AI Races Expand Too Slowly.

Omega · #1 May 27th, 2001, 09:43 AM

I believe that I have identified a problem with all AI races for this game: they expand too slowly. Installed the TDM mod pack in hopes of getting more of a challenge out of the AI. While the new AI did provide more of a challenge, I basically left every single race in the dust in just 80 turns.

When the game starts, I expand rapidly. Very rapidly. Expand, expand, expand. I had forty planets when the other races had only ten or fewer. While the AI was busy building obsolete ships and useless satellites, I was constantly expanding. When the AI finally got their act together, I had colonized twenty percent of the map. My massive empire could turn out ships faster than all the AI players combined. I simply steamrollered over everyone who was in my way. Diplomacy? Trade? Who needs �em?

I decided to alter the quadrant map in hopes of helping out the AI. I made a quadrant with nothing but rock worlds. I made sure that all five atmosphere types were represented in absolutely even proportions. I modified the AI files so that every race was native to rock and that there were the same number of races breathing each type of atmosphere. Every system in the new quadrant has 9 to 15 planets. Even the most addle-brained AI should have no problem finding good worlds to colonize.

My efforts resulted in a very nice custom quadrant. (I actually modded the system types file with 100 system types so that I still get �random� maps.) The AI still managed to bumble around, expanding ever so slowly. In my current game, my score is 2.4M at turn 83, while my nearest opponent has 417K. I have 160 planets while only two of the AI have more than 25. I control 45 systems, the most any AI player has is 7. Seven? SEVEN!?!? LOSERS!!!

Does anyone know if it�s possible to alter the AI to make it focus more on expansion?

#2 May 27th, 2001, 10:27 AM

I agree 100% - see my posting TDM-Modpack politics in really big game. It is raining soup and none of the AI have a bowl if they have met any other race. They switch strategy from complete colonization to prepare for war or war. It should be fairly easy to split them 50/50 between colony and war production in the ship building schedule. I think the problem is that the AI has been optimized for small quadrant low resources and just assumes there is nothing worth colonizing.

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

HreDaak · #3 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...

#4 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 · #5 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).]

#6 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.

#7 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 · #8 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 · #9 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.

Daynarr · #10 May 27th, 2001, 08:35 PM

I hear you loud and clear, guys.

I will try to make my races expand more rapidly for the next Mod-Pack.

The problem is, as some of you have guessed, that some people play small galaxies with small number of planets and some play large galaxies with large number of planets. It is very hard to make AI that will play both types of games good, so most of us make AI that prepares for war rather then colonizing.