My AI tests have moved to the latest version 1.32. I'm using my own newest custom map, Sedition, which is a multistar. Game settings are unlocked FFA, no allied victors. I turned the pirates on because I feel they are usable now, while the Diplomatic Victory condition remains off until it is replaced, I can't see any future in the current version without drastic alterations.
On Unfair I played Vasari and was able to overwhelm the nearest AI, another Vasari, because it chose to build a dozen turrets at each of its planets like anyone teaching new players explains not to. The Fortifier AI evidently needs more work. Anyway, after this I simply ignored the diplomatic techs and destroyed each of the other AIs in turn, it was no contest. Two of the Advent AIs did manage to make a firm alliance but it should be remembered that this doesn't imply any cooperation between their fleets, and I was able to attack one without the other interfering, which suggests that the penalty for attacking the ally of another faction needs lokking at- possible automatic loss of ceasefire?
Playing at Unfair level was quite a dull exercise. I would recommend that the 1.31 levels of AI relationship bonus be restored to make the game more viable. I also noticed that the pirates 'attacked' a dead asteroid I owned but had nothing built on, weren't they supposed to go for high priority targets?
I boosted the AI to Cruel levels, took Advent and set up just one other Advent AI with three TEC and three Vasari, as the element of similar factions cooperating seems to work well. I'm not fond of Cruel and Vicious levels because they cheat so much that it just disguises poorly thought out gameplay, but whatever.
My start was similar, taking an ice and my roid, but just after I sent my colony cap to another roid the nearby Vasari jumped my ice with a Level 4 Skirantra, a Marauder, 2 carrier cruisers and some frigates. I only had one factory and some Disciples at this stage, so I had to send them in and use my godly battle tactics STOP EXPLODING YOU COWARDS. This failed and though I built a carrier cap, returned my colony cap and had some frigates, I considered it prudent to send the pirates after my opponent, which was expensive but effective in the short term.
So on Cruel level I was finally forced to investigate the relations tech tree, maxing the flat bonus and building 9 envoys. One of the TEC factions had taken a dead roid and by sieging the starbase there to complete missions, and resorting to outright bribery I was able to obtain a ceasefire with the Vasari and send the envoys in to make it stick.
The Advent in the other system quickly perished, this left 2 Vasari allied in the other system, an alliance between 2 TEC factions one from each system, and a third TEC faction attacked by me and my new Vasari ally. Even against cruel AIs I quickly gained an economic lead as they dont seem to comprehend the need to keep credit rates high or have the ability to make trade routes with starbases included, and I was able to profit the most from the destruction of the lone TEC.
There doesn't seem much left in this game as the cross system TEC allies have just surrendered. My Vasari ally is also allied with one of the paired Vasaris but I have ceasefires with all of them and the AI isn't equipped to recognise by how much my faction is ahead of any of theirs, so they should prove fairly easy to divide and conquer.
The Cruel game began fairly brightly but the AI just doesn't have the ability to play the middle and late games. It needs to recognise when the player is becoming a threat, especially if it is being cheated by a player who ensures that the profits of an alliance in terms of planets all go to him.
The AI relations factor that compares fleet strength actually rewards a powerful player, which makes for a poorer game. The intention may be to penalise players who go for a total economy strategy, but surely it is far better to simply have another separate factor which compares credit income, and penalise for that too? The penalty levels then need amping up.
Also the AI needs a sense of how many planets each faction has. The adjacency will suffice for this, and either it seems to be working better in 1.32 or my setup favoured however it works, however the penalty level needs a considerable boost.
Conclusion or TL;DR
The AI is poorer in 1.32 unless you play on the super-cheat levels. Even then, it is far too easy to have cease-fires with all surviving factions in the mid and late game, because there are insufficient means for the AI to develop animosity toward a leading faction, no matter how strong they are or how close to winning the game.
Stiffer penalties for proximity to another empire, as well as the leading factions being penalised rather than rewarded for stronger fleets, and a new penalty on the basis of compared credit income rates, would help to improve play later in the game.
Hmmm ... this conclusion seems to make a bit of sense at least from a 'non-play tested' standpoint. At the very least I would be curious to see how games with this setup worked out in a 'beta-patch'. That way StarDock doesn't have to commit the common player base to this but would allow people to test it also.
