing Friday night, some hours on saturday and all day sunday. I remembered that I had set the option of seeing all player scores...so I looked...God was I shocked. My empire was number 1 by loads...I had 59 planets, loads of research points, total tech researched like 180 techs and about 16000 intel points and 60 ships

The second place comp was way below that with only 15 planets, about 105 tech levels researched and about 3000 intel points but with about 80 ships(I think).

Today, I'm going to set up a new game, AI hard with High bonus level on a medium quad map and see if it does any better otherwise I'll have to start helping the comp out a bit.

Please note I was playing a standard game of SEV not the Balance mod(I dont like the way research is done in the balance mod...Its not its bad...its just me)any chance someone could just make an AI mod but leave everything else as it is...or am I going to have to do it myself?...gulps at the thought...though I really should learn.
Only the Awkward question; only the Foolish ask twice

The A.I.'s like to have restrictive treaties like ones that prevent research. Those A.I. empires probably have strange treaties with each other that stop them from getting ahead.

Just reporting back at the end of my lunch break.

I've just started the standard medium quad with Hard AI + High bonus(for the AI) game.
After 41 turns the AI seems to be doing a bit better

Please note in this game there are NO nuetral empires.

1st place goes to the AI with the following
Research points 11,305
Intel 4085
Tech 86
Planets 12
Population 5712
Units 97
Ships/bases 43

Of the 8 empires I'm last in 8th place with...
Research points 19457
Intel 0
Tech 35
Planets 19
Population 5030
Units 0
Ships/bases 3(colony ships)

I'm using a quick colony strat and I'll then build up ships and tech...this I hope would not work vs human opponents but as the comp doesn't seem to attack much it should work.

I'll post again when I finsh the game...bet u all can't wait

Only the Awkward question; only the Foolish ask twice

Aye, the AI ship design is horrible. I got bored and had a game running with all tech's availible and designed a frig that could take two AI dreads... Maybe it was the defense bonus' the frig gets but I doubt it. Frig vs. fully teched out dread should probably lose imho...

Going on with my post from yesterday...I played another 80 turns last night and the situation is turning to my favour...as one would expect.

I now have moved up from 8th position to 3rd the stats are something like this
Research points 40,000
Intel 8000
Tech 65
Planets 37
population 7300 +/-
Units 0
Ships/bases 28

The AI above me really only beats me on Tech 105 levels and Ships/bases. Both of which will change very fast.

In all this time the AI has "attacked" (got ambushed as they came though a warp point) once with 7 destroyers but I was able to beat them back with 4 missile frigates.

Once I finish this game...in a few days I'll try the balance mod to see how the AI is there. I'm sure it will be a bit better.

Some Ideas for making the game harder till its gets mods that make the AI better.(These ideas would work in the balance mod too, I'd think)

1.In the game set up why not give the comp empires all 3 colony techs, you'd have to create the AI empires yourself though...would they get more planets then?? I'd hope so.

2.Select team play, all the comps vs d'humies (would it stop the AI making silly dip agreements between themselves)

3.Give presents to the AI empires like the tech you research.

Only the Awkward question; only the Foolish ask twice

I've come across Ai with level 7 Meson Blasters.

It seems that the AI likes to lock each other into no research treaties (especially the EE consurtium and the Norak).

You could also set the game to give the max amount of racial points, so the AI gets them, but only use part of them for your race.

I always select to show the scores for all players. That way I don't get a nasty suprise that I've really won the game but just didn't know.

I usually start out Gung Ho, totally micromanaging, then I'll back off when I start to get a lead. Find a tech I want and spend a few turns researching up to it, Colonize the moons, build up some defenses, but not every turn.

I try to find other things to play with in the game instead of just strictly boreing ahead, micromanaging the game with the goal of just galactic conquest.

In my game last night, I took Crystal tech. Noticed the Solar Collector generates 2000 resources per Sun. Found a 3 sun system with a neutral race and I'm casually building a small fleet so I can take it and play with the Solar Collector. If my math is right, a system with 3 suns and almost all SC's would generate somewhere around 275,000 of EACH resource from that system.

If you research Crystal tech to level 100, that would be 550,000!

If you built a sphere world... whoa...

