AI DEAD MATCH CONTEST!

[God Emperor]

MB,
Reloaded the modpack Data files and everything is fine now. Must have had a file that was edited in some way.
Anyway, was just checking a few saves and noticed that my races seemed short of resources in their games (you also made a comment previously).
eg Praetorians in their Last game had Ice Colonisation by turn 110 but were never able to afford to build an Ice coloniser.

Did you set the game up with No Bonus? (My races are optimised for low bonus which would explain their running out of resources - I suspect a few other modders have optimised theirs for low bonus as well as it makes the AI a better challenge by offsetting their inability to optimise use of resources).

Regards,

GE

[ November 25, 2002, 14:43: Message edited by: God Emperor ]

[Master Belisarius]

Originally posted by God Emperor:
MB,
Reloaded the modpack Data files and everything is fine now. Must have had a file that was edited in some way.
Anyway, was just checking a few saves and noticed that my races seemed short of resources in their games (you also made a comment previously).
eg Praetorians in their Last game had Ice Colonisation by turn 110 but were never able to afford to build an Ice coloniser.

Did you set the game up with No Bonus? (My races are optimised for low bonus which would explain their running out of resources - I suspect a few other modders have optimised theirs for low bonus as well as it makes the AI a better challenge by offsetting their inability to optimise use of resources).

Regards,

GE

All the games were without bonus.
Why?
1) Were all games played between AIs, and the "human" is only nominal.
2) All the AI start with 3 good planets, and all the planets available to generate resources, are very good, then, the AI have more available resources than in standard games.
3) The most important reason: when I wrote the game settings for the games, nobody suggested to change the bonus!!!!

For the first round, I can't change this setting... I'm near to finish and would not like to restart everything!
I could change it to LOW BONUS, for the next steps of this contest... but would like to hear some more opinions first.

Finally, want to say that most the races had not problems with the resources... In my personal view, put this setting in: Maximum Maintenance Percent of Revenue := 99
it's something high. Maybe would be ok for medium or high bonus, I think.
My two races had 90, and never where out of resources.
In my opinion (of course), believe it's something dangerous put this setting so high. If for some reason (even with high bonus could happen), the AI is out of supplies, never will be able to build a new colony and compensate this problem, if the AI doesn't lost some ships first...

[ November 25, 2002, 17:42: Message edited by: Master Belisarius ]

[Baron Grazic]

Originally posted by MB:
For the first round, I can't change this setting... I'm near to finish and would not like to restart everything!
I could change it to LOW BONUS, for the next steps of this contest... but would like to hear some more opinions first.

I would suggest keeping the same settings for the rest of the rounds. That would keep consistancy from the start to the end.

Keep up the running commentary, MB, it makes an interesting read.

[God Emperor]

MB,
I wasnt suggesting making any changes now to how you were running the matches, just seeking confirmation of my deduction (I didnt realise that you were intending to use No Bonus - I could have adjusted the AI_Construction_Vehicles files if I had realised - no worries though ) and making an observation for the benefit of other modders and forum members assessing the performance of the various AI (ie those AI running out of resources dont necessarily have to be revised).
Regards,

GE

PS: The 99% setting works fine on low bonus and assists the AI by maintaining a very high build rate - 90% in my experience results in the AI losing lots of resources. On No Bonus however, 90% is probably one of the easiest settings changes to make.

PPS: I second the comment regarding game commentary and look forward to the next installment.

[ November 25, 2002, 22:13: Message edited by: God Emperor ]

[Rexxx]

An English friend of mine once told me: Don't change your horses in the mid of the stream.
I know, I know, it's just a proverb but there is truth in it. Hopefully I can explain my point of view:

We have a contest with defined preconditions (which were open to discussion) for its whole course. If one or more of these preconditions are changed for the second round, we will get another contest. There are 12 races which are being eliminated in the first round. Possibly some of these races still would be in the contest if those new precondition(s) were used from the beginning. That's just what nobody knows and that is exactly my point. Changing rules during a contest will lead to a lot of "what if" questions.

My answer would be same even if the EEE were eliminated during the first round.

[Master Belisarius]

Originally posted by God Emperor:
MB,
I wasnt suggesting making any changes now to how you were running the matches, just seeking confirmation of my deduction (I didnt realise that you were intending to use No Bonus - I could have adjusted the AI_Construction_Vehicles files if I had realised - no worries though ) and making an observation for the benefit of other modders and forum members assessing the performance of the various AI (ie those AI running out of resources dont necessarily have to be revised).
Regards,

GE

Ok, I understand.
Maybe the next time, I will run it with low bonus!

[Master Belisarius]

EA vs Toron.
This time, 2 strong and friendly AI's had close encounter... and was... verrrrry boring!
The EA won by points in the turn 500, and both races had a Military Alliance until the end...
Here the link:
EA_vs_Toron_G4.zip

XiChung vs Rage.
This time, although the Rage has not started very fast, they got a deserved victory and defeated the XiChung in 330 turns.
Here the link: XiChung_vs_Rage_G4.zip

Now, I'm running Jraenar vs EEEvil.