Quoting Horemvore, reply 21

I changed Invasion costs, same cost for any type seemed a bit silly to me, why would dropping leaflets cost the same as peppering the planet with planetry bombardment?

I noticed the same things in regards to the AI taking Engines over anything else, I have recently (last week or so) done a balance pass on the blueprints to re-adjust the order in which AI pick components (Engines are no longer grouped).

I'll take a look at the Hull issue. I have included IAB's way of using "Weighted" tech choices over a select order like vanilla, I have not adjusted any techs to compensate for this as I did not see an issue untill you mentioned about Hulls.

I left the Ideology Projects as default, easy enough to adjust. (I have yet to tell the AI to use them too btw)

I can adjust the modules for Eco/Mining starbases. Fell free to recommned any you feel could be removed.

 

Agreed re: invasion costs.

Every starbase - mining or economy - that I ran across had +1 level of each defense the Ai had tech for, +1 level for each weapon tech as well, and at least an additional +1 for the weapons tech it was best at.  That's 7 upgrades per base, 3 bases per planet give or take...that's a lot of resources for beefing up bases right next to a planet full of ships....  

In many cases, the mining ones had only the base module for mining.  I think it's more of a priority issue than anything else.  Max out the mining first before buffing defenses.  Early game buffing bases makes it a lot harder for smaller fleets with weaker ships to destroy them, so it makes sense there, but mid game when people have 20+ logistics and can put decent fleets together, bases get destroyed regardless.  I never buff mining or eco bases because they're relatively easy to replace.

It would almost make more sense if the Ai could garrison them.

Check the OP.

I have set Starbase defence the same as Shipyard's for the AI, since there is no define for "Garrison" this is probably the best I can do.

Also added the IP Project's to AI Governor's.

It's a 1.8 thing.  Conventional warfare destroys all the improvements automagically.  Using alternate means have different results.  I used Information Warfare on several planets and no improvements were destroyed on any of them.

Probably an attempt by the devs to justify existence and use of other invasion methods lol

I forgot to mention, I added Targeting and Jamming modules to medium, large and huge ship blueprints.

Thats good to know!

This is most definitely not the case in the game I just played over the past couple of days. My typical rush to Planetary Invasion and then very early attack was most successful and didn't destroy all the improvements, thankfully since if it did, I'd have to reevaluate whether to keep playing GC3 to be honest.

Updated 26/6/06 12.15pm (Basic Only)

• Adjusted AI Troop Transport strategy - I re-assigned AI Sentinel ships to Escort ships. AI Sentinel ships are now Armed Transport ships(Medium & Large).
• Tweaked Hull size technology Weights.
• Updated InvasionStyles to 1.8 code base (I never intended improvements to be destroyed).

Updated 29/6/16 12.00pm

• Blueprint Tweaks.
• AI Tech Governor Tweaks.

Hmm, I have been playing around a little. One change I am rather confident about is to the AITechGovernor.xml:

    <InternalName>DefaultPreference</InternalName>
        <TechPreference>InterstellarTravel</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>HiveTech</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>PlanetaryImprovement</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>XenoIndustrializationTech</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>XenoCommerce</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        ...

I am not sure about the hive tech yet, because I still have to figure out how to make the AI build hives as the first manufacturing improvement. But if I could figure this out, this would be a must have for the thalans.

I added planetary improvement in slot 3, because since the AI colonizes with 3 pop, it hits the 5 pop cap very fast and stays capped way longer then is good for it. Besides, you don't need industrialization that, because building more improvements, is more beneficial at this point in the game.

I removed advanced construction entirely, for the same reason + the AI isn't going for early manufacturing capitals in the current configuration.

I also added XenoCommerce, so the AI can add the approval buildings to its food buildings. (Not really relevant at genius and above)

Will keep playing around.

edit: btw, do you have some sort of benchmarking test to gauge the AIs performance?

Just curious are you modding the ai for normal where noone gets handicapped.

Would be pretty cool if Horemvore or I could push the AI enough enough for normal to be challenging, but I don't see that happening yet. Maybe I will just scrap the approval improvements for the ai all together...

I started off testing on Normal, but always ended up so far ahead it was pointless, so I test on Gifted now. So you could say its for Gifted +, but tbh, i have not tested on normal for quite some time.

Oh i guess this mod is not for me.

You should give it a try, Horemvore did a couple of things, that also benefits the AI on normal, like better ship designs. I am currently running the following test on the normal gc3 ai, horemvores and my tweaked version:

medium map abundant habitables, 5 ai factions: terran, thalan, drengin, iconian, altarian. (normal difficulty)
just pressing the turn button myself, in order to speed up the process.

note down several power values on turn 31, 61 and 101.

