Increasing AI difficulty

[Warshed]

I would PBW if I could, but unfortunately I can't. I am just surprised there is no way to make the computers super viscious so they will attack regardless of whether they may win or lose. The attack though must have at least 20 ships or something. I don't know, something like a genocidal or xenophobic setting for the computers.

[Will]

Warshed said:
I would PBW if I could, but unfortunately I can't. I am just surprised there is no way to make the computers super viscious so they will attack regardless of whether they may win or lose. The attack though must have at least 20 ships or something. I don't know, something like a genocidal or xenophobic setting for the computers.

Can't? All that is needed is a 'Net connection, and you seem to have that...

For straight AI though, try TDM, and if that still isn't enough, start handicapping yourself. Like choosing 5000 racial point start, and use 0 yourself.

[Q]

Will said:

Can't? All that is needed is a 'Net connection, and you seem to have that...

For straight AI though, try TDM, and if that still isn't enough, start handicapping yourself. Like choosing 5000 racial point start, and use 0 yourself.

The problem with PBW is that you need the time to play regularly. You can't play 20 turns a day when you have the time and then not play for a month.
All the tips to make the AI stronger will not change its decisions to attack or not to attack. It will only increase the chance that the attack is successful. I don't think it would be very difficult for MM to change this. Whatever calculation the AI uses to make the decision you could lower the threshold for the attack or even better let this threshold be defined by the AI files. This is however not possible in SE IV.

[Xrati]

The TDM Mod will increase the computer difficulty and so will the settings. What Warshed is looking for is in the actual code of the base program or the algorithms the computer uses to make its decisions. If the program were to be rewritten to accept a “lunatic” or “suicidal” mode then it might attack. That would mean that the computer would just throw ships at you without regard to any future consideration. Although you could program a random event into the AI when certain conditions were met to launch a suicide attack. Like maybe if it had enough of obsolete ships to commit to the attack.

[AgentZero]

Xrati said:
That would mean that the computer would just throw ships at you without regard to any future consideration.

RTS Mode, FTW!!!oneeleven!

Goes back to his corner and hides.

[Warshed]

Xrati said:
The TDM Mod will increase the computer difficulty and so will the settings. What Warshed is looking for is in the actual code of the base program or the algorithms the computer uses to make its decisions. If the program were to be rewritten to accept a %u201Clunatic%u201D or %u201Csuicidal%u201D mode then it might attack. That would mean that the computer would just throw ships at you without regard to any future consideration. Although you could program a random event into the AI when certain conditions were met to launch a suicide attack. Like maybe if it had enough of obsolete ships to commit to the attack.

Yeah that is what I am looking for. I just think that whatever the computer uses to determine when to attack an enemy it is just plain screwed up. There have been too many games when the computer had tons and tons of ships and still didn't attack my systems. The only thing is that I don't want to program the computer to just wontonly throw ships at me, I want him to have a certain threshold, like 15 ships before he decides to send in a fleet (not the slow leak of one ship at a time).

Xrati said:
Your AI would have to be very complex to assess the attack potential of its fleet and the composition of the defense fleet.

I don't think the AI would have to be overly complex. All the AI would have to do for a generic attack is look at the player rankings in technology and in number of ships. The computer can plug in the ratio and if the ratio is sufficiently in his favor then he would start attacking that player indefinitely (as long as they are at war) until the ratio wasn't in his favor anymore.

The same method could be used for computer players that want to bully players into a subjugation or tariff agreement. They merely need to look at what empires border them. Then do a check on those empires that border them for their ranking in various things (ie. ships and tech) and then send some nasty diplomatic ultimatum to those who ratio is extremely low and if the ultimatum is ignored, then they default to war.

[Warshed]

I think the first Master of Orion did this ratio idea in order to gauge where, how often, and when to attack another empire. The AI would just do a ratio check each turn on the other empires and if the number of their ships were sufficiently low as compared to them, then they would start diplomatic threats and/or start warring.

[Fyron]

If only programming AI was so simple...