AI Weakness

from Stardock Forums
Just a note after playing for a while with Beta 2, Beta 3, and Beta 3A. The AI seems to seriously undervalue population in the early game. It is quite easy to use money gleaned from tech brokering to buy out lots of colony ships and transports in the early game. And since early game colonization is IME among the single biggest factors in long term power this can cripple an AI civ. After I build up a bit of cash selling/trading tech I can always target the most threatening nearby races by simply buying/trading for all the colony ships (and transports if that's all they have) they produce until I run out of places to put them. In fact, I often find it more expedient to use even the initial starting money to buy another civ's colony ship rather than to rush my own. It costs less and it denies them the colony as well as giving it to you. And it just snowballs from there. The longer you keep it up the further they fall behind (and the easier it gets to buy more from them with the growing lead in tech, income, and influence). I've never had an early-game AI ask more than 450 for a colony ship, with 200 quite often in reach. This is just way too low considering the early game importance and cost to produce them - to say nothing of the population hit. I think you should consider increasing the trading value of colony ships - including taking into account the resident population - and in the early game the AI should consider them to be worth practically as much as an actual planet. In overall strategic terms thats pretty much exactly what they are...

Regards, and despite my above complaint this is quite an excellent game even if it is a Beta. I've been enjoying it immensely. Keep it up!

Zeno42
441 views 31 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
How do you actually buy a colony ship? I'm not asking for purposes of using a cheesy tactic, but because I haven't figured out the interface enough to know how to do it.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
We shouldn't be able to buy a colony ship. That's what i think :notsure:
WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I tend to agree.

Here's what I propose:

#1 You cannot buy special ships (transports, colony ships, etc.)

#2 You cannot see their list of ships until you have put some investment into espionage. Until then, it tells you that you need to do so.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Sounds perfect to me ;)
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
I dissagree. I have found it very useful in a game with very difficult settings to be able to do this. I would say that if you had the aliens all set on the most difficult level and found it made it too easy to win then, maybe, it would be appropriate.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I don't see why you should get to see the alien ships right off the bat.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Me neither...apart if you're an Elerian ;) . But this is another game: you need spies to know what the other races have. And if you find it too difficult then, you can lower the setting. This will make the game last longer (as the difficulty increases we'll need more time to master the difficult settings. :)
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree. Being able to buy ships from the aliens off the bat is cheeeeeeesy.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Why? If you are negotiating a trade, why shouldn't the AI indicate what ships it has available for trade?
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
We could not list colony and transport ships that are within a certain range of their destination.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
One improvement I would like to see is to have the AI not show everything they own on the trade screen. The AI should hold back (not show on the trade screen) their highest techs and most valuable ships, especially to a race that they are not at least friendly with. I would not trade Avatar tech for anything, since it could put me at a disadvantage down the road if a stronger race can build them faster than I can. I also use the trade screen to figure out where the other races are technologically, without wasting money on espionage. ;)
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Bert,

I like your point, although it is a fine one compared to not being able to trade ships.

I would like to point out another reason for being able to trade ships, any kind of ships. Cash flow! If my treasury is in the red and my expenses are greater than my income due mostly to the ships I have, I would rather have a choice to trade the lesser valuable ships for cash than just disbaning them. Getting my treasury back into the black and correcting cash flow problems can be very important at times. Disbanning ships is not (at least as yet) of any help. And it is ecologically wasteful.

On disbanning ships, is there anything in the plan to recycle any of the ships components? This could make this operation more desirable in times of cash flow difficulties.
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
If trading colony ships is to be allowed, I think the AI should be able to distinguish between ships that were just built and ships that already have colonists on them... I don't think it makes sense to sell a ship with a hundred million colonists on it... nor a transport with millions of your soldiers! All in all... I still think a lot of work needs to be done with diplomacy in this game, but I don't think they're done with this yet?
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
'#1 You cannot buy special ships (transports, colony ships, etc.)

#2 You cannot see their list of ships until you have put some investment into espionage. Until then, it tells you that you need to do so. '

On #1, I would have to disagree, although they should be based on the population in the ships in cases where that's relevant, rather than the ship itself, and starbases should definately be biased by what modules are built and whether it's on a resource.

