YesItsMe

Join Date 04/2008

Problem with non-aggressive AI -UPDATED- FIXED

Hello, first post so be gentle.

Have DA 1.08 but having a problem with the AI being a dunderhead regardless of settings.

My most recent game there are five civilizations who have declared war on me and other then a once in a while troop transport the AI ships just sit at home.

I finally got frustrated and went after the Goliath on the map. My tech rating is 1/3 his. Game difficulty hard. The AI does nothing to intercept my fleets. His military rating is 13000 to my 5500. I run in, kill the orbiting fleets, invade, and all the while his fleets hover about around the planet doing nothing to stop me.

So is this typical of the 1.08 AI? I got used to DreadLords and the original GalCiv AI coming after me with a vengence. This is taking all the challenge (not to mention the frustration of building up an empire only to find the universe peopled by Smurfs) out of the game.

So are my fat fingers missing some set-up options? I usually play with 7-9 races, random intelligence, challenging or hard.

Thanks for any pointers you can offer.

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I wish I could help you out there....

1.5 here... and I've been wondering since mid last year if I should ever 'patch' DA...

I still haven't heard from anyone on here which version is the definitive version we should all be playing.

Something definitely sounds wrong though judging from the difficulty settings you were set at... although you did say you pick random... did you get stuck w/a bunch of "dumb" AIs for this particular match-up perhaps???

Other than that... no idear

Hope you get it figured out... I'm curious,

Chr*s

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Its probably the random intelligence part. Hearing your description I asume the AI is set on cakewalk or something like that. Choose the difficulty for yourself. That way you know what to expect.

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Could be the difficulty setting. Try playing on something higher than challenging. The names are scarrier than the opponents on some levels.

I'm playing the latest patch now, 1.8g, and i don't find the AI too idle, they have 5- 6 ship fleets all over the place. However, I do notice that once you get rid of the enemy's fleets they will leave massive amounts of ships to protect their planets. Similar to what you described. The AI tends to build orbital fleets managers and such, but I find that i wind up just clearing their ships one planet at a time while my transports are free to roam. I can have a transport sit next to a planet waiting for a fleet to take out the defenders and those defenders won't lunch to attack my transport.

I guess you can't fault the AI entirely since if it came after you, we'd say that they should be defending their planets. It needs to decide when it should launch some shipsand create fleets. Its like one its offence is gone it won't build a new one and just goes defensive.

This isnt a problem with the latest patch though. I've found this behavior on each version I've played and on each difficulty level. Take out their roaming fleets and you're all set, except for an occasional lauch of a ingle ship.

You may be experiencing something more that what I've described though. It could be that in your case the AI is just not thinking at all. But it must be doing something to have a military rating like you described.

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Thanks fellas. I'll give it a go on tough with a non random intelligence setting.

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Could be the difficulty setting. Try playing on something higher than challenging. The names are scarrier than the opponents on some levels. I'm playing the latest patch now, 1.8g, and i don't find the AI too idle, they have 5- 6 ship fleets all over the place. However, I do notice that once you get rid of the enemy's fleets they will leave massive amounts of ships to protect their planets. Similar to what you described. The AI tends to build orbital fleets managers and such, but I find that i wind up just clearing their ships one planet at a time while my transports are free to roam. I can have a transport sit next to a planet waiting for a fleet to take out the defenders and those defenders won't lunch to attack my transport.I guess you can't fault the AI entirely since if it came after you, we'd say that they should be defending their planets. It needs to decide when it should launch some shipsand create fleets. Its like one its offence is gone it won't build a new one and just goes defensive.This isnt a problem with the latest patch though. I've found this behavior on each version I've played and on each difficulty level. Take out their roaming fleets and you're all set, except for an occasional lauch of a ingle ship.You may be experiencing something more that what I've described though. It could be that in your case the AI is just not thinking at all. But it must be doing something to have a military rating like you described.

Ummmmm, not to sound like a complete dickhead, but THAT does NOT happen in 1.5 at all!

