Does the AI use creative tactics?

geoschmo · #1 July 30th, 2002, 08:30 PM

There are three posibilities here that I can see.

1. Coincidence.

2. The AI is cheating and knows the condition of our ships. The AI does have algorithms that help it decide whether or not to attack a target based on it's analysis of the stregth of the defenders. However I would be extremely suprised to learn the AI was able to use this knowledge of your ships lack of battle readiness that it should have no way of knowing.

3. The AI had scanners on his ships and so legitimatly had this knowledge, and could react accordingly.

Either 2 or 3 would be really cool, but if I had to put money on it I'd say 1.

Geoschmo

Rollo · #2 July 30th, 2002, 08:35 PM

This is one area where the AI cheats. It can look at stuff (ship is being retrofitted or not, planetary defenses, etc.) that a human player cannot.

Rollo

edit (after seeing Geo's post): my money is on 2

[ July 30, 2002, 19:38: Message edited by: Rollo ]

Puke · #3 July 30th, 2002, 09:11 PM

i think the oddest thing is that the fighters went past your fleet. did they have planet targeting weapons, only?

Mephisto · #4 July 30th, 2002, 10:37 PM

I put my money on 1.

Gandalph · #5 July 31st, 2002, 01:18 AM

As I have seen the AI make "intelligent" attacks, attacking a non-defended planet instead of a defended planet for instance, I have to go with #2. I have also seen the AI heading for one of my planets and turn towards another because I just launched the 50 mines I had in storage. I truly believe the AI can see things the human player cannot, but since the AI is particularly stupid anyway, I have just accepted this as "the AI needs all the help it can get".

Arkcon · #6 July 31st, 2002, 08:36 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Rollo:
This is one area where the AI cheats. It can look at stuff (ship is being retrofitted or not, planetary defenses, etc.) that a human player cannot.

Rollo

edit (after seeing Geo's post): my money is on 2

Every so often it comes up that the AI might have an advantage in detecting targets -- I once tried to gain the advantage for myself by sending a fleet to a system and turning on the attack minister.

I forget what happened exactly -- either the fleet just sat there or flew across the galaxy to attack something else.

I just feel like guessing that it's an algoritim to determine what's likely on the planet based on size and population. And if the AI knocks over the soft target, it could just be coincidence.

Someone could build a map, with two moons, same distance from the warp point, one defended and one not, one enemy ship, and see what happens.

If I tried it, the ship would probably run away for resupply and the get scrapped

Alpha Kodiak · #7 July 31st, 2002, 09:03 PM

I tend to agree with Arkon. In all of my AI testing, I have never seen anything that would indicate that the AI makes use of any information to make an intelligent attack. Instead, I have all too often watched in helpless frustration as the AI ignores an obviously soft target and wanders around aimlessly with a large fleet until it finally withdraws for resupply. In the latest Versions, it has gotten better, but by no means have I seen anything close to "intelligent".