AI tech trade bug
 

I have found a truly wonderful marvelous amazing humdinger of a bug in the AI tech trade. I will not send an email to Malafador because they did not reply to my previous emails on other subjects. I will not post it here because I want to see how long it takes you AI hotshots to figure it out. I will give some hints.
0) It is NOT a cheat.
1) It is NOT the package with resources 200/200/200 wanted (and recieved) that I mentioned in my turn 45 report on thread TDM-Modpack politics in really big games.
2) I do NOT look at the AI tech tree file to see what they research.
3) I do NOT change the player select from computer control and examine their research report - that would be cheating.
4) I do NOT request tech "any area" for the trade because it does not work. Presumably that is to prevent fishing expeditions. Frankly I see no purpose to the option because it simply never has resulted in a trade when I first tried to use it.
5) I do NOT use a laundry list of tech areas on the wanted list because that also does not work.
6) I DO examine the race report to see what techs have been researched in the past, they provide an indication of what may be regularly scheduled.
7) I DO keep careful notes of what traded and when.
8) I DO offer more than one tech on the initial few passes.
9) If he says he cannot afford it, then I make note that something may be there.
10) If he says there is nothing of interest, then I move on to the next group.
11) If a trade goes through I make note of what was exchanged.
12) When I have a list of potential trades, I examine my list of past trades to determine what is worth the least.
13) I generally trade something of about equal value.
14) I usually trade with my Brotherly partners.
15) I trade every few turns to avoid giving too high a tech level on trades.
16) I offered a totally unreasonable tech to avoid trading him what he wanted. It Worked!

It takes a dozen passes or so to get a successful trade. Since one pass is now taking about ten minutes in my game, I am about to stop trading tech. So I do not care if the bug is fixed in the next patch. Besides my map has so many ruins on it that I can get all the remaining tech off them. Since it is such a unfair exploit you may just want to email Malafador and when a week or so has passed they can post a list of who really found the bug. You can brag here immediately of course in a race to see who finds it first. It is such an awful piece of nonsense that I cannot imagine a patch being released without fixing it if it was known......

Edit :
OOPS, I did not mention the trade on the TDM politics post! I mentioned it on the scenario post of the game at turn 45. Oh well, those who look in there for the download found it.....

[This message has been edited by LCC (edited 10 June 2001).]

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by LCC:
It is such an awful piece of nonsense that I cannot imagine a patch being released without fixing it if it was known......<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Then mail Malfador about it. Just because Aaron hasn't answered your previous mails doesn't mean he didn't read them.

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

Richard will tell him for sure! Any reasonably intelligent person can find it in a few minutes using my hints. It IS a tech for tech swap, with nothing else in the package. I guess that should have been in my hint list too. It's a HOWLER!!

Edit : Download my turn 45 file and change the settings.txt stuff as posted in the "really big games" thread if you cannot find it using your game. One Last hint, it might be helpful for this purpose to examine the tech report of the AI player to see what he has researched.



[This message has been edited by LCC (edited 10 June 2001).]

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

I am about to get offline to free up the phone, but if you email me and your rank is Major or above, then I will just tell you what it is in an email. An experienced player does not need to exploit the AI in this way....

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

I thought by now somebody would have found it. Guess not many have visited, or are just not interested. I will send the bug in if nobody finds it in the next couple of days. It IS a bug, not just an unfair trade. I HOPE that I am doing unfair trades already. Certainly getting a near match on tech cost plus 200/200/200k in resources in the package is an exploit!

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

You could almost consider trading tech with the AI a bug in itself http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif You benefit much more than the AI from any trade. Better to just give them the tech.

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

This is my first ten planet start, and only my second against 20 races. Before now I never traded with the AI except to give a 4/3/3 resource plus treaty when first meeting. But I saw that doing tech by myself was just not going to cut it. Also though I created this map with lots of ruins I intended to take only a few for myself and let the AI get free tech off the rest. But the game progress is as follows :
Start - outnumbered 19 to 1
turn 20 outnumbered 14 to 1
turn 30 by 11 to 1
turn 45 by 5.5 to 1 and already half of MEE in score. So by the time I reach MEE at 5000k I will still be outnumbered in score by at least 3 to 1. Of that score 3400k is yard bases, not warships or production. So the actual odds are more like 10 to 1. I do not like those odds...
So I will exploit them while still learning what works. From watching the Krill fight the Ukra over my colony in Red, I can see that the AI has surely gotten smarter.....

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

What I mean is that a human generally will get the better of any trade with the AI because you will use the tech immediately where as the AI may not use a tech for some time.
Also, I have never seen ALL the AI attack anyone at the same time so you will probably outnumber them locally should they decide to attack you.
Unless you have expanded rapidly in a 10 planet start you should not reach MEE for quite some time as your score % differance will be harder to acheive.

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

I seem to recall that somebody mentioned some time ago that you could fool the AI by offering them tech you didn't have and still get the tech they have. IIRC the AI wouldn't even realise it's been had and get angry. Haven't tried myself so I don't know if it works. Is this what you're talking about?

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

I don't trade tech with the AI. It's too easy to cheat. All you have to do is offer them everything -- everything except what you don't want to give them like your colony tech or anything you've actually researched. You can ask them for whatever you think they have that will be useful. They always accept and end up with the useless starting techs and thank you for your generosity. You can do the same thing every turn.

