AI Colonization Styles

Menschenfresser · #1 October 5th, 2001, 05:44 PM

Working on my second race...first was a miserable failure, and I have been looking over the fleets.txt file.

I notice that most of the number of fleets for the AI are determined by # of ships and not # of planets. I am thinking about changing this. By my own playing style, my # of fleets are determined by the number of systems I control. I have a rough idea of how many planets show up in any given system that are colonizable.

So my question is, does any one out there have an idea of how the AI colonizes planets? Does it colonize most of one system's planets before moving on, or does it keep expanding, and only fills in the gaps later.

I think planet/fleet (or actually a system/fleet) ratio might help the AI in using fleets.

The Last game I played I noticed the Colonials used fleets very effectively against me. They had fewer ships than I did, but generally only put about 12-18 ships per fleet, giving them 4-5 medium roaming fleets. Coupled with the fact that they only controlled 7 or 8 systems, 5 fleets was enough to keep me aware of the fact that they always had big reserves in a nearby system.

The rage however, had more ships than anybody through most of the game...50% more than me, but they only had two large fleets of say 35-50 ships, which never strayed too far from the underbelly of their empire. On top of this they controlled nearly 25 systems, leaving most of their planets a long way from any assistance.

Any input on this?

Q · #2 October 6th, 2001, 08:37 AM

Two important questions and I have only partial answers.
For the colonization the value of the planet seems very imporatant for the AI. It is frequent that near large planets even with breatheble atmosphere are ignored if they have a low resource value and tiny planets with a high value are colonized two or more systems away. Which is IMO not very reasonable and should be changed. But this is hardcoded and you can't modify it yourself.
The number of fleets is another problem. If you give the AI many fleets, you may have insufficient numbers in each fleet to be effective. And in contrast to your experience I saw the AI use multiple fleets in the same system, where it would have been much more effective to combine them in one large fleet. In my experience the AI is completely lost if there are several systems with combats. The AI will choose one or two systems and send all his fleets/ships to this conflict and ignore all other location. So if the AI is at war with multiple empires on multiple locations he has a severe problem even if he is very strong and would have enough ships for defense and counter atttack. Again there is nothing you can modify yourself because this is hardcoded. Therefore I use rather small numbers of fleets for the AI and I am not sure if the Rage would have done better with a larger number of fleets.

[This message has been edited by Q (edited 06 October 2001).]

Baron Munchausen · #3 October 6th, 2001, 04:23 PM

This is another area where the AI needs a lot of fleshing out. Not only does it seem to go for planet value over anything else, it will not 'give up' on a planet it has decided to colonize even when massive military force stands in the way and other planets are easily accessible. If you blockade a warp point into a system and destroy any colonizers that come through, it will keep sending another colonizer forever. I've often seen it send colonizers THROUGH a system with a half-dozen or more colonizable planets trying to reach another system. Once in a while it will send a warship through ahead of the colonizer, but it will never, EVER, fleet colonizers with warships as escort. Nor will it guard a colony once founded. Slag a colony and it sends another colonizer, unescorted, into the same system with your waiting warships, and doesn't bother to defend it even if it manages to refound the colony.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 06 October 2001).]

CW · #4 October 6th, 2001, 06:11 PM

quote:
If you blockade a warp point into a system and destroy any colonizers that come through, it will keep sending another colonizer forever.

Ask my allies in PBW, I colonised pretty fast yet I didn't build that many colony ships myself. All I had to do was to put a battery of sats with allegiance subverters on them at warp points. It costs me practically nothing yet I have a constant supply of new colony ships. What's even better the colony ships come with supplies of different atmosphere breathers.

Menschenfresser · #5 October 6th, 2001, 10:13 PM

Many thanks for your help.

I have seen that too Baron, where the AI sends colony ship after colony ship through a WP only to find several of my war ships waiting. However, forever is a long time. And I can remember two occasions when, after several attempts, it stopped completely. Almost as if losing all interest in my system.

As to the fleet sizes, yes, a fleet of 35+ is not something you want to meet, even if controlled by the AI. However, the Colonials I previously mentioned did far more damage with their smaller fleets, simply because their were more of them.

Two designCreation file questions that I couldn't find answers in doing searches:

What exactly is this good for? It's the Last entry in the instructions part of the file.

// STILL NEED:
Roles that each design type can be used for:
Type 1 Role Used in Attack := True
Type 1 Role Used in Defense := False

And since it will be a while before I am able to play test my empire, what happens if you put in more than one of a particular design...say more than one entry for "attack ship?"

Again thanks for the comments.

Baron Munchausen · #6 October 6th, 2001, 11:32 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Menschenfresser:
Many thanks for your help.

I have seen that too Baron, where the AI sends colony ship after colony ship through a WP only to find several of my war ships waiting. However, forever is a long time. And I can remember two occasions when, after several attempts, it stopped completely. Almost as if losing all interest in my system.

As to the fleet sizes, yes, a fleet of 35+ is not something you want to meet, even if controlled by the AI. However, the Colonials I previously mentioned did far more damage with their smaller fleets, simply because their were more of them.

Two designCreation file questions that I couldn't find answers in doing searches:

What exactly is this good for? It's the Last entry in the instructions part of the file.

// STILL NEED:
Roles that each design type can be used for:
Type 1 Role Used in Attack := True
Type 1 Role Used in Defense := False

And since it will be a while before I am able to play test my empire, what happens if you put in more than one of a particular design...say more than one entry for "attack ship?"

Again thanks for the comments.

Well, 'forever' is metaphorical. The AI doesn't respond to a rather obvious situation in any remotely reasonable time frame.

The comments from the header of the designcreation file are just that. Comments. Aaron seems to have been in the habit of keeping notes for himself in the headers of these files as he was developing the game. Many were deleted in the beta phase, but some of them got out into the finished game.

Putting more than one ship of the same TYPE (not name) in the design creation file results in ships of several types being built, if the requirements to build them can be met. There is no way to control how many of each type are built, though. It's apparently random. So, if you put both missile ships and beam ships in the Jraenar file, you'd change their style from missile ships only to a mix of both beam ships and missile ships.

I think duplicating the name as well as the style results in an error.