AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release)

[Icemania]

Yes some diplomacy house rules are essential.

With respect to difficulty, Extreme of course! Anything else is ...

Personally I tax manually as I don't find it much of a burden from a micromanagement perspective. The AI has a fixed way of dealing with taxes, which depends on the population of the planet.

[Steelwarrior7]

Thanks for your awesome mod - just love it - now about humans - they only use rockets and seem to be pretty weak, when I play them if it comes to firepower - I play VH and very expensive research - so am half way to the second tier techs...
Do you recommend to manually design ships at a high difficulty? How dou you get enough cash? By tech trading? I play prewarp Age of Shadows - what are your recommended settings for this?

[Dipluz]

I love this mod, though what I do hate is the Gravitic weapon centralized races. There are almost no real counter to this. Except for remaking your whole 20-30 something fleets from brawling (gun-point) to Fast-Sniper fleets with torpedoes, tractor beams and a LOTS of speed. I refer ofcourse to the Enton Race. They are sending HUGE Capitals ships my way in fleets of 6-10 with 10.000 shields and only weapon they have is gravitic weapons. They are basicly tearing my ships apart and withstand so much damage I manage to kill 1 fleet with considerable losses to my own. At late game fighting Enton the only thing im doing is pick a target, reinforce all fleets about every 15-20 seconds.

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Steelwarrior7
Thanks for your awesome mod - just love it - now about humans - they only use rockets and seem to be pretty weak, when I play them if it comes to firepower - I play VH and very expensive research - so am half way to the second tier techs...
Do you recommend to manually design ships at a high difficulty? How dou you get enough cash? By tech trading? I play prewarp Age of Shadows - what are your recommended settings for this?

Before I started looking at Weapon Balance I thought missiles were probably under-powered but when they are actually pretty good so long as use your range advantage.

I used to manually design ships a lot but now only do it for some designs and sometimes play without any manual designs at all.

For cash I avoid technology trading entirely. The AI doesn't seem to do it very much unfortunately and I can't mod it. Cash is a long discussion but the short version is that I'm hyper-aggressive in securing Super Luxuries, target a Wonder or two early (varies depending on the race) and as soon as I'm ready invade homeworlds to set-up regional capitals.

As for Age of Shadows I wouldn't really recommend a setting. It's fun to mix it up.

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Dipluz
I love this mod, though what I do hate is the Gravitic weapon centralized races. There are almost no real counter to this. Except for remaking your whole 20-30 something fleets from brawling (gun-point) to Fast-Sniper fleets with torpedoes, tractor beams and a LOTS of speed. I refer ofcourse to the Enton Race. They are sending HUGE Capitals ships my way in fleets of 6-10 with 10.000 shields and only weapon they have is gravitic weapons. They are basicly tearing my ships apart and withstand so much damage I manage to kill 1 fleet with considerable losses to my own. At late game fighting Enton the only thing im doing is pick a target, reinforce all fleets about every 15-20 seconds.

Gravitics are tough to counter early game. Early on I do everything I can to stay friendly with Gravitic races and when the time is right go hard for repair bots and armor. Gravitic enemies become much easier to handle as the game progresses. I didn't want it to be easy like Vanilla, you have to think more about who you go to war with and when.

My main remaining gripe with the Distant Worlds AI is that it isn't Adaptive. It's got a strategy and it going hard for that Strategy but it won't swap strategies to counter your designs if you are that races main target. I hope we get that with Distant Worlds 2. Gal Civ II with the Dark Avatar expansion combined good AI strategies with the ability to counter and still is to me a benchmark for human player ass kicking. Unfortunately the Gal Civ III AI at this point is absolute trash (can't build decent ships, rarely builds fleets at logistics capacity, doesn't prioritise logistics research, can't specialise planets and so on) although I'm sure it will improve in time. So I hope Distant Worlds 2 looks closely at Gal Civ II not Gal Civ III!

