Syntax_VI

Join Date 09/2015

AI no longer building up starbases?

Just some behavior I've been observing with the AI. They are utilizing economic, mining, & archaeology modules - but not defensive/offensive modules in any way. This is some 350+ turns into a game with lots of starbases and not a one of them has a military upgrade (insane map, probably 15+ players, genius to godlike AI).

They will send their constructors to a base, park inside it, then do nothing for a few turns then leave and go to another starbase (without upgrading modules). Sometimes they just repeatedly load up the same starbase, que out, then go back inside. I think they want to upgrade the starbases, but have forgotten how?

I know I've seen the AI utilize offensive / defensive upgrades before, so I think this is new. Can anyone else confirm and post what size map they are seeing it on?

If you do not want to use god mode, or the fow cheat, an easy way is to go to the diplo screen and hover your mouse over the starbases in their inventory to see if they have completed any military upgrades on their starbases.

It's of course adding to the turn times, to have so many constructors not building just traveling around the map without purpose

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I've also noticed the AI is loading planets with ships, and then moving them out again, pointlessly.

Same behaviour, different object, yes?

I've also noticed starbases tend to be shells, and placement is ... less than optimal.

At least they're finally getting spacing right.

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Has anyone noticed if this was fixed in 1.5 opt in? It's frustrating that the AI now ignores starbases -.-

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tid242

Join Date 04/2008

+18

Quoting Syntax_VI,

reply 2

Has anyone noticed if this was fixed in 1.5 opt in? It's frustrating that the AI now ignores starbases -.-

A couple of hundred turns into a new 1.5 game and have yet to run across an AI star base with more than the default attack/defense. Not sure about other mods though. They are def building archeology modules tho..

(current game resources are turned off).

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tid242

Join Date 04/2008

+18

Quoting tid242,

reply 3

Quoting Syntax_VI,

reply 2

Has anyone noticed if this was fixed in 1.5 opt in? It's frustrating that the AI now ignores starbases -.-

Just to follow up on this, just had an AI surrender a starbase to me, had an econ ring and zero-G scaling. So the AI is building modules on starbases.

In the AI's defense it really didn't have the resources to build it up because I snowballed a good early start super hard and had them on their back foot ever since they stupidly declared war on me out of the blue - so it was rightly putting everything into fleets..

Hope this helps, cheers

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Quoting tid242,

reply 4

Quoting tid242,

reply 3

Quoting Syntax_VI,

reply 2

Has anyone noticed if this was fixed in 1.5 opt in? It's frustrating that the AI now ignores starbases -.-

Just to follow up on this, just had an AI surrender a starbase to me, had an econ ring and zero-G scaling. So the AI is building modules on starbases.

In the AI's defense it really didn't have the resources to build it up because I snowballed a good early start super hard and had them on their back foot ever since they stupidly declared war on me out of the blue - so it was rightly putting everything into fleets..

Hope this helps, cheers

Hi tid242,

thanks for the report, but that seems in line with the complaint. Only economic, mining and archaeology modules are being built. Military modules are being completely ignored.

I had one game that got into the 500 turn range, I used god mode before I ended it, couldn't find one military upgrade on any starbase by any AI. So for whatever reason they've just stopped using them.

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tid242

Join Date 04/2008

+18

Quoting Syntax_VI,

reply 5

Hi tid242,

thanks for the report, but that seems in line with the complaint. Only economic, mining and archaeology modules are being built. Military modules are being completely ignored.

I had one game that got into the 500 turn range, I used god mode before I ended it, couldn't find one military upgrade on any starbase by any AI. So for whatever reason they've just stopped using them.

Ah, I guess I must've skimmed/missed that bit... You know... this did kind of get me thinking though about whether the military build-up mods are actually worth the cost as a general rule. Most of your starbases are not really in forward positions and thus if your rear sb's are getting blown up you've probably already lost the war anyway. As far as forward bases go, the constructor cost to building them up is quite high and for the cost, it's not really clear that it's a smarter strategy than just parking a fleet of similar cost on top of the sb anyway...

What I'm guessing is that bulking up SB's is a fine tractic for two broad overall strategies - turtle-ing and laziness. Since I'm lazy I build up SB's so that I don't have to worry about them because I'm not going to be as good as the AI to micromanage 100 fleets on the fly every single turn. For just being a turtle it's probably a fine strategy as the maintenance is much cheaper than paying for a fleet. But if you're turtling an enemy fleet can just ignore your SB anyway...

Maybe a forward/offensive cultural SB is the only kind that really warrants the allocation of resources required to harden them...

Just a thought..

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yeah, I actually modded the xml files to beef up starbases some time ago. That is partially why I'm concerned. In my version of the game you can turn Starbases into pretty powerful weapon platforms if you invest enough resources. The AI used to do this, but has stopped for some unknown reason (started with 1.4).

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