AI Races Expand Too Slowly.

HreDaak · #1 May 27th, 2001, 10:51 AM

It is possible to make the AI expand faster. AI is ALWAYS on exploration state until it makes contact with another race. Depending on the size of this race and possibly on some other things the AI chooses another state which usually is not exploration. By boosting the AI's colony ship production (in exploration state) and making sure that the first few planets it colonizes are colonies with space yards you can get it to expand very rapidly. Also one way to make the AI expand more rapidly is to make sure that the first few exploration (attack) ships it builds are built in 1 turn (escorts). This aproach has few setbacks though (very little defense on AI planets when it makes first contact). But if you are playing in very large galaxies (200+ systems) the AI has enough time to build up its defenses when it changes its AI state away from exploration...

#2 May 27th, 2001, 11:03 AM

quote:
Originally posted by HreDaak:
[b]By boosting the AI's colony ship production (in exploration state) and making sure that the first few planets it colonizes are colonies with space yards you can get it to expand very rapidly. /B]

Is that why low value planets are colonized domed when a good planet nearby begs to be colonized ? The AI should make up a priority list ranked by planet value and range to plant from nearest homeworld. It should look at that list every time the space yard completes construction on a homeworld. It also occurs to me that colonizing may be low on the AI prioity list when the resource stockpile is full and a good surplus is available of all types. But if that is so then the excess should be absorbed by building base yards or colonizing or a combination of both to get an exponential growth rate.

Zarix · #3 May 27th, 2001, 11:26 AM

I've been trying to mod AI to colonize faster but there is quite a few problems with it. I'd really appreciate any thoughts from more experienced modders.
1. AI needs more space yards to be able build colony ships.
2. If you add more space yards AI doesn't build them immediately because it uses space yardless planets to build units.
3. If you remove units and AI builds space yards it stops building facilities to those planets because its busy with building ships.

[This message has been edited by Zarix (edited 27 May 2001).]

#4 May 27th, 2001, 11:34 AM

Speaking of space yards, on a high tech test game I noticed that new AI colonies just started building facilities per two turns rather than building a yard III first to make it a facility per turn. That is dumb except on tiny and small planets.

#5 May 27th, 2001, 11:41 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Zarix:

3. If you remove units and AI builds space yards it stops building facilities to those planets because its busy with building ships.

If the AI wants to build ships faster then it should build base yards like I am doing - see TDM-Modpack politics in really big game. If the problem of maintenance cost arises then the yards can always be mothballed. But that may create a problem with the limit on number of ships per player. So maybe the AI really just needs a better ship slot / scrap management algorithm.

capnq · #6 May 27th, 2001, 12:23 PM

quote:
If the problem of maintenance cost arises then the yards can always be mothballed.

I don't think the AI knows how to Mothball or Scrap, and I know it can't Analyze. I suspect it can't Retrofit, either, but I'm less certain of that.

------------------
Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft

jc173 · #7 May 27th, 2001, 02:00 PM

quote:
Originally posted by capnq:

Quote:

If the problem of maintenance cost arises then the yards can always be mothballed.
I don't think the AI knows how to Mothball or Scrap, and I know it can't Analyze. I suspect it can't Retrofit, either, but I'm less certain of that.

Oh the AI can retrofit, but unfortunately it does it kinda dumb. I occasionally swap the AI's back to my control to debug/monitor their progress since most of my games are half for fun, half for testing mods. I see Messages about retrofits being completed on occasion, but I also see many Messages about how such and such ship cannot be retrofitted because it is carrying cargo or the retrofit design is the same as the current design. I'm not sure if the AI doesn't check to unload cargo or if it's a problem with the planet with the space yard having no cargo space remaining. I should probably pay more attention. As for the second problem, I still have yet to figure out why the AI constantly creates new designs that are exactly the same as the older ones. I guess some sort of flag variable that is supposed to be checked for making new designs isn't being checked correctly or is being reset all the time. The AI will scrap ships if it's maintenance is greater than its budget and it's running out of stored resources, but I can't be sure that it's scrapping obsolete designs.