Arcean Tournament

from GalCiv2 Forums
I just played the Arcean Tournament on Challenging and had some problems with the AI.  Or rather, the lack of it.  Neither the Drengin or the Yor colonized any planets on the map outside of their original star system.  The map was littered with anomolies, and they did not attempt to collect them.  While the Drengin made an early move to an economic resource near them, when I took it away from them and left it undefended for about 50 turns they did not attack it.  Also, the Drengin for some reason did not build farms on their planets and were capped at 6 billion population.

I feel like I might not be getting the correct beta update - how do I make sure I have the most recent version?
5,279 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've noted too that the AIs seemed oddly toothless, even on Suicidal. In my current game, I've got 12 planets and they've only got 2-3/each. They keep sending unescorted transports to my world, which I easily dispatch. I have the feeling this was intended to be a harder scenario than it is. This isn't an AI reset bug, since they are showing suicidal level research/econ/influence/production for the number of planets they have, but the AI seems buggy or something.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I played all the tournaments over the weekend and can concur on crippling level to what you are saying.

They didn't try to colonize and didn't try to to get the abundant anomalies which pretty much provide you with a huge advantage with money.

However, on suicidal they colonized nabbed the resources but they still didn't survey the anomalies. I somehow still got my a$$ handed to me and decided to spy on them.
How exactly do they get 600 maximum research points on a planet with 2 research acadamies is what I want to know? Suicidal AI must cheat IMHO. There is no way they could have beat me without getting some of the 300 anamolies that I got on that tournament game.
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
On suicidal, the AIs get massive bonuses to economy, diplomacy, research, production, miniaturization and influence. There is a pretty harsh adjustment phase the first time (first few times probably) you play on suicidal. Personally, I got killed. :)

With experience (and reading AARs from the game's masters such as Wyndstar, Purge and Mumblefratz), one learns the focused type of play needed to cope. The cumulative advantage gained by careful attention to all the small details becomes very important on suicidal, and there is less margin for error, both strategically and tactically. One simple suggestion is to do your best, even at the cost of trading tech and money for it, to get all the enemy empires ideally or just those close to you if that's not possibe, into at least one war. Having the strongest empire attack the Altarians, thus triggering their super organizer ability, is helpful there.

As to anomalies, I don't think the AI ever builds survey ships, though it uses its flagship well. This is a significant advantage for the human player in tournaments and scenarios where everyone starts without flagships. You can be more aggressive in developing your industry and research capability, and by carefuley managing civilization graveyards you can get one or more critical but expensive early techs such as xeno ethics, planetary invasion, good and evil or concepts of malice for free. Even still you've got to play well.

Good to know that the AIs are colonizing normally in your suicidal game. I had a +700 and a +100 production squares on my homeworld, which let me get colony ships out pretty rapidly, and I also went back to turn one after I knew where the planets were at (cheap, but I figure it to be necessary to compete in such a tournament), so possibly I just beat the AIs to the planets, though I've not seen it by such a margin. Usually on suicidal a good colony rush gets me rough equality with the other AIs in planet count, not a 4-1 advantage.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
I decided to spy on them.
How exactly do they get 600 maximum research points on a planet with 2 research acadamies is what I want to know? Suicidal AI must cheat IMHO.
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Spying reveals maximum possible output, not the actual one. So let's do the breakdown of the 600 TPs:
- at suicidal AIs get 400% bonus, so the planet's TP output was actually 600/5=120.
- at suicidal AIs get big bonuses to abilities. Take away (presumed) 50% bonus, and 10% bonus from "Planetarty improvements" tech, and we get an output of 75 TPs.
- 2 research academies produce 24 TPs. Civ capital produces another 24 TPs, together 48.
- 48 TPs + 50% is ~75 TPs. What we're missing here is very close to the bonus from the Tech capital. Do you remember if the Tech capital was on the planet?

BR, Iztok
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Same thing, on painful, although the Drengin did colonise the nearest world to their home system shortly before my invasion fleet arrived. The AI not building survey vessels really hurt them though, not least since I could use all the money I got to conduct information warfare invasions of their home systems despite having no functioning economy and relying solely on anomaly income.

