Hmmmmmmm, I didnt notice this was an AI thread, OH WAIT, it isnt...

    



Monc34

Being one of those Suicidal players...Let me second, third, whatever, that the single biggest AI weakness is it's inability to handle a blitzkrieg. I like the idea of having actual borders, I dislike the idea of traveling slower within someone else’s borders. Perhaps the best engines shouldn’t go so fast? Or a maximum number of engines on a hull, say four?

How about all three (Borders, slower engines and a max number of engines on a ship)?

Oh, and the AI needs to build faster ships itself and launch a blitzkrieg or two. Think about the fun of hitting the turn button, only to find the computer clears the ships around a dozen of your planets and drops transports on all of them. That would be an AI to worry about!

Gallagher

That was a dumb post. Thanks for more or less reiterating the very point i was making. People are complaining that their exploits were nerfed, I was defending that, because i realize the ai has to use the features.

You are obviously too dumb or bitter to have understood that.

Oh, and the AI needs to build faster ships itself and launch a blitzkrieg or two. Think about the fun of hitting the turn button, only to find the computer clears the ships around a dozen of your planets and drops transports on all of them. That would be an AI to worry about!

This is an AI, I would like to play against.

However, I suspect alot of players would not like it.

Yea, hehe, that would be scary.

Jasamcarl

People are complaining that their exploits were nerfed

Exploits ? How was building decent populations with lots of stock exchanges an exploit ? The problem was two fold, the AI didn't follow this obvious strategy, and the cost structure for ships is (or was) too low.

the devs won't have a player as good as the best of the playerbase- who discovers these exploits.

How does balancing the game by altering an obviously broken building destroy the game for 90% of the players? There still are different levels of difficulty - the only thing it may be "destroying" is the ability for mediocre players to clock the game at the higher levels for metaverse bragging rights. If so, I dont have a problem with that.

EDIT - An AI Blitzkrieg response would be great, and fitting to replicate what an actual human opponent would do.

Expect for the fact that the AI is supposed to play as a goverment and not a human player (Said in one of the Gameplay examples) that would be an ok idea

On the topic of Blitzkriegs,

I think it would be a good gameplay element to get rid of sneak attacks and not allow attacking until the next turn after a war declaraction was made. Allow the civilization that has war declared against it to get in the first shot.

Realistic? -- No -- but I think it would make for a better game.
Personally I do not saturate my enemies space before attacking but still think it would be nice if they got the first shot.

To balance it, perhaps the better morale buildings could also add a little influence. After all, your entertainment zones are going to draw tourists and spread your culture.

Heh, damn, didn't notice the other page. This turned into an AI and gameplay discussion.

I'm not keen on the idea of making ships slower in enemy territory. It seems like an easy fix, but doesn't really suit the game. It's an artificial cap.

I also don't like the idea of simultaneous movement. I tried that with Starfleet Battles (tabletop game) and it was a bit confusing and boring predicting when you would get your next move.

I think it would be a good idea to limit how many times a fleet can engage in battle every turn. Just because your ship is faster, doesn't mean your weapons can recharge/reload in time to fire more quickly.

How about if ships can only attack once per turn, and then perhaps allow modules or weapon upgrades that increase this limit (but limiting fleets to the rate of the slowest ship).

You could have branches on the technology tree. For instance, after Stinger IV you could research Rapid-Fire Stinger, or Harpoon. If you wanted to go down the module route, you could have a Missile Reloading Unit, which takes up hull space, but allows an extra attack.

This would stop the surgical strike technique, as long as planets had multiple defenders. It may also cause people to balance their forces, for instance, by using 2 or 3 smaller fleets instead of one big one.

Players may exploit this though, by disassembling fleets at the target, and then reassembling afterwards. So perhaps a limit could be placed on fleet management (or prevent ships firing and joining fleets at the same time).

My 2 cents.

Hi!

Oh, and the AI needs to build faster ships itself and launch a blitzkrieg or two. Think about the fun of hitting the turn button, only to find the computer clears the ships around a dozen of your planets and drops transports on all of them. That would be an AI to worry about!

That would be an AI that would be impossible to beat at maso+ levels. With its big bonus in everything it would launch an assault at human player even before he'd settle all planets in "his" space.

I admit I too am using blitzkrieg tactic regularly, because that's the only way to beat big production bonuses (and resulting big fleets) AIs have in my games. I don't beat all those fleets, I fight only those that prevent my ships to invade a target planet(s). I don't have neither economy nor big reserve of ships to fight a prolonged war with 200% maso AI bonus.

