AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release)

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: acantoni
My next game will be ME playing against AI empires with your mod.. at very hard (not ready for extreme yet!) and see what happens

Cool but you may want to hold on for tonight's update ..

[Icemania]

Mining Ships and Gas Mining Ship Design Templates have been optimised to ensure they are also available at Size 230. They still have an extra Mining Engine/Gas Extractor, Speed and Cargo compared to the AI defaults.

[Icemania]

[SUPERSEDED - refer latest link in the OP]

I'm having great fun watching the Sluken at the moment with Starburners early ... PreWarp Start, Normal Difficulty, Excellent Homeworld (to avoid too many resource issues for testing)!

[Icemania]

It is interesting observing some of the AI resource shortages. In my current test game the AI is short on Aculon with Spaceport Construction stalled as a result. There is a source of Aculon in a nearby system but no Mining Ship or Construction Ship is sent to that location for many years. Why couldn't the AI take an action to resolve this?

[Icemania]

Deleted - was trying to allow other bug races access to Shaktur Firestorm - but looks like there is a hard coded prevention

[Icemania]

In a course at work and was bored out of my mind with an Industrial Relations Presentation ... and a better solution to Research came to mind. The plan is keep my new Spaceport designs (which will ensure there are enough labs for a race appropriate balance), Research Priority to 1 (so Stations will be built at locations with bonuses) but reduce the Labs on Research Stations to 2 from the current 6 (which would prevent the AI from getting way out of balance between research fields).

[Icemania]

I'm seeing a definite improvement in default AI research orders from the 1.9.5.5 patch particularly for Weapons. Previously it looked like ResearchDesignTechFocus was not really working (as noted in the Distant Worlds AI thread) but I suspect Elliott has got this going. Nice work! And I hope some of the other ideas here get adopted as well.

[Icemania]

Just testing "Trade Priority = 4". In a Gizurean test game it appears to have led to Construction Ships being built faster and retrofit faster, helping a little with resources very early game. With default the Construction Ships were built late and retrofit slowly.

Has anyone tinkered with this setting? Unfortunately there is no real explanation in the Modding Manual for manual for "Numeric value between 0.5 and 4.0" parameters.

Also does anyone know how to increase the number of Construction Ships the AI builds in the early game?

And then any ideas on how to avoid overbuilding Mining Stations later on?

[Icemania]

Just tried combining that "Exploration Priority = 4". The AI built Construction Ships then focused on 8 Exploration Ships so has helped get both Construction and Exploration off to a good start (found the Warp Field Ruins much faster). Other Military and Private Ships then followed.

There will be quite a lot of improvements in the Sunday update ...

[Icemania]

Wow ... the Gizurean have 28 Exploration Ships and by late 2108 had found a Super Weapon, Way of Darkness, two Capital Ships ... and now they are using those Capital Ships to kick the snot out of the Quameno ... every Gizurean ship has fuel! The Gizurean just dominated the game after that. I was initially concerned that Exploration Ships would be overbuilt with more colonies/invasions but it seemed to cap at 48.

[Shogouki]

Sounds great!

[Icemania]

I've now implemented these changes with the Securan who have a Fighter Weapons Focus and Growth Wonder Focus.

Securan Test Game Observations for Elliott to Consider

The AI does not optimise tax rates in this case, it should take advantage of their extra happiness to increase tax rates, but instead Happiness is excessive at +50. Recommend the Securan happiness target is +20, they remain a Happy race, but will improve income.

In the Design Template Files, I needed to include another Weapon for Military Ships to avoid a Crash. Fighter Bays should be counted as a Weapon so that we are not forced to put on Weapons that are not the focus for that race.

As noted in Tech Support by AirPower, Fighter Bays does not count towards Firepower, but should.

The AI's very often have Helium shortages. Like Osalia for Beam focused races. Could stock at the start of the game be increased?