If I so much move a transport of mine anywhere in the near vacinity of a warring nations' planet... and that race has fighter ships on that planet... sheeet... they'll be coming to intercept my transport, and hell... they'll be sending their own retalitory transport my way soon after.

This WORRIES me greatly that people are citing bugs/issues like this w/the AI in 1.8 or ANY version higher than the one I've been playing on since I bought the game (1.5).

dammit.... now I'm TOTALLY confused on whether or not I should ever patch DA.
I guess I'll just stay w/1.5 and get TA, and be a happy camper... unless someone can tell me why 1.8 is worthwhile.

I have MORE than enough machine now to take care of the memory leaks that 1.5 produces, so unless someone tells me 1.8>1.5, I'm gonna stick it out.

Chr*s

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Update:

Ok started a new game using a tough setting and playing the Terran Alliance instead of a custom race......and the AI is still a bonehead.

I'm several years into the game and am a bit below par on tech and military to 7 of the eight races. The last one has a whopper military and a tech about 40% better then mine.

It is at the point in the game where everyone is at war with everyone else.....and nothing is going on.

I routinely place surveillance/assassian ships around the map to keep an eye on the universe. Everyone stays home. There is the occassional attack on merchants and the odd fight between close in fleets, but that is it. The map is pretty much static. Unless my civilization is expanding there is no other action going on.

Again this is 1.8, setting tough, gigantic universe, 8 races, all bright or intelligent.

It's bloody getting boring. I'm not trying to rap the game on the knuckles, just trying to figure out why it is so passive.

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Can anyone confirm what this guy is experiencing with 1.8 please? I'm wondering if 1.8 has bugs w/the AI that 1.5 does not....

Someone please come in here and confirm or deny.

Thks

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NeuralTech....

LOL...well this 'guy' says howdy!

My 1.8 is the downloaded version (1.80e).

Just to make sure I didn't flub it up I went back and started yet another game..these are the settings..

9 random races
Tough
Gigantic Universe
Uncommon about everything (rare on asteroids)
Scattered
Terran Alliance
Normal tech tree
No tweaks, mods, yada yada yada

All the races have an average of 5-7 worlds. One only has 2. We are all at the Manufacturing Centers, Invention Matrix, Warp V stage (well most everyone).

NOTHING HAPPENS. 'A' declares war on 'B'. Both sit home. 'C' and 'D' declare war on 'E'. All three sit home.

Like in my previous post I do see an occassional troop transport move out and get blasted as it approaches an enemy world, and the odd freighter. That's it. Everyone of the AI worlds have massive fleets just sitting around all the home worlds. They never go anywhere, EVER.

So I don't know if 1.8 is different then 1.5 but I would sure like to find out. This is the version that was downloaded to me when I purchased.

Anyone?

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Mistralok1

Join Date 05/2006

+22

This shouldn't be happening. I think that I can help. 'Tough' is a good choice. It gives full AI, but without bonuses. Manually choose 'Intelligent' for all of the races. Make sure that you UNtick the 'randomize intelligence' box. In the options screen, tick the 'Force AI to use max CPU' box. One more thing...

DON'T CTRL-N. My guess is that this is the heart of your problem. There is a bug related to this that has been around since the beginning of time. If you CTRL-N, as often as not the game will reset the intelligence levels to fool, or dunce, or somesuch, producing the (apparently) confusing behavior of the AI. You can check the intelligence levels of the AI's in-game to see if that has happened.

Hope this helps. Good Luck.

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Thanks for the tips Mistralok, but I never use CTRL-N, all races are on intelligent, none (in the last two game examples I gave) have randomized intelligence, CPU is at MAX.......

I dunno what the problem is...

Here is a screenshot of how all the AI civilizations act with their fleets. The Drengi here are currently at war with three other civs. This is what their fleet is doing....

