AI Factions Stagnating in Mid-Game

Four years of progress, then nothing

from GalCiv2 Forums
I got a new (i.e., modern) video card, and for the first time in months, I'm playing a game in a Gigantic galaxy. I'm seeing a few AI behaviors that I've seen others discussing on these boards, but I haven't been experiencing them on the smaller map sizes. I have been playing on smaller (Tiny through Large) galaxies since before v1.2 was released, and have only very rarely encountered the problems I have listed below on those sizes.

FYI, I'm playing as Terrans, Crippling, Gigantic, nine opponents all at Genius intelligence, AI Intensive Algorithms on, tech trading and all victory types enabled.

1) AI ships not moving away from culture-flipped planets: Before I started conquering, I culture flipped several planets. When a planet flips, any ships that were in orbit are kicked out into space. Usually, these ships start to move toward a nearby planet of their own faction. However, in this game, the ships not moving away at all; and in some cases, more ships keep coming to join them! The Arceans are the worst; I have three full stacks of their ships sitting beside one of my planets that used to be theirs.

I think there may a problem with the distance between these ships and the nearest friendly planet. In the Gigantic galaxy, these ships are awfully far from home, whereas in a Large galaxy, they would only be a couple of parsecs away.

2) AI fails to develop planets: Honestly, I have never seen the AI doing such a poor job developing planets before. I have taken about thirty planets from the Torians, almost all of which were colonized by the Torians four years previously, game-time. None of them has more than a single factory, which in their case is an industrial center. Many don't even have one factory. Typically, a Torian planet in this game has a starport and a discovery sphere. Sometimes they have an orbital defense system, and sometimes they have an industrial center. And that is all. One planet in the thirty that I have taken had a farm; so their population is stagnant, too.

There is not even a single partially-constructed improvement anywhere - they are simply no longer building anything. Is that the best they can do in four years? The other AI factions are all doing the same thing. My theory here is that they have switched over to 100% military production. That makes some sense for factions that are at war, but what about the others? The factions who aren't at war have the same problem. All AI factions in this game progressed normally for a while, then total stagnation.

3) AI has quit researching: Part of the reason I think they have gone to 100% military spending and stayed there is that none of the AI factions are researching anything new. I left tech trading on for this game, and nobody is gaining new techs. Again, this is four years into the game, and they all have a lot of techs left that they could research.

4) AI starships have almost no defenses, and are not adapting: Now that combat has been altered so that both sides fire simultaneously, it makes no sense to have huge fleets of ships with zero defenses, but that is the case in this game. Again, I am playing with Intensive AI Algorithms enabled. Maybe one AI starship in a hundred has any defenses, and no more that 2-3 points' worth. I've been watching the Drengin and Iconians fight it out, and their ship designs have not adapted in any way to each others' weapon systems. I have been demolishing Torian fleets for over ten weeks, and their designs have not changed, either.

There are some other things, but this post is too long as it is. I'd like to reiterate that I haven't seen nearly this much stagnation in smaller-galaxy games. I also don't normally play beyond four years, either, on smaller maps.

Has anyone else played both small and large maps and found the same discrepancy? Do you folks who always play big galaxies see this every time? I know the devs don't really use the larger maps (don't blame them, either, it takes for EVER!), and I think there are some aspects of the game that were just never really tested at the larger map sizes for a full game. All in all, this Gigantic game is leaving me discouraged. Not for the game as a whole, just for the largest map sizes.
16,116 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've experienced the ships hanging out besides flipped planets on smaller maps, never had any new ones come to join them though (I wouldn't rule out the posibility of it being an invasion force in your case, at least the new ships showing up)

The rest I haven't noticed though.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I only play gigantic, and I very frequently come across very underdeveloped planets.
Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I run into undeveloped planets a lot, regardless of map size. But they are more poorly developed in bigger maps. I think part of the reason is that they try to build the terraforming tiles and starports first, and without a factory that takes about a year minimum.

Would there be a way to lower the AI's need to build the extra tiles first? That might help to get them moving. Spending 30 turns for an extra tile isn't going to help them the way that a factory, a farm, trade center or even morale boost would.

Also, the AI does have a tendency to not move the ships away when I flip a planet. I don't think that they are too far away, because I have given them ships farther away and they will move those. I just don't know what the reason is.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's almost as if there's a flag somewhere in the code that's not being reset. Since we have no way of telling if they're trying to orbit the planet they could be constantly trying, then failing and waiting for the next turn. And since the planet still doesn't have any of their ships in orbit, they send more...

I see this a lot, its very annoying.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Have the devs noticed any of this? Any thoughts on it one way or another?
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've been playing on gigantic maps mostly. It isn't easy to have a good economy with lots of worlds. The AI is very aggressive to colonize as many worlds as it can. So it might not have enough income to both build ships and tile improvements and do research. They do seem to concentrate on ships and looks like they do not have extra cash to upgrade them either.

