And The AI is ???

[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.

[wingte]

Yes eagleton, your stratege is one that will almost always beat an AI opponent. The key is to determine what acts are "tolerated" by the AI even if they send you warnings and then staying just inside the envelope.

Looking at the script in SE VI it appears that there is a section in there that will make this signicantly more difficult to accomplish. There seems to be a "counter" that tracks how many times several seemingly unrelated minor events happen and when the count is reached, the AI treats that final minor event as if it were a major event. That final event may be the first time you did that particular action but the AI will react as if you had carried out an deliberately hostile act.

In a longer game, particularly since there seems to be no way to not fight when some other race, even an ally, enters a space you are in, it looks to me like this "anger counter" will almost guarentee that end of the game will be decided by force rather than diplomancy.

Befor any tweaking is done on the AI,, I want to have the opportunity to play some longer games. 100 turns with the demo technology limit isn't long enough and doesn't allow for suffeciently dramatic enough events to really get a feel for the AI.

Right now the only unacceptable single events seem to be:
Actively declaring war...
Being considered a "racial" enemy...
Attacking a planet...

Things in the "counter list" seem to include:
Blockading a warp point... (5-7 events)
Just entering a system claimed by another race... (10-20 events)
Any kind of servalance espinoge... (3-9 events depending on type)

2-3 total of each event seems to produce a declaration of war faster than larger numbers of any single event.

Colonizing a planet in a system claimed by another race,, even an ally race. and refusing to abandon it seems to result in war in 3-5 turns depending on how good your relations were to begin with.

Because just passing through someones territory trips the counter and you can't colonize a planet even in an allies system, I think that somewhere arround turn 150 you will always be at war with every other AI player you have contacted if you try to do the fast early grownth plan. Once the warp point tech is available it should become possible to creat bypass warps so the passing through counter stops. It also apears that in the early game you will have to tolarate other races creating colonies in your systems even though they won't tolerate you doing the same.

Hmnnnn Now,, I am wondering if there is something in the script that if you allow them to colonize in your systems,, they will allow you to colonize in theirs??? I have never tried this,,, HMNNNN...

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Wingte

[General Hawkwing]

Wingte,
I don't know about the script(not having read it) but I have done many of the things you say leads to war and have not had war declared by some empires. I've even stole planets intl. ops. (7-8) without war starting. Other empires have declared war after a single, accdental ship battle. Maybe something has to do with whether it is a "enemy" or "neutral" AI empire?

[wingte]

If you have the intel resources to steal a planet,, then you probably also have the other resources to simply intimadate the AI into being tolerant. This must be true since the diplomacy window includes the ability to demand that a race subjegate itself to you so the AI must have a way of calculating it's chance of surviving if it refuses.

One of the things I so far find about SE VI is that the default settings produce perhaps the most balanced game I have played. Oh the small fighter is too small. The shipyard limit and being required to put only fighter bays on the Carrier is annoying.

My main concern is the mandatory fight even when the other ship belongs to an ally. This makes it impossible to blockade a warp point without ending up at war with everyone. Right now the only way arround this is to use tactical combat and then run for thirty turns. Since I don't like what the AI does when I have a group of ships in a fleet,, this means I have a very tedious 30 turns or I have to set my stratege to "don't get hurt". This of course means that even when I know I have a lock on the battle,, I must fight it out manually and never use the strategic option or the resolve confict option.

I still think that the individual races should have racial advantages and disadvantages. I also think there should be advantages and disadvantages based upon type of government. There also need to be mutually exclusive technologies and races or goverments that are incapable of using some technologies.

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Wingte

[Tampa_Gamer]

I agree, the mandatory fight option seems a little bit dated. But I don't think this happens if you have any kind of treaty with the races, just those you have nothing with. But it would be nice for human player to have an option whether to engage or not. The computer player may still want to, but at least you gave them an out and you would not be the aggressor. Do the beta-testers have any comment?

[General Hawkwing]

I also have not had combat with an ally. When in tactical, it tells me that I can not fire on an ally. In 1 game, I was an ally with 2 empires at war with one another. They both would use my planet to refuel and I would have to sit and watch a AI vs AI tactical battle. It was informative about the AI combat plans but got tedious after the 4th time.