Need a harder difficulty

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SkyCore
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Need a harder difficulty

#1 Post by SkyCore »

In the last 4 games with 12 maniacal opponents each i was only attacked twice. The AI doesnt seem to aggressively expand (or even place too many outposts in multi planet systems). Granted, i conquered most of the galaxy by turn 200 and won between turns 250-300 (which seems quick to me), but shouldnt the highest difficulty AI also have ultra aggression?
Could we get a more difficult setting for aggression? Perhaps a separate setting for 'expansion' to force them into creating large empires quickly?
Perhaps the ai simply couldnt build colonys because of the planet type. Maybe we need more exobot like research lines to allow any planet to be colonized fairly early on in the game.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Need a harder difficulty

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

I'm not sure, but I think it's been said that the highest aggression setting is not necessarily the "best" or "most difficult" AI behaviour. It may play better at Typical than at Aggressive or (especially) Maniacal.

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EricF
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Re: Need a harder difficulty

#3 Post by EricF »

I'm no expert in AI so...
But I believe to really 'fix' this problem would be to build in a lot of cheating for the AI and I believe a lot of people are philosophically opposed to that.
I believe it happens when the AI's get a bad start.
I also win the vast majority of games I play, but I have also lost.
It is highly variable as to how good the AI will be, but since it doesn't cheat many times it will simply just not have the resources to really be aggressive.

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Vezzra
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Re: Need a harder difficulty

#4 Post by Vezzra »

Please keep in mind that the AI is far from completed, and has potential for improvement in a lot of areas. Like the whole game, the AI is in alpha stage. Which means that it performs quite sub-optimally/not very efficiently in a lot of aspects (topological awareness is completely absent AFAIK).

defaultuser
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Re: Need a harder difficulty

#5 Post by defaultuser »

Geoff the Medio wrote:I'm not sure, but I think it's been said that the highest aggression setting is not necessarily the "best" or "most difficult" AI behaviour. It may play better at Typical than at Aggressive or (especially) Maniacal.
It has been my experience that, at least for the game setup that I play, that Maniacal was too easy. Like the Kzin in Niven's Known Space, they attack before they're ready. All you have to do is fend off the first attack and then they have no reserves or industrial base and are open to a counter-attack and invasion.

I have been playing Aggressive, but I might try Typical just to see how that works in my games.

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EricF
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Re: Need a harder difficulty

#6 Post by EricF »

defaultuser wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:I'm not sure, but I think it's been said that the highest aggression setting is not necessarily the "best" or "most difficult" AI behaviour. It may play better at Typical than at Aggressive or (especially) Maniacal.
It has been my experience that, at least for the game setup that I play, that Maniacal was too easy. Like the Kzin in Niven's Known Space, they attack before they're ready. All you have to do is fend off the first attack and then they have no reserves or industrial base and are open to a counter-attack and invasion.

I have been playing Aggressive, but I might try Typical just to see how that works in my games.
Yea, I've been playing nothing but 'Maniacal' thinking that was the toughest setting, I think I will try on 'Typical' myself as well.

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EricF
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Re: Need a harder difficulty

#7 Post by EricF »

Probably the single dumbest thing (no offense to the programmers) the AI does is to stack troop ships near one of my systems with NO actual warships to defend them. I routinely jump my defense fleet over there, kill them and then move back to the system I'm defending.

jadwin
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Re: Need a harder difficulty

#8 Post by jadwin »

Does the AI build automatic history anaylser in the beginning? I think the AI is falling behind in research.

Another Problem is that AI is using the protection focus to often. You can't win without production and research.

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MatGB
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Re: Need a harder difficulty

#9 Post by MatGB »

jadwin wrote:Does the AI build automatic history anaylser in the beginning? I think the AI is falling behind in research.
It has now been adapted to build one, but as both the building and the AI tweak are new we don't know whether the judgement on building one is right yet—it's deliberately not a cheap building so that you've got choices, mine is part built in my new game at turn 42, colonising and troop ships were more important.
Another Problem is that AI is using the protection focus to often. You can't win without production and research.
That I sort of agree with, it theoretically depends on aggression level but I am thinking it's too inclined to go on Defend, especially the aggressive/maniacal AIs.
Mat Bowles

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SkyCore
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Re: Need a harder difficulty

#10 Post by SkyCore »

jadwin wrote:You can't win without production and research.
You absolutely can win without having a single planet ever focus on research. Mass drivers and diamond armor are enough to conquer the entire galaxy. Simply getting population and industry levels up will give you all you need to out produce every other empire.
Aggressive expansion (especially early game) allows for geometric growth rather than linear growth.

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Vezzra
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Re: Need a harder difficulty

#11 Post by Vezzra »

SkyCore wrote:Mass drivers and diamond armor are enough to conquer the entire galaxy.
Just curious, but how do you get diamond armor without setting any colony to research focus the entire game? That would just give you the 5 research point provided by the Cultural Archives building, meaning it would take an eternity to get diamond armor... :?:

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MatGB
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Re: Need a harder difficulty

#12 Post by MatGB »

Nascent Artificial Intelligence, play a Telepathic race (hello George or Laenfa) and rush Distributed Thought Computing, the Cultural Archives gives you 7 per, then you've now got the History Analyser.

I wouldn't bother pushing Diamond, Zortrium's enough on a small enough map (150ish systems max)—yes, I've done it, it's boring though.
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

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Vezzra
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Re: Need a harder difficulty

#13 Post by Vezzra »

MatGB wrote:Nascent Artificial Intelligence, play a Telepathic race (hello George or Laenfa) and rush Distributed Thought Computing, the Cultural Archives gives you 7 per
With only the 5 pts of research that will still take a long time - the only thing you'll get after some turns is NAI, but even with the additional 2RP per colony you can't rush DTC (telepathic race or not)...

SkyCore
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Re: Need a harder difficulty

#14 Post by SkyCore »

Vezzra wrote:
SkyCore wrote:Mass drivers and diamond armor are enough to conquer the entire galaxy.
Just curious, but how do you get diamond armor without setting any colony to research focus the entire game? That would just give you the 5 research point provided by the Cultural Archives building, meaning it would take an eternity to get diamond armor... :?:
Well you dont wait until you have diamond before you go on a rampage. Eventually, you will get there. turn 200 and you have 1k research. Plenty for some basic population techs, mass driver 4, diamond, and several industry techs.
The trick is to win through more population via colonys and conquering species which allow for a broad range of habitation. From a high level, this game is all about maximizing production and concentrating your forces.

defaultuser
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Re: Need a harder difficulty

#15 Post by defaultuser »

I've played games where I never set Research focus. Especially if I start with Egassem and only pick up natives like Mu Ursh. If you're using Exobots to hit all the asteroid belts, the Nascent AI points add up enough to take care of what you need. A recent game had towards the end over 1000 Industry and like 85 Research. I play small games so the likelihood of ending up with no good research species is better.

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