More than just 'weak' AI?

[Raapys]

The core game mechanics and the AI need a ton of work before this is anywhere near latest version of SE IV in quality. I was hoping the AI would actually be better here in SE V, but I see we're a long distance away from that point. The AI also has major problems adjusting to 'new features' such as fog of war, which creates silly pathfinding problems and sometimes makes the AI waste dozens of ships just because he can't 'remember' that I have 50 Satellites on the other side of that warp point even though he had already tried 4 times that turn to send lone colony ships through.

Let's hope there will be a pure AI focused patch in the near future.

[Shadowstar]

At this point I'd settle for any AI improvements.

Actually what I would love to see is Kwok's mod getting integrated into the stock game once he's got most of the major issues worked out. He could throw in some AI fixes to that too, and maybe make SE5 the game it should be.

If there's even a chance of that happening, I think MM would do well to fully support him in his endeavours. The two of them working together could have some wonderful results.

[Captain Kwok]

The Balance Mod was actually started to replace stock SE:V, but unfortunately there was enough time before release for it to be integrated into the work already done at the time.

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The AI is not as dumb as you think though. It does remember a number that there are enemies on the other sides of warp points and it does calculate your fleet strength and the value of your systems to see if they are good systems to attack. It also remembers the things your empire commits against them and is capable of some "diplomatic thought". Their fleets do patrol various systems and guard warp points. They do designate explorers and surveyors and they will mine and lay satellites at warp points too. Unfortunately there are still some values that need to be tweaked and designs to be improved to exploit their abilities further.

[Raapys]

I don't know. It might look better on paper and in theory. But situations where one AI empire sends 5 seperate fleets in *one* turn with *a single colony ship* in each, even though it has done the same things dozens of times and never had a ship last more than 1 second once through, makes me think it doesn't really work right. It's not even remembering where and how it met my ships the very same turn.

[pujal]

I made a mod yesterday that took out the no-research a few other treaty elements from the game. Sadly it didn't help much. The AI seems very limited in how much they expand and how many research facilities they make.

I want my money back.

[Moriarty]

I want my money back.

Well in the UK you can probably return it under your statutory rights. The game isn't doing what its supposed to be doing after all (i.e. its AI is certainly no challenge, even on hard with 7 "allied" computers against me all of which have a high bonus).



More on topic
What would happen if the AI shared research? They can have "share research" treaties, however after an experiment I found that though I get the AI's tech, he doesn't get mine (even though it says he did). If that bug were fixed maybe the AI's really could ally together and share their research with each other.
Mind that still wouldn't help much if the AI's aren't bothering building research buildings in the first place.

[tmcc]

If you all recall the stcok AI for SEIV was pathetic when the game first came out. Fortunately the user community has a very active modding group that came up with much better AI's, and I would even say some "racialy diverse" AI's. This all took time though.

I have not programmed in about 10 years but I would say step one would be to take a look at what the TDM mod for SEIV had the AI doing and replicate that as closely as possible, taking into account the changes between the two games. That would be a start and the we could tweak from there. If we find that the basic code needs some changes than we will all have to e-mail Aaron with the right requests. Are the TDM guys still part of the community??

[Captain Kwok]

The design of the AI is quite different from SE:IV and it will take some time to build up more detailed functions for it, but there is a ton and potential and I predict in the next year the quality of the AI will be even better than it was in SE:IV after 6+ years of modding.

[pujal]

I really hope so Kwok. I wonder if Strategy First knew how incomplete the game really was when they shipped it out.

[Ragnarok-X]

Well pujal, there were more than enough warnings in this forum. I will probably buy it in a few months.