The war AI sucks

from GalCiv3 Forums

I have been told that the AI for this game is suppose to be really good. Well, perhaps it is when it comes to economic and diplomatic AI, but not war AI. It feels like I am playing Civ 5 vanilla all over again, with incompetent passive AI that doesn't organize units into fleets properly and doesn't attack in any real force or in a organized way. So far I have destroyed almost 2 factions in my current game with ease and lost only 1 planet because it was undefended and a single enemy transport troopship was able to sneak into my empire.

I'm sorry, but once you realize how bad the AI is at waging war the game just becomes not that interesting anymore. Why should care about how awesome I am if the AI just sucks anyway?

 

25,039 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I think the deal is that the AI is going to be good. Its not good right now. I think they are recording player actions to allow the AI to adapt new strategies later on.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top


I have been told that the AI for this game is suppose to be really good. Well, perhaps it is when it comes to economic and diplomatic AI,
End of quote

 

I lol'd.

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting sophontteks, reply 1

I think the deal is that the AI is going to be good. Its not good right now.
End of sophontteks's quote

Oh, how often I have heard game devs say things like that!

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Once they balance things, they can hard code in actual AI strategies.  I understand their plan: the issue is players are MUCH better at finding good strats and breaking the game than Developers. So the plan is to make a reasonable game first, see what the players are doing AND THEN code in the high level strategies for the AI.  

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting hardcore_gamer, reply 3


Quoting sophontteks,
reply 1

I think the deal is that the AI is going to be good. Its not good right now.



Oh, how often I have heard game devs say things like that!

End of hardcore_gamer's quote

 

Yep. 

However, I think your odds of being rewarded for your patience are much better with Stardock than any other company.   We'll see.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

FRoggy is asking for saved games probably to figure out how the Ai plays against us to find out how to improve that. I think you should send it to him when the Ai start sucking.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting marigoldran, reply 4

Once they balance things, they can hard code in actual AI strategies.  I understand their plan: the issue is players are MUCH better at finding good strats and breaking the game than Developers. So the plan is to make a reasonable game first, see what the players are doing AND THEN code in the high level strategies for the AI.  
End of marigoldran's quote

 

Isn't this what the purpose of beta testing is? Where lots of people are given the game before release to test things? Like the AI?

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

No. Beta testing is for the noobs (the ones who suck at strategy games).  And to fix technical bugs.  

There are some beta testers who can do strategy, but they're very much in the minority.  

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

i think the issue is that many of the more advanced strategy gamers have been around way too long to invest time in learning/mastering the beta or 1.0 version of games when they know it's just going to change and improve over time

it's kind of unfortunate because it's better to get feedback early, but almost nobody knows how to ship a complete & finished game at release anymore so the veteran players are conditioned into waiting for patches + expansions

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

The war AI IS awful. Especially on larger maps. The problem mostly stems from the fact that the AI is very dumb with transports. Like, if it has a transport too far from the war, it will never get used. Rather than looking near its borders for enemies, it checks to see if there is an enemy planet within a certain distance of its resting point, usually a rally point next to the shipyard it was just built at. By default, this distance is only 8 parsecs, or "still inside their borders."

I've made a war AI that tries to tackle this problem, but the larger the map, the less it will help, because they get exponentially bigger, and the AI's transports could be anywhere. Currently, it only works on Huge and below. It gets weak on Gigantic, and forget Excessive/Insane. It's a band aid until the devs fix how the AI finds it's own transports. It needs to go "here planet, send transport."

Of course, a bigger problem is that the AI loves Tiny ships too much, and it won't send transports without an escort. Its love affair with Tiny ships means it often sticks those ships in Transport fleets, reducing its range and speed so drastically that it can't reach valid targets. My war AI fixes this too, though it has a side effect that the AI often had undefended planets, because the only ships it will station as defenders are defenseless Tiny ships. I want to think its faster Capitals make up for it, but this remains to be seen. 

Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting The_Biz, reply 9

i think the issue is that many of the more advanced strategy gamers have been around way too long to invest time in learning/mastering the beta or 1.0 version of games when they know it's just going to change and improve over time

it's kind of unfortunate because it's better to get feedback early, but almost nobody knows how to ship a complete & finished game at release anymore so the veteran players are conditioned into waiting for patches + expansions
End of The_Biz's quote

Nah, just getting the AI where it is now took all Beta. Should have seen it before. A lot of work went into the AI, and it's actually almost good. The fact that I can mostly fix it with XML tweaks is proof of that. I lack the tools to fix it completely, though, but that will come. 

Reply #12 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I applaud the work from the community to improve the AI.  I had a great time putting together the AI Improvement Mod for Distant Worlds and know how much time it takes to do what you are doing, you guys rock.

Gal Civ 3 has been fun, certainly more fun that I expected for a game at release and somehow I've played for more than 200 hours already (although god knows how much of that was when the game was left on while being distracted by kids et al).  So props to Stardock for making it fun.

That said, after winning my last two games on Suicidal on a large map in 98 turns and 108 turns (the latter with the 1.1 opt-in) respectively, while avoiding the OTT exploits marigoldran has pointed out, I agree with the OP.  It's time to give the game a break and come back later as an Elite Founder and see what everyone has cooked up.

And for the invariable you must be cheating comments that will come from some, yes the games are on the Metaverse and yes I have save games.  All you need to do is watch Macsen's Let's Plays and it says it all about where the AI is really at right now for this game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7CMEIkNZE0