No to increasing the penalty for adjacency. Its already a little off how far away empires make alliances with each other despite never seeing each other.Yes to giving a penalty to the team that is obviously winning. Would make late game diplomacy more interesting and challenging.
I'm not sure that I follow your logic on adjacency, could you elaborate a little? It seems to me that it would be far better to make pacts with far-off empires that are not competing with you for the same resources or expanding into the same areas. Also, encouraging the AI to maintain a compact empire rather than fighting far away from its home is greatly to be desired. Another reason is to prevent players just stealing planets everywhere they can, this is something of a flaw with the basic game mechanics but it can be compensated for. Without heavy adjacency penalties you can just send colonisers wherever you have a cease fire with a faction, as the AI rarely makes a swift capture of a planet following a successful combat.
I've continued my game with the Cruel AIs but as I feared it has become somewhat routine. My Vasari ally managed to ally with one of the other two, and this led to the alliance of the two Vasaris in the same system breaking up. I had ceasefires with all of them and was able to pick up the 4-5 planets left by the surrendered TEC factions- basically all of their planets, one Vasari may have got a roid and another a dead roid. It was then laughably easy to betray my ally, leading to the worst relations level I have yet seen, something like -20 after I had destroyed its home and the best of its planets. This Vasari, obviously sustained by hate, is fighting on from a single roid, while the TEC empires all surrendered while their home planets were entirely infact and with substantial fleet left to guard them.
Despite my obvious duplicity the Vasaris still believe me and I am now allied with one against the other. I have an entire system to myself, plus a third of the Vasari system. Incidentally, if the ridiculous Diplomatic Victory was in effect I might be in trouble because of the persistence of the -20 Vasari on its single roid, despite my dominant relations position. It would be much simpler to have a victory condition where if you achieved peace with all surviving factions you won, rather than this odd points victory. One of my favourite options apart from the artifact victory, is the straight technological victory, an equivalent of the 'wonder victory', this might improve the AI no end as it became more of a race to stop the super-cheat ones. As it is they get bogged down with aimless play because they just react to whoever they are unfriendly with.
It was another thread, but we had a discussion on supposedly 'old skool' RTS games with finite resources, compared to the advanced type with infinite resources limited by rates, to achieve vast armies over time. Where I consider RTS games to have gone wrong is in the reduction in the variations on how to achieve victory. Age of Empires 2 was such a classic game in this respect, there were artifact and wonder victories as standard, as well as king of the hill and space invader options. Another option was the assassin style, where you had a unit the 'king' that had to be protected or the game was lost, that might work well for Sins, you could nominated a 'king' ship using the same mechanic you nominate fleet leaders with. You might have to start with a capship rather than build a free one, or only have to nominate a 'king' from five minutes in, but that would be easy enough. You could transfer a 'king' from ship to ship given a sufficiently peaceful gravwell- there, a purpose for titan tech. Then human FFA games might be playable. Frankly I feel that RTS has gone downhill since AoE2, and that its the fault of developers who claim that vast numbers of units equal strategy, rather than cleverness of gameplay.
Finally, I've also made liberal use of one particularly cynical method of defeating the AI, which is to take advantage of ceasefires to build starbases in their gravwells. I feel that if anything is a little off this is, building a starbase is a very hostile act, why should an empire I only have a ceasefire with permit it? Another recommendation is to require at least a peace treaty before you can build starbases in another empires gravwells, otherwise it should necessitate a declaration of war.
You play fortifier ai and then complain that he spamms turrets.
Well it was random AI, it just became obvious that it had produced a fortifier AI right next to me. A fortifier AI isn't a bad concept per se, but the AI places structures really badly in Sins. Even just instructing the AI to build all its structures as close together as it could would be a vast improvement. Also the fortifier AI might aim to conquer all worlds within two jumps from its home before it began to fortify, and then use starbases first. Turrets are a really poor choice for the AI in the early game because human players can just use bombers or LRF against them.
Mines are still a real problem for the game, wasn't there a consensus on severely reducing the number and massively increasing the damage? That would also help a fortifier AI. As it is mines cost as much as a ship and rarely destroy one.
