Where is the vastly improved AI?

bonerfest

Join Date 02/2008

Where is the vastly improved AI?

1.03 claims to provide us with a challenging AI to fight...but I haven't seen one so far. If "vastly" improved AI means givng them a resource bonus with the "unfair" difficulty, than that's just sad. They still run from every engagement, they still are so stupid that they can't win a fleet battle, and they still seem to have no clue what to build (wow...a fleet of 30 percherons, 30 robotics cruisers, and 2 Marzas...great strategy, what are you going to do repair me to death?). I see no point in playing the single player version of this game anymore, it's just a game of repetative boring crap. Attack, enemy retreats, nuke planet, colonize, repeat. The only semi useful mechanic was utilized in 1.02, the one that forces the enemy AI to attack if you begin bombing their homeworld. The problem is, in late game scenarios, I've spent so much time chasing/destroying fleeing fleets, that the forces they assemble to defend their homeworld are rag-tag at best, and offer no kind of challenge.

Now that I have gotten used to how the AI plays (attack the place with the least defenses, the only thing the AI can do well), I have played multiple games against four or more unfair AI opponents without losing a single capitol ship. All you have to do is keep your fleets in key positions, and whenever you move them to any grav well where an AI fleet is they retreat. I have never seen a different outcome...they always run, and this has been a problem since day one. The fact that more time was taken to give the AI the ability to calculate whether or not it can win rather than giving it some actual tactical prowess really saddens me. An unfair AI should be able to use tactics to beat me when it's outnumbered, or outgunned. An unfair AI should know that letting me nuke all his planets without a fight is a futile effort, or that they should make as stand before they're down to 1 world. Maybe "vastly improved AI" means they give up so I don't have to waste my time playing phase jump cat and mouse anymore.

This claim of "vastly improved AI" is a complete falsification, and I am extremely dissapointed with this patch, which I was hoping would fix the issue. If Stardock cannot do anything to actually improve it, not just giving it a resource bonus, than at least implement the "last stand at the homeworld" mechanic for key planets also. That way, the computer will actually give a sh!t about important planets as well. They should do that at the very least. It makes no sense that they would pour so many resources into a planet and then just abandon it at the first sign of the enemy.

If this can't be adressed at all I'm about ready to give up on single player, and I don't have the time to spend long periods of time online playing. Please, Stardock, give the AI some balls so I can have fun playing this game.

And please, don't call me a single player noob... not everyone plays the game online.

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Which AI setting are you guys playing with. I choose random so I don't know.
Maybe there should be a militaristic AI setting that will just allow the AI to continually produce military units.

The AI needs to make more frigate factories on its planets. When being attacked, its is really helpful to be able to produce 3 or 4 ships at a time. I usually have at least 2 factories on my key planets.

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psychoak

Join Date 07/2007

+225

30 repair cruisers work pretty damn good. I just lost a 30 minute battle as advent. Battle, not game, the game was a few hours, lost that too though. Advent shield cheese versus TEC repair cruisers. The AI could reinforce faster(unfair AI), and I wasn't able to wear the fleet down fast enough to get rid of it. Once I reached a threshold on disciples where I was no longer resupplying my antimatter reserves fast enough to sustain the shield restores and keep the guardians running, it was over.

The AI is still being retarded about running away, but the melodrama over how stupid it is needs to disappear. Before the patch, I could defend a world against a full scale invasion without even sending a fleet. 24 points in hangar bays, a couple repair platforms and the rest in turrets was enough to kill the siege frigates, wipe out the enemy strike forces, gain "air" superiority, and neuter the rest of the fleet till it broke. If I did need to send in a fleet, I'd send in a whopping capital ship. Losing a 35 TAC planet with 400+ fleet points defending from the start is a new experience.

Considering how retarded the AI is in most RTS games, I fail to see a massive disparity between even the 1.02 AI and others. What game out there can you not manipulate a cheat free AI into doing really stupid shit? I've not played one yet, I rather doubt anyone else has either, they almost always cheat like crazy and just send waves at you, maybe not even picking a weak point in your empire to target.

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The AI is still being retarded about running away, but the melodrama over how stupid it is needs to disappear. Before the patch, I could defend a world against a full scale invasion without even sending a fleet. 24 points in hangar bays, a couple repair platforms and the rest in turrets was enough to kill the siege frigates, wipe out the enemy strike forces, gain "air" superiority, and neuter the rest of the fleet till it broke. If I did need to send in a fleet, I'd send in a whopping capital ship. Losing a 35 TAC planet with 400+ fleet points defending from the start is a new experience.

However improved their attack ability may be, they still refuse engagements if you fortify your planets. I had one game against 3 unfair AI's and I fortified 4 choke points withe some capitol ships and max tactical slots and they would not even attack. I seriously just sat there and maxed out my tech and fleet capacity, build lots of trade ports and got a super economy while the only ships to attack me were pirates. That's something that's been happening all along as well.

I've also had the enemy jump into a planet with dual PJI's (though I'm still not quite sure if they stack), and I assasinated his level 10 destroyer, which caused him to run. Then they sat at the phase lane for a while as I turned half his frigates and cruisers into dust, also almost taking out a level 10 carrier. So, since they've made the PJI better, they haven't let the AI know that it would be smarter to fight and/or take out the PJIs before running. I mean, its fleet still had a numbers advantage, but it still ran which resulted in terrible casualties.

In my opinion, the changes they made don't help that much, they still need to make some big strides, and I really think it's well within the realm of possibility. Maybe if they had a campaign where your AI opponents had scripted actions this wouldn't be as big of an issue? Too bad they couldn't include something like that.

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So, since they've made the PJI better, they haven't let the AI know that it would be smarter to fight and/or take out the PJIs before running.

Yeah, I am pretty sure the PJI change and the Siege Frigate change were the same panicked response to single player complaints about the AI.

Problem 1: AI love of siege frigates

Problem 2: AI hatred of mismatched forces

Leads to most people's experience of single player being this endless series of half-arsed siege frigate raids which jump out too quickly for them to kill. The quickest way they could think to put out a tested fix that was to make the PJI 450% more effective at lower cost and to make the SFs extremely weak and costly. I am pretty sure this is exactly what drove it because I did exactly the same mod when I first got the game. But it only takes about a couple of hours play to work out what a terrible idea this is without changing other raiding related mechanics or the decision making code for the AI.

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