AI can't win end game

It might need fixing... or not

The military snafu you have just witnessed is an integral part of the Torian AI. While they are very good at managing their empire, they are designed to be lousy invaders. Torians don't build many transports, and the few they do build are never escorted. As long as you don't get carried away and think the Yor or Drengin will make the same mistake, you might want to use this to your advantage against the Torians.

On the other hand, the GalCiv AI does not recognize the human player purusing tech victory as a real threat, but that might be an intentional design. Stardock will have to decide whether this should be interpreted as a weakness or a feature that can keep players in the game despite of bad circumstances.

Za H: If you have your facts correct, I think *both* items should be adressed. No Ai should be intentionally weak at anything; and, of course, they should finish you off if *you* are weak, not wait for you achieving a tech victory.

Flavored AIs are supposed to be a big attraction for GalCiv, so you'll have to take it up with Stardock in regards to Torians getting squeamish over invasions. I don't think it's that bad personally, since it adds a bit of personality to each race. Once you notice this a couple of times, you might just end up believing Torians are too cute to kill

I don't think Brad will ever program the AIs to disrupt a human player's pursuit for tech victory, since that will erode the fairness of competition between human and AI. I hope what we'll see is tech victory being enabled for the AI, but not having the game end abruptly if the AI actually beats the human player to the race. Deducting a couple points from the final score or putting a big asterik next to the metaverse entry should be enough punishment for the player.

I agree that the Torians can be lousy but...
I had 2 star systems (just gave a lot of them to the I-League for a few techs).
I was at war aith the Torians.
They had all the rest of the galaxy (medium map, abundant planets), a huge fleet.
I spent hundreds of turns hitting end of turn button.
I did send an AMM from time to time, but really that didn't mean much.
I must have spent about 250 or 300 turns researching, with no defense on my planets.

It's OK for the ai to be lousy, but in these conditions, I can't see how the Torians can win.
They do attack, but they use silly tactics (I mean 5 billions vs. 30, advantage of about 20 vs. 40, they have a disadvantage of 1:12).
In these conditions, they should use mass drivers or core detonation more often, or send more troops and in a coordinated way.
Sometimes, they would invade with tidal disruptors when they didn't stand a chance of winning. Considering you can get the same effect for cheaper, it is silly. I mean tidal disruptors are OK if you expect to win, not if you are 1:10.

I really miss the point of a lousy genius who can't invade a planet.

Now, I haven't had this 'problem' with the Drengins. But Drengins usually either win fast or lose, so I don't know how they fare by end-game.

I am all for flavour, but Torians being too stupid to invade is just silly.

And I am all for a level playing field. If the Ai wins, I lose, period. I wouldn´t want Chessmaster to declare me "2nd Winner" once I´m mated.

Maybe that's can happen because in other games fleet can destroy planets (or infrastructure of the planet, this is almost the same in effectivity terms) easily with endgame fleets. Or in games like Civ you need only army to conquer cities.

So, it's not an AI problems IMHO. Just a lack of effective ways to conquer or blockade. You can have 'space superiority', but it gives you almost nothing by itself. Maybe better to make some penalties to blockaded sectors, maybe up to 0,5 production, no social or research and say 3x effectivity of invading troops if there is no defending fleets in sector, and there are enemy fleets with attack more than some number depending on population of the sector?

And then wait for expansion pack with bombers.

~SDC~

I have no problems with the Torian's working as they do. The problem is that they don't have an alternative victory option.

They are a "good" race. They shouldn't use mass drivers etc.

And you point out that you should have lost. Technically you did. TKO, it just never happened. If they had "Beyond Torian" they probably would have beat you to the end. Game Over.

Needs fixing.
They should be able to tech victory and just leave the game perhaps... not sure about consequences.

[joke ahead]

Hmm so are you telling me the Torian invasion AI was copied from MoO3? LOL

Aceans can´t invade, either.

Current game, painful, medium: Arceans fought Drengin, Minors for years, and although they had Combat Transports, they were not able to take even one undefended planet!

I mean how are Arceans, Torians supposed to win? Techwin is disabled, conquer they can´t, culturebomb they don´t (much); yes, they can endlessly delay you, but *they can´t win*. Which made this game I am playing more like a trial in patience: "You win, if you persist."

Yes, the Ai is good at holding out, but what´s the point if I know it can´t win (and I can´t lose), and it´s just a question of time?

