Passive A.I. in 1.7( Beta 4) ?

from GalCiv2 Forums
These rather important observations were getting lost in a non-specifc thread. I thought I would assemble them here for further on-topic discussion.

gallagher118
Anyway, I got off to a great start, mostly because the thalains rock. What suprised me is I really didn't need the MCC, I just didn't update my factories till later. Anyway, it seems to me the AIs are not playing all that well. Don't get me wrong, they're doing stuff, but it just doesn't seem like maso stuff...

I mean I went to war with the korx, and they had essentially no chance. I had medium hulls with phasors, arnorion armor, and they had nothing. They had well developed planets, but no military force. After walking over them, I started to line up on the Arceans. They surrendered to me before I attacked them. I don't think they were even at war. Is the empath center that good? Did they realize I was going to attack, and then just surrender?
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The more I play, the more I think the newest beta's got a bad AI bug.

As I'm taking planets from the korath, they're not building any ships. Worse, each one has enough stored production for me to build a top of the line battleship. This beta may actually need to be removed from the metaverse, because it's way too easy.
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Iceciro
We may need to make a new thread regarding the AIs military status, or lack thereof. I'm not seeing anything bigger than Heavy Fighters (small hulls) and I'm sitting here running over them with 100-damage First Strike ships, before my bonus to weapons even kicks in.

I attacked Altaria, who hadn't been in a war until way late in the game, really recently, and only about 40% of thier planets had any defenses, and even that was laughable in the extreme. I'm playing on the level above Tough.
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Bingjack
We need to start a new thread on this with a proper subject title, because it's true and important. The exact same observation came up in chat yesterday, someone complaining aboutthe AI going passive. The AI went passive in my maso game in the latest 1.7 beta too, but I had attributed it to the fact that I had everyone at war with each other and they had exhausted themselves.

But I can definitely confirm the massive amounts of stored production. I was able to leapfrog from world to world, replacing my troop carriers and top line warships as I went with a "zero turn" gift each time. I had tought maybe this was a new viable strategy I had never clued into before, but I should have known it was too good to be true.
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I heard the same statement come up randomly in chat yesterday, but didn't put it together with my experience at the time.


Raknor

> I've played a game over the weekend on cripping against the drengin
and mid-game or so the drengin went totally passive
they weren't broke though, they still had good research.

> 1.7 beta 4 here

>they had insane research and influence

> the drengin got a few battleships and then stopped building anything

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As far as the stored production, you've always been able to get a good headstart on ships from the AI, and sometimes having enough to pop out something like a constructor in zero turns. But now it seems conquering is actually a more efficient way to build my top end ship fleets than wasting production on my own worlds. You can't pop out a large warship on every world, sometimes only enough for a troop carrier...but I can do it on quite a few.

And I too am encountering very little armed resistance as I sweep across the massive Torian territories. Did I just play a good game and have their military and production ability ground away by constant war against them, or are the AIs going to sleep for some reason?
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think the AIs are getting lost as far what they're building. What's really bizarre is the planets are sitting at idle, but in yet when you take them, they have huge amounts of production.

I really should build a super super expensive ship just to see how much they have stored away.

Perhaps the no crashing behavior I've seen is also due to overall less AI ships.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Perhaps the no crashing behavior I've seen is also due to overall less AI ships.
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Let's hope that's not the case

Fences - Organize your desktop icons today!
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Shucks, I just thought I was that good...fell into the trap. I'm in a tough game and while the krynn declared war on me even though relations were no worse than cool, and I'd just talked him into a war with the arceans. When I was able to reasearch some military tech and build a ship or two, i discovered all they had were weak little ships. But they are way behind on research so they couldn't deploy much. So I'm questioning how far down the ai is...wonder if its bypassing the ai hardness setting in total? we might all be playing drooling ai's.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, my final moments of the same game pretty much confirmed it for me that the AI's busted.

I was expecting a good ending scenario against the Thalans, who had half the map and I had half the map - scouting showed they had a Military Resource too, so I was thinking, fleet war incoming.

I created massive ships (still playing my First Strike custom race) with huge attack - between my random bonuses and 2 military resources my Rex Class Battlecruisers had 446 attack.

The Thalans had easily 40% or more of the map for most of the lategame, so I figured I'd face a lot more than what I did.

I didn't face anything bigger than Thalan Heavy Fighters and not even more than 12 of those, on my entire rampage through thier territory, but every time I took one of thier planets, I was able to 0-turn pop out another Rex Class from their stored production - no small feat since a Rex is armed to the teeth with the expensive Evil Weapons Psyonic Railgun Weapon - easily the most expensive ship in the galaxy, and one that took my homeland worlds around 14 turns to complete. The AI put up absolutly no resistance, and this had been a Huge Galaxy - the Thalans were never even at war with a serious opponent. He just rolled over and died, pretty much.

Another note I'm only noticing in 1.7 - At some point an AI will go into a very tight-fisted mode, even when I'm offering him peace and he's screwed if he doesn't accept - and each AI gives me the same message - Planet Name is MINE and it's peoples will be used how I want them to be. Something like that, anyways. It seemed to have triggered about the same time the AIs went passive, because early on this was not the case.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


Another note I'm only noticing in 1.7 - At some point an AI will go into a very tight-fisted mode, even when I'm offering him peace and he's screwed if he doesn't accept - and each AI gives me the same message - Planet Name is MINE and it's peoples will be used how I want them to be. Something like that, anyways. It seemed to have triggered about the same time the AIs went passive, because early on this was not the case.
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I got that too. But the AI has always had a "point of no return" when you beat them bad enough they are no longer willing to give up the kitchen sink for peace. If they are losing theyll be desperate for a treaty, but after a certain point they seem willing to go down fighting. It's the first time Ive noticed that dialogue though.


