Distant Worlds AI

[Velihopea]

Anything coming to the taxation AI? Biggest balance problem IMO. I play custom galaxy pre-warp without pirates. Setting tax to 0% at game start seems to be the winning move. I've got to 20000m population by the time the average computer player gets to 5000m.

I think I'm going to scrap my current game and start a new one with SirFinbar suggestion: set Tax on "fully automate" with default settings.

[Icemania]

Agreed Velihopea. Needs care that one. Looking at the Empire Policy file, Matrix could change "ColonyTaxRateMediumColony" to 0 (i.e. no tax) across the board. Problem is that it looks like a Large Colony is defined as only 3B ... which means for bigger worlds they would still be taxed too early. Maybe this can be increased as well.

Note to self: Try using DisallowedResearchArea tomorrow ... might be another way to improve AI Weapon Research focus.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Velihopea
Anything coming to the taxation AI? Biggest balance problem IMO. I play custom galaxy pre-warp without pirates. Setting tax to 0% at game start seems to be the winning move. I've got to 20000m population by the time the average computer player gets to 5000m.

Yes, we're addressing that further this week.

[Lonck]

AI is just so freaking frustrating. Playing game right now (minimized) where I have 9k emeros crystals sitting in a mining base while having emeros shortage. The only freighter who finally picks up some decides to send it across the galaxy to a monitoring station an explorer found. I also have 10 super mining ships who are mining gold and lead and I think one of them was mining an empty asteroid though Im not too sure. Or the fact that my construction ship isn't building a base because it has no resources in the cargo bay, so instead of freighter and the ship itself going to resupply it just sits there waiting for resources.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi Lonck,

Overall, the AI works very well. If you're seeing odd or illogical behavior, the best way to fix it is to save the game right there and upload a save file for us. There are so many variables that can affect what's going on that it's almost impossible for us to successfully investigate these kinds of issues without a save file.

Regards,

- Erik

[Raap]

The outcome of AI empires vary greatly. I've met a few strong ones(even lost to one), both in terms of ship design and economy, but for the most part they're as weak as they used to be.

The base problem is definitely how it handles the start; the few times circumstances give the AI a great start, they get a big population, good economy and great research, which in turn leads to stronger individual ships and fleets and thus a challenge for the player. But if their start is shaky or not optimal, which is usually the case, they'll never become powerful since they'll just end up too far behind in the economy, colony, tech and design races, given how closely these are linked together.

The good thing about this is that most of it should be easily tweakable and that the overall AI behavior works fairly well. It shouldn't be too difficult to have it maximize its research output, improve its explorers, tweak tax system so it's less exploitable(or better exploited by the AI), give AI research priorities a look-through, increase focus on bigger ship sizes, and generally improve the AI ship design.

Should probably also have a look at the ground troop construction automation/AI; in my own games I've noticed it pretty much tends to recruit until almost all my surplus is gone. If it's the same with the AI, then I can see how it might get in trouble; not much point with troops without a fleet to back it up.

Might also want to have a look at the 'create fleet' automation. In my experience, it's way too fond of strike forces. These are usually highly ineffective, at least when used against a player. Generally it's much better with a few large fleets that can deal with large challenges than lots of small fleets that get picked off easily unless they vastly out-tech their enemies.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Hi Icemania,

Don't worry, we've been reading everything and discussing internally. Some AI improvements will already be in this week's update.

Regards,

- Erik

Hi Erik would it be possible to give the races the same copycat power as the pirates to copy and use our own designs instead of having to redo entire design files?

[ASHBERY76]

If you start in pre warp it's comment sense the A.I empires will not do as well.Not being able to colonize and prioritise the correct tech mixed with pirate rape.

[Raap]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

If you start in pre warp it's comment sense the A.I empires will not do as well.Not being able to colonize and prioritise the correct tech mixed with pirate rape.

Yeah, pre-warp's particularly bad, but it doesn't have to be that way. It wouldn't take very much work to make the AI generally favor protection treaties with pirates early on, make exploration ships go for ruins first, have it always build enough stations to max research potential, and have some more sensible tech priorities, particularly hyperdrive speed, ship size and weapon focus. Add in a rework of the tax/population growth system and there's no reason the player should come out of pre-warp with a massive advantage, especially not when the AI gets various bonuses(which I assume most of us are playing with).

[Tcby]

Just got around to reading all this. Good work Ice for doing these tests and reporting the effects of minor changes. Big thanks to to Erik and Elliot for being open to suggestions and active in this area. The biggest problem I'm having at the moment is that I often lose incentive to finish my games after a somewhat early point. This is because I prefer to start in prewarp for thematic reasons, but the ability of the AI to keep pace in terms of research and colony growth is very limited. Because of this I tend to have more challenging (but less immersive) games from a classic start.