[Steelwarrior7]

What setting fo colonization distance would you recommend?
How to beat the Shakturi - I set up 8 defensive platforms and a fleet - but the shakturi still blow up my planet - how many worls destroyers do these gusy have?

A little feedback - I am playing on VH with all Shakturi events on - was destroying 2 World Destroyers - the Ancient Guradians 1 or 2 - now the Ancient Guardians run wild - conquering 12 colonies - and attacking the Shakturi - keeping them busy...so no Shakturi threat anymore for now ...maybe even for never?
Is it supposed to play like that?

[Keston]

I've had Extended Universe 1.03 for a while which was packaged together with Blue and resource UI (thread I found is June 2014). I just updated to 19512.

I like the discussion of the AI Mod. From the mod installation description for the UI mod it sounds that flavor elements like the UI icons etc. can be overlaid over an installed gameplay mod in its theme, with the warning that it should not change files the other mod uses. For Extended 1.05 would the blue and resource icon mods be a problem?

There was also a ship images mod that provided more differentiation, but I don't recall if I have it installed in my current reinstall of the game.

Your advice is appreciated. Thank you.

[Aeson]

What setting fo colonization distance would you recommend?

Unfortunately, reasonable colonization range limits are very dependent upon map setup (size of the map, number of stars, and how the stars are arranged - ring, for example, tends to pack stars in fairly close to one another, whereas clusters has small regions of tightly-packed stars separated by fairly large empty zones that can be difficult to colonize across without first conquering something) and personal preference. To me, a limit of about 1.5 sectors is about the shortest reasonable colonization range limit as anything shorter is heavily luck-dependent for expansion opportunity in my experience, though it might be okay on small maps with large numbers of stars and a high number of habitable planets. I suggest trying out several games with varied colonization range limits and seeing what you like; I tend to go with ~1.5-2 sectors on huge (15x15) maps with 1400 stars, varied clusters, and max colonizable worlds.

[Steelwarrior7]

Thanks - yes 1.5-2.0 seems reasonable ;-D

[1stStrikeRecon]

Perhaps I'm flirting with heresy, but which researches do I need to remove from the research.txt to remove the death ray and super laser research from the mod? I prefer the idea that the only way to acquire those sorts of weapons is through the vanilla mechanics of locating them and repairing/rebuilding the derelict ship(s).

[HerpInYourDerp]

The game crashes whenever it has to deal with non-sequential listings, so the best way to do it is not to remove them (otherwise you'd have to re-number literally everything), but just to lock them out by making it event-accessible only.

Change:

Code: Select all

PROJECT			;272, Super Beam Weapons, 8, 6, 		0, 19, 0, 64.0, 
 COMPONENTS		;23
 PARENTS			;10, Y, 303, N, 374, N
 
 PROJECT			;273, Advanced Super Weapons, 9, 6, 		0, 24, 0, 64.0, 
 COMPONENTS		;25
 PARENTS			;272, Y
 ALLOWED RACES		;Shakturi, Boskara, Gizurean, Dhayut, Sluken, Phaerax, Keskudon, Yl'ta

to

Code: Select all

PROJECT			;272, Super Beam Weapons, 8, 6, 		0, 19, 5, 64.0, 
 COMPONENTS		;23
 PARENTS			;10, Y, 303, N, 374, N
 
 PROJECT			;273, Advanced Super Weapons, 9, 6, 		0, 24, 5, 64.0, 
 COMPONENTS		;25
 PARENTS			;272, Y
 ALLOWED RACES		;Shakturi, Boskara, Gizurean, Dhayut, Sluken, Phaerax, Keskudon, Yl'ta

None of the default events or ruins will be able to trigger them either.

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Keston
I've had Extended Universe 1.03 for a while which was packaged together with Blue and resource UI (thread I found is June 2014). I just updated to 19512.

