There can be many concerns of how to properly balance the AI. It can be challenging.
There are new players who wish to learn the game and have diplomacy in an alliance,
and want to have a good time with new friends and hope to not get killed.
There are veteran badasses who want to absorb Skynet.
And there are players everywhere in-between.
Agreed, I think everyone just wants having an AI neighbor not to be such a large advantage, and hopefully to have an AI approximate the average human player so that other people who have only human neighbors are on an even playing field. I canāt say what its like now with the new AI since its too soon, but before the changes ā everyone knows that having (or creating/manufacturing) AI neighbors was a massive advantage.
I was thinking last night that the AI should do what I do, and thats watch what the other players are doing.
If the other players are spending big on Economy, I find I have to try and match them to keep up. If they have a lot more industry than me, and my economy is ok, I focus on industry. If Iām falling behind on tech levels, I try and buy my way back up.
On feature I also thought of last night, I think the winning player in a game might get -1 regard from every AI on production. Perhaps it could be more and more as the game gets close to ending.
I know it is a work in progress but I just had an AI player move all his ships off the closest star to mine (3hr away). Since he has no stars 3hrs away from that one I know it will be an easy $40 taking out his economy. Iām sure a fleet of his will be launched towards that star before I can take it over but I think a base garrison of X ships per econ/industry/science might be a good start for now. He also sent a fleet with just 1 ship to that star, so perhaps a minimum number of ships per fleet would also be a good addition?
As much as I love all the changes over time would it be possible to not implement them to ongoing games? I know you stated that AI attacking wouldnāt affect current games but it still would be frustrating to see an enemy take over an AIās star at little to no cost due to a change in how the AI splits up its fleets.
How is sending a tech to an AI that has you tagged as an enemy work? Will it count the same as sending the cash cost and will they return a tech if you send them a tech? Thanks!
Yes the ratio seems to favour the other two over science.
Isnāt this the same outcome and way to treat a human player whom you are certain would be passive? While it could still be the answer, I"m not 100% certain AI spending more on science fixes the issue brought up by Ross or not.
The problem with this is that no human player can be guaranteed to be passive. The old AI was easy to beat because you could spam science, wipe one out with superior weaponry, overtake one AI, manoeuvre every ships you have and steamroll the next AI.
Now, off to play a game of 7AIs against me.
If you are enemies with an AI they wonāt return anything.
@Dysp and @JayKyburz ā Dora the new AI buy many carriers when actively defending?
In my games I am seeing a LOT of AI carriersā¦and many of them with low ship counts. It seems inefficient monitarily and logistically to buy so many carriers for small fleets. Unless of course all the carriers were left over from the pevious human.
Yes, the AI uses a few too many carriers. The other day I created a budget that should restrict them a little bit, but they are allowed to break the budget to try and rush in defenders.
I never did get to write that code that looks at what the players are spending on each kind of infrastructure, right now the AI trying to spend 25% on Econ, 25% in Industry and 25% on Science, then the remaining 25% on fleets and trade. 12.5 % on each. Any money not spent on fleets or trade is spent on Economy at the end of the day.
It really impossible to just play single player against the AI and judge how well its doing. I want to play with it in some real games to see how dumb it is and think about how to improve it from here.
And of course Iād appreciate everybodyās feedback as well.
In a turn based game, does the new AI get to make moves between between the turns? Iām in a turn based (24 hour jump) game right now where I took a star from an AI, the AI took it back, and at the beginning of the next turn there was still Economy on the star. Does that mean that taking a star no longer strips Economy from the star, or was the AI able to buy economy on the star between turns?
Also, the AI defended the star pretty heavily, although in a 24 hour jump game, the AI shouldnāt have seen the attack coming. It was probably a coincidence, but it was suspicious that I launched a 78k ship carrier at a ~23k ship defense star. After checking the logs - when I got there, there were 50k ships waiting for me (a star in-between the star I was attacking and the star I launched from sent all its ships to the star I attacked), and then I was ācounter-attackedā 3 times and the AI got its start back.
Oh yeah the AI knows nothing about turn based games and will check every 4 ticks or so regardless of the game setup.
Once we have have something we are more happy with I can add the code so it only looks at the game when it should.
I mentioned a while back that Iām pretty sure the AI does intra-turn decisions - have seen cases where it is on the way to star A ā¦ but star B is NOT currently within scan range. It arrives at star A partway through the turn ā¦ and then continues on to star B which is NOW in scan range.
Edit add: Looks like Jay posted just before me to confirm that.
P.S. One easy fix/suggestion for the AI is that if an attacking fleet is bearing down on a star it owns (and will win), it certainly should not be building economy there ā¦ and in most cases, probably not industry or science.
With an aggressive AI, having them be able to react between ticks that the humans canāt will be interesting - I wonder if that alone could make having an AI next to you a big disadvantage since you are dealing with the chaos of the time jumps and they arenāt.
Thatās a real problem. Experienced the same thing as @monkeywrench multiple times now and itās really unnerving.
~Two days ago every AI in a game Iām playing was set to Enemy (-1) (except the ones Iām attacking). I was trading with one AI before (not in sight yet) and was already at Friendly (4). Other AI arenāt visible as well, so why did they change from neutral to enemies? Any ideas?
I have not played the new AI yet (just got back from vacation) so I donāt know if this is a good idea, but if the AI gets to hard there should be an option to have a easy or hard AI.
Just my opinion from what Iāve read.
Iāve seen a number of AIs flick to -1 when I havenāt attacked at all.
Iāve attacked other AIās. But not them.
The AI still has a long way to go, but the ultimate plan it to have something that scales to match the player in the game. A new player game will have easier AI, but games full of veteran players might have a harder AI.
At the moment I think the AI is quite easy.
Suppose I capture a star belonging to a player who goes afk.
When the AI takes over from the player will the AI know about this and treat me as hostile ? Or does it only take account of my actions after it takes over, and thus starts with a neutral attitude ?
Yes, the AI keeps track of this so I knows who it should be fighting when it takes over from a player.
I would like the AIās to change what they say if they get mad enough. got one friendly with me by giving it tech +3 favorability rating then I back-stabbed it. itās now at -8. at this time Iād like it to declare holy war against my empire or something. all in all I like the way it is working. I can see the difference. although I found it as a personal insult that some of them are indifferent to meā¦