AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release)

[Icemania]

Thanks Ashbery. Your observation is valuable as I don't use bombardment when I play except for the odd role play game. However, you should have observed some of the AI are far more aggressive in using bombardment e.g. Boskarans. Just to clarify though ... all the AI races research the Planetary Shields technology ... it's just quite far down the order. I could bring it up the order and reduce the build threshold without much difficulty, if that was broadly supported.

With the Capital Ship ratios I was acutely aware of the extra expense so wherever I could I reduced wasted costs e.g. overbuilding planetary buildings that adds no value. Space cover is about much more than numbers. If I have 1 powerful ship that is as strong 5 puny ships, but costs as much as the 4 puny ships that would have been defending an installation, then space cover is better. Also a lot of bases/stations have more defenses/weapons than Vanilla. Most importantly I no longer laugh when an AI fleet filled with puny ships attacks like with Vanilla. I also need much greater numbers to be comfortable invading enemy homeworlds in particular. In some cases the AI actually builds more ships than Vanilla as Military Construction level have changed from being excessively passive so in those cases you'll get better "space cover in numbers" anyway.

I assume you are playing on Very Hard and above?

[ASHBERY76]

I did observe the A.I using bombardment, hence saying I put shields on all my colonies once they hit 800 mil.The A.I empires that bombard have a huge advantage over other A.I empires due to them never having planetary shields and rarely researching them.Reputation improves so fast that is no equalizer im for the non bombardment races.

[Icemania]

Okay cheers that gives me something else for the very short list for a possible 1.05. I would like input on just how much earlier to put it in the research orders. If you have the time, have a quick look at the Excel file in the Mod, and let me know your thoughts.

[OJsDad]

Hello. 
 
    I got the AI Extended mod a few days ago.  I'm on my second game (after having got destroyed by the Naxxilian).  I'm playing Extreme difficulty.  One thing I've noticed in both games is that the AI doesn't seem to be doing a good job with ship design.  In my first game, everything was equipped with missiles only.  In the second game, everything is equipped with gravitic weapons only.  In both game, I had researched fighter bays, but the AI seems to ignore these.  Nor does I seem to build balanced weapon load outs.
 
Am I missing something.
 
Thanks
 
OJsDad

[Rekm41]

What is the difference between Vanilla and Extended releases?

[mordachai]

Vanilla just has the original game's races - while Extended includes Haree's excellent extended mod, with more races (total of 37 I think, with Extended)

[PsyKoSnake]

ORIGINAL: OJsDad

Hello. 

   I got the AI Extended mod a few days ago.  I'm on my second game (after having got destroyed by the Naxxilian).  I'm playing Extreme difficulty.  One thing I've noticed in both games is that the AI doesn't seem to be doing a good job with ship design.  In my first game, everything was equipped with missiles only.  In the second game, everything is equipped with gravitic weapons only.  In both game, I had researched fighter bays, but the AI seems to ignore these.  Nor does I seem to build balanced weapon load outs.

Am I missing something.

Thanks

OJsDad

When you talk about the Ai I supose you are talking about your ship design.
If that's the case, you need to

1- Designe your own ship.
or
2- let the ai handle research and ship design for you because they are inter connected.

If you are talking about the Ai ennemy empire. they do the designe provided by Icemania. some rave will have missile focus, other will have fighter focus and so on.

[PsyKoSnake]

ORIGINAL: rekm41

What is the difference between Vanilla and Extended releases?

You better take the extended version.
More race, different strategy and more variety.

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: OJsDad

Hello. 

   I got the AI Extended mod a few days ago.  I'm on my second game (after having got destroyed by the Naxxilian).  I'm playing Extreme difficulty.  One thing I've noticed in both games is that the AI doesn't seem to be doing a good job with ship design.  In my first game, everything was equipped with missiles only.  In the second game, everything is equipped with gravitic weapons only.  In both game, I had researched fighter bays, but the AI seems to ignore these.  Nor does I seem to build balanced weapon load outs.

Am I missing something.

Thanks

OJsDad

The AI for each race has designs focused on particular weapons (and other factors) and research orders that align with that. Those choices are stated in the updated help files for each race. If you play with a race focused on Missiles, manually research something else while automating the ship designs (which are still focused on Missiles) then there will be a misalignment. This post from a few pages ago should help explain why that was needed and there are some ideas if you want to change it more to your liking.

[OJsDad]

Thanks for the information on ship designs PsyKoSnake and Icemania

[Tanaka]

Any plan for an update when the new patch comes out?

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Tanaka
Any plan for an update when the new patch comes out?

The patch has some good stuff but no new Modding capabilities relevant to the AI ... so unless something breaks no plans.

[jadelith]

hi,

I think editing planets crashes the game with the latest patch - for example, adding a new ruin. I think it's related to graphics, since the ruin graphic, as well as boxes that say "development" "research" etc. are white boxes with red crosses on them. Soon after that, I get a crash.

