AI stops colonising at mid/late game
Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2017 12:06 pm
Playing 2017-06-06.4833950_Test_Win32 (however I have noticed in previous versions what I'm telling in this post).
In most (if not all) my games with around 30 or more systems per player, I've noticed that AIs (all of them) stop colonising available planets from a certain point (usualy around turn 200). With available I mean that those planets are in systems with already one or more colonies or right in between their area of control (and supply).
This behaviour cripples the AI performance for late game, making games boring from a certain point even if you started in disadvantage.
My previous game was 1vs1 (AI turned out to be a gysache, I was human, so it was going to be an interesting game), 100 systems 2-arm spire. I started near the tip of one of the arms while the AI started close to the core. I also was fenced in between some sentinel systems and had three kraken nests behind those sentinels (one on the very end of my spire arm and two next to the galaxy core) that swarmed my spire arm, slowing my research and colonies production down for a while.
Until turn 200 or so AI had more colonies and considerably more PPs than me (around 50% more than me, while RPs were on par), but from that turn on it stopped getting any new colony, despite having maybe as much free planets at it already had. I'm certain that the reason was not the habitability of the planets, because AI already had three or four native species (including humans since it stole one of my planets around turn 150 and I couldn't get it back for a while) as well as most growth techs. I'm also sure it had enough PPs to devote to colonising while still keep a fair military production to at least keep me at bay, since I had less PPs and I was doing right that: colonising while fighting back.
We had been battling each other at the junction between my spire arm and the galaxy core since turn 150 until turn 250. At the beginning I was just withstanding the blows with defense focus, comsats and all the military strength I could gather. From turn 200 or so I began to be on par with it military-wise thanks to better stealth carriers that allowed me to wreck havoc on its fleets with little loses on my side. From then I had same number of colonies than it and my PPs began to surpass its. The number of colonies (and planets) graphs showed that the AI had stopped getting new planets (flat line). From turn 250 I was already taking planets from AI in the galaxy's core. I had already scouted entire galaxy and saw no less than 20 uncolonised systems with nice planets well into AIs territory, as well as available planets within systems with one or more colonies.
Is the AI team aware of this?
If the answer is no, I will save and upload some logs for complete games (though this will take me some time, I'm having little time to play).
Regarding this, I've made a suggestion about allowing saved games to keep the logs of the whole game, to help keep track of all the AIs' decisions.
In most (if not all) my games with around 30 or more systems per player, I've noticed that AIs (all of them) stop colonising available planets from a certain point (usualy around turn 200). With available I mean that those planets are in systems with already one or more colonies or right in between their area of control (and supply).
This behaviour cripples the AI performance for late game, making games boring from a certain point even if you started in disadvantage.
My previous game was 1vs1 (AI turned out to be a gysache, I was human, so it was going to be an interesting game), 100 systems 2-arm spire. I started near the tip of one of the arms while the AI started close to the core. I also was fenced in between some sentinel systems and had three kraken nests behind those sentinels (one on the very end of my spire arm and two next to the galaxy core) that swarmed my spire arm, slowing my research and colonies production down for a while.
Until turn 200 or so AI had more colonies and considerably more PPs than me (around 50% more than me, while RPs were on par), but from that turn on it stopped getting any new colony, despite having maybe as much free planets at it already had. I'm certain that the reason was not the habitability of the planets, because AI already had three or four native species (including humans since it stole one of my planets around turn 150 and I couldn't get it back for a while) as well as most growth techs. I'm also sure it had enough PPs to devote to colonising while still keep a fair military production to at least keep me at bay, since I had less PPs and I was doing right that: colonising while fighting back.
We had been battling each other at the junction between my spire arm and the galaxy core since turn 150 until turn 250. At the beginning I was just withstanding the blows with defense focus, comsats and all the military strength I could gather. From turn 200 or so I began to be on par with it military-wise thanks to better stealth carriers that allowed me to wreck havoc on its fleets with little loses on my side. From then I had same number of colonies than it and my PPs began to surpass its. The number of colonies (and planets) graphs showed that the AI had stopped getting new planets (flat line). From turn 250 I was already taking planets from AI in the galaxy's core. I had already scouted entire galaxy and saw no less than 20 uncolonised systems with nice planets well into AIs territory, as well as available planets within systems with one or more colonies.
Is the AI team aware of this?
If the answer is no, I will save and upload some logs for complete games (though this will take me some time, I'm having little time to play).
Regarding this, I've made a suggestion about allowing saved games to keep the logs of the whole game, to help keep track of all the AIs' decisions.