I don't have enough statistics yet, so I can't say anything conclusive. Though I think things look promising.

I am trying to stay away from adding Specific techs to the Governor's, I know I added some recently, that was to fix the AI ignoring Hull techs. I am going down the route of just increasing Tech weights, although there does seem to be some weird design regarding AI choices, they ignored a weight of 30 + Strategy bonus in favor of 12 + Strategy bonus. So lots of tweaks and tests for this.

The AI should be building manufacturing capitals and any other Unique building for that matter. I'll pay closer attention.

My benchmark, when I first started playing I could beat the AI easily on Normal and Gifted, also beat them on Genius playing the long game. Now, Genius own me hard. Gifted is the Long game not tried normal in a while.

Bare in mind, I play with altered tech ages. In my games I am looking for the map to be filled by turn 80-100 (400 planets, 8 AI, Gifted), depending on what wars happen it could stretch to 120 ish, the AI to hit Planetary Invasion around 60-70.

I have also noted that adding "hated" faction or factions to a races configuration in FactionDefs.xml has a really big impact on how aggressive the AI is towards each other, this results in alot of invasions.

I did not mean to put you off, or imply it can or does not work on Normal, it does, pretty well tbh (or used to last time I tested it). I just have not tested it on normal for a while so can not really give any decent feedback as to how the AI acts. All I know is since playing with these changes I can no longer play Genius

Even gifted is pushing me to my limit atm. I need to play more tbh, do far to much test games then alterations, more test games, more alterations, I do not think I have had a proper game in at least 6 weeks, I am getting rusty :p

Another issue I noticed is coercion. The AI constantly opperates at like 14% coercion at many worlds :/. Not so dramatic at genius, but on normal where it doesn't get so many approval bonusses, it hurts.

One more thing, I think I figured out why the AI ignores some perfectly fine worlds: because there are pirates nearby. Usually they could just go straight past them, but they seem to have a lot of respect and stay way off.

I also try to put as much weighted_tch into the techgovernor, but the AI jsut ignores stuff like hive, gaia theory and planetary improvement way too long in my opinion.

If you feel curious, here is what I have cooked up so far. Ona verage I would say it is an improvement to your AI.

My GovernorDef.xml

  <Governor>
    <InternalName>AIHomeworld</InternalName>
    <DisplayName>AIHomeworld_Name</DisplayName>
    <Description>AIHomeworld_Dec</Description>
    <Icon>GC3_S_Primary_Sponsor_Icon.png</Icon>
    <GovernorBonus>BalancedBonusGov</GovernorBonus>
    <Improvement>Manufacturing</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Growth</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Manufacturing</Improvement>
    <Improvement>ManufacturingHub</Improvement>
    <Improvement>ManufacturingUnique</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Manufacturing</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Manufacturing</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Manufacturing</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Manufacturing</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Manufacturing</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Manufacturing</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Food</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Approval</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Food</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Approval</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Food</Improvement>
    <FillerImprovement>Terraforming</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Manufacturing</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Manufacturing</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Military</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Food</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Approval</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>MilitaryUnique</FillerImprovement>
    <ProjectName>ProjectMilitary</ProjectName>
    <ProjectName>ProjectBirthingSubsidies</ProjectName>
    <ProjectName>ProjectCulling</ProjectName>
  </Governor>
 
  <Governor>
    <InternalName>AIManufacturing</InternalName>
    <DisplayName>AIManufacturing_Name</DisplayName>
    <Description>AIManufacturing_Dec</Description>
    <Icon>GC3_S_Manufacturing_Stat_Icon.png</Icon>
    <Improvement>Manufacturing</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Manufacturing</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Food</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Manufacturing</Improvement>
    <Improvement>ManufacturingHub</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Manufacturing</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Food</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Approval</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Growth</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Food</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Approval</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Food</Improvement>
    <FillerImprovement>Terraforming</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Manufacturing</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Manufacturing</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Food</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Approval</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Manufacturing</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Trade</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Military</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>ManufacturingUnique</FillerImprovement>    
    <FillerImprovement>MilitaryUnique</FillerImprovement>
    <ProjectName>ProjectMilitary</ProjectName>
    <ProjectName>ProjectCulling</ProjectName>
  </Governor>
 