What would prevent an "lightning fast" ships is different engines. In my current game I have about 110 space on large hull, and am using 15 of it for engines, that give my large ship ~20 parsecs of movement. Now that's just plain silly: better hiperwap engine uses less space and costs significantly less than previous warp-XX. There's no dilemma what to have in ship: speed OR defenses OR firepower. Speed is not an issue, but IMO it should be. Having big "sizemod" for engines would help (like: tiny hull hyperwarp engine size 2, small 4, medium 6, large 10, huge 15).

BR, Iztok

You can also bet that a GalCiv III WILL have politcal borders as well as spheres of influence specifically so people can't launch massive attacks on every planet at once.

Great!

Of course, having real borders means some provision has to be made for successfully violating them   . Maybe (shudder) cloaking? Also, some reasonable provision for the owner of the territory to protect it without necessarily resulting in an out and out war. Maybe if one of your ships got in the way of the "owners" they would protest and you may have to pay damages &/or wergeld - or vice versa? Maybe sue them in an interspecies court?

Just think of the potentials - gunboat diplomacy, spyships (if not cloaking, maybe with really high powered sensors to just 'skirt' the border?), treaties (demands) to use docking & resupply facilities, privateers (or sponsored piracy). How about designated trade zones/locations or even international or independent 'freeports' (in random locations - just my luck it would be in the middle of my territory and with a free pass lane   ) - Sorry, started to get carried away there....

It was an exploit because it was trivially easy to do and the a.i. wouldn't be able to counter it.

Gallagher, why are you falling back on these fake symatic arguments when you (inadvertantly) stumbled into agree with me?

What would be the reasoning behind making an enemy fleet move slower within another Civs sphere of Influence?

This one is easy. Think of Israel. The Palestinians have to pass thru checkpoints almost everywhere. A simple one mile trek can take some of those people hours to make due to being detained awaiting "clearance". If you were in charge of a large sector of space would you let anyone just meander through your "airspace" unchallenged and unrestricted? Hence, slower speeds. Makes sense to me!

What would be the reasoning behind making an enemy fleet move slower within another Civs sphere of Influence? This one is easy. Think of Israel. The Palestinians have to pass thru checkpoints almost everywhere. A simple one mile trek can take some of those people hours to make due to being detained awaiting "clearance". If you were in charge of a large sector of space would you let anyone just meander through your "airspace" unchallenged and unrestricted? Hence, slower speeds. Makes sense to me!

Whaaaaaatt!!????

There are NO checkpoints in space!!!!
It is tooooo big!
There is NO terrain to travel!, aka roads
You just travel and thats it.
If you want to have checkpoints, we would be talking about using some sort of "2 way transportation system" like the 1 in Cowboy Beebop, aka "STARGATES"
Obviously, in the introduction movie it says stargates are obsolete cuz it took YEARS to travel from 1 side of the galaxy to the other, hence Hyperdrive invented by humans, hence the race for colonozation of plants, WHY?? Cuz hyperdrive is FAST, takes weeks, not years... Wihtout a "Transportation Infrastucture", just engines, thats IT!...

Anyways, DONT NERF THE DAMN ENGINES PLZZ!!!!!!
Thank You for your attention, now go back to whatever you were doing...


Monc34

Maybe the Dev team should consider rules of engagement. For example, in Civilizations 3, when you declared war on any other civilizations, your units were withdrawn to the nearest town you own. In Civ 3, to pass through someones borders, you need to negotiate rites of passage. Perhaps a similar system would work better?

Ah, but that would be but one of the many reasons I hated Civ 3

Really, sneaking up on your enemies and putting a knife in their back is a time honored tradition (and half the fun of a war game for me). After all, I somehow don't remember the Japanese withdrawing all their ships to home ports after declaring war on the US in WWII...To name but one example.

Withdrawing all ships to home space upon making peace, perhaps...

negotiate rites of passage.

Forgive me for being somewhat picky, but the correct phrase is "rights" of passage.

'Rites of passage' refer to those actions &/or ceremonies you have to go through in order to become a member of a group, such as becoming accepted as an adult, or joining a fraternity. I'm sure all the native English speakers got your point, but not every one here is - thus the clarification.

[Turns back to educating Eliza Dolittle......]

Not sure how this got off the main topic of the nerf to morale buildings but basically to fix an exploit the Devs made both farms and morale buildings near useless, not to mention tile bonuses for said buildings. I would of thought they might of come up with a better way to fix an exploit then take out a portion of their game. That being said, onto other topics raised in this thread.

I think ships can be setup to be too fast, I would make engines take up more space and make them cost more. Or just restrict the speed of any ship, after all it takes huge amounts of energy to start as well as to stop large masses.

As for borders, I like the idea if done right, there has to be different levels, after all even very friendly nations who have no problems with each others commerce coming and going would have real problems if one of those nations suddenly showed up with a large fleet inside the others border. You should not be able to enter a foreign border without permission or declaring war.

