I like my foe's easy! heh should I still get the Balance Mod?

Hi there, the different mods give you more of a basic challange? But even the best mod won`t prepare you for war in a human player game? So take the jump into the pool of war, YOU WON`T regret it? We all have to sooner or later? Just dive in.

Cheers Spuda

If you play the current version of the game, AI is no threat at all. It's almost completely dysfunctional.

With 1.57 I would expect it to be able to wage a normal war without shooting itself on the foot.

I would strongly suggest even to a total beginner to play on 1.57 when it comes out.

The AI i Balance Mod isn't bad, but it's not exactly a huge danger, either. As long as you don't give the AI any bonuses (which I never do -- the only AI worth playing against is one that can compete with exactly the same advantages and disadvantages I have), you should be alright. The AI will eventually try attacking you with almost halfway decent skill, but not until aways into the game. And by that time you should have enough of a lead that you can easily defeat any attacks.

You can argue the human player has a number of advantages, including the ability to issue orders throughout the movement phase, which allows human players to account for items that have changed during the course of their turn. On the other hand, the AI must evaluate it's systems prior to the movement phase and lacks any way to adjust it's orders during the movement phase. That's a pretty significant disadvantage. Using simultaneous eliminates this advantage, but others still exist such as human players being able to use items like emergency building or mothballing effectively etc., so a small bonus can help even things up a bit.

Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

What I meant is that in my opinion, a good AI should be able to do all those things and not rely on resource bonuses and such to present a challenge. It should give a challenge because it's smart, not because it gets a break to make up for being dumb.

Of course, the AI isn't smart in this case, but I'm still morally opposed to giving it production bonuses and such. I might voluntarily handycap myself by only devoting a small fraction of my resources to fighting it, but I don't like giving it bonuses.

Short answer: get it, but don't give it any bonus.

Galvorte I have to agree on one level, but giving the Ai a "cheating" advantage is pretty common in gamming, it's been done for years. I think the cool thing about SEV is that you can fine tune that advantage. Ai intellegence, bonus, tech bonus, even racial bonus all of these levels you can either give it to the Ai and not yourself, or the oposite (while your learning) take those bonuses away (and give most of them to yourself).

SEV, more than a feeling.

Oh, I know it's been done for years, and probably will be for a very long time to come, if not forever . . . but as someone who wants to be a professional game designer, I don't like the approach and consider it 'the easy way out.' I know it's hard, in some cases almost impossible, but I think it's always better to try and design an AI that can win without cheating. An AI that can out-think a player is always preferable to one that can out-cheat a player.

A pipe dream? Maybe, but still. . . .

Though I agree that having the option to change and bonuses is always nice. If you just want the cards stacked against you from the start, or if you're learning the game and need a leg up, it's useful. But ideally, the game should be a balanced challenge when neither side has any such bonuses.

in lots of games advantages can be given to "weaker players" not just computer games, so you just have to consider an AI a weaker player. Fact is that an AI, while good with very strict rules, such as exist in chess, under the much more flexible rule set in a game such as SEV can't rely solely on logic, and visualisation and pattern recognition in AI are nowhere near the standard the human mind has got to in it's many years of evolution. (I'm not going to pretend to be any sort of authority on this however so if anyone better informed can elaborate then please do so.)

So you'll have to live with it a while longer or make the game engine around the AI and not the other way round, this could also be seen as cheating however.

Another problem is that when a game's new, there are no experienced players. Until advanced tactics and strategies are available, they can't be programmed into the AI.

I don't expect there'd be much market for a 3-year-old game re-released with serious AI.

And it might take even longer. Chess was around quite a long time, and it still took decades to develop competitive software.

I've been away too long and with v1.44 being out 3 months ago we're all far behind what the cutting edge of BMv1.10 is. So I ask: is the AI capable of planning out a resupply route for long journeys, know which warp points have a massive blockade on the other side, know where it last saw enemy colonies?

I've no problem with cheating AI (we'd need a much more interactive AI that re-evaluate during movement phase, etc etc to make it competent). The above problems can be solved by switching on the AI-script cheats that I read about months ago (from a Kwok post) - stuff like "infinite supplies", "no fog of war for AI", etc. But they're not easy to toggle on/off - requires separate AI scripts.

Hmm actually, Kwok is it a quick job to create 2 versions of BMv1.10 - one with such AI script cheats switched on and one without? I can give the AI custom x20 construction/production bonuses etc but that does it no good if it trips over the basic problems from old times. As in sure, I can expect massive fleets to fight against but... it'd never be able to efficiently kill me.

On that note... what will happen in 1.10 if we play an "AI vs Humans" game? Months ago this would lead to the dumb behaviour of the AI declaring war every turn to everyone - including other AI. I know AI using Alliances won't be until 1.11, but does the AI understand that an "AI vs Humans" game means it must make high treaties with other AI and auto-war with Humans, refusing any alliance treaty?

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

That idea's not half bad. If the AI could have FoW toggle off for it, say every 5th turn? Might be a way to even things up a bit.

get the Balance mod max out the bonuses for the AI's and beat the #$@%^ out of the AI by learning how to attack and defend warp points. after that the rest is gravy.