Good scenario in principle though, looking forward to replaying once the AI gets its mojo working.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
On suicidal, the AIs get massive bonuses to economy, diplomacy, research, production, miniaturization and influence. There is a pretty harsh adjustment phase the first time (first few times probably) you play on suicidal. Personally, I got killed. With experience (and reading AARs from the game's masters such as Wyndstar, Purge and Mumblefratz), one learns the focused type of play needed to cope. The cumulative advantage gained by careful attention to all the small details becomes very important on suicidal, and there is less margin for error, both strategically and tactically. One simple suggestion is to do your best, even at the cost of trading tech and money for it, to get all the enemy empires ideally or just those close to you if that's not possibe, into at least one war. Having the strongest empire attack the Altarians, thus triggering their super organizer ability, is helpful there.As to anomalies, I don't think the AI ever builds survey ships, though it uses its flagship well. This is a significant advantage for the human player in tournaments and scenarios where everyone starts without flagships. You can be more aggressive in developing your industry and research capability, and by carefuley managing civilization graveyards you can get one or more critical but expensive early techs such as xeno ethics, planetary invasion, good and evil or concepts of malice for free. Even still you've got to play well. Good to know that the AIs are colonizing normally in your suicidal game. I had a +700 and a +100 production squares on my homeworld, which let me get colony ships out pretty rapidly, and I also went back to turn one after I knew where the planets were at (cheap, but I figure it to be necessary to compete in such a tournament), so possibly I just beat the AIs to the planets, though I've not seen it by such a margin. Usually on suicidal a good colony rush gets me rough equality with the other AIs in planet count, not a 4-1 advantage.
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I don't think they did but its possible. Thank you for the break down I didn't realize they get a %400 bonus. Isn't that kind of like cheating though? I figured I was just against the best the developers could throw at me when they claimed the AI doesn't cheat LOLZ! I should have knowned better.

Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ya same thing for me. I am going to do Suicidal on it cause it was just a walk in the park on Painful. Also I think I found a little problem too. Weather Control buildings when built on 100% bonus farm tiles it ummm actually gave a boost to my population... I don't think its supposed to do that cause I had a most of my planets with 2 tech 2 farms and well I had a population of 20 billion on a few and the rest 16 billion... so Weather Control on 100% farm tile gives 4 farm units or 25% boost? Ya you might want to check that out. So far the tournaments way to easy. So I am going to do suicidal on all of them. Hopefully the last beta shows us something sweet!
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't think they did but its possible. Thank you for the break down I didn't realize they get a %400 bonus. Isn't that kind of like cheating though? I figured I was just against the best the developers could throw at me when they claimed the AI doesn't cheat LOLZ! I should have knowned better.
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"Tough" is the best the developers can throw at you (it also happens to be thought of as equal footing, as the AI's economy is run equivalent to yours and they are given no artificial bonuses). AI is continually evolving, and GCII has one of, if not the, best, but it's still AI; not human. Difficulties beyond that are in the game because some players require more of a challenge.

It's not cheating. It's not psychic. It doesn't get +10,000BC when it runs into debt. It doesn't get to use more tiles on a planet than are there. It doesn't get to teleport ships across the map (barring the flagship running into wormholes). It still plays by the same rules as any human player-in fact, more stringently, because there are things we as humans can think up that the AI simply can't. It's on as equal footing as can be-in the case of Painful onwards, it just gets a stat boost to keep it, well, Challenging. ;)

As far as the tournament goes, that's beyond the scope of my experiences, as I haven't had time for it yet, but it irks me when people claim the AI cheats-and I imagine it annoys Brad as well.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am sure Brad can take the heat. I would suggest to this Brad Developer to put a discription of %400 manufacturing, social, and research bonus to the description of suicidal then rather than making people guess what godlike intelligence AI means.........
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
I would suggest to this Brad Developer to put a discription of...
End of quote

AFAIK Brad dislikes giving detailed descriptions of internal workings of his games, but loves hints. So most of GC's "hard data" is the trial-and-error work of the comunity.

BR, Iztok
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It still plays by the same rules as any human player-in fact, more stringently, because there are things we as humans can think up that the AI simply can't. It's on as equal footing as can be-in the case of Painful onwards, it just gets a stat boost to keep it, well, Challenging. As far as the tournament goes, that's beyond the scope of my experiences, as I haven't had time for it yet, but it irks me when people claim the AI cheats-and I imagine it annoys Brad as well.
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A bit off topic, but the AI can be damned sneaky sometimes - I actually admit to being outfoxed by it on a couple of occasions, by the Krynn in DA and the Torians in TA (who managed to get the jump on me a few times while I was distracted). Not that that proves anything (far from the best player), but I've never once encountered it cheating - every lost ship, planet or game has been the result of it planning, observing and micromanaging better than me, to the point that it's a little scary... Only time I've ever known it to "cheat" is the Drath AI playing silly buggers with Super Manipulator, and provoking wars between races who have never met each other or the Drath, and that's a bug/feature I have exploited too so fair's fair.