matezzo

Join Date 12/2014

A bit annoyed about AI difficulty (cheating)

To elaborate: AI should be given advantage, I just don't like how it is handled, specifically speaking about exploration cheating.

I don't know if it's confirmed or not whether AI sees the habitble planets, I saw it did. When I play in huge galaxies it's ok, I have enough space to build up my empire, however I tried to play in medium just to get more intense, faster games.

One game I met with an other civ with my survey.. actually it was 2 colony ships I met, not their scouts or something.. they were headed directly accross my homeworld area, and guess what, just next to me was a system with two habitables. I did my best I could to pump out colony ships right from the start (and I know how to optimize this), but still couldn't compete with their, I guess fast bought ships. So they beat me for both of those planets. thing is that my first two colony ships were heading north and shouth, I thought I could use my 3.-4. to get to the system just behind me (it was at the edge of the map).

That was just one example that made me ragequit.. there were many more. Thing is I wouldn't call the ai great if it needs this kind of advantage (talking about incredible level btw). It should be taught how to do exploration, planet management (I saw some sorry state planets after conquering them) and stuff like that. production bonus is fine, science bonus .. should be carefull there, but some is ok. giving them inherently stronger ships? I don't think so.. is the ai really so miserable that it needs it?

long story short: right now early game advantage could be crippling on smaller maps, especially knowing where the habitable planets are.. that shold be removed or limited for each size/level.

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Had you cleared the fow for those planets? If so I think the AI can see what you see and vice versa. Maybe not but I think so.

What level are you playing? They claim, and it seems correct to me, that the AI does not cheat on normal. That is where I usually play. I have beat the AI on higher difficulty but it is not fun to me when it seems the AI can virtually rush buy everything.

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If an AI is "godlike", I think it is fair that it be omniscient.

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What do mean vica versa? I found the star (not the exact locations of the planets) I started to build my 3.-4. colony ships while my first two was already enroute. The ai's two colony ships were directly headed to the two planets and both beat my colony ship.

Actually a second AI's colony ship was also headed to that system, but turned back once the first had colonized the system.

It was on incredible difficulty. (I tought the ai need high production advantage during the game since I noticed how poorly it handled its fleets and planets), but at early game it's too much.

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Quoting tetleytea,

reply 2

If an AI is "godlike", I think it is fair that it be omniscient.

Yes, and the better players beat the AI consistently, in spite of the omniscience. The AI is so stupid it will always blunder the game away regardless of the advantages.

In fairness to the AI, many (not all) of the wins are accomplished by using a formula that some would call exploitation.

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Quoting matezzo,

reply 3

What do mean vica versa?

I believe that on normal difficulty you can see anything that the AI has uncovered and they can see what you have uncovered, but never mind, at the levels above normal the AI does know the location of everything. I think that is the first advantage given above normal, even before they get the huge money bonuses.

I agree that it is annoying for the average player, (me), but as I commented in another post. The AI is dumb in spite of the cheats, and the better players can usually beat them easily.

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If the AI wouldnt be cheating it would lose even harder than it already does. Players > AI. Because AI: Programmed and therefore limited on what it can do. Players: Can adapt to any changing situation and think far ahead. Has been like this in literally every game vs AI.

If anything, youre cheating because youre not programmed.

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Quoting SarahAustin,

reply 6

Because AI: Programmed and therefore limited on what it can do.

It can't for example buy asteroid mines as soon as they are in their empires ZOC. They leave them lying around for over ten turns sometimes.

The AI couldn't push improvement upgrades down the priority list (e.g. xeno factories, when terraforming just got available and could let it build a factory providing adjacency to a starport and a space elevator). I didn't check since crusade, but I doubt they fixed this.

Quoting SarahAustin,

reply 6

Players: Can adapt to any changing situation and think far ahead.

AI does not need to adapt to buy asteroids, when it has enough money. There is one optimal (or at least highly efficient) decision to make in this case.

You don't need to adapt with improvement upgrades either, just push them down the build queue whenever you can do literally anything else.

Just two examples where the heuristics are simply highly inefficient, while human decisions should rarely deviate from a heuristic for that problem.

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I played many strategy games before and the AI did not need this kind of advantage to be challenging. In civ4 the deity ai I believe had an extra settler/worker and like 50% production bonus and the game was very challenging.

I noticed that it's a trend to put more and more features into the game, but the ai is not thaught well how to use it. In civ4 they made the features to be ai friendly (combat for example). in civ6 you have tactical combat (1upt) nice city district, but the ai sucks to use it so the game sucks too...