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Franco fx

Join Date 04/2003

+59

You can edit the agressiveness of each race with a slider before the game. I have never tried it so I don't know for sure how it would affect their behavior but it is independent of difficulty level and most races are not at max agressiveness by default.

I suspect that on the lowest difficulty levels they will still be passive due to stupidity more than anything else.

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Franco_fx

Ok...I'll start another game and edit each race aggressiveness and see what happens.

I hope something works. This is game five now and it's getting pretty frustrating going through all that buildup only to find a walkover. Getting your butt kicked is a good thing. I miss that from the orig GalCiv.

Thanks everyone for your help. I'll let you know how the new game goes.

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Mistralok1

Join Date 05/2006

+22

I never use CTRL-N

Good for you. Play the hand that you are dealt, I say.

I'm sorry, my brother, but I'm running out of ideas. What Franco said is true; you can edit the aggressiveness of any civ, but you shouldn't have to- especially for the Drengin. They are one of the more aggressive races.

When you set up your game, don't randomize the races. Pick them yourself. There may be a chance that randomizing them will also randomize intelligence, or reset them to their defaults. (Although I can't imagine the Drengin as being stupid or complacent by default). I have no first hand experience of this, but at this point, I'm grasping at straws.

Then again, this could be due to the Paulos' Mega event. They find an herb growing on their homeword, and market it as a new trade good. It provides a +30 to Morale, -10 Intelligence, +10 Population Growth, +20 Influence, and -50 to aggression. Perhaps this is what you are seeing.

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Well that didn't work.

All AIs are on intelligent. All have had their aggressiveness level bumped up.

Nothing I have done will get the AI to move anything more then one or two troop carriers. They declared war on me and decided rest in the shade, I guess.

Presently have a surveillance ship (speed -2 to Altarians) sitting right next to their home world and several fleets of warships. They leave it alone.

I guess a total reinstall is the only thing left to try. I've punched all the buttons and checked all the set up parameters but still get ZERO aggressive action from any of the other civs (other then harsh words).

Off to reinstall land.....

Thanks to all who tried to help.

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Hi!

Have DA 1.08 but having a problem with the AI being a dunderhead regardless of settings.

You might been hit with the fleet movement bug. It was completely removed only in DA 1.80g, but there was also a problem with updating the game to the last version with SDC. So you may still have the old version, where fleets had problems to move.

If you're on a fast line reinstalling the game realy seems to be the best solution.

BR, Iztok

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Thanks for the reply Iztok,

I uninstalled last night and reinstalled. It did change my version from 1.80e to 1.80g so crossing my fingers this was the problem.

I'll post back once I get a chance to load it up again.

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Iztok you were 100% correct. It was the Fleet Movement Bug.

After uninstalling and updating, even though Stardock said I had version 1.8g, the game was actually loading as 1.8e.

Editing my Windows registry to show the version as 1.8e, then updating thru Stardock, fixed the problem.

I am happy to report that I am presently getting my butt kicked all around the quadrant.

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!

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Alright!!!!!

I'm happy you got it working!

I wish I knew wth the difference between 1.5 and this 1.8g you're on is though..... wish someone would tell me....

(

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There are quite a few issues that have been changed between 1.5 and 1.8g.

1.5 still has colony modules that carry 500 million if I remember correctly, 1.8(g) has them cary "only" 250 mil. The power plants have also been nerfed, they are still powerful, but not nearly as overpowered as in the old DA versions.

Other things also have been changed and fixed, for more exact changelogs you'd have to check the update logs that come with the updates (and are also somewhere on this forum).

Overall, it's worth updating, makes the game a big harder, but better -> more fun!

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I appreciate you listing the main differences... wow... the colony module is a biggy.

Hmmmmm, think I might just stay w/1.5.... and enjoy TA stock at whatever it comes out of the box as..... as well.

Thanks for your time,

Chr*s

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Thanks a lot!

Had the same problem, except that I didn't knew it was a problem until I read this thread. I bet this is going to make my games a little more interesting, always wondered why the computer never attacked.

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