AI Races Expand Too Slowly.

[Omega]

I believe that I have identified a problem with all AI races for this game: they expand too slowly. Installed the TDM mod pack in hopes of getting more of a challenge out of the AI. While the new AI did provide more of a challenge, I basically left every single race in the dust in just 80 turns.

When the game starts, I expand rapidly. Very rapidly. Expand, expand, expand. I had forty planets when the other races had only ten or fewer. While the AI was busy building obsolete ships and useless satellites, I was constantly expanding. When the AI finally got their act together, I had colonized twenty percent of the map. My massive empire could turn out ships faster than all the AI players combined. I simply steamrollered over everyone who was in my way. Diplomacy? Trade? Who needs ‘em?

I decided to alter the quadrant map in hopes of helping out the AI. I made a quadrant with nothing but rock worlds. I made sure that all five atmosphere types were represented in absolutely even proportions. I modified the AI files so that every race was native to rock and that there were the same number of races breathing each type of atmosphere. Every system in the new quadrant has 9 to 15 planets. Even the most addle-brained AI should have no problem finding good worlds to colonize.

My efforts resulted in a very nice custom quadrant. (I actually modded the system types file with 100 system types so that I still get “random” maps.) The AI still managed to bumble around, expanding ever so slowly. In my current game, my score is 2.4M at turn 83, while my nearest opponent has 417K. I have 160 planets while only two of the AI have more than 25. I control 45 systems, the most any AI player has is 7. Seven? SEVEN!?!? LOSERS!!!

Does anyone know if it’s possible to alter the AI to make it focus more on expansion?

I agree 100% - see my posting TDM-Modpack politics in really big game. It is raining soup and none of the AI have a bowl if they have met any other race. They switch strategy from complete colonization to prepare for war or war. It should be fairly easy to split them 50/50 between colony and war production in the ship building schedule. I think the problem is that the AI has been optimized for small quadrant low resources and just assumes there is nothing worth colonizing.

[This message has been edited by LCC (edited 27 May 2001).]

[HreDaak]

It is possible to make the AI expand faster. AI is ALWAYS on exploration state until it makes contact with another race. Depending on the size of this race and possibly on some other things the AI chooses another state which usually is not exploration. By boosting the AI's colony ship production (in exploration state) and making sure that the first few planets it colonizes are colonies with space yards you can get it to expand very rapidly. Also one way to make the AI expand more rapidly is to make sure that the first few exploration (attack) ships it builds are built in 1 turn (escorts). This aproach has few setbacks though (very little defense on AI planets when it makes first contact). But if you are playing in very large galaxies (200+ systems) the AI has enough time to build up its defenses when it changes its AI state away from exploration...

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Originally posted by HreDaak:
[b]By boosting the AI's colony ship production (in exploration state) and making sure that the first few planets it colonizes are colonies with space yards you can get it to expand very rapidly. /B]

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Is that why low value planets are colonized domed when a good planet nearby begs to be colonized ? The AI should make up a priority list ranked by planet value and range to plant from nearest homeworld. It should look at that list every time the space yard completes construction on a homeworld. It also occurs to me that colonizing may be low on the AI prioity list when the resource stockpile is full and a good surplus is available of all types. But if that is so then the excess should be absorbed by building base yards or colonizing or a combination of both to get an exponential growth rate.

[Zarix]

I've been trying to mod AI to colonize faster but there is quite a few problems with it. I'd really appreciate any thoughts from more experienced modders.
1. AI needs more space yards to be able build colony ships.
2. If you add more space yards AI doesn't build them immediately because it uses space yardless planets to build units.
3. If you remove units and AI builds space yards it stops building facilities to those planets because its busy with building ships.

[This message has been edited by Zarix (edited 27 May 2001).]

Speaking of space yards, on a high tech test game I noticed that new AI colonies just started building facilities per two turns rather than building a yard III first to make it a facility per turn. That is dumb except on tiny and small planets.