While the AI can be further improved, the amount it can be improved without it taking a LOT of time between turns is at this point well into diminishing returns.

Then let that be an option for those of us who are finding the AI to easy to beat. I would rather the AI took more time to make better decisions, than to have to make it cheat even more to provide a challenge.

I agree that the AI is getting better from at start beeing much better than other games liv civ 4. The last patch have made try masochistic again from playing obscene or suicidal. On very large maps and vith abundant planets. I feel the intelligent AI allmost as another player. It makes mistakes, but so do I. I too have tried to send a troopship, because i had no escort and there was no time to loose and found that i had miscalculated.
Generally we both make mistakes and on the higher levels its allways fun. To make it more interesting you can have separat goals during the game like trying to protect small empires etc.
I love the game as it is now in B4

Since people are comparing the AI to that of Civ 4, I'll weigh in too. I've played countless games of Civ 4 & I think the GalCiv2 AI is much better in general. It was not hard at all to beat Civ4 even when the AI was given an advantage, and they made no attempt to improve their AI after the game was released. Don't get me wrong, I loved Civ 4, but in my opinion it takes a distant second place to this game.
Even though we all have our personal "wish lists" and ideas to improve GalCiv2, the truth is that if nothing more were changed it would still be a GREAT game that will stand the test of time. I have no doubt that GalCiv2 will become known as one of the classics and a benchmark for other games that follow.

And to the Civ 4 shill who apparrantly crushed the GalCiv AI at suicidal while building no improvements or ships or...well, basically doing anything at all other than blowing them out of space on the first turn with huge blasts of hot air: I think the problem isn't with the AI, it's that you are such an incredible tactical and strategic genius that nobody could ever compete with you--like the Bobby Fischer of computer games. Even though your supposed "crush" wasn't on metaverse & can't be verified. I think what you need is to do is either 1) design a better AI yourself or 2) find a human opponent, who you could also dominate and demolish...maybe someone like, oh, Frogboy. You could e-mail the saved game files back and forth and it would be just like a mano-a-mano deathmatch. And then, when you have conquered his empire you can come back here and brag some more. Or, more likely, disappear forever after he mops the floor with you. Just an idea.

Then let that be an option for those of us who are finding the AI to easy to beat. I would rather the AI took more time to make better decisions, than to have to make it cheat even more to provide a challenge.

I too would be more than willing to let the AI think longer to have a stronger game without any "bonsues". Some of us have dual core CPU's underutilized!

I'm curious about this statement. What AI level you playing Civ 4 in? You do know that any level above Noble the AI is getting significant bonuses right?

I'm not quite as good as the experts so I play on prince. Yes, I am well aware the AI gets bonuses.

I just downloaded the new beta 4b. So far what I'm seeing is looking good.

Turn up the difficulty then. While the AI can be further improved, the amount it can be improved without it taking a LOT of time between turns is at this point well into diminishing returns. Even as-is, some people are saying on huge galaxies that there are half minute waits if things get really harry. That's the cost of more AI analysis. The best solution is to simply turn up the difficulty level until it's challenging.

I'm just curious. Have you guys thought about developing an AI for use with dual core processors? I read someplace recently that some developers are looking into developing very sophisticated AIS specifically for the second core.

The GalCiv II AI already uses dual core processors heavily.

I'm not quite as good as the experts so I play on prince. Yes, I am well aware the AI gets bonuses. I just downloaded the new beta 4b. So far what I'm seeing is looking good.

Muahahahaha! All shall succumb to the superior AI of galciv2

The AI is only just so smart, so if you really are an expert player than you just need to turn up the difficulty. I was getting bored at the game on Tough, but now that I am playing on the highest difficulty level (suicidal? masocistic? I forget the name) the game is thrilling again. I am barely surviving now; having to use every trick and tactic I can think of just to stay alive, let alone get ahead. So great

Although I will admit that unescorted transports is just silly. I was using cargo hulls load with nothing but engines and 1 gun to shoot them all down, while the enemy fleets just hung around my planets because they had wiped out everything I had. They couldn't invade though because there transports were all unprotected.

Although I will admit that unescorted transports is just silly. I was using cargo hulls load with nothing but engines and 1 gun to shoot them all down, while the enemy fleets just hung around my planets because they had wiped out everything I had. They couldn't invade though because there transports were all unprotected.

Beta 4 the AI does escort tranports in a big way. Ran into large fleets grouped with a single transport. Funny thing is now I'm seeing tons and tons of freighters armed to the teeth but still only having 1 damage point. In my current game the AI armed freighters running around my territory numbers in the hundreds.

In a B4 game I recently finished I made a 1 weapon, long range, fast sniper to take out their troop transports deep in their own territory. Things were going very well until I attacked a transport and lost my TxptKiller to a transport. Zooming in I found the transport had two escorts, but in a far zoomed out view I only saw the transport icon. Still, 5 of those things running around the AI's homeworlds took care of 90% of their troop transports. By time the AI adapted, they didn't have enough population left.

However... this was before Frogboy's latest tweaking.