The AI also researches upgrades to markets before it has built many of them, so it is even more expensive and time consuming for them to get economy bonus's on their worlds. They seem to rely on trade quite a bit for their economies.

However I do find planets that are pretty well developed a lot, just not always. There is a problem with the AI using tile bonus's properly but the AI does get it right quite a bit.

Also keep in mind that the AI will decomission buildings if it believes it is going to lose a world, so if you strike too slowly you might not get much, best to strike hard and fast.

I do play suicidal level so the AI might not exhibit these problems as much for me as they get a +100% bonus to economy as a handicap.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree with ALL MarshallONeils points but they are doing the exact same things on smaller maps, its just not as noticable. On a medium sized map I am currently playing the game came down to myself (Thalans), Arceans (game leader by a long way) and Altarians (equal to me), started with the max. no of races. The 2 AI's looked like there spending was 80% - 100% on military production with the rest on a small amount of research, zero on planetary development, I scrolled through all there worlds with advanced spying on, mainly not building anything.

I think it may be intentional to give u a harder game, it certainly makes military conquest harder when they outnumber you 10 - 1 or more (even if u have better weapons), especially when they park the fleets near your planets. Almost waiting for u to declare war on them!

Had to go for a influence victory but this was real slow going as they also research up the influence tree now, need 4 maxed out influence bases to turn 1 planet (in both diplomatic and cultural conquest, ouch), still to complete that game.

My experiences r on suicidal, 1.2, AI intense algorithms on.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think they never really play tested/ balanced larger galaxies. The AI plays a hundred times better from gigantic to large. At medium i get a real good game. Too me it seems there isn't enough feedback in the AI loop between research, planet development, and social spending.

It also over researchs, i've had games at maso where they had like 5x more research then me. However in this game, research doesn't win. Having the right weapons/defenses in sizable fleets does, as well as money to upgrade those ships.

The AI doesn't get this yet. I'm praying they finally fix planetary management, which should improve it's economy. I'm also hoping the intense AI algorithms will mean it'll quickly switch defenses, AND start using a weapon i'm not defending against.

The worst is when the AI has the tec to win, defense and a different weapon topped out, but doesn't use them until you're taking out his last planet.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You know I love this game but this forum code blows chunks. I had type long anwser to your post but the quotes kept getting borked so I'm not wasting anymore time on it.

with regards to 1. The AI has been doing that since 1.0 on gigantic.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
@Kblore, I know what you mean: I have witnessed AI factions destroying improvements on worlds that are close to flipping. In the case of the Torians in this game, as well as the other factions' planets that I can see, there is just very little there and nothing being built. In my first turn of Torian Blitzkrieg, I took at least ten planets, some fairly deep in their territory, without building up near their border beforehand. They were all crap.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Also i've seen planets that the AI somehow must have deemed unsafe deep in their territory. They'd have 3-4 improvements but no factory. I assume that they ripped it down, but they really were in no danger.

I think this happens mostly if you get into war while the colony rush is still going. My theory is on the planets that haven't built a defender, there's a chance the AI will think it needs to sabotage.

I've seen dozens of planets like this, even sprinkled deep in AI ground, with AIs on incredible.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I also have experienced the ships hanging out beside flipped planets.

What I have yet to experience is the Stagnation. I, myself, have noticed a significant improvement to the AI in terms of Planet development as well as ship development. Each planet I flipped (influence usually), I saw sometimes as many as 5 or 6 factories (well, Manuf. centers). *I* was constantly updating my own ships to match the Drengin/Korx who went from beam A/shield D to beam A/missile D (Drath/Torian/Altarians going missile attack), to mass driver A/shield and missile D and so on. I have 6 variants of each hull type to pre-upgrade depending on who I'm attacking, and which generation their fleet is. Three gigantic maps in a row, with no problems in the area of the AI.

Question I have, did you actually individually set each AI's intelligence to get the difficulty level? Or did you use the overall adjuster (drop down menu) to set the difficulty?

If the former, I have no idea.

If the latter, there is a bug that will be fixed in 1.3 that sometimes will set an AI to a much lower intelligence (upon game entry, not in the UI) setting from using the overall difficulty adjustment. Go into each AI and adjust their Intelligence individually and I think you might have what you need.

-thefinkster
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Finkster; I set the AI intelligence with the adjuster, but I have long been in the habit of checking each one afterwards to make sure it is where it is supposed to be. Another way to check (and I did before my first post) is to start a new game and check the intelligence level that each faction is set to before adjusting any of the options on the screen. This will be the same setting that your last game used.

I wonder if, since the developers solved the problem of AI factions building a bazillion influence buildings on each planet, the AIs are now focusing solely on their military strength rate when it comes to spending?

Before I started vaporizing the Torians, their military rating was phenomenal, and they were at war with the Drengin for months before I attacked. Now my military ranking is far above anyone else's. Are they tyring so hard to catch up in that one aspect - building warships to increase military ranking - that they have given up everything else just to work toward that ranking?