AI Races Expand Too Slowly.

[jc173]

quote:

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Originally posted by capnq:

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

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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]

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.

[Alpha Kodiak]

I also slowed the expnsion of the Rage because of complaints that they were too weak if met early. It is difficult to balance for either small or large quadrants.

I tried putting shipyards on most planets and ran into huge resource problems for the reason already mentioned: they all get tied up building ships instead of facilities, so you wind up with a big fleet and no resource production.

I'm getting better results now by putting shipyard base up early and trying to ensure at least one "Resupply Base" planet type with a shipyard in almost every colonized system.

I would like to get the AI to send a colonizer out to explore. As a human, I will frequently send a colonizer out a warp to see if there is a planet on the other side to colonize. The AI needs to explore the warp first with an attack ship before it will send a colonizer through.

In summary, I agree that the AI needs to expand faster. I am working on the Rage. as well as a couple of other projects, to improve that rate without making them a pushover in a small quadrant game.

[Phier]

I play large clusters with low bonus on hard with the tmd mod and other then the neutrals, the AI expands like a mother f...er. Dozens of colony ships and more planets then you can shake a stick at. Also they seem to have good facilities on them. Where the computer does fall down is research and population. While I'll shuttle my populations the computer just lets them build it seems or mostly which means they will have a lot of 34m colonies. Right now I have about 157B empire in population and #2 who controlls more planets has about 30B I think. The other thing I"m sure the computer doesn't do is use diff population types for diff atmospheres. If I capture an O2 colony and my guys are hydrogen I'll empty the pop off my O2 planets and replace with the O2pop for obvious reasons.

Research - about 2/3rds of my early planets are research, I'm always head of the computer here.

Other things, I've yet to see the computer try to capture one of my planets, its always glassing.

- Why would one turn after I take over an enemy home world they would be jubilent? I just destroyed 1/3rd of their population, bombed them from space, and they are acting like I'm their favorite uncle.

- Speaking of bombing from space, whats the point of planet bombs (not destroyers but normal damage types), I've never seen a use for them to date. In Moo1-2 they had a nice use cause beam weapons were like 1/3rd damage.

- Satalites are useless. Just thought I'd say that too.

- There should be some 'super massive' beam weapons you can put on planets to increase standard range or something, right now planet defenses seem like so much fluff after you get point defense and nullify all seekers.

- Now this REALLY annoys me. If you are moving from A-C and in system B you see an enemy ship your ship stops moving. I can understand why you might want that but there is NO warning, nothing to let you know it happened. Its been more then once I see a colony ship or fleet held up at a wp thats been sitting there for god knows how long because it saw a colony ship 3 turns ago on the other side of the system.

[Marty Ward]

There is a mod that increases weapons platform range, Dev mod includes it. You should try that, PPB with range 12, APB with range 15. Tough to get close to a planet with this mod. Also, in the empire window you can remove the check mark to clear movement orders when entering a system with enemie in it.
As far as AI's being slow to grow I think with the number of possible starting conditions that the only way to overcome this is to have different AI files for different types of play, ie a fast expansion Version, a strong military Version, etc. but that would be a lot of work to make and set up.
I would guess that the most common set up is large mid-life and most people seem to play large quadrant so the AI should be based on this.

[God Emperor]

As Daynarr and Alpha Kodiak have indicated, controlling the expansion rate of the AI is a fine balancing act. With the Romulans, Klingons etc, I ended up putting in an extended queue in the Construction_Vehicles file for Exploration state in order to get bases, colonisers and warships built in the right order. I also extensively modified the queues for the other AI states.
Also, the AI really does seem to need a low bonus as a minimum in order to operate well (even mod pack races), so anyone not playing without a bonus should consider doing so.

Finally, I also agree that planetary defense weapons are basically crap - hence the fact that I designed the Klingons not to use WP's, Defense Bases and Satellites. They do build lots of fighters instead though...
Might give Devnulls mod a try down the track though just to make life interesting....

[This message has been edited by God Emperor (edited 28 May 2001).]

As an Ancient race I know what is worth colonizing. So on the very first turn I plan what will be my first 39 colonies. As the AI explores, it should keep a list of the 20 (At least) highest production potential planets known, and update the list with every change to its map. Each entry is marked as pending with a note of the scheduled planet when production starts. Then in transit when built, and finally taken off the list when planted. That may require a code change to the colonization minister, but would not be affected by quadrant size and richness of the environment. It might also solve the problem of forced production on low quality minerals when it should be doing high quality organics or radioactives.