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Join Date 05/2003

My A.I. is brain dead

I think 1.1 did something to the A.I. Played my first game w/o tech trading, it was a normal, standard GC game, except for the no tech trades. It was extremely easier than I've ever known previous GC games to be, I was doing way too good and the A.I. didn't seem to be doing anything whatsoever. They weren't building ships, they weren't trading, they weren't engaging in diplomacy. They were sitting idly by while I took over their planets one after the other. I had to think something was wrong.

Just to see what would happen, I played another game the same exact way but turned tech trading back on, same problem. The A.I. was virtually non-existant. I know for a fact that each of the races were normal intelligence, except for one or two which were sub-normal. What's going on?

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Your playing at a difficulty level that a chimp on a tricycle could beat... try masochistc.

Lenius.

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The Normal difficulty level is easier in 1.1 than it was in 1.0X. The devs did this because their were a lot of people who could dominate at easy, but got creamed at normal.

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try masochistc.

Well, maybe not masochistic at first, but try "tough", so all AI opponents will be set to "Intelligent" and the AI does its best to kick you without cheating ...

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Ok, thanks for the help, I'll try that

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The Normal difficulty level is easier in 1.1 than it was in 1.0X. The devs did this because their were a lot of people who could dominate at easy, but got creamed at normal.

Well.... that explains a few things....

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At masochist the AI is damn clever. Not only does it have huge bonuses it does sneaky things like Q ships, like 55 attack freighters. Imagine what that does to their military level and to any fast interceptor you inadvertantly attack it with.

I won 2 out 3 on masochist with 1.1 beta 4, with 1.1 I am a broken man. hats off to the guys playing and winning on suicidal.

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I don't think i've ever lost a GCII game yet. I owned a 5-player game with every AI on bright. This was my first try with that difficulty. However, I did not even try very hard! All I did was pump up the diplomacy and cheat- I mean, "buy" crap off the other races, while upping my military significantly. I will now try a 5-player game with the AI set at tough (every AI on intelligent). Hopefully, I will lose.

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Why only five? Up it to the full compliment. More AI=harder.

It isn't that hard to win on tough though. I've only lost one game so far, and that was because I switched to a tech victory path too early, and got swallowed up just a few turns from victory...

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another one should bite the dust ... seriously every day a few new threads is started about this thing. THERE ARE 10 diff Ai levels, if u win on a lower level move up !

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won 2 out 3 on masochist with 1.1 beta 4, with 1.1 I am a broken man. hats off to the guys playing and winning on suicidal.

Cheers! If u can not beat the AI at a certain level(masochist in your case), try playing 1 vs 1 on a tiny map, it helps to develope a winning strategy which u can go on and use in bigger games. U can observe the AI better and spot there weak areas. Also they only take a few hours to play and r great fun.

Why only five? Up it to the full compliment. More AI=harder.

True. Bigger maps seem to increase the difficulty as well, plus set habitable planets, stars and planets to abundant all create a much harder game. The more resources/oppertunities u give the AI above tough level (when they cheat with production bonuses) the harder it gets.

THERE ARE 10 diff Ai levels, if u win on a lower level move up !

So true! When i started playing, I played my first game on normal then cranked the AI up. U can only complain about the AI if u constantly beat it on suicide level.

Which takes me nicely to i can constantly beat the AI on suicide level, so can we have some harder levels please?

How about, If u beat this level i will eat my hat?

Or Beat this level and i will go back to programming school?

Or Deep blue level

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Map settings and number of opponents can have huge affect. There are many situations where a lesser difficulty level eg crippling could be harder than many maso games because of the map settings.

Out of interest what map settings do you play meglobob?

Lenius.

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Out of interest what map settings do you play meglobob?

Now, i always play against the full 9 races on suicide level. Unfortunately my computer struggles to cope with Gigantic, abundant everything. I did play 1 game like this but it slowed to a crawl, so i went for a easy tech victory just to end the game. Probably large, 9 races, suicide level and all resources abundant will be what i will play from now on. Intend to try no tech trading as will to make it harder, possibly change the tech rate, i should imagine putting that up to maxium would be a huge advantage to the computer AI.

The hardest game u could possibly play at the moment would be Gigantic galaxy, 9 races, stars, planets, habitable planets all abundant, no tech trading and tech gain set to maxium? U could restrict victory type too but this would take the fun out of the game?

But then again perhaps playing a good race with the 3 evil ones and neutrals might turn out harder?

Anyone tried those settings? Thoughts?

Whats the hardest game settings anyone has tried?

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I've done that sort of. Won a couple games (3 actually, conquest/diplomatic victory all 3 times) suicide level large galaxy (can't do gigantic) 9 opponents, tech trading off. I won largely due to 2 factors... 1) It's not hard to sweet talk the ai with a large diplomacy advantage, diplomacy ai is a little stoopid...and the biggest factor 2) First strike allowed me to win most battles even while out teched and out gunned. I tried each game with different tech rates ( normal, very slow, very fast ) I liked very slow the most. Very fast was the easiest. Slow tech means you have to plan and anticipate more and can't race for a tech to counter what's being thrown at you. With fast tech the ai gets to high tech levels fast, but so do you, and there's a break point where the high weapon tech levels exceed the capacity to defend well against them.

Since then I've been modding away the weaknesses as best I can. My goal is to make it so that the ai is a challenge without the huge "cheats" they get from the higher difficulties. I want to LOSE badly on suicidal every time. With a good challenge probably being a slight boost to ai economy to make up for their inefficiencies and mistakes (Painful or Crippling). I've mostly disabled first strike by adding more hp's to hulls, worked quite nicely. With a couple other tweaks here and there I played my first suicidal game with my new mod and got my butt kicked hard

Going to knock down the difficulty now with large 9 player slow tech, no tech trading games, hopefully win one again, hehe.

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I think the scattering of stars has a big affect. The more scattered they are the bigger chance of dual/tri/quad star ownerships and culture comes into play. This means that culture plays a bigger role and wars are more likely due to closeness and alarming influence, this makes the game much harder and enjoyable in my experience.

Tight systems allow for isolation and much more selective wars making it much easier for human players.

Lenius.

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The gigantic maps are so fun but take sooo long...
Giganic, abundant everything, 9 races, tech trading off, loose clusters, painful .. working my way up and this is the first painful game.
Currently over 4trillion pop and have 4 enemy races left owning half the galaxy in my 6th year of conquest.
Thinking that I would win via conquest only, I turned all other wins off and .... I regret it.
I'm winning but it takes too long to up the pop, build transports, take over area, send - dont use pq destroying invasion....
If I didnt turn off other wins, I think I would have gone for another victory.
Its really at the clean up phase unless all 4 races band together and attack me which is unlikely...
Divide and conquer.

At painful at least, there seems to be a point where I start to overshadow the powers of all other races.
Control diplomacy so no one hates you, go neutral and surpass all other research.
Pick off weak races
Use diplomacy to keep the other strong races hating each other or pick on other races.
By the time I'm ready to attack the strong races, I surpass their strength.
It will be a problem if they banded together against me which is likely if I'm evil but they dont.
So it just goes to the clean up phase.
It seems all my games are like this to a degree, obviously easier on the easier settings

Is that what anyone here playing suicidal notice?

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