On #2, a ship that's been sighted by another means should be tradeable, not just a manafest gained through espionage
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
I don't care whether a ship has been sighted or not, if a civ wants to make a ship available for trade, it should be allowed to do so. This is a trade or a purchase, not espionage or survalance. It just doesn't make sense to restrict a civ to trading what has been seen.
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
I guess I agree... I don't think that it should be restricted, but it should be smart enough to make an informed decision on whether or not it SHOULD sell said special ships.. as on another post, I agree that the player should be able to sell the AI any of its ships it wants, but the AI needs to be smart enough to effectively bargain and to know when it's getting a raw deal...
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
The AI should change its policy based on what stage of the game it is playing in. The policy in the early game should be that less than 4 special ships merits a fair trade, but 4-10 special ships drives the asking price way up(3-5 times asking price).

When the midgame hits(75%+ of 15 or better planets are colonized), then the values change until terraforming is researched by a given civ.....then it switches back to the old policy.
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
Another manifestation of this seems be that you can buy out the biggest military civ's entire military in return for a single tech like "reinforced hulls", which just doesn't sound like a trade I would make--not because maybe "reinforced hulls" don't seem to be quite as valuable as that, but because there is a definite strategic downside to giving a rival all your transports AND defenders at the same time!

I do notice that constructors are not for sale making it hard to "steal" galactic resources. I can see the argument that giving habitable planets the same protection might be warranted.

-Robert
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
I would have to say that I agree with Brad - special ships should be off limits in trades. Its just too much of an exploit unless/until the trading AI can be made to intelligently consider factors such as:

1) How much population is on a colony ship or transport
(preferably as a percentage of total pop and not
as an absolute 1 man = 1 gold kind of figure).

2) Am I currently making good use of this ship (Transport en route to attack, colony ship about to colonize a world, needed ships while in a war, etc).

3) How vital is this thing to my current interests??
(i.e. my only colony ship at the start of the game)

I like to fleece my opponents in trade and diplomacy as much as the next guy, but I'd prefer to have to be a bit more creative in my fleecing. ;)

--Zeno
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
Having tried this strategy a little today I agree that its just to easy. Mainly I think because the AI places to little value on ships. Obviously these is some already inherent value system in place by which it judges what it will accept for X so perhaps the need is just to scale up ship value to a more balanced level?

Myros
Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree that it is too easy to exploit the AI in trading ships _as_the_AI_now_stands. But the AI is still rather primative and is scheduled for improvement. Making the AI's with higher levels of inteligence smarter about these trades would be better than prohibiting them entirely. An AI set to dumb or idiot aught to be susceptable to exploitation that one set to the highest level would never fall for. The inteligence settings have a reason, to make it easy for a new player to enjoy the game while learning the mistakes he/she could be making. Give them a break by giving them some way of correcting some of those errors during the game. Don't make them start a new game to apply what they have learned.
Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top
Speaking of AI... anyone else notice that it's hard to get through a game now without half of the mafor civs surrendering to minors? I think this is silly.
Reply #23 from Stardock Forums Top
Are you aiding the minors in some way, say, selling them techs that improve their diplomacy?
Reply #24 from Stardock Forums Top
Nope. I'll be minding my own buisness, trying to stay out of debt when BANG! We the Drengin have surrendered to the mighty Scottlingas. Then I notice that every other major race is in the hole for 5 grand. Then they all just start dropiing like flies.
Reply #25 from Stardock Forums Top
The AI is not very good at bargaining, for now. I see that everyone is focussed on the weakness of buying colony ships. For fun, I tried to play Pacifist with all my points in Diplomacy, and started to research Diplomacy improving techs. I started to concentrate on my tech, without resorting to buying colony ships.

I gained a comfortable edge, then proceeded to trade them all versus a Drengin planet, an Arcean planet, etc. Soon, I had enough ressources to buy the love mushrooms and get in the lead in pop. I concentrated on tech and influence improving building... And I used influence point and tech mix to buy a round of planet some times. Wash, rince, repeat three time, and I was alone with 2 civ. One of them made war, I bought peace, and I finally bought the remaining planets. I won with a diplomatic victory.

Not glorious, nothing, and I don't know if it was the result of a good game focussed on diplomacy or the exploit of a cheesy trick as was mentionned before.