  <Governor>
    <InternalName>AIResearch</InternalName>
    <DisplayName>AIResearch_Name</DisplayName>
    <Description>AIResearch_Dec</Description>
    <Icon>GC3_Research_Spending_Stat_Icon.png</Icon>
    <Improvement>Manufacturing</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Food</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Research</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Research</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Food</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Approval</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Growth</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Research</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Research</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Food</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Approval</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Food</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Research</Improvement>
    <Improvement>ResearchHub</Improvement>
    <FillerImprovement>Terraforming</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Research</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Research</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Food</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Approval</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Research</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>ResearchUnique</FillerImprovement>
    <ProjectName>ProjectResearchProject</ProjectName>    
    <ProjectName>ProjectBirthingSubsidies</ProjectName>
    <ProjectName>ProjectSanctuary</ProjectName>
  </Governor>
 
  <Governor>
    <InternalName>AIWealth</InternalName>
    <DisplayName>AIWealth_Name</DisplayName>
    <Description>AIWealth_Dec</Description>
    <Icon>GC3_Wealth_Priority_Icon.png</Icon>
    <Improvement>Manufacturing</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Food</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Wealth</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Wealth</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Food</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Approval</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Growth</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Wealth</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Wealth</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Food</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Approval</Improvement>
    <Improvement>Food</Improvement>
    <Improvement>WealthHub</Improvement>
    <FillerImprovement>Terraforming</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Wealth</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Wealth</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Food</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Approval</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>Tourism</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>WealthUnique</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>TourismUnique</FillerImprovement>
    <FillerImprovement>InfluenceUnique</FillerImprovement>
    <ProjectName>ProjectEconomicStimulus</ProjectName>
    <ProjectName>ProjectBirthingSubsidies</ProjectName>
    <ProjectName>ProjectSummit</ProjectName>
  </Governor>

My AITechGovernorDefs.xml

<AITechGovernor>
    <InternalName>DefaultPreference</InternalName>
        <TechPreference>InterstellarTravel</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>HiveTech</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>PlanetaryImprovement</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>XenoIndustrializationTech</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>XenoCommerce</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>XenoAgriculturalAdaptation</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>GaiaTheory</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>OrbitalManufacturing</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>IntensiveFarming</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>OrbitalSpecialization2</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>ZeroGravityConstruction</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>IonOptimization1</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>IonDriveTech</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>ZeroGravityOptimization2</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>ZeroGravityOptimization2</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>LargeScaleConstruction</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WarpFieldTheory</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>OrbitalConstructionFocus2</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>MassiveScaleConstruction</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
        <TechPreference>WEIGHTED_TECH</TechPreference>
    </AITechGovernor>

I'll try out the colony Governors in my next game, which is looking to be real soon, think I have messed up, AGAIN, I am so far behind even the passive races are seeing me as fodder

What race is that Tech Governor for?

The tech governor is just representative for the others. The first 5 techs look the same for the other 3, Gaia Theory allways is at position 13, os it is developed asap. Intensive farming is jsut about timed right right before small hulls, So I put it there for all races.

Also the governors alone won't work properly without the tech governor I think.

I am also experimenting with the following at the moment:

hives have placement type Manufacturinghub and wealth and research worlds build a manufacturinghub in addition or instead of the initial manufacturing building. This guarantees the AI builds hives until it can build power plants...

My OP custom race that I use to win at Godlike and without diplo-alliance cheese is an offshoot of Thalan. I use Thalan tech tree and Thalan type of pop 16 HW with no other planets in the home system. I want a really good HW! I take the Thalan ability of Intuitive along with the Drengin ability of Zealots (I want +15 Ideology when I conquer a planet).

Hives is the first thing I take with Intuitive as the building is SO GOOD. Next comes Interstellar Travel and the following drive tech for +1 speed. Hives should come first, IMO.

Some other races also have similar buildings to Hives and probably should research them first or at the least 3rd..ie after two drive techs.

To improve AI's it is likely that specific build orders can be improved for each of the 12 standard AI's.

I know the Tech Governor can be generalized, but, it can also be faction specific and I would rather make a Tech governor faction specific if it contains unique techs which your does. Making it faction specific will give me/us more room to tweak the AI.

I have actually been toying with the idea of changing the default factions so they are more min/max. I have not decided which faction/factions to min/max in what areas to keep them Unique. Still holding off on this due to me not playing the default factions, ever.

I usually don't take the +1 moves specialization because I want the -25% support module mass for my carriers/supportmodule capitals later. But I see why +1 moves can be more important (I play without tech trading).

