Larsenex

Join Date 04/2009

+212

Oh fun, the difference between 'Normal' and 'Gifted' is a Joy!

So I restarted a new game.

As I have stated before the default amount of habitable planets seems a bit too many on 'uncommon' and not enough on Rare. Anyway, I started an Insane, 15 AI, Rare/Rare and pretty much occasional on everything else: Resources and Anomalies. I left the game settings on 'Normal' and then set the Drengin and the 'Yar' (Benevolent trading Yor) to 'Gifted'.

Oh man what a difference. The Drengin are ahead by 240 faction points, #1 in all areas. I was 3rd with another aggressive AI at #2.

So can anyone tell me what the AI actually gets from moving from normal to Gifted? I mean actual perks. Does it have no fog of war? Does it get a bonus to both production and research? Does it get extra cash?

I know they are in the XML but I am having trouble figuring out what the basic math bonuses are. +110% to research or +50%?

Anyway, if you modders know the bonuses and can explain them that would be tops!

I am enjoying my game. It looks like the Drengin are going to be a tough fight.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

So I restarted a new game.

As I have stated before the default amount of habitable planets seems a bit too many on 'uncommon' and not enough on Rare. Anyway, I started an Insane, 15 AI, Rare/Rare and pretty much occasional on everything else: Resources and Anomalies. I left the game settings on 'Normal' and then set the Drengin and the 'Yar' (Benevolent trading Yor) to 'Gifted'.

Oh man what a difference. The Drengin are ahead by 240 faction points, #1 in all areas. I was 3rd with another aggressive AI at #2.

So can anyone tell me what the AI actually gets from moving from normal to Gifted? I mean actual perks. Does it have no fog of war? Does it get a bonus to both production and research? Does it get extra cash?

I know they are in the XML but I am having trouble figuring out what the basic math bonuses are. +110% to research or +50%?

Anyway, if you modders know the bonuses and can explain them that would be tops!

I am enjoying my game. It looks like the Drengin are going to be a tough fight.

I think they get moderate bonuses to everything + a chance each turn to get a lump some of research and credits.

Not sure about FOW. I've only ever played on gifted and above and the AI 100% has no FOW on these difficulties.

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Thecw

Join Date 08/2012

+84

Lars,

	Beginner	Normal	Gifted	Genius	Godlike
Credit bonus limit	0	0	0	0	10000	credits
Credit bonus award interval	0	0	0	0	10	turns
Credit bonus award chance	0	0	0	0	50	%
Credit bonus award min	0	0	0	0	500	credits
Credit bonus award max	0	0	0	0	1000	credits
Free War Tech Chance	0	0	1	10	40	%
Free Ideology Point Chance	0	0	10	10	40	%
Free Ideology Point Chance Award	0	0	10	10	20	points
Growth	0	0	10	20	30	%
Production Point Bonus	-25	0	33	25	300	%
Research Bonus	0	0	25	25	25	%
Research Cost Divisor	2	2	2	2	2
Colony Manufacturing Cost Reduction	0	0	20	25	50	%
Colony Maintenance Reduction	0	0	20	50	50	%
Colony Income Bonus	0	0	25	50	200	%
Ship Range	0	0	20	20	100	%
Ship Mass Bonus	0	0	0	10	100	%
Ship Manufacturing Cost Reduction	0	0	20	25	50	%
Ship Maintenance Reduction	0	0	20	50	50	%
Ship Hit Points Bonus	0	0	0	15	50	%
Ship Accuracy	0	0	0	0	15	points
Ship Logistics Bonus	0	0	0	10	0	points
Starbase Hit Point Bonus	0	0	0	15	50	%
Shipyard Hit Points Bonus	0	0	100	100	150	%
Fog of War	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Revealed map on game start	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
No logistics bonus specified for Godlike

All values except for the 'Fog of War' and the 'Revealed map on game start' can be found in the XML. The FOW and RM are observed behaviour.

The research cost divisor seems to influence the tech creep rate, it is not a cost divider.