Another aspect of the game I've noticed is that the super-AIs need far less real estate to max than players or more normal AIs, which has implications for map design. On Sedition a player should be about maxed right at the end of the game, with total control over one of the systems. The cruel AIs seem to manage to max off about a third of a system, so for them a fortifier AI may not be as bad a concept as it would be otherwise.
We had a discussion about player-scripted Ais or player input into AI a while ago, but nothing seems to have come of it. Age of Empires 2 (again) had player-scriptable AI which produced some astonishing AI. Sins has AI scripts but they have been hidden, I'm sure that they would be #1 on any modders list of wants.
I still haven't finished my game against the cruel AI, but there has been a pleasant surprise. For once I had my forces do most of the fighting as I took both its Terran homeworlds off one of the Vasari. At the start of the second fight I began the 'death of the envoys'. As soon as the Vasari resigned, however, the Vasari that had fought on off one asteroid resigned as well. Not that it had even a ceasefire with the Vasari that quit, mind. So instead of me being able to decoy the remaining AI using this practically non-existent enemy it was suddenly game on, lets get it all out in the open, I never liked you anyway etc! Super swiz! I just cannot see any reason whatsoever for the one-roid Vasari to suddenly quit other than as an aid to the remaining AI against the player- not that this is a bad thing, but I wonder what sort of rule produced it, and whether there could be other more subtle uses for it.
Agreed 100%. A moddable AI would be one of the best improvements the game could offer, IMO.
It's also among the things they've said they can't do.
Shame. I'd even have been willing to pay a lot of money for a version if I could have been able to mod the AI.
You and a dozen other modders...
This would be a big improvement.
The Unity's vow of vengeance has at last been fulfilled, the Vicious AI next up.
Finally having to face a Cruel AI 1v1 without the advantage of surprise, for the first time since the start of the game, prompted the feeling that it wasn't very good, really. And it isn't. At the start of the game the territory fought over is much smaller, allowing the AI to seem more focussed. The late-game Cruel AI isn't good at keeping its fleet together, which is fatal. This may be an issue with Sins versions- before Entrenchment, several attacks spread throughout the systems might have been a good method of maximising the AI task management potential, however against starbases much heavier detachments are needed, to the point where splitting the fleet at all isn't advisable.
Also, it occurred to me that because the AI has production and research advantages, these are much more evident at the start of the game, and much less significant at the end, where you might as well be fighting a Normal AI... is this right? So if you set up huge maps where it takes time for the AI to get to grips with you there is no particular cachet in fighting a Vicious AI? Other RTS games increase the combat potential of enemy units with the difficulty level, which allows their AI to retain an advantage into the late game. I have to say that I'm not a fan of this, even less than I'm a fan of production and research cheats. However having the super-AI lose its advantage as a game wears on would seem to lead to dull wait-it-out type strategy?
One solution to this lies in the victory conditions as discussed earlier- if you have a Wonder/Technological victory condition then obviously a Wonder-focussed super-cheat AI will be much more of a threat to the player as it will build its Wonder far earlier. However another possibility might be to allow the AI to have much more generous supply limits than a human player, which might solve the disposal of its fleets as a problem as well. Having a Vicious AI with 5x the fleet of your own seems slightly daunting, but it would even out the AI advantage from early game to late game.
The Cruel AI did manage to build a super-weapon, but the AI that survived to the end didn't have any, so no super-weapons were used against me. This problem may also befall the Titans, without changes to the AI, no? From the records I noticed that I was actually running a fleet two levels below the supply level of the Cruel AIs for a time while I built a big economic advantage, the sort of tactic the current fleet strength modifier is meant to stop. If it isn't altered to my suggested stop-the-leader configuration, with and additional economic modifier, then at least it needs boosting significantly to have any effect.
That brings me to problems I've always had with the method used for relations. Firstly the method is too open and too linear, there's no way a player should be certain that completing a particular mission should grant a desired ceasefire. Secondly the system spends far too much of its range on dealing with exotic pacts, while what is important in the game is whether you can obtain a ceasefire with factions you need to have one with. Ceasefires, with the ability to send envoys, are just too enduring. Also, the current penalties in the game for just being an extremely treacherous and downright evil ally are simply too weak. When I backstabbed my faithful +20 Vasari ally and reduced them to -20, the other Vasari maintained their touching devotion to my sense of fair dealing, and I was able to deal with a second one in like manner. They never saw it coming, ho hum.