It's not every AI, either. On my current map, the Torians (my current conquest), and the Drengin( my allies) have both curled up into a ball. Many Torian planets dont even have a token defender. The Drengin havent even had any new tech in the last couple times Ive checked back with them, and they are buffered by both myself and the similarly allied korath, and are in no danger from invasion. But I just paid off the terrans to attack the altarians to try and slow down both races' tech victory progress until I can get to them, and the terrans are goign though hammering the altarians every turn with some respectable fleets.

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
well maybe this is only when YOU attack the AI. In 1.7 b4 if the AI attacks you, and that's often my case (I'm a lousy, casual player with a job, wife and kids...) their first wave attack is made of tiny and small ships and the second wave is usually battlehips (at which point I stop playing ) So the AI seems to working well in this case.
I'm writing because it's maybe of some use for the AI programmers to know this.
I was Korx and they were Thalan on Challenging difficulty. Maybe it's got to do something with allignment.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Maybe it's got to do something with allignment.
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I too wondered if it might be yet another bit of weirdness tied to the Mind Control center, but Gallagher is reporting this from a Good-aligned game.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I just sent a saved game file into [email protected] related to this. Right now, the whole galaxy is at war with the Terrans. Yet, looking at each planet in the galaxy, not a single planet is producing ships (Tough, all Intelligent AIs). Every planet shows IDLE on their shipyard (and I've got Full and mostly Full intel on the Korath and the Terrans, respectively). I'm getting a different behavior when I conquer a world, though: there's no stored production in the shipyard. Although, I did notice in my last game that there tended to be an awful lot of stored production there.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Is this solely happening with beta 4 or did it also appear in previous ones?
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You didn't ctrl+n your games, did you?
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

You didn't ctrl+n your games, did you?
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No. Besides, the AI worked nicely up to midgame till they started to drool mindlessly.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm not sure if I CTRL+Ned this game or not. Does it make a difference? Also, in my game, even though all Starports appear idle at all times, the AI must be building ships. If I destroy all the ships around a planet, on the next turn, ships will magically appear.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

got exactly the same in beta 4 during my last game. I just sent a saved game to [email protected]


Is this solely happening with beta 4 or did it also appear in previous ones?
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I am nearly sur this only happens in beta 4. As far as i recall i never had anything remotly similar on beta 3.


Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
They must have a dozen save games by now, I wonder why they haven't said anything?

Anyone's who's been afraid to play suicidal, now's the time...
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
just played a game with very slow tech and the computer seemed fine till the end. (kept building ships and fighting till the end) a wild guess might be that it has trouble with bigger hulls. anyway for those that want to have a real fight with the ai it seams to be working fine as long as hull size aren't too big (very slow tech).
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It isn't a cntrl n issue....my game didn't have that...it is assuredly a beta 4, because i'm playing my first complete game on beta 4....and again (as the above have said), it is a very weak responding ai that i'm up against. It declared war on me but just won't muster the ships to really do any battle with me....a single escort with a troop carrier against a medium hull....very puny ships and very few of them.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yea, they broke my AI.  Fixed it last night.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Yea, they broke my AI.  Fixed it last night.
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Yay! Every once in a while it's nice to get some evidence of being "not entirely crazy". Usually, it's the opposite.

Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
lol nice to know.

I thought it was weird when ever planet I captured was able to build me a new top of the line ship in 1 turn. And I'm talking even the 3 PQ planets with 1 low end factory.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
How dare they break frogboy's magnificent AI! hehe.

Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This problem is present in 1.8 I just played a game where the AI did not build a single ship, except colony ships. The only ships they had were their flagships, and a quick check at the graph at the bottom had all AI's not having any research. This is quite disappoining buying the game this morning and not being able to play a game where the AI would, well, DO ANYTHING. AI was on tough, as well. Disappointed.

Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
On a new 1.8 game I started this morning, I had no trouble with the AI (well, I had trouble, but I didn't notice this bug). The galaxy was Medium, everything Abundant, Tough, 4 AI's.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In my current 1.8a game (Tough, all AIs Intelligent), I'm not certain what's going on. Once again, if I select any AI planets, the Starport is Idle. However, I have enough intelligence on the AIs so that I can go into the planet and look at the Starport there to see that ships are theoretically being produced. I don't know if this difference in information is normal behavior. Also, there seems to be a lack of ships attacking me. I was bottom of the heap for military strength when the Yor declared war. They promptly moved some ships in and made some attacks. I quickly built up a better fleet and started mopping the floor with them (I also had alliances with the two other AIs not currently at war with them, so everyone ended up fighting them). But, at this point, ship traffic, besides mine, seems to have dried up. This could be a function of the economy, though. I guess I'll send a saved game into [email protected] and let you people take a look at it.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I played a 1.8 game yesterday where the AI keeps build 3-4 mining ships for defense on all their worlds. Very strange behavior.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Near the end of that game, the Yor (whom I was fighting) finally sued for peace. They had a boat-load of money, so any lack of ship building shouldn't have been for financial reasons. Interestingly, according to the Shipyards from within the planetary screens, the tended to build mere Defender-class ships (updated considerably, though, over the default). I don't know why they'd do this since they'd sent some pretty big and powerful ships my way earlier in the game.