[Mod] AIKickstart75 - A little encouragement for the AI to colonise

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vzpvjit649qokxw/AIKickStart75v1.rar?dl=0
from GalCiv3 Forums

I was asked for a fix to the Terran/Thalan problem between turn 30 and 150, but tbh I thought it needed a little more work than that.

I'm going away tomorrow night for a few days so it's only an early day work in progress. Regardless, I thought I'd make it available to all.

I've come up with a few basic but productive changes which help the AI expand faster. The AI seems to establish itself a lot quicker but I haven't been able to test it as much as I'd like. I balanced this for normal, but it should work fine on higher difficulties. It should also work with all map settings except perhaps the smallest as it probably will cause over production there. 

I have no idea if there is any conflict with the opt in 1.1 as I haven't done so.

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AIKickstart75 v1.0 for GalCiv3 v1.03

Changes to first 75 turns:

  • Increase time a ship can be idle - AI will no longer decommission their starting colony ship if they cannot see a target planet (for systems with only one planet)
  • Reduced wealth slider setting to 0% until broke
  • Massively increased priority for colony ships
  • AI will no longer build constructors/freighters during the first 20 turns - this also helps prevent new colonies from building expensive durantium refineries immediately upon colonisation
  • If the AI cannot see a target planet for colonisation it will 'bank' military production - currently the AI is not granted 'intuition' until turn 20 (normal difficulty) of planet locations
  • AI encouraged to save money and rushbuy colony ships at turn 21 after 'intuition' granted
  • Greatly increase manufacturing and military sliders at turn 21 for rapid colony ship output

Changes persisting after turn 75:

  • Reduce the AI reaction time in switching strategy when going to war
  • Modify Diplomatic_Strategy_General manufacturing from 10% to 40%, military from 10% to 35%, reduce research from 80% to 50% (These crazy settings were causing the Terran, Thalan, and other diplomatic factions to grind to a halt)
  • Very minor increase in chance to build colony ships/constructors during war
  • Biases for selecting improvements based on planet bonuses removed (AI production sliders are global, without individual colony control planetary bonuses are irrelevant)
  • AI will no longer build tourism/influence (except unique)
  • AI will no longer build defence buildings
  • Minor tweaks to encourage lower quality planets to build more wealth (balanced to work for normal difficulty which currently lacks wealth generation capability without handicap)
  • Planetary build order refined (helps the AI obtain more adjacency bonuses, it's still bad, but bad is better than abysmal)
  • Good quality worlds now have a better chance at building tech/manu capital and hyperion military buildings

Extract to ...MyGames/GalCiv3/Mods/

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vzpvjit649qokxw/AIKickStart75v1.rar?dl=0

 

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Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Wow!  Thanks for this.  I've been playing with this mod as Thalans in a huge galaxy, Challenging difficulty with 7 stock AI factions (all Gifted).  Every AI faction but the Iconians has colonized more planets than me.  I think this is the first time I've seen that happen.  It's finally going to be a challenging game!

Note:  I refuse to use the Pragmatic constructor-to-colonizer cheese.  Here are the counts (gathered from trade display).

Turn 46

  • Thalan (player): 4 colonies, 1 colony ship, 5 starbases, 0 constructors, 4 other ships.  I've colonized everything available in my range.
  • Krynn:  5 colonies, 4 colony ships, 5 starbases, 7 constructors, 9 other ships
  • Iridium:  4 colonies, 5 colony ships, 5 starbases, 6 constructors, 9 other ships
  • Iconion:  2 colonies, 6 colony ships, 1 starbase, 0 constructors, 5 other ships
  • Altarian:  7 colonies, 3 colony ships, 0 starbases, 2 constructors, 15 other ships

Turn 61

  • Thalan (player): 4 colonies, 1 colony ship, 6 starbases, 1 constructor, 4 other ships
  • Krynn:  5 colonies, 0 colony ships, 13 starbases, 10 constructors, 18 other ships
  • Iridium:  7 colonies, 1 colony ship, 9 starbases, 7 constructors, 15 other ships
  • Iconion:  2 colonies, 4 colony ships, 1 starbase, 0 constructors, 8 other ships
  • Altarian:  7 colonies, 3 colony ships, 7 starbases, 10 constructors, 22 other ships
  • Drengin:  7 colonies, 2 colony ships, 8 starbases, 7 constructors, 28 other ships

At this stage, I have yet to meet the Terrans, and the Altarians have declared war on me.  I'm looking forward to this! :)

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Cranky, this will change how the AI plays races, not how you do - so I wouldn't really expect to see much change except for the Terrans possibly working a little better in your playthrough :)

 

Rspiccaver, are these AI tweak similar to Naselus' ones?

