Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

I ask because in my current game I just had something interesting happen. I had a big fleet--my "Imperial Fleet" (heh heh) stationed on a planet just outside of my main territory. For whatever reason, the AI (the Ammonkrie) were making a big deal of it and seiging the planet.

So I parked my fleet there and waited for the excruciatingly long build-time to get up about six small weapons platforms, some facilities and some mines. The AI had as many as 50 ships arrayed against me but was not attacking--just had them surrounding me. Almost as if waiting for something. More ships, I figured.

Wrong.

I was retrofitting my ships in small batches--also an excruciatingly long process with one yard doing five components per turn. I had a feeling that it wouldn't be a good idea to set them all at the same time to retrofit. But as I kept on with it, I noticed the AI was still not attacking. So I decided to retrofit a bunch of my battle cruisers at the planet.

The very next turn the AI attacks me at the planet! Argghh!

But it gets better. I decided to resolve the battle in tactical/auto/fast mode. Imagine my surprise when it turns out the AI was attacking with mostly carriers and launched fighters at my planet. Before I realized what was happening, it was too late to get my ships to focus on the fighters, since in auto they appear to focus on the ships. And remember, my battle cruisers were out of the fight on retrofit!

The fighters actually took out my planet--all those turns and resources wasted! But after the battle the report showed that I hadn't lost a single ship. It appears the AI had specifically been gunning for the planet, knowing what effect it would have on my fleet. (Because I crushed it in ship to ship combat.)

Here's the problem now: My fleet is essentially stranded on a planet without means of repair and facing turn after turn of attacks apparently designed to whittle down my forces.

Meanwhile, I'm crash-building a massive missile fleet to come to the rescue. But will it get there in time to save the Imperial Fleet?

It was close. Real close. I tried running another colony ship in to set up a yard and begin repair again but the AI intercepted the ship and destroyed it. (Second time it got through, though.)

Has anyone else here seen devious, seemingly "creative" thinking/attacks from the AI--or was the timing of its attacks against me coincidence? (And that also brings up another question--when you are retrofitting, are your ships still visible to the enemy? If they are, how would the AI have known they were being retrofitted and thus unavailable for combat?)

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

There are three posibilities here that I can see.

1. Coincidence.

2. The AI is cheating and knows the condition of our ships. The AI does have algorithms that help it decide whether or not to attack a target based on it's analysis of the stregth of the defenders. However I would be extremely suprised to learn the AI was able to use this knowledge of your ships lack of battle readiness that it should have no way of knowing.

3. The AI had scanners on his ships and so legitimatly had this knowledge, and could react accordingly.

Either 2 or 3 would be really cool, but if I had to put money on it I'd say 1.

Geoschmo

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

This is one area where the AI cheats. It can look at stuff (ship is being retrofitted or not, planetary defenses, etc.) that a human player cannot.

Rollo

edit (after seeing Geo's post): my money is on 2 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ July 30, 2002, 19:38: Message edited by: Rollo ]

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

i think the oddest thing is that the fighters went past your fleet. did they have planet targeting weapons, only?

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

I put my money on 1.

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

As I have seen the AI make "intelligent" attacks, attacking a non-defended planet instead of a defended planet for instance, I have to go with #2. I have also seen the AI heading for one of my planets and turn towards another because I just launched the 50 mines I had in storage. I truly believe the AI can see things the human player cannot, but since the AI is particularly stupid anyway, I have just accepted this as "the AI needs all the help it can get".

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Every so often it comes up that the AI might have an advantage in detecting targets -- I once tried to gain the advantage for myself by sending a fleet to a system and turning on the attack minister.

I forget what happened exactly -- either the fleet just sat there or flew across the galaxy to attack something else.

I just feel like guessing that it's an algoritim to determine what's likely on the planet based on size and population. And if the AI knocks over the soft target, it could just be coincidence.

Someone could build a map, with two moons, same distance from the warp point, one defended and one not, one enemy ship, and see what happens.

If I tried it, the ship would probably run away for resupply and the get scrapped http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

I tend to agree with Arkon. In all of my AI testing, I have never seen anything that would indicate that the AI makes use of any information to make an intelligent attack. Instead, I have all too often watched in helpless frustration as the AI ignores an obviously soft target and wanders around aimlessly with a large fleet until it finally withdraws for resupply. In the latest Versions, it has gotten better, but by no means have I seen anything close to "intelligent".

