[grumbler]

Thanks, Tim,

Another bit of data I grubbed out but never got to post, on Education Centers and Arch Sites:

Comparing the Archaeological Site with the Educational Center we find that we have some problems.

The following rations help explain the problem ratios are the AS number divided by the EC number:

AS I to EC I:
Cost Minerals: 0.41
Planet - Shield Generation: 2.00
Point Generation – Research: 0.67

AS II to EC II:
Cost Minerals: 0.44
Planet - Shield Generation: 2.00
Point Generation – Research: 0.75

AS II to EC II:
Cost Minerals: 0.45
Planet - Shield Generation: 2.00
Point Generation – Research: 0.80

Each has a unique ability usable by only one per planet, but these I will ignore for the nonce, because as I will show, the AI will build a single AS on each research planet anyway, and the Ship Training capability is not generally applicable.

The problem with the current setup is that the AI follows a very inefficient path on its research planets. To give an example of how profound this can be, I will use the following case:

Assume a small planet. Assume that the population of the planet is 250 million (though this assumption is only for illustrative purposes, it isn’t too far off from what you typically find). Ignoring for the nonce population growth, you have 380 construction points per turn. Assume Research tech level I.

The AI will follow the following pattern when it builds up the planet:
Build EC I
Build AS I
Build three more EC I
Build Medical Center I
Build two Covert Ops Center I
Build two EC I

I, as a human player, on the other hand, build more rationally and never use the EC as follows (I will build the MC I and CoC I even though I probably wouldn’t myself, as otherwise the comparison becomes impossible):

Build five AS I
Build Medical Center I
Build two Covert Ops Center I
Build two AS I

Now, the AI will spend 286 turns to complete the planet, while I will spend 172 turns. True, at the end of it the IA has a planet producing 7446 RP per turn and my only produces 5986, but I have had a lot of RP production in the meantime that the AI has not.

After 50 turns, the AI has totaled 19,710 RP, and I have 44,530.

After 100 turns, the AI has totaled 110,960 RP, and I have 201,188

After 200 turns, the AI has totaled 565,969 RP, and I have 670,578

In fact, after 300 turns my method still holds the edge in total accumulated RP, 1,225,378 to 1,155,225. Given especially the disproportionate advantage of early RPs, it is clear that the AI strategy, while logical, give a human player an enormous advantage.

There are two solutions: reduce the cost of the EC, or increase the cost of the AS. As the game already moves so slowly, I think that former is the solution.

If the EC’s price is set to 150% of the AS, it still makes sense to build both of them on a planet. While building an all-AS planet still provides an early edge, by turn 100 of the planet’s history the AI strategy will be 16% better than the all-AS strategy.

In order for this solution to work though, the ratio of the EC producing 50% more RPs than the AS must be maintained at the higher tech levels. The current methodology simply adds 250 RP per level to both facilities. I think that it would be better to just increase production by 33% for each facility, thus yielding the following RPs at levels I/II/III (rounding a bit for ease of comprehension):

Archaeological Site: 500/665/885
Educational Center: 750/1000/1325

Thoughts?