This Was Much Too Easy!

[Kodos]

The setup: Built my own race of Hydrogen breathing, Gas-Giant inhabiting, Organic Tech having BEMs and fired up a new game --- unfortunately, it turned out that I had to share my starting star system with another race (Humans, of all things!).

Well, I kissed their anthropoid arse for the first 20 turns or so (got a Trade & Research treaty), and then when all of their ships where out exploring other systems, I moved a fleet of Frigates onto their home planet, blockaded 'em for one (1) whole turn, demanded they turn it over to me as tribute, and the next turn it was mine!

Repeat procedure with all other colonies in starting system until bored...

Now, the Humans had some Weapons Platforms and Satellites guarding their planets, so I never actually got close enough to bombard them, so they could have held out indefinitely. Why turn over the homeworld to me? After only one(1) turn? Please tell me the AI puts up more of a fight than this...

Oh, and one other minor quibble: There seems to be a problem with definitions in the game. Planets are refered to as "Systems", and this is throwing me off! A star "system" refers to a series of planets that revolve around a sun --- not a single planetary colony, as it seems to in the documentation.

[Richard]

This is more luck than anything, I have rarely seen the AI this easy to push over or to not have colonized other systems yet.

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Sarge is coming...

Richard Arnesen
Director of Covert Ops
Shrapnel Games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com

[pathfinder]

yeah, the AI kicks my anthrapoid butt all too often...as it just did

[Talenn]

What Version were you playing with? In the release (1.02) the AI could sometimes be dealt a 'Small' homeworld which is absolutely crippling, especially if you were on a Gas Giant and close to them.

Try it under the latest Version and with 'Hard' set for Difficulty. It wont play as well as a human most of time but it can do well in certain conditions.

Dont sell it short just yet!

Talenn

[Tomgs]

With the new patch also the fighters are much better. Some AI's use them to guard worlds also. I lost a few ships trying to blockade a homeworld not expecting the beam weapons to have 1% chance to hit fighters 2 squares away and only a 10% chance one square away. I bet this was one of the tweaks in the patch. This makes fighters a lot better. I haven't gone up against one with my point defence yet I just got to level 2 with PD I expect it will have a more normal chance to hit fighters.

Also if the AI views you less amiably the chance he will give you his homeworld is much less. So if you had gone around and killed his ships for a few turns first as is usually the case with a homeworld further away from you he would be much less likely to give up a world to you. It seems, at least to me, if you are amiable or warm to them they give up a bit too easy. Perfect universe for a backstabber.

Also about planets being called systems where did you see this? In my cursory look through the Online manual I didn't see it. I did report one error to Malfador Machinations in the initial release of the manual and they fixed it in the patch. So if you see an error there E-mail them. They do say some things about sectors which is one square in the game. Enough space to hold one planet and its moons if it has any (your ships can move one sector for each of its movement points). But systems are as you say a group of planets revolving around the sun which is how I saw it used in the manual (see system display for example).

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 23 November 2000).]

[Kodos]

This was with the ver. 0.99 Demo.

Yr point about the AI giving in if yr nice to it sounds like what happened. My first act of agression was to blockade it's homeworld, all was peachy before that. Still, it had two other planets in the system, and another colony elsewhere --- it should not have given in to my demand so easily!

And yes, it was the "sector" when refering to a planet's area that led to some confusion (specifically with Supply Depots and Spaceports), not "system" --- my bad.

[Darwin]

Well the important thing to remember here is.

1) Se3 had increadable AI. So we know that MM can do it.

2) I just fired up my copy of SE3. Version 1.17 and I looked through the history.txt for it. Lots of AI improvments throughout.

Lesson of the day is. Just keep playing Just keep downloading the patches. MM are good determined people. This game will get better as you do.

[Tomgs]

The AI is definately better in the full Version than in the demo and the changes in the patch give them better options for defence such as the fighter change and curing the unsheilded bug for units. Its quite a bit harder to win now than it was. Not impossible by any means but the AI is improving.

One thing I would really like to see is a bit more aggression on the part of the AI to attack me in my systems instead of waiting for me to go there and attack them. If I had to spend some of my resources on defence I would have less resources to press my attack. Especially when they declare war on me they should make a concerted effort to find worlds that I control and attack them at least on the higher difficulty levels.

[Taqwus]

One area where it definitely needs improvement is the "no warp point" start.

I played a game with that option, in a large galaxy, 3 planets ea, high race points, pretty much everything else default.

I took a LOT of time researching things like the other two colonization tech, before bothering to create warp points, and then went all the way to converting every atmosphere in my (by that time, ca. 10, all previously vacant) systems to nice, pleasant hydrogen, before ever constructing a war fleet.

And I'd waited to max out the ship techs (propulsion, organic weapons, tachyon sensors etc -- everything on them) before doing so. In the meantime, since I wasn't sure what to expect I'd been heavily mining and so forth. So by now a couple o' hundred turns had elapsed (I'm *not* kidding). To give you an example of the resources and pop I had -- and thus, sheer length of the game -- by the time the game was over I'd built three sphereworlds, concurrently, and I'd have needed at least six more to hold my population were I to move everybody on 'em.

I eventually created a fleet of 17 ships (1 warp creator/destroyer BB, 2 heavy carriers w/ 112 heavy fighters ea, 4 sweeper/sensor/repair BBs, 2 shipyard BBs, 2 bomber BBs, 6 beamer DNS. 1 warp creator/destroyer joined later to speed up the search.), which proceeded to tour the galaxy.

What I found was disappointing. Not one of the AIs had created a single warp point. At least one didn't even colonize every planet in its system -- it probably didn't have the tech. Most of their fleets -- the ones that didn't heed my suggestion to surrender immediately, and that I didn't bother using PPP on -- used DU cannons I, and perhaps CSM II, despite the insanely long time they had to research, undisturbed.

So perhaps they got stuck in some state where they didn't have enough colonies to jump to the next, or where it was assumed there'd be warp points already and the alternative (needing to research Stellar Manipulation and *making* warp points and planets) wasn't considered.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Talenn]

Tomgs:

Yes, definately AI agressiveness could use a boost IMO too. Too often I am allowed to build up unmolested and then simply translate my huge econ and tech advantage into an unstoppable fleet.

And, like you mentioned, even when at war, I always dictate the pace. I rarely have to go back and defend my backfield from AI attacks.


Taqwus:

That would probably require some SERIOUS AI tweaking. The little bits I've messed with the AI have shown that it has a pretty strict order for how to build colonies and if it doesnt have enough planets to use, some important things might never get built. I'm sure you could go through and develop a custom AI for your settings (one that researches colony techs and whatnot earlier) but it would be useless in a 'regular' game. I think the AI is optimized for a few game conditions and cant be reasonably asked to perform well in the less standard ones.

It would be an interesting exercise to develop an AI for your settings, though. But even at that, dont expect it to keep up with an experienced player unless you give it a pretty healthy 'Computer Player Bonus' on a map like that.

Talenn