Im on my second game now...this must explain why the Torians are theoreticaly the greatest military power and are constantly at war with everyone but havent taken any systems *in the entire game*. (well war with everyone but me, i have a decent military and am doing too much trade to be worth attacking ) They blow up everyones ships by the dozen but the borders never move.(im playing with Normal inteligence levels btw) It does seem like an interesting 'personality' thing but it may have been overdone... :notsure:

OK another game, where the situation is not as desperate for me.
This time, it's the Altarians who fight like sh*t.
They had 2 nice military starbases, giving them rangers zith +200% attack/defense, where I had only 100%.
They were not able to conquer planets. Then I managed to destroy their starbases because they were not protecting that sector effectively, and AMMs are really messy
This time, I am far from losing, but mostly because tactically, the ai sucks.
It doesn't know how to invade properly. This leaves a simple strategy :
All-out attack against the starbases, use a small fast ship to get rid of constructors, AMMs to destroy the big guys and a few big ships to help/defend the AMMs. Then build up and move lots of transports.
Now I am only playing crippling, so they might behave better at incredible vs. genius, but I doubt it. I didn't see them behave differently in incredible difficulty.

I, being morally good and not resorting too much to deadly invasion tactics, manage to take the Altarians star by star. It costs a lot of population, but I simply focus on building combat transports, and sending them where they are needed. The ai must learn to do the same.
Right now, both Torians and Altarians move their tranports with little or no protection. They don't scout ahead, don't leave them far from the target until target star is undefended.
I think a few simple tactics could help the ai a lot:
1)Checking how many troops are needed, then building a corresponding number of transports.
2)Protecting the transports by leaving them away (one month-worth of move) from target until invasion can proceed.
3)Defending starbases and planets from marauding AMMs by scouting with fast light vessels: Vessel should be a few squares 'in front' of protected area and move forward at half capacity, then back, so it would actually increase its sensor range. Alternately, use sensor drones, scouts, whatever can see far and move back to safety.
4)Targetting incoming AMMs before rangers or other big crafts. Maybe not always, but an almost suicide-attack against a big ship when there is an AMM one square away is a waste of resources..

An alternative to the bad management of AMMs would be to prevent them from striking planets, making them useful only against vessels in the open. I'm not sure whether this would work against all tactics, though. I am also not sure the ai even considers the kind of ship it sends its own ships onto. Looks like it sees an enemy, then it shoots, whatever the kind of enemy it may be. Then if it is hurt, it will go back to heal in some nearby base (that going-back to heal in itself is already a great strategy).

All in all, I think the ai is very good at managing diplomacy, exploration and economy (don't mind that it is helped econ-wise and knows the yellow stars).
It still needs some work tactically. I am very happy that Brad didn't put a tactical combat a la MoO/MoM in the game, the ai would be unable to handle it correctly.

Ellestar, I am not sure bombers would change the situation much. It puts one more variable into the AI equation, which means it would open more loopholes.
I think the current ai should be improved without adding totally new elements. I realize I'd like ships which have specific tasks to get combined arms, but the game is not ready to handle these.
Also, I think part of the problems with the ai is that there is no terrain limitation, so blockades are hard to manage. In that sense, MoO3's starlanes should have helped that game's ai. Apparently it didn't.

E-Tigger,
"And you point out that you should have lost. Technically you did. TKO, it just never happened. If they had "Beyond Torian" they probably would have beat you to the end. Game Over."
Well, yes, but my gripe comes from the fact that a 1800 score for medium crippling is quite a good score for me, and it was one of my worst games.
I think the "Beyond Torian" and co. could be handled this way: If you are at peace with them, the new gods just ignore you. If you are at war with them, they wipe you out and you lose. In my case, I'd have lost.
This solution would address my concern that it is not because a Torian has reached the Final Frontier before me that I couldn't reach it, unless it actively prevents me from doing so.
With such a solution, the ai wouldn't tech win, but you could lose if it reached Final Frontier (I may be overly subtle/nitpicking here)?.

[Playing Gigiantic/Masochist]
In my last 2 games, the Arcean AI is visibly better in "pseudo-fleet" management. I've seen a "fleet" of 4 Combat transports escorted by 1 dread many time. But it does not mean it was more successfull in invading planets.

On the "AI can't win topic"
It is too true.

The AI can win if:
- you have a VERY bad starting position (each CTRL-N should be counted as an AI victory


- Human fails to build up his Military might level soon enough and the AI declares war VERY early. Battle ship + Combat transport when you are not up to par in tech can let the AI win by sheer numbers rather than by a good strategy. (Also at that point many human just quit the game and that should be also counted as an AI victory )

But if you survive that stage your biggest threats are... events !
The most dangerous being IMO a long recession where your beautiful empire can fall apart very rapidly.

It is not even a matter of poor AI invading strategy. As long as you have a military might roughtly equal to 2/3 of the military leader, even if out-teched, the AI will never declare war on you (providing you have enough espionnage enough to prevent the accidentally kill/insult x event) and will never react to Culture bombing (providing that you don't build Culture SB in THEIR sectors but rather on adjacent sectors) or to Tech victory.
In the late game, the AI actually help you by constantly attacking the minors, destroying their defense but failling to invade them, giving you an undefended target to invade with a few Comabt transports and becoming a faraway base for Cultural absorbtion.
And because the AI is not attacking you, it "has to" attack the other AI letting you play the puppet master and being friendly/close with anybody by providing them ships/techs/trade goods.