I don't get the same issue without this mod.

(I uninstalled, deleted the folder, reinstalled).

Anyone else get this? I can't play vanilla, because it's not challenging (yeah I know I'm cheating, but I like making my home planet nice )

Edit: scratch that, I managed to fire up a game without problems (after a number of tries) & playing now..

[Icemania]

Extended AI Improvement Mod 1.05 Beta Changelog

1. Patch 1.9.5.10 introduced the ability to flee at 50% Armour or 20% Shields. Aggressive races with Short Range Weapons which were previously set to Never Flee now use the new setting.

2. Shifted Caleph Special Weapons Research Technology in the Tech Tree to match other races Special Weapons, otherwise the Caleph get to high tier weapons too early.

3. Shuffled Colonisation tree design based on feedback on the relative benefits and costs of each tier.

4. The AI now builds Planetary Shields at 1B population rather than 5B and Massive Shield Projection is researched much earlier. To ensure this change does not effect AI cashflow the maintenance cost of Planetary Shields has been reduced.

5. Zenox Shield Technology is nw an optional pre-requistite for Massive Shield Projection (so the Zenox don't need to research weak shields just to get pre-requisites for Planetary Shields).

6. Added Banoserit Special Technology for Long Range Scanners to their research build order.

7. Fix made to Kiadian Research Order which sometimes meant they would not research their Special Technology.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ls3pzrr874nun ... 5.zip?dl=0

For those interested please give it a run and let me know how it goes. It's just uploading to Dropbox now, should be 30 minutes away.

[jgz]

I was looking over the ship designs in the mod and noticed that you have the same design for small, medium and large freighters which in the normal game would be the design for the large. What is the reasoning for this? Does the AI prioritize different size freighters in different ways?

Also, since the designs are all the same, and essentially optimized. is their any reason to not just let the AI automate designs and retrofitting for private ships? I've been trying to do everything manually but if their is no point in ever upgrading the public ships then i'll just let them be.

[martyran]

Just had my best game I have had in a long time I got cleaned up by the AI
thanks for the mod
will have to rethink my strategy and tactics
great mod

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: jgz
I was looking over the ship designs in the mod and noticed that you have the same design for small, medium and large freighters which in the normal game would be the design for the large. What is the reasoning for this? Does the AI prioritize different size freighters in different ways?

The AI does prioritize differently. However, some time I did some testing, and while we all know the AI isn't necessarily efficient and often doesn't use full capacity, there is a small proportion of freighters that do use full capacity with these designs. I never find the private sector short on cash so I don't see a downside. Of course, the designs also add more speed, capacity and extractors compared to Vanilla i.e. the idea being to give the AI the best designs possible.

ORIGINAL: jgz
Also, since the designs are all the same, and essentially optimized. is their any reason to not just let the AI automate designs and retrofitting for private ships? I've been trying to do everything manually but if their is no point in ever upgrading the public ships then i'll just let them be.

Actually you've hit the nail on the head with one of the design goals for the Mod ... I wanted to play with all the ship and base design automated to my preferences if I could. While I do some things manually because there are limitations in the ship design template structure, I generally now play automated. It makes the game a lot faster and more fun i.e. now that ship design optimisation is ancient history.

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: martyran
Just had my best game I have had in a long time I got cleaned up by the AI
thanks for the mod
will have to rethink my strategy and tactics
great mod

Cheers martyran, all stories of destruction are welcome! Particularly with details ... [8D]

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Icemania

Extended AI Improvement Mod 1.05 Beta Changelog

1. Patch 1.9.5.10 introduced the ability to flee at 50% Armour or 20% Shields. Aggressive races with Short Range Weapons which were previously set to Never Flee now use the new setting.

2. Shifted Caleph Special Weapons Research Technology in the Tech Tree to match other races Special Weapons, otherwise the Caleph get to high tier weapons too early.

3. Shuffled Colonisation tree design based on feedback on the relative benefits and costs of each tier.

4. The AI now builds Planetary Shields at 1B population rather than 5B and Massive Shield Projection is researched much earlier. To ensure this change does not effect AI cashflow the maintenance cost of Planetary Shields has been reduced.

5. Zenox Shield Technology is nw an optional pre-requistite for Massive Shield Projection (so the Zenox don't need to research weak shields just to get pre-requisites for Planetary Shields).

6. Added Banoserit Special Technology for Long Range Scanners to their research build order.

7. Fix made to Kiadian Research Order which sometimes meant they would not research their Special Technology.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ls3pzrr874nun ... 5.zip?dl=0

For those interested please give it a run and let me know how it goes. It's just uploading to Dropbox now, should be 30 minutes away.

What a nice surprise! Thanks for the beta update!

[QuestGAV]

Really enjoying this mod, the gameplay is much more dynamic. My manually saved games don't show up for loading though the autosaves do. What folder does the mod save saved game files to? I don't have this problem with vanilla. I'm playing the Extended version on the Steam version of DW:U on Win7.