Some Military Ships were built even though they had been shrunk to the point where no weapons were available (particularly relevant with a Fighter focus). There should be at least one weapon available before a Military Ship is allowed to be built.

A Fighter focus means more AI vulnerability very early i.e. before Fighter Bays are researched and Fighters are built. To enhance the AI ability to handle Pirates, could we get them to pay protection when they are too weak to defend themselves? And then cancel that protection when the Pirates leave to avoid bankrupting their economies?

The AI does not build enough Construction Ships early game.

[ParagonExile]

Icemania, is this/will this be compatible with the extended tech tree mod? It makes the game so much better, but yours looks so promising as well.

Please say yes!

[Icemania]

After tackling Vanilla I was planning to have a closer look at the Extended mod and then after that the Extended Tech Tree mod.

However, sadly Locarnus has abandoned the Extended Tech Tree mod for the moment.

I'm providing an ongoing commentary and all the details openly for anyone to use, there is no need to ask permission for anything.

[ParagonExile]

ORIGINAL: Icemania

After tackling Vanilla I was planning to have a closer look at the Extended mod and then after that the Extended Tech Tree mod.

However, sadly Locarnus has abandoned the Extended Tech Tree mod for the moment.

I'm providing an ongoing commentary and all the details openly for anyone to use, there is no need to ask permission for anything.

So you wouldn't mind if I took your work and extended it out?

[Icemania]

A new update with the many recent changes is now available in the Original Post.

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: ParagonExile

ORIGINAL: Icemania

After tackling Vanilla I was planning to have a closer look at the Extended mod and then after that the Extended Tech Tree mod.

However, sadly Locarnus has abandoned the Extended Tech Tree mod for the moment.

I'm providing an ongoing commentary and all the details openly for anyone to use, there is no need to ask permission for anything.

So you wouldn't mind if I took your work and extended it out?

Not at all! If you wanted to focus on applying this to the Extended Mod please go ahead. Just keep in mind it's very much in a state of flux at the moment, you may want to test the latest update and provide some commentary first. That said I'll keep the commentary going anyway.

[ParagonExile]

ORIGINAL: Icemania

ORIGINAL: ParagonExile

ORIGINAL: Icemania

After tackling Vanilla I was planning to have a closer look at the Extended mod and then after that the Extended Tech Tree mod.

However, sadly Locarnus has abandoned the Extended Tech Tree mod for the moment.

I'm providing an ongoing commentary and all the details openly for anyone to use, there is no need to ask permission for anything.

So you wouldn't mind if I took your work and extended it out?

Not at all! If you wanted to focus on applying this to the Extended Mod please go ahead. Just keep in mind it's very much in a state of flux at the moment, you may want to test the latest update and provide some commentary first. That said I'll keep the commentary going anyway.

That's great to hear!

Keep up the good work wo/man!

[xepooqu80]

Just downloaded the new version and planning to give it a go in the week end.
Quick question.. what settings do you recommend to play this at?
I usually do kind of small maps which might not the best suited:
250 start
8x8 irregular
expensive research
many strong pirates
1.5 sector for colonization 100% radius, default for colony prelalence/idipendent life/starting system/whatever else
No tech trading, 7 auto generated other empires
And you mentioned pre-warp start
Difficulty well you recommend extreme.. i guess i will go very hard

Any settings i should tweak? i am mostly concerned about the galaxy size as it is usually very packed

[Icemania]

I think I found the problem on Standards Starts. In the Research Order you've always got to include the Tier 1 technology e.g. Projectile Weapons. I missed that in a few of the race files which then blocked that path. So with that and the Pirate issue fixed, you should be able to try a variety of settings ... and if not you can again help me debug! My testing has been PreWarp focused.

I go with Cheap Research so the game moves quickly during testing.

Excellent homeworlds do help avoid the most chronic research shortages. They will still happen though it's just a question of how often and how long. The recent changes to the Policy files do seem to help a bit.

Small maps etc ... go for it!