AI Tweaks and Personalities and Other Thoughts

[Grifman]

Well, the game is fun, and you certainly have enough options, but the AI still needs some "adjusting". (BTW all my comments are using the latest patch, medium galaxy, hard difficulty).

First off, the patch does seem to have made the AI's more calm - they didn't sign treaties with me, and then declare war on me half a dozen turns later. But now (I know, hard to please) they are too passive. I just expanded as fast as I could until I met the AI's, then just developed my space to maximum efficiency (all three planet types, emphasis on science and economic development). Only, about the time I was starting my "war" buildup did all of them at the same time start to get "nasty" with me. But it was too late. I outproduce all three of the survivors combined, and they are all at war with each other. It's all over except for the shouting at this point.

Some things I'd like:

1) Right now the AIs have no personality. One of the things MOO/MOO2 got right was differences in the aliens. Some were xenophobic, others friendly (at first), others warlike. They really had personality - from the Mrrshans to the Psilons to the Meklars, they were memorable. To me the SEIV empires are all the same. None of them seem to treat me any differently than the others. All will eventually sign treaties of one sort or the other. None seem inherently hostile, none seem standoffish, none seem overly friendly. They are all rather bland. This really takes the roleplaying out of it for me.

The different races in SEIV all have quite detailed backdrops, but right now those mean very little, as they seem to make very little difference in how the AIs act/play. This is an area of the game that definitely needs bulking up.

2) I as the human player don't like being ganged up on for that sake only, but if they are all fighting me, the baddest guy on the block, it seems only logical that they would put aside their petty disputes and focus on me. Seems like they should have enough sense if not to ally with each other, to stop fighting each other.

3) Trading techs is a big pain and pretty worthless. As far as I can tell, I have no idea what they might be interested in. I have to pick a tech and hope they like it - on both sides. I much better like the MOO/MOO2 system where lists on both sides of the exchange are provide for me to choose from. As it stands now, I don't trade tech (which is one of the most fun things in games of this sort) because it is too big of a pain, and you don't even know if it might work. Unless there is something I have totally missed here in how it works.

4) Back to the AIs, several of them tell me that they cannot be friends with me if I have treaties with "X" or "Y" or "Z", but they never do anything about it. None ever break off relations with me - they still remain "brotherly". They should follow up on their threats by cancelling treaties and becoming less than friendly.

5) I have had military treaties with several AIs but they never ask me to attack their enemies - they have responded to my request for attacks on my enemies, but they never ask for my help. Seems like they should - which then would force me to decide whether I should honor that treaty or not.

6) Sort of off topic here but in several games I've never seen the AIs research computers. All of their ships have to have bridges, life support, crew quarters, etc. making them much less efficient/powerful than my ships with Master Computers.

Like I said, this game has all of the options that you could ask for in a space 4X game. Reseach, diplomacy, economics, ship design, etc. But its promise remains only partially fulfilled until the AI is made more robust and some personality is added to the races.

Grifman