I like the discussion of the AI Mod. From the mod installation description for the UI mod it sounds that flavor elements like the UI icons etc. can be overlaid over an installed gameplay mod in its theme, with the warning that it should not change files the other mod uses. For Extended 1.05 would the blue and resource icon mods be a problem?

There was also a ship images mod that provided more differentiation, but I don't recall if I have it installed in my current reinstall of the game.

Your advice is appreciated. Thank you.

You should be able to overlay changes to the UI/icons/images to the Mod without difficulty. I can't be responsible for any issues that might arise, but if you do find any issues I don't mend helping and I'm others will as well.

[Steelwarrior7]

Some feedback playing the mod on VH and Extreme with the Shakturi story line - really like the challenge and feeling to it. The only gripe I have is the capped research - each time I am getting tech wise far behind, because I am capped at a very low point - I have mostly 50%+ bonuses from scientist all over, but still falling hopelessly behind midgame. Then when the Shakturi come - my fleets are a joke - even a destroyer or two cruisers of them take out a whole fleet of mine - even though I have 800 - 1500 firepower per ship - but I just cannot hit them - they evade and kill my ships extremly quick - I still win due to the Gaurdian fleet and the Gaurdians going wild - they first reduce the Shakturi fleet and then go to their home planet and wipe every Shakturi ship out - so I just have to destroy their planet or take it with lots of troops and special units. But my native fleet and defenses are just a joke...same in a normal game without Shakturi, when the AI gains more and more tech adavtage on me - so I like the challenge but not the hopelessly falling behind in techs...is there a possibility to have the cash reduction, growth reduction, increased corruption but a reasonable level of tech research? Or are there any tipps how to noot fall so far behind?

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Steelwarrior7
Some feedback playing the mod on VH and Extreme with the Shakturi story line - really like the challenge and feeling to it. The only gripe I have is the capped research - each time I am getting tech wise far behind, because I am capped at a very low point - I have mostly 50%+ bonuses from scientist all over, but still falling hopelessly behind midgame.

There is nothing different in the Mod when it comes to capped research. It can be hard to get many Wonders before the AI with the Mod but keep in mind there are planets with significant technology bonuses around the galaxy. Repairing and retiring ships in debris fields and elsewhere can help quite a bit. I normally play Quameno who get huge technology bonuses. Research locations can help a bit. And of course, if you allow technology selling, you should be able to crash a lot of research as well, but I don't recommend that at all as it basically breaks the game!

[Steelwarrior7]

Thanks for the feedback - just thinking I can deal with lesser finances with smart playing but the tech cap is hard to take - do research stations in special locations make the cap higher - cause I can always only see my scientists in the stat and there also only the one with the highest bonusses in each category...?

[SirHoraceHarkness]

Nothing wrong with going into the game editor and buffing your home system a tiny bit if you get a bad universe generation so you can at least compete. Word of warning on seeding the rare luxuries like zentabia fluid, loros fruit and korrabian spice as they will spawn a sandworm at the planet or moon you stick them in which comes right back after you kill it screwing up your civilian traffic causing them to endlessly flee and never dock. Learned that the hard way making a super home system with literally everything you could want.

[Steelwarrior7]

Thanks for the hint ;-D

[SirHoraceHarkness]

Sure. :^) I actually use the editor more to buff the ai than anything else especially the races that tend to not fare too well under ai control like the humans. Add a dozen or so continental planets and a few gas giants with the key resources needed for a healthy start along with lots of trade goods and they blossom quite well and either become a powerful ally or dangerous opponent depending on the racial bias settings.

[Dipluz]

Answer to your armor, the description of gravitic weapons says it bypasses armor and shield. So adding more armor wont do you any good, except for praying it dosent hit your 5-10x robotic repair systems. but yes I found out death ray is my friend and stay at range tactic in the design window.

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Dipluz
Answer to your armor, the description of gravitic weapons says it bypasses armor and shield. So adding more armor wont do you any good, except for praying it dosent hit your 5-10x robotic repair systems.

Quite right Diplux!