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

I decided to test this and spent the time necessary to create a map with only 2 systems, 1 planet in 1 and 2 planets in the other, then set them both to starting points, then saved the map and started a game with it. I used a transport to divide the population evenly between the 2 target planets, (after colonizing the second planet), then decided to test with different kinds of defenses, ie mines, WP's, fighters. To shorten the story, after everything was ready for the test, I turned on all Ministers for the attacking Empire and sent the recently built Dreadnought through the warp point to see what happened. Well, the minister sent the warship back to the planet and scrapped it. So, though we still don't know the answer to the question, it has definetively been proven that THE AI IS STUPID!!!!

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You mean you had to run that test to figure this out? *tisk tisk* We could've told you that without having to run tests man. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

I go for the first option...
Sorry Rollo, but I'm with Mephisto and Alpha Kodiak: I think that sometimes the AI can do some "intelligent" actions, but really is not smart. In fact, I would prefer that the SE4 AI could cheat something and then, play better.

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

OK, I have completed this test. With all else equal, I put up a minefield on planet B and the AI attacked planet B and blew up, conclusion - AI cannot see mines. Next scenario, I put 5 small WP's on planet B, AI attacked and destroyed planet A. Next scenario, I put 25 fighters on planet B, AI attacked and destroyed planet B. Last scenario, I put 50 fighters on planet B, AI attacked and destroyed Planet A. Between scenarios, I wiped out previous defenses. From this, I conclude that the AI CAN see WP's and fighters and will avoid that planet if it does not think it can win.

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">ROFLMAO I didn't really predict this, I've seen it before when I take over an AI that's losing just to see what it's doing, often it will make and break it's new ships immediately. Must be some hard coded algorithim -- it must want have a certain amount of planets producing resources to keep ships. Typical conflicting ministers.

Gandalph -- I gotta say thanks for doing this and the next test. I wouldnt have had the patience, but now that you see a pattern, I'm intrigued. It can see WP and fighters but not mines(we shoulda guessed that one, or it would never bungle into a mindfield -- that would be too obvious). I'm in the mood to try it out myself. Questions remain:

1). Does it always find the right planet, or is there some ramdomness. Or is there some other rule, how nice the planet is, how close a planet is to it's homeworld, what direction the ship was traveling, etc?

2). So it can count fighters in cargo. If it can see the difference between 50 and 20, can it see the diference between 20 and 25, 20 and 21? Could this just be a non-obvious bug -- it should be able to count fighters in orbit, maybe MM did'nt put in a flag to hide this info when they are cargo? Does it care about small medium large shielded armored fighters or would a ton of cockpits and life support fighters keep a planet safe?

3). What can it see of the weapon platforms. What's it more afraid of large full of armor and point defence vs mediums with engine destroyers?

4). Obviusly it can see sats in orbit, but how about cloaked ones?

If I'm bored enought this weekend I'll try some of these

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

I can save you the time with some of these.


1). Does it always find the right planet, or is there some ramdomness. Or is there some other rule, how nice the planet is, how close a planet is to it's homeworld, what direction the ship was traveling, etc?

There were only 2 planets in the system and both were homeworld, large, breathable, identical population numbers, identical facilities, and identical distance from the warp point, which is why, in my previous post, I said "all things equal". The AI randomly chose a planet if no defenses on either. With WP's or fighters, it always chose the planet it could defeat. If it could not defeat either, it seemed to choose the lesser populated, (the differences were minute, ie 4184 to 4056). If there were sufficient defenses it would attack the weaker planet and , if it could not defeat either, it would hold from attacking.

2). So it can count fighters in cargo. If it can see the difference between 50 and 20, can it see the diference between 20 and 25, 20 and 21? Could this just be a non-obvious bug -- it should be able to count fighters in orbit, maybe MM did'nt put in a flag to hide this info when they are cargo? Does it care about small medium large shielded armored fighters or would a ton of cockpits and life support fighters keep a planet safe?

See above observations.

[QB}3). What can it see of the weapon platforms. What's it more afraid of large full of armor and point defence vs mediums with engine destroyers?[/QB]

Again, see above observations.

4). Obviusly it can see sats in orbit, but how about cloaked ones?

I did not test this, but based on my obsevations, if the AI had sufficient sensors to see the Sat's, it would again pick the weaker planet.

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Nothing to feel sorry for http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif . Actually I agree with you. All I said was that the AI can look at things that humans cannot. Whether or not it makes intelligent decisions is a totally different matter.

