AI not understanding it's losing the war...

from GalCiv2 Forums
I was playing as custom race and went to war against the Terrans. Took 4 of their 7 planets, destroyed all their starbases and pretty much had fleets of 4 med hulls ships taking out anything they sent me. I went to talk to the leader, hoping to ask for peace before they surrendered to someone else as I couldn't press the attack past what I already had. Much to my suprise, the ai felt it was winning! It didn't take a single planet, never won a single battle and lost probably 60 ships to my 2. I looked on a screen and they still had a higer military rating than I did and I'm guessing that's what they consider winning. I really think the AI needs to factor in some other things beside military rating or the military rating needs to be changed. My tactics were higher, my ships faster and more powerful than the small and tiny hull ships they kept sending at me.
16,820 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well... you couldn't push past what you already had, so if the war continued, things would become favorable for the AI. So... doesn't that mean the AI would be winning? Or, at the very least, in a position where it hurts you more than them for them to continue the war?
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
dunno occupying 9-7 planets seems like winning to me
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeh I was at war with the Altarians and the Torians, and was winning. I had located the Iconian stronghold but before I could attack, Earth was attacked by the Altarians who had brought their Precursor warship into service. Forgot they had that, so I gave them both lots of technology for peace.

Just watch out, just because you think you are winning doesn't mean the enemy doesn't have an ace up it's sleeve.

Gav
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
last game i played i built up a solid defence, next min i knew 5 people decared war on me, i was a lot sooner than i expected and didnt expect so many, so i had sit tight better fortify my postion with stacked military base's.

My territory was unbreakable, my ships was wracking up kills and experiance like no tomorrow, 150hp meduim hulls.

i thought i hang in little longer to drag out my new heavy destroyer and push out on a assult... BIG mistake

next min i knew the enermy was swarming in with new high tech equipment i had never seen, the blew my 150hp mediums hulls compleately out of existance, it was all over for me basically
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If his military rating was higher than yours then he had the means to fight you back, he just wasn't doing it. And you stretched yourself thin and they knew it. The computer will often hold back, wait for you to push forward, spread yourself thin, then when you've gone as far as you can, whip out his ships, take everything that you took back and then some.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
that happened to me too, i was about to wipe them out of existence when they got like 3 Rangers found out...
yeah...not pretty, I retreated, but the rangers were so slow, I built some custom ships and took some more planets of theirs (altarian, terran, and torian alliance) before they all wanted peace. they hardly used the rangers, only against my attack fleets, not my defense fleets
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
People sure talk about these rangers alot! Makes me wonder how slow they develop. On masochistic 5 people had rangers (including my 5, high luck) not a single one saw service because they were antique rather quickly. Does everyone play on slow tech? I gave 7 rangers to the torians to make them "close" and win the game, this is the only time anyone lost any rangers because they were trash most the game.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
they have about 40+ attack. They do until I get hold of disruptors. Besides, it's a nice change to go from about 36 beam attack to 44 missile attack, AI never knows what hits them
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
People sure talk about these rangers alot! Makes me wonder how slow they develop. On masochistic 5 people had rangers (including my 5, high luck) not a single one saw service because they were antique rather quickly. Does everyone play on slow tech? I gave 7 rangers to the torians to make them "close" and win the game, this is the only time anyone lost any rangers because they were trash most the game.


This makes me chuckle. Naturally, rangers are antiques.... they're ancient precursor ships. But unless you played your game for hours I really dont see how they were underpowered compared to what you had.... unless you played a scenario with higher speed tech. Only researching Nano Rippers or going evil for the high powered weapons can net you such offensive firepower anywhere near early enough to outgun a ranger before they start appearing.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hmm - when I get Rangers they're always outdated - granted, I'm playing only Huge/Gigantic maps so the game does tend to drag out a lot longer than the other ones.

As to the parent - The AI doesn't count at all what you've taken from them, how far ahead you are in technology, how much better your economy is, or how much of their stuff you've killed... all they care about is that they have a higher military rating than you thus are 'stronger'. Its something thats been annoying me in every game that I've been playing since I'll go for a smaller number of ships with enough power to wipe everything else out. The diplomancy formulas need to be reworked (in my opinion) so that military power is less of a factor (its the largest factor from what I can see).

The only way you can get a peace settlement is if they get too bored (when they offer you a peace treaty... and you know its not them really caring about peace since if you reject it and try to offer one back to them they won't accept it even if you offer every planet) or if you wipe out all their ships. The number of planets that they have also doesn't matter (sadly, its just the amount of ships).
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well the problem isn't that the AI uses military rating, it is that the military rating formula is rather weak.

I might be wrong, but I think I read that military strength is SUM(ATT)+SUM(DEF) for all your ships, but there is no consideration for logistics or strength per ship and strength per fleet or for ship speed or for starbases.

I usually have far fewer ships than the AI, but my ships are usually individually more powerful, significantly faster, have the appropriate rock for his scissors and paper for his rock, and I have decent military starbases covering my vital assets and usually covering his major assets as well. I almost always drop a multiple constructor mil starbases within any system I am about to attack.

The AI only acknowledges my superiority when all is lost. That is, the AI is certain it is winning, then suddenly the AI has surrendered to a third party. It can be quite frustrating.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Wrong, I've had the Drengin accept a peace treaty even after declining their peace treaty proposal. I got 2 more planets out of it also. I didn't have to offer them crap either. They had 19 ships left, they had no choice but to accept anything reasonable. They still had 19 planets though after I conqured 5 (including their capital), so they gave up 2 more, had 19 ships left and still 17 planets. Most of them were old Torian planets anyway that they capitulated to the Drengin after losing only TWO GD planets. I was appaulled that they gave up so quickly and easily and just gave all those planets to the Drengin.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Psychoraven, Benjamin's not wrong just because it didn't happen to you. I've had both situations occur, personally.