A) Sphereworlds "remove" suns from gameplay;
B) Can't build a sphereworld in multi-star systems

There are 10 types of people in the world:

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

Oh, well with how powerful a 3 star system with Solar Collectors would be, maybe thats for the best

Yeah I noticed that the AI were very easy compared to SEIV, In SEIV medium was medium, in this game I was lightyears ahead of the medium AI infact after 130~ turns of game play they hadn't even increased their research points at all while I had hundreds of thousands. Needless to say I would have won without contest. That AI treaty thing is interesting, maybe I could mod out the useless treaty options, and see if that fixes things.

As noted here and elsewhere, the AI seems to be slow to colonize. This could be resulting from 2 problems.

1. Anti-Colonization treaties. (something people have noticed as being a problem for the AI).

... and a problem that I have noticed...
2. Poor search patterns.
When you use the "Survey system" command to have a ship do an auto-survey of a new system, I noticed that it uses a very inefficient search pattern. It is a bad pattern for two reasons.

a. The ships tend to not make thourough passes linking up to previously searched sectors, thus leaving blank spots that have not been searched. This is followed up by having the ship hunt around the system at the end of it's search pattern to fill in the blanks. This wastes a LOT of time.

b. The AI seems to prefer to search from the outer perimeter spiraling inwards, Unfortunately most planets seem to be closer to the inner perimeter. So this means it is taking the ships longer to find planets that are in the system they are searching.... more wasted time.

Of course this is assuming that the AI is using the "Survey System" method of searching, which I have not verified.

--------------------------------------
It's not what you know...
It's not who you know...
It's what you know about who you know.

Well, I absolutely buy the treaty explanation. I think the easiest way to test this theory is to remove all of the stupid treaty options and try again.

I don't buy the survey system explanation though. I always use the "survey system" command myself out of sheer laziness. It doesn't slow me down that much.

I think there are a couple of issues I beleive can be fixed by moddifying the AI script.

Symptom 1: insufficient research points

Explanation: either the AI does not build enough research facilities or the AI simply doesn't have enough colonies... I think it's a bit of both

Solution: change the AI script to build more colony ships and more research facilities

Symptom 2: bad ship designs

Explanation: Well, I took a look at the AI's ship design script, and it's relatively well structured and moddable... One problem is it looks like the AI adds point defense as an afterthought, and only up to 10% of the mass of the ship. The AI should either add more PD to take out fighters, sats, and missiles (20% or 30%) or build specifically designed PD ships. Also, the AI is VERY locked into using certain weapons in a very specific priority. The good news is this can be altered. Additionally, while different empire AIs use different weapons (sort of), they all research the same way. This research queue needs changing.

Solution: Gonna need to modify many things about the AI design strategy. I think every AI should always maintane a missile attack design and a beam attack design both equiped with generous sheilds, armour, and PD. This is very possible with the current scripts.

Major problem with repairing the AI with mods is that the game is constantly changing. I play the balance mod myself. Capt Kwok is always improving the AI himself, so I am hesitant to make my own alterations as those would compete with Capt Kwok. I guess the answer is to introduce my own special AI empire with its own AI. I'll put all my goodies into this AI and see if it helps.

---
The goggles... they do nothing!

I know the AI doesn't use it's full potential as well... I had a treaty with an AI to share all research up to current level and at the time I broke that treaty I had L60 applied research ( I'm a bit insane) yet later I destroyed most of the colonies in one of his systems then pulled back and let him re-colonize... I then sent in a troop ship and took away one of the new colonies... lo and behold it had only L40 research facilities... 20 levels below the tech I KNOW he has had for ages.

Can you build three sphereworlds in a system with three stars? I know you could not in SEIV (presumably because of the "rules" concerning stellar objects), but has anyone tried in SEV?

Nope, single-star systems only.

There are 10 types of people in the world:

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

Now started playing a balance mod game with Hard AI + High bonus in a medium quad map. The AI was a nice step up from the standard games AI in the fact that it seems to manage its empires better.

It still needs improvments, but I was pleased to see that the AI was getting planets much better than in standard games. After some maybe 60-70 turns the leading AI had 25 planets and the others were not far behind with between 19-23 compared to my 28.

Their reseach and intel points were also much higher.

I think this game is going to be a big hard fight

Keep up the good work Kwok

Only the Awkward question; only the Foolish ask twice