This is the problem in galciv3 too. The ai can't handle it's fleets well, so it sucks on defense. Exploiting speed doesn't help it as well. and I could go on on my experiment from my games, but I think that's the biggest problem: AI builds tons of useless ships/fleet which after the early game are just cannon fodders.

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Funny thing is, I'm taking to a pro gaming friend of mine, and he's saying that there's a glut of AI guys in the job market. Which surprises me, given the mind-bending nature of the problem to be solved. He says the gaming companies are more starved for artists.

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Seafireliv

Join Date 03/2006

Quoting tetleytea,

reply 9

This is absolutely NO surprise to me at all. Publishers have put less emphasis on a good AI focusing almost exclusively on graphics and scripted events. Few publishers have actually put the money towards employing good AI coders because they belive it isn`t worth the expenditure for the gain. Compare AI to games of 10 even 20 years ago and compared to graphics, AI is still in the stone-age.

No wonder there`s a glut of AI coders- Dev Houses aren`t employing them.

I`ve never agreed with this philosophy.

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AI not being a priority for a single-player strategy game just makes zero sense to me. A RPG, maybe, but...a STRATEGY game??

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Seafireliv

Join Date 03/2006

Quoting tetleytea,

reply 11

AI not being a priority for a single-player strategy game just makes zero sense to me. A RPG, maybe, but...a STRATEGY game??

I`ve pointed out this issue on other strategy game forums where Devs can clearly see. They never listen, still using 10 year old AI programming. It`s all about glossy graphics and "achievements". If the basic game can churn along on retarded AI, they`ll live with it as long as it sells.

Thankfully, not every publisher is like this and more gamers are beginning to call for better AI.

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You used the wrong thing for making a faster and more intense game. Change game speed and tech rate for that. Not the map size, changing the map size changes so much about the game other than just it size and how long it takes to complete a game...........................

You explain why on smaller maps it beats you, well of course it will play at times play on huge.

I can't believe that you had an account since 2014 and haven't learnt how unbalanced the maps are.

Make or use a pre-made if not learn how to make the generated ones be more balanced and competitive and they still will suck a lot of the time. Restart when it does something stupid.

You want amazing AI when that's expensive and takes lot of time and in-game knowledge. You want it to know how you to build planets I can get double out of a planet of what a gifted can sometimes it would need a complete rework.

Sure stronger ships is a bitch at times but for the most part their ships are complete crap.

As soon as you get better than the AI it will need to start cheating for it to be a challenge so that makes it a game of catch up, the higher the difficulty the harder it is to catch up. Don't like games of catch up play easier AI or against people.

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Seafireliv

Join Date 03/2006

I remember when havoc physics was just taking off. It started in unreal tournament. Brought most people`s pcs to a crawl and you had to have particular type of graphic cards to even see it happen. Now we see havoc physics in real time smoothly- No one even thinks about it. I still do because I appreciate what we never had to what we have now- in all things.

I hope one day someone will manage a breakthough like this with AI. Perhaps an AI module that can be fitted into pcs and adapts to parameters specifically designed by each game code.

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@jackh1992

I haven't played too many games.. only one with crusade, I managed to colonize 28 planets on huge map (with standard number of civs), I thought it was too many (too much micro) so I wanted to try smaller maps.

I don't want to go into details why, but as it is stands now: smaller maps are extremely challenging in the early game, but past that the ai declines, mostly because its fleet management.. I'd like it to be more balanced somehow. This is a feedback for the devs.

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Thing it's not a problem the small map size I know that because I got to the middle planet in galaxy before the AI, and I don't think it's the problem with medium maps it was at one point driving it's colony ships past a class 26 like the dumbass it is. Sometimes it's just going to beat you to the middle ground though that is mostly on you not the AI it doesn't get speed buffs only production which for the start you can negate and produce more that it can.

It's just a lot more random on the small maps and it's also makes you have to pay attention to what you doing with your designs and where you are moving your ships. Also what build you've got for your race as well.

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I am playing my first game on a large map. I have played a number of small and a few medium maps. I use my survey ship as a weapon during the colonization phase and protect prospective habitable planets by destroying their colony ships. I usually go to war early with my closest opponent and kill it's colony and constructor ships right from the beginning. This stunts their expansion, as you can imagine, enormously. I then colonize the contested planets and construct mining starbases at will. By turns 30-40 they are easily overmatched and sue for peace, hehe. I pickup the, Abundant setting, anomalies with my early survey ship (medium class) that moves at 19 per turn. It uses 3 prototype engines and it is ready by the May-June timeframe. It is great for scouting also.

So, in conclusion, counter the AI's knowledge by destroying their soft target expansion ships and you will do fine.

Just my 2 BCs.

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