Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

It's likely a problem with the engine itself. Some of the modpack races have ending queue entries that tell the AI to build multiple attack ships per colony world. In particular in my new game Earth Alliance and the XiChung which both had maybe 15 or so planets but had 50-70 ships each. They were of course running massive losses on their resources. Hopefully they'll fix it so that max maintenance cost flag works again. Not really sure how you else you could ensure a big military buildup without destroying your economy since the sitiuation is very dynamic and varies from game to game.

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

AI decision to make a mining (or other) colony when he is lacking minerals (or other) resources is hard coded and is a good thing actually. It is still much better for AI to make a colony on a planet with 40% when it has no minerals then building intelligence center or something else.

However, the fact that AI is ignoring that is hurting it VERY much (and is hard coded also). There is nothing we can do at this moment but to report it to MM and hope for quick fix.

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

In the settings file for the AIs, I noticed some blank Tabs at the end of the lines. Sometimes blanks have hidden characters that can case failure when uploading a text file into another program like C++. I deleted them and will see if this is better. Maybe somebody else could try the same.

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Daynarr:
It is still much better for AI to make a colony on a planet with 40% when it has no minerals then building intelligence center or something else.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If the AI knew how to trade (I know that's a big if at the moment, but it should be possible to get the AI do at least resource trading), it would be more efficient to build the facilities for the highest resource value of this planet and then trade for minerals (or use resource converter in the later game. The use of resource converter by the AI should also not be to hard to program).

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

The problems with AI building lots of ships and collapsing his economy can be partially slowed down by changing 'Minimum Empire Point Storage' value in settings.txt file to something like 500000 so that AI will gather enough resources before getting negative resource income.

It won't solve the problem, though.

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

Guys, i have been using mephisto's mod in my latest game and the resource prob still exists but at a much reduced level and recovery from it is much quicker (i gave up on the stock 1.30 patch game after no recovery after 30 more turns). Here is some more observations from the 1.30 patch:

1. In the log display after a warp point is opened, the source is stated but not the destination.
2. In the face of defeat, the AI refuses to offer appeasement or even enter trading when offered, to avoid destruction, but will remain on a war footing until wiped out.

Any thoughts?

Kudo's to the Toron race in mephisto's mod pack, they have a very good strategy IWO building their infrastructure defence before building up a strong strike force (would still like to see the use of AI boarding or AI use of smart bombs on a planet, but these will come i suspect).

tic

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tictoc:
Marty...

As i said in my first post, i'm not using any mods, so theoretically, the resources (or AI management of them) should not be 'out of balance'. I would have thought that even at the most basic level (for players new to this amazing piece of software), the AI would be smart enough not to cripple itself or (Emperor), have to rely on the players intervention to give it a bonus just to play on a level par. Maybe this needs to be addressed in the next patch.

tic<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm surprised no-one's provided this answer before:

One of the things improved in both 1.27 & 1.30 was the AI build queues. It's reasonable to expect that these problems had been around for a while, with the real source unrecognized, and both MM and the modders just kept increasing the number of build calls in an attempt to make the AI build an appropriate number of ships and bases. Now that the routine has been fixed, the increased build calls just need to be lowered again (or better checks made for % of resources dedicated to Maintenance).

In other words, the resources were pretty well balanced in early patches, but when the latest patch improved the AI's build ability, it's created a situation where resources need to be re-balanced. The law of unintended consequences applies to everything, especially software patches... http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

BTW - relevant pieces of History.txt:

Version 1.29:
5. Fixed - Rare case where the AI would go into an infinite loop trying to purchase new items.

Version 1.23:
23. Fixed - The AI would try to build defense bases at planets without spaceyards.