AI Tweaks and Personalities and Other Thoughts

[ashbery]

Grifman your Posts 100% correct,in the game you have loads of so called race traits but like you say it doesnt make any difference,a evil xenophobic race seems just as keen to offer alliances as a peacefull merchant,just as peacefull merchants wage the same kind of genocidel warefare as the evil xenophode.

The roleplaying side really suffers because of this,i hope that the developers sort this out,ive added a few of my own races and theres no difference,maybe you should email that bottom post to malfador see what they say because this is a major flaw in my view.

[Tampa_Gamer]

Just backing you up - I agree 100% with the initial post below. As a 4x fan back to the days of Ascendancy and MOO, I would like the design team to tweak the AI. I have started some mods myself, but you can only do so much with the AI files.

[ksean]

"- too bad I can't recreate a Silicoid race that can colonize everything - "

Actually you can ..
Create a racial trait that gives the Tech Area Ability. (use some value above that for Organic tech, I start at 255 and work down.)
Add a new Applied Tech "Universal Colonization," that requires that racial trait, then make a new component "Universal Colonizer" that requires Universal Colonization, has all three colonization abilities from the other colonization modules and give it a family number of 5004 (one more than the highest colony module).

Voila' a race that can colonize any planet from the start.

[Jubala]

ksean, sounds like something all neutrals should have imo.

[mafia]

Yes AI can be bolstered a bit but I think AI will never be up to human standars and improving the multiplayer aspect of this game is the *only* way to face a worthy foe. PBEM is a thing of the past. Malfador needs to focus on vastly improving the multiplayer. Until then we'll all be griping about the AI's stupidity.

-m

[Talenn]

Hope and Help for the AI:

Well, I am happy to report that after much tweaking and futzing, I finally have my AI giving me a good run for the money in quite a few games. Its still not up to human standards, but it can sure keep up in production right now. I have been giving it the 'Computer Player Bonus:Low', but I'm beginning to think that it may no longer be needing it.

A few of my friends who had played the game at first (out of the box) were stunned when the AI pummeled them into submission.
I cant vouch for distinct AI personalities (yet), but overall, it is performing far better. I am going to start working on the personalities soon.

Does anyone know if the default AI files are replaced by any with the 'correct' name? Or is it just the ones in the current 'Race' directory? I will experiment with the 'Speech' file first as that will be most obvious one to see. I think the AI programming aspect has GREAT potential if everything works the way it appears to me at this point. I'm not sure how much 'personality' can be injected, but if speech and treay/anger levels can be adjusted in addition to the (already present) ship and research lists, we should be able to eventually get VERY distinctive feeling AIs.

Anyone else have any thoughts or success yet?

Thanx,
Talenn

[Jubala]

I beg to differ. Yes, multiplayer is coming strong, but pbem and single player is not a thing of the past. People who don't have internet access (yes, they do exist) want to play single player, and for that they need a competitive AI so I say keep improving it. Even players who have internet access may not have the time or incliniation to spend several hours a day or an entire weekend playing a game over the net. They want pbem so they can spend a few minutes a day on the game and have plenty of time for indepth diplomacy and roleplay via email. Then we have the LAN people. They can play SE4 now with a little work distributing the files but the workload can be minimized with a script or a batchfile so they're pretty much setup. Then there's always people who want to play cooperative against the AI and they want a strong AI. Then there's people like me who wants all the above and then some!

Bottom line is options people. The more the merrier. SE4 already have plenty of options but there's nothing wrong with adding more imo.