AI is BETTER??

[Instar]

"Installed 1.19 and Mephisto's mod Lastnight..."
Well, the mod could have caused the trouble, and some of the empires are designed to be less aggressive.

[Tomgs]

The AI definitely puts up a bigger fight especially in the early game if you give it a bonus. I am trying to tweak the AI to expand a bit more and keep up a bit better for the middle and end game. They don't seem to take over other AI worlds often and so after I demolish 2 or 3 empires I usually have a substansial lead. I don't know if there is anything that can prevent that except by artificially limiting what I do but I will try a few things and see. There is a setting that says that the AI only guards 3 systems I will try to increase that number first and see if it expands a bit more. If that dosen't help I will try to change a few ship designs and see if I can get some empires to send some time taking over planets with troops. Is there a setting somewhere that tells them to build more troops?

[Tomgs]

Mephisto do you edit the default construction vehicles.txt file in the AI folder to do that? I wonder because the default strategies.txt in the AI folder used the correct settings for troop transports but it wasn't being used. The one in the data directory was used instead and it had an incorrect secondary strategy.

Hopefully if they expand a bit more they will have more resources to spend to maintain a larger fleet. At least thats how I do it so we will see.

Actually I almost never use planet utilization either unless I get it from an ancient ruin. I start in low tech usually and by the time I get around to researching that tech I usually am 5 times as powerful as the nearest AI at least and have so many ships its a pain to manage them all. Sometimes one turn will take over an hour at that time. I am considering uping the cost of larger ship hulls and maybe some of the higher end components, I could also increase the expense of the larger weapons mounts to reduce the amount of larger ships in the late game.



[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 23 December 2000).]

[Chas]

FWIW, I'm into my first game with verison 1.19 (no mods). I'm early in the game and I just watched the 3rd place empire trash a whole system of the 2nd place empire with a fleet of 12 light cruisers. I have trade alliances with both and posted a scout there to watch the carnage. The attacking empire was ruthless and it was something that I never saw in verison 1.11.

It worried me enough that I think I'm going to take out the 3rd place empire first.

[Mephisto]

You have to copy a Default_*-file into the race folder and rename it to Race_*. The race will use this file. If not present, it will look in the AI-folder and use the Default_*-file.
The Strategy-file is an exception. As it seems, the programm will only the file from the Data-folder. It's on my personal bug list I will send to MM.

quote:

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Originally posted by Tomgs:
Mephisto do you edit the default construction vehicles.txt file in the AI folder to do that? I wonder because the default strategies.txt in the AI folder used the correct settings for troop transports but it wasn't being used. The one in the data directory was used instead and it had an incorrect secondary strategy.
[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 23 December 2000).]

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[pathfinder]

Gotta keep an eye on the EEEE in my cvurrent agme...they wiped out one of my trade partners and are now slaughtering the other two.....one of their fleets is 23 dreadnaughts and carriers....

man..where oh where do they get the resources...

[Mephisto]

You can tweak the AI into building more colonizers, that's a good way to spread them somewhat (at the cost of some defense...).
Biggest hit to the AI in late games is that they NEVER use planet utilization (they just don't research it). I configured the EA to use planet utilization and they can keep up quite good in later games.

quote:

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Originally posted by Tomgs:
The AI definitely puts up a bigger fight especially in the early game if you give it a bonus. I am trying to tweak the AI to expand a bit more and keep up a bit better for the middle and end game. They don't seem to take over other AI worlds often and so after I demolish 2 or 3 empires I usually have a substansial lead. I don't know if there is anything that can prevent that except by artificially limiting what I do but I will try a few things and see. There is a setting that says that the AI only guards 3 systems I will try to increase that number first and see if it expands a bit more. If that dosen't help I will try to change a few ship designs and see if I can get some empires to send some time taking over planets with troops. Is there a setting somewhere that tells them to build more troops?

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[The Puke Empire]

Wow I managed to get 6 or 7 hours to play this weekend and you guys are right.. the AI must have had bad luck in my first 1.19 game.. this time I gave it a large world, hard AI and med advantage and I got wasted before turn 100!! Started pretty good but soon run into two races and soon war broke out and on one border my entire fleet was destroyed by an AI battlegroup of 12 LCs armed with level 5 beams and POINTDEFENSE!! most of my ship swere missile boats (yeah I still tried to do my missile dance as soon as I realized the AI fleet is much bigger than mine), none of my missiles could get through their screen of defense. So I decided to build a couple of colonizers, load up my transports with population and escorted by what's left of my fleet... it was so cool it was like playing homeworld on a strategic level . then.. I put em all in one group and started the run.. as soon as I entered a new warp point boom.. a minefield!! half the ship got blown up the rest crippled... the AI fleet caught up with me and that's it.

now that was FUN!!

my only regret now is that i haven't seen any fighter vs fighter combat.. I did run into a planet defended by 20 fighters but never saw them in carrier based operations.

[DaveMan]

The AI IS much better...

My first game with v.1,19 was in a large galaxy, No warp points, High thech level and low AI bonus.
I was having a peaceful game until I SHOWED the AI how to open warp points, this is what happened, I build a warp point opener and I opened warp points until I met with the Jnaeren(or something like that) then, the next turn, I had every empire using warp point openers, and there was a Gigantic War.
Fleets of up to 20+ Dreadnoughts, Heavy Carriers, etc, etc...

When the war was finnaly calming down there where at least 3 empires anihilated by two races, the Sergetti and the Eee.

Well I was OK, I closed all the warp points that led to my systems, and I am now in the proces of building my Mega Fleet.

BTW, this was just a test game...

[mafia]

Maps without warp points is the only way to play imo. Much more challenging against the AI as you never know where they'll open a hole. If you haven't tried no warp points yet I highly recommend it.

-m