Re: AI concerns
 

"IMHO, it is impossible to get a decent game against AI without giving it a bonus. And I do not consider it as "cheating"."

Go play Proportions with a three planet start. Give the AI a high bonus. OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW. It gives them over 100k extra intelligence, and that's just the start!

Phoenix-D

Re: AI concerns
 

Well, this is exactly what I am doing for Last few weeks. Still, I refuse to consider this setting as AI cheating. I did accept 5x AI bonus as a legaly declared rule of this game. As such, it can not be considered as a cheat since it is not a break of explicitly declared rules defining AI opponents.

Re: AI concerns
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by oleg:
IMHO, it is impossible to get a decent game against AI without giving it a bonus. And I do not consider it as "cheating". It is just... bonus.<hr></blockquote>

Well... I simply define AI cheating as "it's able to do something impossible for humans"... like getting 5x resources and techs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

BTW: how do you manage to survive against high bonus AIs?!?!? even exploiting the AI flaws I don't think I would be able to resist... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Re: AI concerns
 

Well, in my proportions game they aren't colonizing, and they aren't hitting me very hard with their ships, so eventually I'll pull ahead. That intel is getting to be a pain though- especially the order snafus. Those don't give a warning message most of the time..

Phoenix-D

Re: AI concerns
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Lisif Deoral:


Well... I simply define AI cheating as "it's able to do something impossible for humans"... like getting 5x resources and techs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

BTW: how do you manage to survive against high bonus AIs?!?!? even exploiting the AI flaws I don't think I would be able to resist... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif <hr></blockquote>

Well, let then define human cheating as "it's able to do something impossible for AI"... like tactical combat, swapping population between planets to make them all non-domed, massing figheters in space, constantly refine ship designs to optimize it against AI ships, making "combined arms fleet", etc, etc. In fact, since AI does not learn from one game to another, you shall not be permitted to learn any tricks either. Thus, the one and only one game when you or me or anybody else did not cheat was the very first one. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Putting all of it in perspective, AI bonus is an essential part of any strategic computer game and is not a "cheating" in any form.

Re: AI concerns
 

Am I to understand that the AI uses the exact same research tree/pattern everytime it plays, no matter what race it plays?
I was ready to buy the game, until I started reading this thread... is the really that AI that bad, that it has no patterns for accomplishing major goals?

Re: AI concerns
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by The Beastmaster:
Am I to understand that the AI uses the exact same research tree/pattern everytime it plays, no matter what race it plays?
I was ready to buy the game, until I started reading this thread... is the really that AI that bad, that it has no patterns for accomplishing major goals?<hr></blockquote>

AFAIK the AI uses the same research tree/pattern for each RACE everytime it plays. However, since the game chooses random races for each game, if you have the 50+ races that I have in my directory, the chances of exact duplication are slim.

Re: AI concerns
 

It's not that bad. As it was said here it's hard to play against high bonus AIs.

Each race has it's own research file (among other files).
Some modders players have spent many hours tweaking files to improve their performance.
Combined with bonus makes AI races have better techs than you most of the time, and different races do use different techs and in different ways.

Re: AI concerns
 

I appologize if I made an impression that I do not like SE IV AI or consider it inferior to any other computer game. On the contrary, my major point was that in contrast to almost any other TBS game SE IV DOES NOT CHEAT. It plays exactly by same rules as human player, excpet that you can set up challenge by giving it a production/research bonus, which I personally do not consider as AI cheating. IMHO, the good example of AI cheating is MoM at impossible level: Every time I clear a node, it works as a night lamp for all magic spirits butterflies. Every single AI sends it representive even if it was on the opposite side of the world and supposedly never ever even know about this node existence !! Nothing even remotely close exist in SE IV. It has an honest, non-cheating AI. Unfortunately, it needs some numerical boost to kick your a..., and so be it !

A lot of efforts have been made to optimize SE AI research and in fact almost every race in TDM-ModPack follows its own unique path. What I refered to was that when you start the new game, AI will repeat itself, but it is propriety of your computer architecture itself and not SE IV.