And The AI is ???

[Psitticine]

Well, I've not been talking about it because it keeps beating me in an embarassing fashion and I rather thought I'd keep that to myself.

IOW, I've found it excellent. I'm not a beta-tester, BTW, just a 100-turner, but I've seen it doing an excellent job with things like following up one line of research to a useful degree instead of spreading the RPs around too thinly to make a difference.

It does seem to have a tendancy to launch attacks identical to ones which have already failed. Many times, I'll find an identical class ship making another try against, say, a space station which just ate the attacker's sister ship for lunch Last turn.

Of course, it will eventually pull out all the stops and send in a force large enough to crush that station into titanium dust, and I suppose all those puny attacks dotted about could be intended to keep me from knowing where the big one is landing . . .

But, nah, I think it just doesn't correct failed attack strategies quickly enough!

Other than that, I've been finding it a nicely difficult opponent.

[Master Belisarius]

Your you have a point here Richard.
I have only played the demonstration, and I am conscious that SE4 are still in development, and that MM will continue improving the game, but regrettably, the AI in the Se4 Demo 0.56 is MUCH worse than the AI in SE3.
As I said before I am conscious that SE4 are still in development and that SE3 is a completed game with one of the betters AI that I know... but, for this same reason, although in this and other forums I can see tons of good suggestions (most of them to make more complex the game), I would prefer that MM put its efforts to create an AI like they already did for SE3.

[This message has been edited by Master Belisarius (edited 20 September 2000).]

[General Hawkwing]

I agree with Master Belisarius, the AI is much weaker than SE3. in SE4, I'll lose a few minor battles in early game but by turn 40-60 will have pretty much sealed up the victory. In SE3 the game was still contested (and sometimes lost) at turns over 100.

[wingte]

Hmnnnn,, I never lost a game at the "normal" setting in SE III and so far I haven't found the "normal" setting in SE IV to be either easier or harder. I always run out of turns before there is a clear indication of wheather I am going to win or lose.
My biggest problem is that when I pick "generate random computer empires" even on the "low" setting for the number of other empires,, there is always a minimum of 4 and often as many as 8 enemies and half of them will be the type that attack on sight.
It is also very frustrating to have to always fight everytime another ship enters the same square I am in. This results in making enemies of those races that would otherwise be inclined to become alies.

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Wingte

[Master Belisarius]

No offense Wingte, but I must disagree with you: if you play a Se3 game with not warp point manipulation, and not star manipulation techs, you will have a challenging game.
Also, if you start with less starting techs points, all the AIs against you and large galaxy, I think that really you will have a hard work...
I have played the SE4 demo giving all the advantages to the AI, and with all the AI against me... and always was an easy job.

[This message has been edited by Master Belisarius (edited 21 September 2000).]

[wingte]

The medium setting should be balanced so that is the position where I will play.
The real test would be to creat an AI where you could give yourself every advantage and still have a challeging game because the AI actually learns.
My experience in SE III was that the AI would adapt to the tactics I was using in the medium/normal mode. When I developed the stellar manipulation tech and started cleaning systems by destroying the suns,, the AI started mining the sun. When I started putting mine sweepers on the sun destroyers,, it put a fleet at the sun. So far as I could tell the AI never used any of the stellar manipulation tech even when they clearly should have had it since I had long since maxed out the tech. I also found that using the warp manipulation would upset even my allies and using the sun destroyer against even a genocidal opponent would likly cause my allies to break their treaty with me.

But none of this happened in less than 50-60 turns since that was just about the minimum time I could research the warp point tech and still research the other stuff that would give me the resources to maintain the fleet with expensive components.

So ,, I still maintain that 100 turns is not enough to be able to really get a feel for what and how the medium setting on the dificulty is actually going to react. This is especially true since the Demo doesn't have the stellar manipulation tech in it that caused the SE III AI to really show what it could and would do.

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Wingte

[eagleton]

Sadly, it was not as hard to beat the AI of SE III even without stellar manipulation. My main strategy was to colonize as much as possible from the beginning, so I had more ressources, and to wait until they attacked me. Then I would attack their planets, minimizing ship-to-ship battles. I also developed much more intelligence then my opponents to destroy their economic basis. Most of the time, they could not resist that. Often, they had much better ships in the beginning, but I soon had more ressources, what counted in the end. The only opponents that really stood a chance were those who had half of the maintenance costs and so produced
much more ships than others.