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting TurielD, reply 2

Rspiccaver, are these AI tweak similar to Naselus' ones?
End of TurielD's quote

 

Fairly similar - there's a lot of the same ideas in gov.xml and glaciv3ai.xml.

 

My strategy AIs are much, much more wide-reaching. rspiccaver has modified the existing strategies, but not added any; I've split the strats into 10-turn chunks for each personality type covering the first 100 turns, to try and get more fine-detail control over what the AI is doing on, say, turn 40 that it might not want to be doing on turn 53. That's probably a liability for mine on smaller maps, though - I'm anticipating the AI meeting other empires around turn 75, which isn't like to happen on a small map.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

We really need to start working together on these things :P

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting TurielD, reply 4

We really need to start working together on these things :P
End of TurielD's quote

 

I think this was mostly just rspiccaver throwing together some quick-fixes because someone asked for it, rather than a proper mod :) 


I suspect the best approach is to divide the game up into sections - start, midgame and endgame - and each work on a set of strategies for each personality type for that part of the game. Call it turns 1-100 (which I've done for all but about 4 traits), 100-250 and 250 onwards. These eras can then be further subdivided by trait if need be (and it's needed; there's 15 personalities, each of which need to be split into short-ish chunks; I've written around 150 and still need to do 40 or so more).


That would allow us to develop a common AI script framework, which people could then specialize to suit their own specific mods and game sizes. But let's take that to the other thread, and leave this one for feedback on the kickstart AI

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting CrankyMoe, reply 1

Wow!  Thanks for this.  I've been playing with this mod as Thalans in a huge galaxy, Challenging difficulty with 7 stock AI factions (all Gifted).  Every AI faction but the Iconians has colonized more planets than me.  I think this is the first time I've seen that happen.  It's finally going to be a challenging game!

Note:  I refuse to use the Pragmatic constructor-to-colonizer cheese.  Here are the counts (gathered from trade display).

Turn 46

 

    • Thalan (player): 4 colonies, 1 colony ship, 5 starbases, 0 constructors, 4 other ships.  I've colonized everything available in my range.

 

    • Krynn:  5 colonies, 4 colony ships, 5 starbases, 7 constructors, 9 other ships

 

    • Iridium:  4 colonies, 5 colony ships, 5 starbases, 6 constructors, 9 other ships

 

    • Iconion:  2 colonies, 6 colony ships, 1 starbase, 0 constructors, 5 other ships

 

    • Altarian:  7 colonies, 3 colony ships, 0 starbases, 2 constructors, 15 other ships

 

 

Turn 61

 

    • Thalan (player): 4 colonies, 1 colony ship, 6 starbases, 1 constructor, 4 other ships

 

    • Krynn:  5 colonies, 0 colony ships, 13 starbases, 10 constructors, 18 other ships

 

    • Iridium:  7 colonies, 1 colony ship, 9 starbases, 7 constructors, 15 other ships

 

    • Iconion:  2 colonies, 4 colony ships, 1 starbase, 0 constructors, 8 other ships

 

    • Altarian:  7 colonies, 3 colony ships, 7 starbases, 10 constructors, 22 other ships

 

    • Drengin:  7 colonies, 2 colony ships, 8 starbases, 7 constructors, 28 other ships

 


At this stage, I have yet to meet the Terrans, and the Altarians have declared war on me.  I'm looking forward to this! :)

End of CrankyMoe's quote

 

But... but... cheese is good and tasty.  

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting marigoldran, reply 6


But... but... cheese is good and tasty. 

End of marigoldran's quote

No arguments from me about that :grin: .  But I'm an adventurous diner and I wanted to try something else -- look at the all the choices!  Having to fight my way out from so far behind in this game is the most fun I've had with Gal Civ since Twilight of the Arnor.

I know the AIs aren't any smarter with this mod, but it's sure great that they have out-paced me after the colony rush has ended.  The Altarians and Iridium have declared war -- each on a different front -- and are making it a decent fight as they have more manufacturing and war ships than me.