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erischild

Join Date 01/2012

+136

Nice chart! I am beating the AI on Gifted, which amazes me. I tried bumping the Drengin up to Genius and they ran away with the game. The numbers don't look that badly different, but it makes a difference! And now I know why I will never touch God-like.

Thanks again for the info!

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I want to have 2 more difficulty levels. One just sub-normal and 1 between normal and gifted.

I don't feel like "normal" is very fair to the AI since it can't load and save games. What I'd like to have at a slightly above normal AI is where it has FOW but once it knows about your ship it knows about it. This makes it dealing with pirates a lot easier without using tons of memory.

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I can beat a full game of AIs on gifted (medium size). Haven't tried the harder ones yet. I'm interested in making the AI smarter instead of just having the difficulty be based on cheating or handicapping the AI. Allowing the AI to ignore FOW is a HUGE advantage. They don't have to guess they can go straight for the good planets and build starbases in the best spots. I know teaching a AI to play a game, especially one this complicated is tough. I'm loving the game though. Multiplayer is a real blast!

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Quoting Frogboy,

reply 4

I want to have 2 more difficulty levels. One just sub-normal and 1 between normal and gifted.

I don't feel like "normal" is very fair to the AI since it can't load and save games. What I'd like to have at a slightly above normal AI is where it has FOW but once it knows about your ship it knows about it. This makes it dealing with pirates a lot easier without using tons of memory.

How about beginner and tough? or challenging?

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Does this change based on research rate?

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Larsenex

Join Date 04/2009

+212

TheCW,

WoW, thanks! This chart is EXACTLY what I was looking for. I wil actually print it out here at work. I started a new game literaly this morning and left all AI on normal EXCEPT the Drengin, they get Gifted. I did mod the HAB planet frequency a bit on uncommon setting to be .165 instead of .25. The game feels just about perfect at this point.

Also on a side note, I FINALLY figured out how to show the damn portraits/Pictures people have posted! I was putting the darn things into the mod folder (DOH)! I am so loving the game so much more now.

I am playing the customer faction EMPIRE OF VULCAN with good ole Bearded Spock. I must say its the best fun so far.

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erischild

Join Date 01/2012

+136

I expect "normal" to creep up in capability to where a lot of people are not going to be able to keep up with it, especially if they are new to the mechanics. I have always thought you would come up with a new level called "Experienced" that was actually the no-handicap level, and "Normal" would be quietly handing the human a few little bonuses. If we are giving out handicaps, shouldn't we give the Beginner no FOW?

I like the idea of finer gradations in the challenge level. I played a lot of GC2 on one level before I dared move up, sometimes to a point of less fun at the one level and pure frustration at the higher level. Making it more of a climb and less of a cliff between levels would be good.

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Thecw

Join Date 08/2012

+84

Quoting erischild,

reply 9

If we are giving out handicaps, shouldn't we give the Beginner no FOW?

No. Having no FOW is actually a bonus.

A tile has three states (for every player/AI):

Unexplored - You (or the AI) have never seen this tile and don't know what is currently there;
Explored, but under FOW - You have seen the tile in the past, but it is currently outside sensor range of anything. Known stationary objects can be seen, but mobile objects (like ships) are not shown;
Explored and not under FOW - The tile is currently covered by your sensor range. Everything in the tile is visible.

The player always plays with FOW and without revealed map. This mean that the AI at Beginner and Normal plays with the same visibility rules as the player. However on Gifted once the AI has explored a tile it will always known what is there, and on the higher levels the AI does not even need to explore tiles to know what is there.

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eviator

Join Date 08/2014

+62

Today I tried all stock AIs on gifted, Gigantic, uncommon habitable, figured it would be a challenge since I clobber the AI on normal. On turn 56 I did a cycle through of trade and found my two nearest opponents had double the number of planets I did and their average class 14 while my average was 10.5. I thought maybe gifted got planet class boosts, but maybe I just got unlucky. Well now one of them, the Krynn, are chugging out medium ships and noticed I don't have any military, so they declared war on me. Yeah, I'm toast. I think I'll try a new game to see if it was really luck, or if it was gifted is too challenging for me.

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