Attempting to improve the AI for Proportions 3.05

[PvK]

Dominions 3 is awesome!

I on the other hand, have not done what I said I'd do and post a version.

I did say I would at least post what I have, and I did make an effort, but the version I had wasn't something I wanted to post, and I didn't manage to devote the time it will take to make it reasonable to post.

As of _now_, I have it on my action list, and the only thing in BOLD, though it isn't my first priority and I have tons of stuff on my list, including several projects I care about which haven't been getting any attention.

[Ironmanbc]

It's good to know we on on a list

[Ironmanbc]

so... where are we on the list

not the last page I hope

[PvK]

Ok, so it fell off the list again. Back on it now, and I'm taking a fresh look at it, starting with fighter rebalance. I wonder though if anyone is going to play it multi-player, or if it is worth playing single-player, without re-tweaking the AI to play 3.x well. If the answer to those is both no, then...

[Ironmanbc]

Originally Posted by PvK

Ok, so it fell off the list again. Back on it now, and I'm taking a fresh look at it, starting with fighter rebalance. I wonder though if anyone is going to play it multi-player, or if it is worth playing single-player, without re-tweaking the AI to play 3.x well. If the answer to those is both no, then...

Well first of all stop using the dollar store post-it-notes to keep track of things

2'nd I like playing single-player myself... I like the A.I. (tweaking the AI to play better) is always a good thing too

(it kinda hard when the modder is modding something else when you want him to work on THIS mod)

[PvK]

Thanks Ironmanbc. Is the AI colonizing ok? That's hilarious about your experience looking into modding the AI!

Thanks Arralen.

[PvK]

Any requests or observations of what is and isn't working well?

[Arralen]

Hi Peter,
at first let me say, I really have trouble running Proportions 3.07

Overall, 3.06 seems to run fine - but it's only turn 23 so there might be more to come; here some remarks ... :

- why did you switch to CD music?

- drones with Design Type: Probe and Hull: Probe still are only usuable as attack drones; there's no way to move them like normal ships (move to, warp), only an (A)ttack button

- planets can launch drones remotedly, but not recover them (button's there, but it doesn't work; presumably not your fault)

- design type "satellite layer" is missing

- some tech costs feel unbalanced and "random"; this mostly apparent in high tech cost game with 1 start planet; e.g. Biology-1 costs 100k, while Astrophysics-1 costs only 85k - yet Bio-1 is the prerequisite for Medical Technology, which you need to keep your pop from diseases

- small starliner can use up to 6 engines, yet the starliner module is so big that there's only place for 4 left, and non for supplies, so range is severely limited.

- engine sizes/numbers vs. speed are unbalanced; a scout with effective engines only can move 5, while civil ships can get 3 at best; colonizing is a PITA with speed 2 ...

- Satellite Bay I can only house 1/2 a lvl 1 small satellite ?! (40kt space vs. 80 kt sat)

- 1st level of advanced armor completely negates direct fire fighter weapons .. and "Fighter I" costs 175k, while Armor only is 40k +100k(chemistry)

- max. number of systems is upped to 130 from 100, yet "high number of AI players" is still 6-10.

- isn't "Minimum Empire Point Storage := 500000" slightly excessive?

Some Settings.txt entries don't make sense to me, too:

Maximum Mines Per Player Per Sector                                   := 13
...
Maximum Planet Percent Value                                          := 1000

[Arralen]

!*§%! time limits on edits

turn 25 :

- standard spaceport is missing from the build list - made obsolete too early (from start?) by the Distribution Center; D.C. takes to long to build in a new system, though; combined "Space Port + Supply Depot" takes research and is even more costly

=> whole bunch of the facility upgrades don't seem to work out ok, as the AI will build the latest tech anyway, so doing an upgrade path like "minor, medium, big colony" won't work if its tied to the tech tree ... and is pretty much inconvenient for the player, who has to turn of "only latest" in the build screen and gets swamped with obsolety facilities. "Upgrade facilities" button screws up everything ...

- transport minister doesn't seem to work with starliners; AI does not build pop transports at all

[PvK]

Thanks for the great input, Arralen!

One thing is it shows me how unclear some things are to players when I'm not around to explain.

What is the zip filename, origin or whatever of your version 3.0.7? I see I have posted a 3.0.6.beta.zip which is older than 3.0.6. I don't see where I posted a 3.0.7. I may have forgotten, but I'm not seeing it on the forum either.

I don't remember ever enabling the CD music, certainly not on purpose.

I know there are limitations of drones which can't be modded away, but probe drones do serve a limited purpose. They are the only units which can move through warp points by themselves (attack the warp point, IIRC), and they don't give the enemy experience when they get destroyed. They are useful as a cheap way to see what evemy defenses exist at a location, or on the other side of a warp point, without giving away experience or losing morale due to ship loss. Also it just seemed like an ability that should be easy to get to make an unmanned exploration probe (we could more or less do that in the 20th Century, after all).

Yeah, there's no way to mod in a way to recover drones in strategic mode, or to remove the button that makes it look possible, that I know of.

Design type Satellite Layer - ok, I'll add that.

I don't claim the tech costs are perfect, but I did give them many layers of thought and tweaking and so on over the years. Unfortunately, all the reasoning isn't fully documented. Medical Technology is the ability to stop amazingly deadly planet-exterminating horror viruses. As I recall, there's no way to raise the natural disease level above a certain point, so the tech cost is balanced to make it a meaningful choice and a serious thing to have to deal with, etc. But I am open to suggestions and explanations of what doesn't seem to make sense or might be better, etc.

Starliners in 3.x are carefully balanced against transports and warships to have a niche, in a complex way - as I recall, when you research higher levels of Starliner Modules, they become smaller, making room for more engines and supplies or whatever. In 3.x there are several techs that start out rather clunky but gain more interesting design possibilities as you get higher tech levels.

I understand you're not used to slow ships, but what's unbalanced about the speeds? Civil ships with low tech engines are cheap low-tech things. Warships with better engines go faster, etc. Colony ships are supposed to be a major undertaking (aka PITA).

I forget what the thinking was about small satellite launchers not housing a small satellite. Your point makes common sense... I think it was just that this way, high-tech cargo space has more of an effect, because less space is assumed to be using the built in generic storage of the launcher. It does seem like it'd make sense to either include enough for the smallest satellite, or none at all. The typical solution of course is to include cargo components.

Fighters are not well balanced in 3.x yet, but you're not right about advanced armor making fighters impotent - a stack of fighters pools its damage against armor (which unfortunately can't be modded).

So what about the max systems 130 without changing high number of AI opponents?

I don't think the Empire Point Storage is excessive. Proportions tends to have long-term resource efficiency games (e.g. building up resources during peacetime to burn during war), and even with that and the other things that store heaps of resources, storage is still an issue and facilities may be worthwhile to add more storage.

Max mines per sector is 13 because mines in 3.x represent entire gigantic barrage minefields or many devices, not single devices. Minesweepers are similarly reduced.

Maximum Planet Percent Value 1000 means you could theoretically use special technology (e.g. Value Improvement Plants IIRC) to develop a resource value of a planet to 1000.

Unlike vanilla SE4, there are many technologies in Proportions where lower levels are still very useful even after higher levels are developed. So using the filters that only show the latest techs, or convenience features that auto-upgrade to the latest techs, is generally not a good idea. There are a few cases where upgrade paths that can be done at one level of research, become unavailable at later research levels. Unfortunately there's no great way to avoid that.

I thought the Transport Minister just took your transports and moved stuff with them - is it really meant to construct pop transports?