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Great post Laiders

Of course if your using a 'planer' your by default having the A.I. think ahead. GOAP is exactly that and if set up correctly can be thinking multiple turns ahead. You just set up your goals accordingly. The end goal being the winner and several goals below that must be met to reach the end goal, with the A.I. choosing based on it's own state and what it knows about the enemy. Or perhaps the human player attacks so the 'Goal' changes to 'defend' with sub goals (how many units to send, etc)

This happened all the rime in F.E.A.R. The game didn't win awards because the rest of game was all that great but because the A.I. could think. It did plan. It called for help. It worked with other A.I. to set up flanking, flushing out and so on.

Diety Empires is another title that uses GOAP rather well...and again an Indy dev. That game absolutely has a planer as i've seen it ferry troops to an island and later pick them up once the island was explored..FSMs don't do that. And in your typical Civ game that unit would have wandered that same island the rest of the game.

Dev houses really are penny wise pound foolish. They could spend a couple years on an A.I. that is modular and then be done with it. Using it in every title going forward and gaining a reputation on that A.I.

Not every 4x/military game needs aircraft, particularly when it makes the game easier to defeat an AI/opponent.
Basically, less thought per strategy is required. imho
Certainly an option to not allow is a good thing. imho

It depends right. I mean Vic can sort of do this, evolve his AI from game to game. At least on combat evaluation because his games use very similar combat systems.

If you have a diverse portfolio or radically iterate on game systems with each release and even each DLC, a la Paradox or Amplitude, developing a general purpose AI is harder. Paradox can at least develop a core module that understands basics of troop movement etc that then is tailored to the peculiarities of each game. Amplitude... Amplitude give themselves headaches. However, the AI is a reasonable challenge, especially if it is given a small to medium classic handicap as well.

If you release games across multiple genres, then you are shit of luck right. An example of this might be Kerberos. SOTS 2 was sadly a catastrophe that all but killed the studio but did put out things like a truly excellent roguelike (SOTS: The Pit definitely worth a buy if you like SOTS world and roguelikes) and an operational puzzle war-game similar in broad concept to the Panzer General/Corp series (Groundpounders more mixed but I think quite good; Steam ragged on it because it is difficult to understand at first).

Good luck getting a RT 4X/grand strategy AI and RTS naval battle AI understanding a roguelike or an operational puzzle war-game. Luckily the enemies in roguelikes and puzzle war-games do not need to be too smart so long as the scenario design and player constraints are good.

SE will get better over time as the AI is refined over time to cope better with conducting free-form operations without constraints of a historical scenario and manage the 4X elements. In an operational sense, it already appears reasonably smart. It does have a tendency to start far too many wars and make itself vulnerable but that might be different AI personalities rather than actual unawareness/incompetence.

ORIGINAL: eddieballgame

Not every 4x/military game needs aircraft, particularly when it makes the game easier to defeat an AI/opponent.
Basically, less thought per strategy is required. imho
Certainly an option to not allow is a good thing. imho

But they kinda do right. Modern warfare is impossible without aerospace assets and aerospace power is the single most important military development facilitating modern warfare. Aerospace warfare can be applied to all planets currently implemented equally and different planet types raise different problems with exerting aerospace power.

Navies only really apply to Siwas, probably the main planet people are playing at present. I suppose Medusa and Limnos (barrens) can generate oceans and rarely Boreas can. Cerberus generates lava oceans I'd rather remained impassable to all but late-game tech but YMMV. Seth, Planetoids and Moons straight up cannot ever. It's a condition on their generation.

It's tight and I do understand concerns about air power too.

Agree. Air is just not really compatible easily with why I really like this game. It could be done well maybe.
But if so, an option to disable would be really great.
(and disabling it on planets with low atmospheric pressure doesn't cut it as I would want to play all types still)

ORIGINAL: GodwinW

Agree. Air is just not really compatible easily with why I really like this game. It could be done well maybe.
But if so, an option to disable would be really great.
(and disabling it on planets with low atmospheric pressure doesn't cut it as I would want to play all types still)

Have you played the Decisive Campaigns series? Air assets are a bit more abstracted in that game, and it has a similar level of scope (in terms of manpower/unit sizes) to Shadow Empire. Air power acts more as a combat buff and the proximity of air fields has a lot to do with the calculations.

@Laiders, you weren't kidding around when you said there was some serious AI discussion in this thread :p
I got some reading to do but it looks like you guys nailed out the main points, especially in regards to the difference of complexity between something like Shadow Empire and a simpler game like Chess or Go.

Let us fix up the space ships so we can leave the irradiated giant raptor infested shit hole planet behind and go on a debauchery filled space pleasure cruise. Director of the Military council is not invited because he's a prick.