AI comments

from Sins Forums

this is where odd AI behavior and related stuff could in. I have the following to report for now:

AI does not react to envoy sabotage. I bombarded it with 3, later 4 of those things, and got its allegiance from 70% down to below 30 and never saw a reaction so far. and that took a looong time to do. on the other hand, it was just a puny asteroid, so maybe it just didn't care to invest in the civilian labs and reseach for this, may be a clever strategic decision.

two AIs apparently made a cease fire against me (3 player map) even though they seem to absolutely hate one another. and I was not that strong that they should ally against me, rather I was the weakest player in there, given I was playing with all the new toys here.

that's all for now. I figure the AI is something still under development and will only get polished once most of the rest is more or less fixed, but I think it won't hurt to have some list with things to keep in mind for it.

oh, also, I saw there are now extra AI difficutly levels. what is there difference? further resource boni for them? could we get a quick rundown?

6,405 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

The AI is definitely rough right now, but feel free to post suggestions and observations here, we'll be sure to check in as we move towards polishing their behavior.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

I been playing around with the new AI difficulties, and I must say they have some short comings. I played a Ancient Gifts against 4 allied random vicious AI, and while I was surprised often by their sudden and unexpected attacks, and size of the attacked, the AI is unable to cope with star bases still.

All it takes to defeat said AI is to build a star base, upgrade it, and never look back, because the AI is unable to build the fleet needed to kill it. True, the AI did build anti-structure frigates, but never in the numbers to kill a star base, they generally make 6 max in their attack fleets. And they always attack the star base from well within their firing range, allowing the star bases to pick up the anti-structure frigates. Their needs to be some sort of threat assesment abilities of the AI. They need to be able to sum up the planetary defenses, esspecailly the star base, and send the appropiate fleet to destroy it.

And that brings me to another point, the fleets rarely ever meet up for a attack. Its very common for human opponents to wait to attack for a allied fleet to arive. At higher AI levels, this should be COMMON behavior. The AI also needs to incorporate focus fire, and the appropiate counters. The star base example is the best. Vasari AI should attempt to star base a fortified planet at the very start of the assault, and a advent should have a very large numbers of bombers to cope with star bases, because advent anti-structure frigates suck at that job. Tec AI should also have the required number of orgov, 6, as in typical AI behavior is not enough. Double or triple the number is required to really have the AI destroy a star base.

 

 

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Speaking of AI, has anyone been able to make a peace treaty with one? No matter how hard I try, I can't even get a cease fire, and the highest I can get them to like me is 40%...

I assume to get that higher they need to complete missions for me, but they refuse to do that. I gave an AI a mission to kill 1 ship of another AI that they were already at war with, and were in the middle of a battle with. The reward was 5000 credits, 2000 metal, 1000 crystal, and it just rejected the mission.

It seems that the only way for them to even consider doing a mission is if the reward is rediculously high. But even then, they never seem to make an attempt to complete it.

I assume this is because the code for the new features isn't quite done yet:P

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Similar experience here, Kyogre12.  Definitely because the code isn't finished yet; but mentioning it will keep it fresh in the dev's minds (although I'm sure they know).  I've managed to get to 50%, and I read in another forum someone got to 70%, but no one has confirmed anything above cease fire thus far.

 

 

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

The one thing that has always been a HUGE shortcoming with the SoaSE AI is that it stockpiles its resources instead of spending them. At the end of most games with the AI if you check their resources they always have hundreds of thousands of Credits, Metal & Crystal (at the end of longer games) if the AI actually spent these resources on a fleet, research or anything infact the AI could be an actual threat just due to sheer numbers, Instead they just stockpile the money use a small(ish) fleet and loose over longer games.

Personally i only use 5 Ogrov to take out a starbase but I keep all of my fleet back until its taken out, however tihs is mostly due to the AI's inability to fully research/upgrade their techs to actually require more than 5 ogrovs to take one out.

Sadly the main issue with the AI is quite simply that they do not research, they dont spend their cash and they do not understand how to keep units at maximum range. Along with many many other tactical shortcomings.


I hope to god you guys add the ability for the AI to spend their cash and fully research everything in their tech tree's if the AI has bountiful cash, they should just blitz as much as they can on as many researches as possible until they have everything that can be researched (modified or unmodified by MOD's).

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Hey Nacey dont forget to add in that us moders want better control over the AIs please

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Ryat, reply 6
Hey Nacey dont forget to add in that us moders want better control over the AIs please

Ah yes that also, more control for modders would be great, but at the same time not necessary if the AI is evil enough to begin with ;)