rogerano

Join Date 10/2005

It's not safe out there...

Holy monkey nuts! In game map and cool ship design (lower right corner).

This is crazy dude! But fun. From my current game. I'm the purple guy, a custom race with mega social and military buffs, and medium economy buffs. I put a lot of early tech effort into buffing those stats even more, with the result that a lucky homeworld placement saw me taking a great deal of territory.

Later on when my situation matured, I knew the galaxy was in turmoil, but didn't know the extent of it until the big 60s (sensor barges) powered up. zomg! Very cool!

A couple of points for feedback though. You can see I've highlighted my current area of operations in purple (center map). I have about 4 or 5 capable combat ships in that area. So far they haven't had any trouble at all contained the massive influx of enemy ships (I am at war with nearly everything thanks to an alliance with the Torian Confederation).

Doesn't seem very realistic. But then again I suppose, and this is the point, that dealing with enemy ships on an individual basis as I have been doing is acceptable. That's the problem; the enemy do not usually create feelts and if he does they are comprised of ships I can beat easily. The ship you see in the lower right corner is a small hull with the stats shown lower middle. It isn't super powerful but is rather just adequate. Sometimes I lose hitpoints in a battle

This situation isn't helped by the fact that the yellow Acrean guys seem to have a propensity toward tiny hull sizes, resulting in slow and weak ships even when occasionally grouped into 6-ship fleets.

Now admittedly there is a buttload going on in this game. I don't know how the AI works but I don't think it can be distracted by the number of events like a human can, so I kinda expected more from it - then again maybe it has rightly concluded that my tiny yet capable force just isn't worth worrying about at this stage. But is that correct? I have successfully invaded 3 Acrean advance planets and decimated more than a 3rd of their military capability. If I were the Acrean's I would be impementing some rather severe upgrade measures very quickly.

Maybe the yellow ships further away are more capable - I haven't checked. The only adaption I've seen and it's a clever one - is the inclusion of armour on the Acrean Defender ship. This design actually gives my pictured design a run for it's money. Their "attack" style ships - arguably their most important - will be summarily vaporised if they venture within the range of my interceptors.

Another problem you might have experienced and which is shown on the map here, is the placement of troop transport ships. No invasion can proceed without these vessels but the AI is throwing them around like so much bird seed. They often travel unprotected and sometimes at the head of the conga-line streaming in from the enemy homeworlds.

I think this scenario is where the otherwise well thought out logisics system could be breaking AI (and maybe human) invasion efforts. I suspect the AI just can't muster enough logistic points to create a well protected invasion fleet. Sometimes they travel with one tiny ship, but most times the AI appears to be zerg rushing transports through enemy space.

The above situation is probably related in some part to the point I made about the AI not adapting to my ship design, but it also has a lot to do with intellegent selection of target invasion points. The AI seems to be rushing headlong into a maelstrom, and worse still is doing it one poorly designed unit at a time.

Case in point - about 4 AI planets have changed into the hands of a rival AI, desipte the gigantic mess you see on the map having been raging for many turns. The Torian Confederation (green) hasn't lost a single colony despite being the least powerful major race. The minor races seem to suffer a bit but that's only because they don't have the industrial capacity to mass produce. Still, they somehow manage to avoid the worst of it.

However! Bloody awesome stuff regardless!

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2411

I've been working on the computer AI for the past couple of weeks. My "Work" hasn't shown up in the beta versions of GalCiv II but the military effectiveness of the AI is one of my main concerns.

Here's a game from tonight. The Arceans and Drengin declared war on me.

Ouch time.

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Regarding the AI ? What level were you playing on? I don't see that mentioned. Try upping the difficulty and see if you can do it again

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Here's a game from tonight. The Arceans and Drengin declared war on me.

Ooooookay! Awesome. Nice fleet useage.

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Ohmygod, Brad, you're trying to make it impossible to win militarily, aren't you.

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Wow ... sorry bud, but how can we say it? You're S C R E W E D!

(from games diplomacy text when someone asks you for help against a superior aggressor )

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Maybe the yellow ships further away are more capable - I haven't checked. The only adaption I've seen and it's a clever one - is the inclusion of armour on the Acrean Defender ship. This design actually gives my pictured design a run for it's money. Their "attack" style ships - arguably their most important - will be summarily vaporised if they venture within the range of my interceptors.

Over time you will see an enemy retooling his fleet to counter act your weapon/defence of choice. It's possible that you hit on just the right combination to overpower the early AI designs which puts you in a very good position for the time being until your enemy can aquire/implement counter tech such as that armour on the new Defenders. Or as Supreme Shogun says, you might be playing on too easy a difficult setting.

Btw Frogboy, for your sake I hope Earth has one hell of an armada in orbit, you're going to need it!

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Playing normal difficulty. I had no military worth speaking of until quite late in the piece, but I did have good techs.

My problem here isn't how easy or hard the game is, it's how the AI goes about conducting military campaigns. Froggy seems to have corrected some issues which is good to see. However I've been looking at how the AI has been adapting to my ship designs and I've come up with the following:

- AI will quickly create Defender class ships adapted to PLAYER threats.
- AI will not / very slowly adapt attack class ships to PLAYER threats.
- AI will use adapted designs against other AI civs even though the adaption may only be useful against PLAYER.

The second point might be because although those attack ships are flying through territory I control, their ultimate destination is another civ with ship designs for which the attackers _are_ optimised. However, given that I am systematically erradicating those attacks before they reach their intended target, I would have thought the AI might take a moment to think about the scenario

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Ashbery76

Join Date 02/2002

+36

The A.I is poor in the military and political side of the game with beta5.The A.I will be at war with 15 civs at the same time, Sun-tzu would be turning in his grave at such strategy.The A.I trades away tech to easy,you get a quarter way through the game and most of tech's are known by everybody,even with the very slow tech option turned on.This makes focusing on specific weapons paths to get an advantage (like beam)pointless because all the A.I's know them anyway.I would like to see a much slower rate of tech progression and tech trading much more coy,no weapons trade unless allied.The A.I's will sell ships far to easy and cheap,even when struggling with a war,making it an human exploit.

The A.I in civ4 is actually much better at this point(i know it's still beta).The A.I on diplomatic side will rarely be at war,let alone take on the whole world,this of course helps it focus on only one or two targets.The A.I will attack in mass and will specifically send armies to attack resources regulary.The civs in Civ4 only trade limited tech also.

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Yes, A.I. just should use Sun-Tzu, Caesar, Macchiavelli, Napoleon, and american conquest (not the game,the real developing of USA) strategys. Then no one would have real chance

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2411

The AI is significantly different in post-beta 5.

Check the journals and you'll see what's been changing. The AI will now concentrate on a particular player and try to avoid more enemies than they can handle.

Also, the AI does not make a distinction between human and computer players.

Bear in mind, Beta 5 AI is basically the GalCiv I AI with basic ship design stuff in. The real AI stuff is going in as we speak.

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Ashbery76

Join Date 02/2002

+36

Great news..

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