I just downloaded the new beta 4b.

4B is out?? Argh, no journal entry for it...will have to download and begin testing.

Beta 4 the AI does escort tranports in a big way.

FYI, I am playing Beta 4B. Still shooting down their transports (I admit to seeing 1 or 2 escorted transports out of the 12 or so they sent, but nothing close to 'in a big way').

Edit: I see Skelton42 had basically the same experience. 90% unescorted, a couple escorted.

I'm afraid I have to report the AI is still not protecting transports. The Yor just declared war on me and sent three troop transports at me. It was only 4-5 parsecs behind them that the fighters came.

Sorry, Stardock, but this is just not good enough.

Frogboy wrote:

Regarding the AI -- I plan to keep updating the AI over time. The issue is that in terms of the challenge level of the AI just can't increase very much without it taking orders of magnitude more CPU time. And even then, it still wouldn't like be THAT much better than what we have in 1.1 Players who have gotten to the level where "tough" isn't tough need to graduate to higher difficulty levels.

Uh... the posts complaining about how long it takes were talking about how long it takes to display the movement of enemy AI ships, if I'm not mistaken, and had nothing to do with how much time the AI takes to think.

I get the rapidly increasing computation cost argument, though. It makes sense to me that this is true for certain specific aspects of the AI. But to say that on every front, the AI is pushing against steeply increasing computation costs is an absurd cop-out. Maybe you weren't going this far. Maybe you were just saying that some things, like the lookahead required for smart positiioning of ships, just gets very expensive the deeper you look. Ok, then we agree. But I can guarantee that the current AIs are not getting the most they can from the cycles they're using right now. There are low hanging fruit yet to be picked. Something as simple as calculating the military ranking in a way that more accurately reflects the reality, for example, has almost no computation cost and would improve any AI decision that is made based on this index.

Furthermore, at least for me, I currently have absolutely zero problem in my games with the AI taking too much time to think. Plenty of problems, but not that one.

And as for turning up the difficulty... my last game on suicidal (two opponents, sparse medium galaxy, beta 4B) took me about 65 turns and 5 hours to win (using a rush strategy and never loading a game). So... yeah. Turning up the difficulty has a certain limit, too.

I keep asking my version of galciv2 how I can turn my life around, and also for investment advice. It completely fails to deliver every time. This is an indication of really bad AI!!!

I'm afraid I have to report the AI is still not protecting transports. The Yor just declared war on me and sent three troop transports at me. It was only 4-5 parsecs behind them that the fighters came. Sorry, Stardock, but this is just not good enough.

It does send them unescorted deliberately, if it can't see your fighters. Anyway, WHY AREN'T YOU BACK PLAYING CIV4?

No, what these guys are reporting as "unprotected" transports is in fact, what happens when the AI make a transports, loads it up, and fly it to the waypoint. The AI is programmed to do this to fleet ships together. Only when they actually arrive at the waypoint and fleet with their escorts do they become guarded. So, of course, when it's still fleeting, it will be unprotected. If you're running around in their backyard causing all kinds of havoc with fast ships, that's just a strategy that the AI simply cannot counter due to its innate lack of "space security".

The problem isn't that the AI isn't guarding it's transports, it's that it's not guarding it's space well enough. Most players will be able to outsmart the AI with faster ships doing hit-and-run tactics while avoiding their major fleets. If it was me, I would have kept some ships in orbit of my transport producing planets and border worlds to act as an "interceptor". It will probably be a medium with an emphasis on engines that is designed to launch out and strike down any nearby enemy ships that it has a good chance of winning against. This would include your havoc cargo ships, transports, traders, or scouts.

Another balancing feature would be to change how sensors work. First, heavily nerf Eyes of the Universe (or change how it works, maybe an espionage bonus instead), because a player will rush for this as soon as they are able, and then it's good night because it gives the player such a massive strategical advantage. Second, make each sensor tech give a sensor bonus, then apply that sensor bonus to planets as well (or make ships in orbit retain their sensor range). Then increase the AI's research priority on the first 3 sensor techs (really cheap). This way, the AI will get a lot better at detection and will behave much better to sneak tactics.

IMO, if it will take too long to make the AI play the game better, then you should tweak the game in order for the AI to play better.

I think what AI-bashers aren't getting about this is that the AI isn't a little human they put in the box: It's thinking essentially comes from if/than statements (a vast oversimplification of course, but the jist of it's logical abilities is if-this-than-that.) Moving things around on a map with little more than if/than's to decide who goes where isn't exactly an easy thing to do, at least with good results. The player can determine that he should group his fleets so far from the enemy, but not in a way that a computer can understand. You don't count the parsecs between his nearest planet, an average of current ship speed based on technology, where enemy production centers are, etc. to determine where you group your fleets. You just pick what seems like a safe place.
How do you decide where to station your ships during peace? Do you place them so a LOS covers your entire border? Of course not - your defenses would be too thin if you did. You just guess where they'd come through if they did, placing more ships in what seems like more likely targets.
But how do you explain that logic? You can't. Human thought is simply more powerful than "if this than this" and ever will be. Until a major leap in AI comes about and if/than isn't the way to go anymore, the tactical moves of a computer will never live up to a human's. There are too many variables to be computed (thus Brad talking about "diminishing returns" in the first place) and too much to be handled without a minor programming error messing it up. The brain is an incredible thing, but it hasn't figured out how to make something else as powerful quite yet.