The order of research - I thought - wouldn't matter since the AI has intuitive, but I found out intuitive doesn't work on the AI. It is a wasted trait on them. So, hmm, the AI should probably have hives in slot one... When combined with making them manufacturing hubs to the AI, so it can actually be convinced to build them early...

edit: turns out I am blind...^^

<AITechGovernor>
    <InternalName>Turtle</InternalName>
    <FactionName>FACTION_ARCEAN</FactionName>
    <TechPreference>XenoIndustrializationTech</TechPreference>

And, yeah, there are a couple of other factions waiting in line to get their own tech governor (I am looking at you drengin...). The drengin with their slave mills will actually also benefit from putting a single manufacturing hub on non manufacturing worlds :/

Quoting Horemvore, reply 5

 I have been toying with making all colony/troop components 6 by default and then adjusting the mass so its balanced(player wise), but i think it might well gimp the AI with the early colony rush using 6 pop every time. I wish the Colony & Troop were split into two setting tbh, would be able to make it far more intresting then .

I modded some colony modules in that start at 6 max & tie to the powermatrix tech line for synthetics, synthetic races fare better with it since new colonies are actually able to do stuff without a hundred+turns buildup or tens of thousands of credits

Does anyone here know what is the difference between filler improvements and improvements in the governor.xml? I thought fillers would be added until the planet is full, but I have seen wealth worlds of class 27 with 3 empty spaces, not upgrading improvements. The AIWealthGovernor has 24 improvements+27 filler improvements in my file.

I have also seen the AI replace manufacturing buildings with manufacturing hubs and uniques. What apparently triggers it is having the hubs and uniques higher up in the improvement list of the governor. However sometimes the AI does weird stuff with this: I have seen (god cheat) a manufacturing building being 1 turn before finish and then bein replaced with a hive (manufacturing hub in my version) which was then building. The manufacturing spent on the factory before was lost. To add insult to injury I have seen the same behaviour with a hive replacing an almost finished hive, when the queue updated to contain a solar power plant.

More funkyness:

do the slider definitions in the AIStrategyDefs work at all? I have tried setting them to 33/33/33 but the AI would just use 50/50/0 instead. It also occasionally (not when changing strategy) changes the sliders to be like 48/48/5 for example...

I have reduced the ColonyFocusDef bonusses to 15% for now in order to reduce coercion on the AI... :/

Did I forget something?

Yes! The AI also prefernces upgrading buildings instead of replacing basic ones with hubs and uniques, if the planet is full...

...

The addictiveness of fixing the AI is utterly irrational O_o

Yeah it acts weird. It quite random. I always thought the AI used it as a set list. But it does not seem too. I think it just loops through the list until it hits what it has as a priority, then builds it, loops again until it has built the whole list. Then it moves on to fillers. TBH without seeing the c++(An yeah I have tried, there is a tools folder in the game directory with a bunch of bat/exe files in it that seem to be what the game used to build said code, but I can not fathom most of them out) this is just conjecture.

Yeah I have seen this and am also unsure as to why or what cause it to happen, it is how, when I had more than 4 farms listed, the AI ended up building population worlds, all farms bah 1 or 2 improvements. There is a define in GalCiv3AIDefs.xml that handles when an improevment can be replaced:-

<MinImprovementLevelReplacementImmunity>3</MinImprovementLevelReplacementImmunity>

I have not played with it yet, but I am guessing changing it to 1 will stop the AI replacing improvements.

I have come to believe it is just a "guide". Do you know how the strategies work? When I first started playing with them I did not. Each Strategy as a Start and End Time and also a Lifetime. The AI will switch between the strategies that are available for said start and end times, the time taken to switch is set by the Lifetime. If one or more strategy occupy the same time slot.

Feel free to use the changes I have made so far. The governor defs will require the improvement defs, since I changed a few placement types. The tech governors will require both in order for the AI to buld improtant stuff like hives right away. The ColonyFocusDefs is optional, but I would suggest using it, since it reduces the amount of coercion the AI receives and in general is adapted a little to be more useful at a 12/44/44-20/40/40 setting.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0KgFwIm-KyEdnJIbXQ2bGZ2SkU&usp=sharing
These files are meant to be used as replacements in Horemvores Tweaked AI. I haven't tested them without it.

I have improved the Drengin Tech governor and added tech gouvernors for Thalans, Iconians, Krynn and Snathi. The AI is now much more likely to build uniques within the first 100 turns of the game and will have more populations on most worlds.

What i failed to do is motivated the AI to use more approval technology via the AIStrategyDefs priorities... So there is room for improvement. Possibly via TechGovernor.

The changes I made are tested for the first 100 turns, so after that some more optimization may be possible (techgovernors in particular).

The Krynn could do with a little more terraforming tech focus and a little less upgrading of improvements :/