I do believe that the AI is fundamentally good; small changes to exploration priority, spaceport design, and taxation policy will surely make a great difference. As Ice has demonstrated.

As a side note, I got a very vivid image from Ice here:
"[puts head under the water and screams]"
...I laughed out loud.

[Rhikore]

Greetings, All.
New player here, yet a long time gamer/strategy gamer. Purchased the game through Steam a few days ago.
I may have overlooked something... but wouldnt the obvious answer to the tax issue, be to impose a penatly on the financial ticks where you would generate negative cash?(Removing Negative Ammounts Altogether)
Perhaps damaging Components on Bases/Fleets(Due to wear).
A system like this would give a huge impetus to maintain positive Cash/Cashflow, and altogether eliminate the early game 0% tax "Exploit."
Unpaid Maintenance fees = Bad Juju.

[Tcby]

I suggested something similar on steam as well. My suggestion was to simply reduce growth rate and/or happiness when you go too deeply into the negative figures. I'm guessing that would be easier than incorporating an entirely new passive degradation mechanic. Removing the great benefit of being at 0% taxation (vastly superior pop growth rate) when you economy is tanking seems straight forward. This limits early game human exploit. Mid to late game it's not an issue if we simply adjust the AI taxation policy to maintain 0% at new colonies until they reach max population, or at least something more substantial than the 200 million (..I think?) that is currently rests at.

[Rhikore]

Tcby, in terms of strategic gameplay, there needs to be viable options, not just a "Set here" feature, IMO.
I didnt even consider using 0% taxes, as in general, with other strategy/4x games, this causes major issues.
I was surprised by the post I found regarding this.

Another option would be to set a Nominal range for taxes. IE 7(+/-) - 45(+/-). Implementing heavy Happiness penalties, Lower Growth, in addition to Migration increases. Potentially even a Civil war.
@ 5%, or Lower, With little or no cash on hand: When the Local government stops paying for police, potholes, and piping.... Citizens are gonna jet.

[Spidey]

The thing is, zero taxing doesn't mean negative money. I've zero taxed for nearly a full decade without going into negative money. It means a negative cashflow, obviously, but it would be decidedly silly to interpret deficit spending as a situation where bills aren't getting paid, as long as the state actually has a stockpile of money to pay bills with.

[Rhikore]

Right, hence why I suggested this for the specific issues it causes with Pre-Warp, and AI Balance.
"Cash/Cashflow", per my initial Post.
Farther down the road when you have some cash to burn, set taxation to 0%.

In my current games, to avoid this whole issue, Im forcing myself to actively maintain a positive Income, when my cash on hand is low.
Gives cause for a lot more thought on how/when to expand.

[Spidey]

I'll say this one more time, and I'll try to be very clear about it. Deficit spending doesn't mean you don't have cash. It means you're spending more cash than you're currently making. Having all kinds of harsh measures against deficit spending makes about as much sense as having lasers shoot pink flowers. And unless you target the deficit spending itself, meaning negative cashflow, then your suggestion does sod all to prevent the early game growth "exploit".

Just to make it very clear, I don't go into negative money at all early game regardless of zero taxing because taxes are not the only revenue stream you have access to, and you've got a great deal of control over your expenses as well. And it makes no sense to punish players for covering their expenses through other means than taxation, particularly not when the only "problem" is that the AI doesn't take sufficient advantage of zero tax.

[Tom_Holsinger]

Icemania, one of the key breakthroughs in player mods for MOO3 was Bhruic's hacking of the AI ship designs, with his AutoBuild patch.

A little bird told us the MOO3 source code annotations were on the Mac disk version of the game, and Bhruic used that to both eliminate the bugs and let us mod the AI.

DW2 letting players similarly mod the AI would add enormous amount to the game's legs.

[Rhikore]

I understand deficit spending etc, Let me be clear.
In a pre-warp game if you start with 0% taxes, you quickly redline both Cash, and Cashflow, Assuming youre trying to expand at all.

[Tcby]

I think we're on the same page in that respect Spidey. I zero tax the majority of the time and do not go into negative money. One of my favourite aspects of the economy is that you can utilize other revenue sources.

The purpose of my suggestion is to place a soft limit on the extent to which you can do this pre warp. After that point it doesn't matter because AI's can be taught to do the same thing with their new colonies, as long as we increase the time they spend at 0%. Pre warp they cannot do it effectively, and so at least preventing us from being able to survive in negative money seems reasonable.

Or am I missing something in your post? I'll have another read.

[Spidey]

ORIGINAL: Rhikore

I understand deficit spending etc, Let me be clear.
In a pre-warp game if you start with 0% taxes, you quickly redline both Cash, and Cashflow, Assuming youre trying to expand at all.

This isn't accurate, Rhik. You can zero tax without going into negative money and I tend to do it for long periods at very hard difficulty.