That said, if you find a game with better AI I'd love to see it, but I really doubt you will anytime soon. GalCiv2's gameplay may not be to your tastes and that's a perfectly valid opinion to have, but if there's anything you can't bash without being completely irrational it's the AI; there isn't a better TBS AI out there, end of story. It's not perfect, but it's either this or go without games if you *really* need that AI to be perfect.

Haha I love the comment about no metaverse submissions. So true. THE OP has none.. nothing to back up he can win at that level. Nothing more vile than people dissing the AI and playing on easy level. Except maybe those who flamed Stardock for crashes when their drivers were 2 years old.

I also agree with Kalin. He brings up some very valid points. Have the AI de-emphasize Restaraunt of Eternity and have them bee-line for Eyes.

What I am wondering is will an AI divert part of an attack force to go back and counter-attack ? I know I've done that.
My enemy shows up at a system I was totally not expecting and frys up the defenders. I say *expletives* and re-order my fleets. I take out those bastards who gave me grief. I generally have a fleet or two in reserve.

I think I may need to up the difficulty too.

The GalCiv II AI already uses dual core processors heavily.

Yes it does. I noticed a line in the Prefs.ini file for it.
Just wondering though. I set mine from 0 to 1, but I had not checked before hand to see if it was using both. Does it do it as a default or does that option need to be set in the Prefs.ini file?

These are the two lines I set to 1:
HyperthreadEnhancement=1
ThreadedInitialLoading=1

Hmmm...if I could win at Suicidal I'd darn sure post it to the metaverse.

I could consistently beat the aI on tough. So I have gone to Painful.

With the new aI routines in 1.14B, I am having a heck of a time holding my own now. I am pretty much stalemated at this point in my first game at Painful...apt description btw. (I decided I was ready to submit a game to the metaverse, and this is it...oh well, it's a tossup whether this will be a win or a loss right now. Sigh.)

I am having a helluva good time with this game and with the aI. It is now anticipaing some of my moves when it can see me - it will not trade techs as easily, or give peace unless I get a definate advantage.

I do agree that EoU and sensors need to be adjusted at higher levels- the human player does have a great advantage because the aI just does not research the sensor path enough. If the aI can see you, it is really tough, the best aI I have ever played against. If it can't, it tries, but I don't beleive it can take full advantage of it's routines. JMHO.

@Victarus

Your good point is well explained. I hope the 'Strategist' starts to at least realise that AI programming isn't just a case of saying 'Bad program, escort your troops!' as he seems to expect.

It is very easy to destabilise an impressive performing AI by tweaking it and unbalancing strategical priorities and so changes need to made very carefully. Formulating awesome strategies within the limited clock cycles of computers today is not in a 'Dummies' book and it requires considerable effort and time to get it balanced. I for one am very impressed with what I have seen.

However, well presented debates on possible issues with the AI should be welcomed as they help in understanding the problem, but many will have to realise that 'Human-like' AI in these sorts of games are still the preserve of computers much more advanced than the ones we are currently using. There isn't millions upon millions of pounds being spent on AI research each year because it is simple.

Stardock never stated this was an unbeatable Ai, and they have never stated that the AI was perfect. Game reviewers from around the web have stated, with their extensive experience, that they believe the AI in GC2 is one of the best if not best availabe for this genre. I tend to agree and as someone who does have some understanding of this this kind of AI programming I also realise that whats has been achieved is very impressive ... in comparison to what has been done so far, for similar types of game. Can it be improved ? Sure! But CPU cycles are not infinite on these computers and peoples patience wears thin for turns taking many minutes.

Have a good day.

AR

I'm afraid I have to report the AI is still not protecting transports. The Yor just declared war on me and sent three troop transports at me. It was only 4-5 parsecs behind them that the fighters came. Sorry, Stardock, but this is just not good enough.

How much is Meiers paying you?

I dunno, during a full scale war i sent 3 transports to a waypoint and ran into a large terran fleet... totally accidental i didnt like loseng 10,000 soilders to three one sided engagements but these things happen, i didnt however have the Terran ambassador pop up saying "dudez lol ai suxorz u snd TPs witout esxorts11!"

I agree that the AI needs work in certain areas but it still continues to surprise me, and its nice that someone for a chage attempts to put some half decent AI in instead of some basic rubbish build script, and then makes them build 400% faster or gives them unlimited resources.

... i didnt however have the Terran ambassador pop up saying "dudez lol ai suxorz u snd TPs witout esxorts11!"

Thanks debe2233 that made me laugh out loud. Nice one!

Need to see if I can modify xml so the Terrans say that at times!

Have a good day.

AR