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

I thought it automatically gave him his next level in the tech if mine was higher, and nothing if mine was the same or lower. I have the tech which is being offered. How can you offer something you lack ? For example, I cannot offer a ruins tech that I lack because it is not in my give list. I cannot want ppb before physics two because I do not even know it exists.

Good guess, but no you STILL have not found the bug. Try trading with my brotherly partners. There are only five of them.

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Krakenup:
They always accept and end up with the useless starting techs and thank you for your generosity. You can do the same thing every turn.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I never thought of that! Thanks! Its too late for that now in my game, but I will certainly use it in the next if not fixed. But that is not the bug either....

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nitram Draw:

Unless you have expanded rapidly in a 10 planet start you should not reach MEE for quite some time as your score % differance will be harder to acheive.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If I wanted to I could be MEE at 5000k in less than 10 turns (turn 55) by having all my bases build bases. As it is I want breakeven minerals or better at MEE. That will take me until about turn 63-65. I DID expand rapidly - all over the map with my self imposed limit of 39 colonies in 30 systems by turn 30. I can just about double my score every five turns (by having yard bases build yard bases only) but that quickly leads to minerals bankruptcy and just a hollow shell empire. So unless the AI slow down their own expansion rate I cannot do the dominoe surrender trick until about turn 120-130 as usual. It takes a LONG time for just 39 colonies to get minerals up to support a 5000k score with warships, but bases cost half maintenance so that goes quicker. I will mothball yard bases where I need them the least when necessary to avoid MEE... Is that an exploit of the no-score mothball or just smart strategy ?

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

You do mean 500K right? If you can gain 2.5m points in a turn that must be some incredible empire!

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Marty Ward:
You do mean 500K right? If you can gain 2.5m points in a turn that must be some incredible empire!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No it is 5000k. I changed the Mega Evil empire in settings.txt because this is both a 10 planet start and 254 systems, 7000+ planets on map. So the MEE should be at least a factor of 10 greater as a scale factor compared to a regular 100 system quadrant. A yard base is 6 points score. I already have more than 288 of them. It takes 5 turns for a yard base to build another yard base. So that is 1728 points in five turns added to the 1728 of the first yards. Then the 3456 points 576 bases in five turns build another 576 bases to score 6912k added to a modest 600k or so from facilities and battle cruisers already built. But I cannot do that yet, because I lack the minerals to pay base maintenance on so many. See my plan in the "TDM-Modpack politics in really big game" thread.

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

Not to change the topic, but I just finished reading the thread "Does anyone know the formula SEIV uses to calculate score". I wanted to know how much I should allot for my starbases to avoid MEE. It turns out that score is based on one point per 100k tons built. So my base yards are only five points not six, and a starbase will be 25 points. Now here is a trick. It does not matter if the starbase is an empty shell with nothing but a Master Computer in it. So if I have all my yards build starbases, my score will jump to over 288x25+24xx points about 10 million in one turn. All but a couple races surrender. A few turns later I churn out another batch and everybody surrenders. Game over. No Challenge.
With a new patch coming out it will probably be a long time before the next one. Now would be a good time for EVERYBODY to lobby for a change of SOME kind in the score calculation to prevent dominoe surrender based on a score obtained by building shells. The formula could be just about anything besides what it is now and still improve.

I do not know if this board has a way of conducting a poll to get an opinion on the matter, but that would be the best way to lobby if such is possible. The question is simple. Do you want a change in the score calculation ? Yes or no.

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

It has been 40 hours and nobody claims to have found the bug, so I reported it to Malafador. I guess nobody was trying, because with all the hints it should have been easy to find. Possibly it is something peculiar about my game, the race I was trading with, or the tech exchanged. In any case it should take about five minutes to fix, so I expect it will be in the next patch. In other words, if you have been looking for it, don't bother. What I did would be a game exploit even if you knew what it was.....

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

There have been lots of suggestions to change what causes the AI to surrender. The one I like best is a combination of military might and economic might not strictly your score. I don't think it is high on the list to change though.
You can get around the domino surrender syndrome by changing each AI to prevent them from ever surrendering but this can make for some loooong games on large maps.

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
You can get around the domino surrender syndrome by changing each AI to prevent them from ever surrendering but this can make for some loooong games on large maps. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No, I want them to surrender (when I ask) if I really have them all on the ropes. But using a trick like hollow shell starbases should not work. Perhaps the surrender to a MEE should be based on the combined might of all versus the MEE. Say they will surrender only if their combined might is one third the MEE score, rather than when their individual score falls below the threshold.

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

If it just took into account military might, not empty hulls etc, it would be better but I don't think it is likely to be changed.
Ideally the AI would be able to also take into account the strategic situation also when deciding when to surrender.
Just don't ask them to surrender until you've kick their butt around.

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
Just don't ask them to surrender until you've kick their butt around.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Exactly. In a solo game, if you don't think the AI should surrender, don't ask them. Show a little restraint. In a multiplayer game, surrendering should not be allowed. It provides too much of an advantage in all areas.

Re: AI tech trade bug
 

I don't consider mothballing a cheat unless the victory conditions are based on reaching a certain score, then I would consider it lame way to win.
I usually have mothballed fleets all over my empire for defensive purposes, although unmothballing them can be painful http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif I find it necessary to keep lots of defensive fleets when playing against people as you never know where they will pop up!