Overpowered AI waits for too long then retreat and loses all

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Oberlus
Cosmic Dragon
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Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:25 pm

Overpowered AI waits for too long then retreat and loses all

#1 Post by Oberlus »

Playing 2017-06-13.a74075f_Test_Win32


3 AIs aggressive, 300 system mature 4 spiral arm, medium everything plus high planets. I'm Etty.
This is the same game where I found a bunch of monsters stacked in a single planet.

As expected, the AIs went ahead of me in production. I kept up on RPs. Blue one was the best one, maybe Egassem or something since got a huge advantage in PPs over the rest. I dominated Purple AI (Gysache, on top of me on the galaxy), but then Blue (left spiral arm) started harrasing me. I dedicated most of my military for to stop him. Gradually I got ahead on research and rushed high end military techs after getting some research-boost techs. Once I got Titanics and high end military I destroyed most of Blues army. But at the time (around turn 200), many turns after I had cleared and colonised Gilly beta (the monsters lair), Yellow (right spiral arm), that had been left alone and got fat, started an onslaugh on Gilly beta.
Comsats and all the forces I didn't need to stop Blue where stationed at Gilla alfa along with 30 comstats to deterrent Yellow from trampling over my rear.
The problem is that this worked too well, to the point of silliness.

At turn 230 we had:
Gilly alfa (mine): 3 planets (191 shield, 45dmg.) and 50 ships (3.5k dmg., 0 fighters, 4.3k hp., 1.9 avg. shield).
Gilly beta (AI's): 6 planets (341 shield. 45dmg.) and 81 ships (8.9k dmg., 54 fighters, 9.7k hp., 5.5 avg. shield).
Yellow had more PPs than me, aroun +30%, and seemed that most of its military investment was rallied to Gilly beta.

At turn 250:
Gilly alfa (mine): 3 planets (491 shield, 45dmg.) and 78 ships (6.3k dmg., 48 fighters, 7.6k hp., 2.7 avg. shield).
Gilly beta (AI's): 6 planets (341 shield. 55dmg.) and 97 ships (14k dmg., 72 fighters, 14k hp., 6.3 avg. shield).
Yellow had comparable PPs than me, and I was in the way to get black hole generator and high end solar hulls.

Around turn 270 (IIRC) AI takes back around 95% of his combat strength scattered in many fleets (as they have been all the time), to go nowhere useful that I could tell. I attack from Gilly alfa and get back the whole Gilly beta system in 2 turns and then pursue the straggler enemy ships. Then AI decides it can't ignore this slap in the face and counterattacks with a force weaker than mine (I was already getting twice its PPs) in deep space. It gets wiped out in that turn. Now I can beat both Yellow and Blue at same time while keeping flat Purple's military strength (that also got a miraculous recovery once the other three left it alone and battled each other), and game is basically sentenced.

Why Yellow didn't wipe out my army at Gilla alfa sometime between turns 210 and 260?
If the answer is "because calculations said the position was disadvantageous (the attack would have been too costly)", then
Why Yellow didn't kept his fleet grouped when close to my solar hull fleet once retreating was decided? And why did AI changed its mine and counterattacked with clearly bad chances to get anything good from that?


This is not the first time I have found this behaviour (AI could pwn me but wait for nothing until I can fight AI back, then AI makes some stupid decission and losses everything). In fact, it seems as the usual pattern when AIs get ahead of me from start and then I catch up (which is a very rare situation, normal situation is 19/20 I am absurdly overpowered before turn 100).

In case it is worth the attention of the AI team, I attach the AI logs between turns 230 and 275 and two saves for turns 230 and 260.
Attachments

[The extension sav has been deactivated and can no longer be displayed.]

[The extension sav has been deactivated and can no longer be displayed.]

bigger_fleat_retreats_AI_logs.zip.002.zip
(2.65 MiB) Downloaded 84 times
bigger_fleat_retreats_AI_logs.zip.001.zip
(3.81 MiB) Downloaded 83 times

Morlic
AI Contributor
Posts: 296
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2015 11:54 am

Re: Overpowered AI waits for too long then retreat and loses

#2 Post by Morlic »

Oberlus wrote: This is not the first time I have found this behaviour (AI could pwn me but wait for nothing until I can fight AI back, then AI makes some stupid decission and losses everything). In fact, it seems as the usual pattern when AIs get ahead of me from start and then I catch up (which is a very rare situation, normal situation is 19/20 I am absurdly overpowered before turn 100).
The issue you describe is perfectly expected from the current AI code. The current military handling of the AI is good for nothing but defending at the moment and also very limited in that regard.

I agree that it is a big problem and is the number one factor of an unchallenging AI. It is the area that I plan to focus my work on in the next few months but it is long-term work rather than a short fix.
In case it is worth the attention of the AI team, I attach the AI logs between turns 230 and 275 and two saves for turns 230 and 260.
Thanks. Having multiple savegames available to test future code changes is very helpful.
If I provided any code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0

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