Whaaaaaatt!!???? There are NO checkpoints in space!!!! It is tooooo big! There is NO terrain to travel!, aka roads You just travel and thats it. If you want to have checkpoints, we would be talking about using some sort of "2 way transportation system" like the 1 in Cowboy Beebop, aka "STARGATES"

Must everything be a paint by numbers with some of you? Or how about if I use crayons. Obviously there would be scanners, drones, starbases(remember those) or whatever the hell else would be necessary to scan all of that space as you pointed out. How the heck do the Klingons know if the Enterprise is breaching their borders in all of those movies? Or any other sci-fi for that matter? Wow. See spot. See spot run.

Whaaaaaatt!!???? There are NO checkpoints in space!!!! It is tooooo big! There is NO terrain to travel!, aka roads You just travel and thats it. If you want to have checkpoints, we would be talking about using some sort of "2 way transportation system" like the 1 in Cowboy Beebop, aka "STARGATES"

There is a plan to build a fence along the entire US/Mexico border. It is being constructed to keep out aliens. Coincidence? I think not.

There is a plan to build a fence along the entire US/Mexico border. It is being constructed to keep out aliens.

Sheesh What's the point of that? I mean don't Aliens fly saucers? Pfffft cwazy United Staters!

Must everything be a paint by numbers with some of you? Or how about if I use crayons.

LOL! Absolutely Hysterical!

On a more serious note.... no seriously.... Now that E.Storm has shed a lil more light on the subject of how movement should be restricted within another Civs sphere of Influence. I simply have to agree. I think It would make the game better as well.

Not sure how this got off the main topic of the nerf to morale buildings but basically to fix an exploit the Devs made both farms and morale buildings near useless, not to mention tile bonuses for said buildings. I would of thought they might of come up with a better way to fix an exploit then take out a portion of their game. That being said, onto other topics raised in this thread.

If I understand correctly, the exploit that was addressed by nerfing farms and morale buildings, was the ease with which players could operate at 79% taxes. If so, I have two major questions. The first is, is 79% taxes unbalanced? Couldn't the AI operate at those tax levels as easily as the player?

Even if we assume 79% taxes were unbalanced, my second question is, so what? In my experience, It's not 79% taxes that allow a player to beat a suicidal AI. Even with everything that I know about optimizing a colony rush and planet development, about generating a huge economy, about creating arrays of economic starbases to make uber research and production planets, every little tip and trick talked about in these forums; the best result I can hope for by the end of the colony rush is that pretty much every AI is at least 2 to 1 ahead of me in economy, technology and military production. About the only area where I can maintain any parity with the suicidal AI is in population. All these so called exploits do is keep me from being out everthinged by 10 to 1.

The only thing that gets the player from being 2 to 1 down in everything to every AI, to a more equal footing, is winning that first war and asorbing that first victims resources. Clearly, the ability of a player to beat suicidal AI's is directly related to the strength of the weakest AI, because that's the AI that'll be the players first target.

The discussion of speed and blitz tactics in war is really the crux of how a player can win that first war and is therefore the real reason players can ultimately win against suicidal AI's.

Playing on gigantic abundant all galaxies with 500 planets and 9 AI's pretty much means that on average everyone comes out of the colony rush with 50 planets. I certainly use speed and blitz tactics to my advantage in that crucial first war (and every other war as well) but I've never been able to completely take over 50 planets in one turn. About the best I can do is probably about 5 turns and it's usually closer to 10 turns. If I really did have to essentially engage all of my opponents forces (which always both out number and out tech me) then I would truly have no chance against even the weakest AI and therefore no chance in the game whatsoever, I don't think there's anyone that would.

I do agree that the unannounced first wave of the attack is unfair and wouldn't mind requiring the player declare his intentions in advance.

I guess it boils down to why is there such an obsession in having a level of AI that's absolutely unbeatable and therefore unplayable? Even if the game *must* have an unbeatable level, why the arbitrary selection of the 200% bonus level as the line in the sand? Why not make a 300% level or 400% level? Clearly at some point there'll be a level no one can beat.

My only interest in beating the AI at 200% is the fact that there are others beating it. Even though this is a single player game, the real competition is between human players, not between the human and the AI.

IMHO

I generally agree with you mumble. It's just a shame the AI isn't playing the game in an optimal way for the game. Earlier in the thread Brad had said that taxes were ment to be around 50%, so the AIs are probably setup that way. I would have thought 2 or 3 play testing games would have made them realize their problem.

The AI on suicidial should kick our asses, and it probably would if they got the AI to setup a decent economy for it self. (rather than just giving it bonuses, which are not nearly as good as improving the base)

Eh. Lets see how long we can keep this thread going...