AI cheats?

[Apheirox]

Does the AI receive an economy bonus?

In my current peaceful eco spam game, I have nearly 700 colonies and 300 billion people. I control 90% of the colonies in the galaxy and 73% of its population. Government is Utopian Paradise. An annual GDP of ~1000, which of course is extremely low for an empire this large. This is due to many colonies being relatively young.

The Lyras Coalition is a democracy. They have ~50 planets and ~70B people. Their GDP exceeds mine(!) - they're at nearly 1200K.

It is far from my first game where I have an enormous amount more territory than the opponents as well as a technological lead etc and some AI (often Teekan) incredibly has a GDP that beats mine. I don't see how it's possible unless there's bonusses for the AI. Are there?

[WoodMan]

Teekan have a economy bonus, its part of their race.  Also, do you have the rare resources (Korabbian/Loros/Zentabia)?  Do they?

[Erik Rutins]

The AI does not get any extra economic bonuses, but some race/government combinations are much better at building massive economies (usually with other weaknesses).

Regards,

- Erik

[Apheirox]

I know the Teekans have great economy. That wasn't what was going on in this game. Like mentioned, opponent had Democracy which does yield an income bonus but nowhere near that significant. Opponent race was Shandar so no major Teekan eco bonusses there either.

Even it had been the Teekan running a mercantile guild it shouldn't be anywhere near enough to overpower my economy. Like metioned, I held 90% of the galaxy and 73% of the population.

So I don't know what to make of it. But thanks for the info on the AI not cheating.

[Data]

WoodMan is correct is asking about the big triad - this makes a huuuge impact on anyone's economy

[cmdrnarrain]

What do you people want a challenge or a cakewalk? 

How many times have you played and you have had 40 worlds to the AI's 5? 
How many times have you given the AI a starting tech advantage and still completed all of the tech before the AI was even halfway done?
Captured AI worlds at will?
Destroyed AI fleets at will?
Been seriously threatened by the AI?

If the AI doesn't cheat, it needs too, big time.  People want a challenge not a route.  I know all about peoples distaste when the AI cheats, but that is naive and frankly stupid. 

[J HG T]

I have to partly agree with cmdrnarrain here.
Once you get hang of the mechanics and overall flow of the game, you can really punish most AI empires if you want to. I still don't agree with giving AIs ability to cheat. Maybe a slider for that if it would be in game.
To be honest, all my games to this point have been on normal agression. So, I'm asking other players: How much does the agression change the game? If I have pretty much 0 relationship with some other empire on normal agression, what would it be on higher agression levels? How much the agression slider modifies the relationships.
I'll probably have to start playing with higher agression on my next games to makes things more interesting.

[Erik Rutins]

Aggression is the closest thing to a "difficulty" setting, though you can also increase the challenge if you setup the AI races to start with some advantages relative to your faction. Playing on "Unstable" or "Chaos" makes things more challenging though, I highly recommend it.

Regards,

- Erik

[cmdrnarrain]

I always play on Chaos and give the AI a tech advantage.  It doesn't matter, all Chaos does is weaken the AI empires as they are constantly at war with each other.

[Data]

can you workaround this by changing the biases they have towards one another? if they don't fight each other they should make things difficult for you

[Apheirox]

I dislike these ways of artifically boosting the AI. Why not just make it more effective at colonizing? That's the crux of its problems - it's waaay too slow. The AI is decent in many areas - the developers seem to be excellent AI programmers (you should go help Firaxis, they need it badly!) - but it really fails at colonizing, falling behind the player in colony count very quickly. It even fails to colonize nearby systems with friendly population so much that you can often swoop in and claim these worlds for yourself, even if they are many sectors away. Get that AI spamming colony ships!

BTW, answer me this: Does the AI colonize more rapidly in the expansion, or is it a toad there as well?

[cmdrnarrain]

Its a toad

[Bingeling]

I am no guru at this, but some observations.

How the AI could improve.

The human player can get a better population growth by better tax policies. Either change the way tax affect population growth (today having tax at exactly 0 seems to be a very important thing for growth), or make the AI do the same. A more linear penalty from 0 to 40 (or whatever is max) should be a good thing. Then it should not matter that much how you generate your X tax income.

Planet conquests, maybe have a slider to make the AI have an evil strategy here? Take a cue from the human player's transport design, and do the same thing. Am I building troop transport with huge shields and room for 10 troops? Take a hint and do something similar, and send them many to my lesser defended colonies at once. If the human player does none of the sort, don't make the AI do this, as it would destroy the poor, new (or honest) player.

Reputation. I don't destroy my reputation by poor espionage trips. If they fail, I hang back until I have whacked another few pirates. Maybe make the AI also consider whether it can afford the reputation loss before it starts missions? Or modify how it works, because it would look silly if all hunt pirates as much as I do, it would be a race to the target. It seems I have run out of pirates now, no easy fix for reputation. It is a good thing I can afford a bigger fleet, I may come to need it

Colonization. I always seem to grab more. It may be because I grab the money from the AI empires by selling tech? In my last game I got 600k from the securans when I was out of cash early on. Later in the game the AI start asking me to buy the tech, but I don't want that of course. I love the flexibility of my money. Are they not researching to max? Retrofitting research labs to space stations is cheap. Also for the AI... Is it because I hire more explorers? The AI empires can buy those too.

I don't think it is a to nasty "cheat" to have the AI peek a bit at the way the player plays the game. It is the only way to counter some strategies without destroying those that don't use those strategies. Or have the player tell the AI how he plays through some difficulty sliders. Difficulty as in the way AI behaves, not in some percentage increases here and there.

And, do the AI make peace by giving up stuff? Peace is nice, I always seem to pay some minor money to end a war once I have grabbed the system I want. This last war, about 10 minor systems taken, and a couple more good sized. When I had mopped up (and killed a couple of extra fleets), I payed 3500 to end the war. Would an AI empire pay that to end a war that goes well? They fight many at once, how hard is it to buy some off?

[Apheirox]

ORIGINAL: cmdrnarrain

Its a toad

Next patch #1 priority:

1) Make AI spam colony ships like crazy.
2) Make AI spam exploration ships like crazy.
3) Make AI much more hostile if you colonize 'its' territory (systems close to its homeworld, even if they are not yet colonized by AI).

[Sabin Stargem]

With troop transports, I try to make them as large as possible, up to the weight limit. The reason why is to keep things simple and to amass as many troops as possible in one spot. I used to put troop modules on my warships, but I stopped once I realized that my fleets were horrible at keeping them topped off. With this realization, I switched over to making quality and sizable transports, because the fewer I have, the less managerial headache I would have to endure to get ideal results.

[Data]

yap, same here

[Apheirox]

Hello again,

I think the issue is there's something wrong with my playstyle.

If I'm running a way of the ancients government empire with 36% of galaxy colonies, 34% of population but only 24% of the total GDP - what am I doing wrong?

Edit: In comparison, the slukens are only 27 billion - my empire is nearly 200 billion - but they have a GDP of ~600, while mine is ~1900. So I have roughly 8 times their population but only three times their economy. Why?

Note, they have Loros fruit but I have both spice and fluid.

[Data]

maybe they are taxing the private sector less than you do?

[Apheirox]

I don't understand what you mean; taxes don't affect the GDP?

[Data]

as it stands now the gdp is not affected by the level of taxation you put on it so it should not be affected, yes
i read income instead of gdp earlier, my bad

afaik gdp relies on pop and development so if the pop is in your advantage I suspect they have higher development....maybe a better distribution of luxury goods overall