AI DEATH MATCH 2

[Master Belisarius]

Originally posted by Mephisto:
The EA has no deficit but an unbalance. It has 300k minerals and only 10k radioactive. Because of this it won't build ships.

Honestly, NEVER knew that a resource unbalance would force the AI to stop to build ships.
Never considered this, and then, I'll do my own tests...

About the Fazrah vs EA, I have checked how the EA selected the planets: only had 2 Refining Colonies in the systems that I did for it.
Why? Because in the planets.txt the EA have this option "Max Per System := 2"
Then, agree that this could affect the EA behavior: they were not designed to have many Refining Colonies placed in the same system. But I have assumed that if any AI would be lack of resources, always could use a planet not specially designed for Refining Colony and still get good resources.

About the problem with the "Low Bonus", I have my own guess: think the AI doesn't consider the bonus to select the kind of colony.
It mean, that they could FORCE a planet to be a Mining Colony, because believe that is lack of mineral without consider the bonus...
I have noted that my AIs used the planets with 70/70/70 for Mining Colony, when they still had a lot of Mineral available.

[Rexxx]

Originally posted by Master Belisarius:
About the problem with the "Low Bonus", I have my own guess: think the AI doesn't consider the bonus to select the kind of colony.

I can confirm this. In recent test games (with AI bonus) my AIs quite freqeuntly didn't follow my calls in the planet_types-file. They built up mining colonies on planets with a mineral value from 50%-99%. After realizing that I switched off the bonus (setting the AI to human control) and found everytime that the minerals net production per turn had become negative.
I think you're right. The AI didn't take the bonus factor into account, the colonizing decisions are based on the "basic" not the "bonus" income.

BTW I'm quite sure that this safety device (overriding my colony calls) only takes place if the planet has a value of 50% or more. I never had an AI (no bonus and bonus games) using a planet with a min/org/rad value lesser than 50% as a mining/farming/refining colony. No matter how big its lack of resources was.

[Master Belisarius]

Originally posted by Rexxx:
I can confirm this. In recent test games (with AI bonus) my AIs quite freqeuntly didn't follow my calls in the planet_types-file. They built up mining colonies on planets with a mineral value from 50%-99%. After realizing that I switched off the bonus (setting the AI to human control) and found everytime that the minerals net production per turn had become negative.
I think you're right. The AI didn't take the bonus factor into account, the colonizing decisions are based on the "basic" not the "bonus" income.

Ok, thanks!

Originally posted by Rexxx:

BTW I'm quite sure that this safety device (overriding my colony calls) only takes place if the planet has a value of 50% or more. I never had an AI (no bonus and bonus games) using a planet with a min/org/rad value lesser than 50% as a mining/farming/refining colony. No matter how big its lack of resources was.

Good! Then it was fixed, because in the past, I saw the AI select a planet as Mining Colony, when the planet had 0% in Mineral!!!

[Mephisto]

I guess, the "overriding mechanism" is only invoked if the AI really has a negative income. As the EA has no negative income (the maintenance setting keeps it just above that) it will follow the Ai files (i.e. too few radioactive planets for this map). Well, you cannot create an AI for every map. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

[Master Belisarius]

Originally posted by Mephisto:
I guess, the "overriding mechanism" is only invoked if the AI really has a negative income. As the EA has no negative income (the maintenance setting keeps it just above that) it will follow the Ai files (i.e. too few radioactive planets for this map). Well, you cannot create an AI for every map. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Thanks.
But it worked in the previous contest...
Don't understand how the low bonus can affect the AI.

[Mephisto]

Originally posted by Master Belisarius:
Thanks. But it worked in the previous contest... Don't understand how the low bonus can affect the AI.

With no boni the AI can quite easily run in a deficit by just adding 1 or 2 ships (or a large expensive ship like a star creator) because at least in the beginning you normal have just a surplus of round about 5k to 10k per mineral. In the bonus game, you don't hit the deficit quite as fast as you have at least 10k to 20k surplus. If the AI now adds a expensive ship, it will still have a surplus but will not another ship because of the maintenance threshold. In the no-boni game it will already have a deficit. It won't add another ship either but you are already loosing money from your storage and it will assign the next planet for the deficit resource.
The other problem is the “only 2 radioactive planets per system” setting as nearly all the good radioactive planets are in one system on this map. Nevertheless I think this setting is useful as it prevents the AI in a normal game to only build one type of colonies. Ok, I stop *****ing now.

[Master Belisarius]

Originally posted by Mephisto:
Ok, I stop *****ing now.

But still don't understand how a resource unbalance makes the AI to stop build ships... If this is as you said, it's a bug, not a feature.

At the turn 100 in the game Fazrah vs EA, the EA had this resource production: Minerals 475371, Organic 78489 and Radioactives 53580.
Why then, the AI should not build more ships?? Doesn't look very smart.
Now I'm running a game, then, can't test anything. But later will change a bit the EA vehicle_construction file, to see if they would like to build more ships.