Rollo

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

nice to hear some stories of challenging AI behaviour. I have my own theory:

Having read our continual *****ing about how predictable the AI is, Aaron snuck an "occasionally do something unexpected completey at random" function into the AI code during a previous patch. Most of the time this will result in the AI doing something new and stupid, and we will disregard it as such, but every now and again, a random action will occur which looks like excellent strategy from the AI.

If there isn't a function like this, there should be one=-)

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

It wouldn't suprise me at all if the AI could see the contents in the cargo of our planets. I would think it's an unintentional thing, could be called a bug. But it might be a bug that we don't want fixed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Consider some of the other bugs that have been fixed in the past. Populations used to get unhappy at the presence of cloaked enemy ships. And you used to be able to see the contents of an enemy planet yourself by pulling up their planets in the combat simulator. It's very possible that these were fixed only from the players perspective and not from that of the AI.

Geoschmo

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

Excellent observations Gandalph. I always had the feeling the AI could "see" how strong the protection of a colony through weapon platforms and fighters was, but I never could prove it as you did.

[ August 01, 2002, 12:03: Message edited by: Q ]

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

Just to throw a little more to think of in this http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I've seen a similar situation in several of my games while working on AI's.

Early in the game, I had a few frigates and a stack of sats defending my side of a warp point, with about a dozen lightly defended planets and a home world in that system and the adjacent one. I was attacked by a fleet of about 15 destroyers which I didn't have a chance of destroying with the forces I had available in the area. Resorting to cheesy tactics and using tactical combat, I attempted to damage or cripple as many of the enemy ships as possible, taking advantage of the AI's tendancy to retreat all damaged ships back to the nearest ship yard for repair. I was able to destroy 7 ships, and damage 6 others to some extent. However, instead of returning the ships for repair, the AI proceded to send the two undamaged ships into the adjacent system, and glassed the one breathable planet in the system other than my homeworld (assumed this was due to that being the only planet colonized other than my homeworld the Last time they had a ship in the system), while the 6 damaged ships (one of which only had 1 engine, 1 DUC 5, and 1 CSM 3) each proceeded to attack separate planets that they were capable of reaching durring the AI's move, glassing all 6. The next turn, the AI sent its three most damaged ships back for repair, while the other three proceeded to glass the remaining planet in the initial system, and two planets with minimal defenses that were within range in the adjacent system (bypassing the homeworld which was the closest planet to the warp point). Meanwhile, the two undamaged ships, instead of glassing any of the other planets in the system, chased down and destroyed the colony ship that I had sent out from my home world durring my turn, followed by a second colony ship the turn after, placing the two undamaged ships 4 systems from thier closest colony. The odd coincidence in this (which I have also seen with drones) is that in the strategy used by the enemy fleet, colony ships were one of the top target type priorities (use target type first was set to false).

My point in all of that is that I am wondering if the strategies used also have an effect on determining the AI's target selection outside of combat.

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

Here is another example that suggests the AI benefits from info advantages:

1) The AI had a force of 45 ships in the square adjacent to a warp point that was a choke point into my empire,

2) I had a fleet of superior force - 40 ships but of much more combat strength than that of the AI - sitting on the warp point serving as a "cover force" for

3) Another 10 ship fleet on the warp point of 5 shipyard ships that were building defense bases and 5 other warships serving as close escort.

The three fleets sat there, without any combat, for several turns. I then selected "attack" for the cover force against the AI force. The result was that the AI force moved into the warp point square, destroyed the 10-ship fleet and was destroyed by my 40-ship fleet next.

Thus, the AI "knew" impossibly that I had ordered my cover force to attack and "impossibly" slipped through it to attack the weaker force.

Re: Does the AI use creative tactics?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm assuming this was a sim-move game; my explanation is possibly more mundane:

The enemy fleet had orders to attack the 10-ship fleet. Since there were two fleets in the same sector, the enemy fleet did the usual "AI dance" trying to move around the 2nd fleet to get to the 10-ship fleet. When you gave the attack order, the sim-move translated your order into the usual "seek after and attack" order. If I remember correctly, the "sought after" fleet gets a chance to move away (at least sometimes, if not always). So, your attack fleet moved in, the enemy saw the path was finally clear, attacked the original target, and sat around waiting for more orders, at which point your larger fleet caught up and engaged the enemy.

I hope that all made sense...