But have you ever play a 3/4 X game that does not behave like that? The real challenge/fun is the early game until you reach a point where you "cannot possibly loose". It takes only a few months before players find a reproducible way of achieving victory beyond that point.

I am, however, very confident that Stardock will provide replayability better than any other software company. Maybe it will take time for them to improve the AI as fast as players find a way to counter them but, at least THEY TRY ! And read some mail in this forum complaining about how fast the game is changing.

In the mean time, I will either try somothing different (like tiny galaxies) or use some personal rules (no CTRL-N, no Culture palace) or force myself to play against my natural inclination (haevily Militaristic). I actually enforce the "No CTRL N" policy in my current game ...and ended up with one of the best starting position I've ever had... may be I should quit....)

and thanks to the very few that had the courage to read such a long post





~SDC~

What version number are you playing? In 1.03A I agree that only the Arceans, seems to use small fleets. I have seen the Arceans many times using stacks of transports with a defending ship. The problem the A.I. seems to have is to calculate the time its transports need to arrive
leading to => in large maps the war is virtually over at the time when the transports arrive. The dreadnoughts have cleared away defenders but when the transports arrive the defense is build up again etc.

I agree that tiny maps don't suffer from the problem as drastically, particularly with rare stars. The ai can usually focus on a nearby planet, but doesn't behave properly at mid/long range.
I yet have to see the Arceans successful in 1.03A. They somehow seem to always get bullied to death very early on, and then surrender to whoever will be the most painful for me.

I second what Viandox says. The flaws I talk about are common in all games of the genre, but GalCiv still has the best ai in the genre and Stardock do a great job of improving/updating it.

To LDiCesare
//Ellestar, I am not sure bombers would change the situation much. It puts one more variable into the AI equation, which means it would open more loopholes.//

I know it, but this is developer's idea AFAIK, al least not mine.

--------------------------------------------------------------

I still think that most problems arise because it's hard to conquer in game. Tactical AI can't be improved to a player level (except on micromanagement tasks). So i think it's good to change game to make it easier to conquer to comps.

~SDC~

Then i played i feared most that some comp will start to get more and more planets while i building my economy, and it will be just too powerful in the lategame. But i see now that comp planets change owners mostly because of culture (average in military civ gets 3 +Influence resources).

~SDC~

Also, war between 2 civs for an upkeep equal to 2 dreadnoght upkeep? But they are much less likely to start a war with you, also they are losing fleets. So, for a 4 dreadnoughts upkeep - 72 bc/turn 4 races will be at war. It can be considered absolutely free.

~SDC~

"I still think that most problems arise because it's hard to conquer in game."

You are right, planetary conquests seem too hard. I also don´t understand why they cost so much population. In the game, everybody sends his entire population to war, not just the soldiers.

And I rarely see systems change hands, except by revolt, or when *I* conquer them.

>You are right, planetary conquests seem too hard. I also don´t understand why they cost so much population. In the game, everybody sends his entire population to war, not just the soldiers.

i find that annoying too. it just doesnt make sense.
...I want to conquer races not commit genocide errr xenocide, why does it seem i have to slaughter every single sentient being on a planet in order to take it? :notsure:

v 1.04

+ Significant AI update. The lower level AI will be more active but make more "mistakes". The higher level AI will play even more intelligently with quasi-fleets, build up for war, one AI player will really focus on star bases, and more.

The AI on invading planets do need improvement. The good news for us is that Stardock does seem to place a high emphasis on improving the AI's tactical capabilities.

The key difference for me is that humans stage ships much more efficiently and most of our invasions take place in a single turn (obliterate and invade). AI transports currently do not follow-up soon enough.

Just wondering how the upcoming bombardment unit is going to change all this. Would the AI take the easy way out and sterilise planets since they are currently better with warships than transports?

I am not sure the bomber will do any difference.
Currently, ai uses transports as bombers: They land on planet, deal some damage to population, but don't conquer.
Unless the bombers deal massive damage (like say a fixed amount of around 5billion + a percentage of planet population), they will not behave differently from transports.

The transport is one-shot but the bomber could hang around and whack you continously. I do remember however in another thread where they mentioned that the bomber would only affect population.

So if really depends on the type of pop damage. If it is say a percentage of pop, it will only serve to soften the ground and thus ultimately you still need transports. If the damage is fixed like you mention, then you could clean out colonies without transports.

shouldn't it do some damage to the buildings as well, seuch as XX% of social projects desrtoyed. Also bombers might make it too easy to take the planets. All you would need is a few bombers and a couple strong ships to take out defense. The ai never builds a very strong base defense.