What I'd like to compare ceasefires to is the black market, which has periodic booms and busts to prevent players becoming too reliant on it. I suggest that a similar system should work for relations, so you have random factors that impact the relations level betwen two factions (another reason to be rid of the stupid Diplomatic Victory as it currently is). Then any newly-achieved ceasefire would be very fragile. There might be a problem with pacts being dropped and taken up again, but this could be easily solved by simply making factions more reluctant to drop anything they have signed, insulating them against the random effect. Pacts could be helped by making it that once signed, they are maintained unles the basic peace treaty is lost, for instance. Again, it is the ceasefires that have a dramatic effect on the game, not +10% weapons bonus, however nice.
Lastly, on building starbases in other empires gravwells, it occurred to me that this is something the AI should definitely be programmed to take advantage of, after all production is what it is best at. It could even replace the lost 'embassy' concept. Once a peace treaty is signed, the AI should 'insure' itself by starbasing as many of its new ally's gravwells as possible, that will teach you treacherous scum humans...
Vicious is where the Fortifier AI really takes off. You'll see fully upgraded starbases and maxed out minefields by the 20 minute mark, depending on the faction. Try assaulting Advent planets when each has 150 homing mines in orbit... Of course that is more a problem of the homing mines outranging Scout weapons. That and Scout AI still spazzes out half the time when clearing mines, unless you hold their hands at each step of the process.
I'll go into more detail with my attempt at the Vicious AI on Sedition. Setup is all random types of AI 2 Advent 2 Vasari 3 TEC, I am playing Advent. Unlocked FFA, normal fleets, quick start and faster speed, pirates on.
My initial objectives are not to lose early- I am wary of what happened with the Cruel AI, a 5x production enemy 3 jumps away is no joke. Ideally I want 2 ceasefires within my system, particularly a ceasfire with the nearest enemy, then I will win.
I spawn at the bottom right position, that is Player #6. Early scouting reveals that I have a TEC across the gas giant. There is an Advent at the Player #5 position and another TEC at Player #2. I'm not bothered with the other system as yet, which is as well, as my scouts dont get there before being destroyed.
One element of luck is that the nearby plasma storm is blessed with 3 extractors. There's another crystal extractor on the junk next to the pirates. My early build is a Halcyon, 4 Disciples and 2 colonisers. The Halcyon goes to the ice, the coloniser to the roid and the rest to the plasma storm. I also want to be able to reinforce quickly so I build another factory, and I am going to build 3 military labs at my home, so I build one straight away. I want 3 military labs for starbases, and I want 2 quickly for regen units, which are vital for early play.
I take the roid with the coloniser and have a few shots at the siege frigate, then send it off to the junk. 2 turrets are enough to take the roid. I make short work of the defenders at the plasma storm but i have to retreat the coloniser and build another one to take the last extractor. My scouts pick up that the blue TEC opposite me has a Marza and 10 cobalts at the volcanic.
Another gamble is that I will build my civic labs at the roid to take the ice, this wouldn't work against a human player but the AI is notoriously slow to pick up planets when it requires research, and I suspect the Vicious AI will be no different. The income from my neutral extractors and high prices for crystal on the black market allow me to put up my military and civic labs and take the roid beyond the plasma storm with my coloniser. The blue AI does bypass the roid I have built up and try a raid on my home with 10 cobalts, but I quickly build a regen there and it retreats. I have 2 missions to destroy blue ships so I try to catch them, but this fails. I take the ice. Blue makes a raid on my civics roid but is easily scared off.
I want to avoid bidding for pirates in this game and decide to accept the first raid, a 250 credit attack aimed at my new roid near the plasma storm. I have 2 turrets there already from taking it but have to build the regen bay as the attack is incoming, and a turret is destroyed. This is enough to exhaust the bounty on me, but the pirates attack anyway and the regen goes down. I decide that the extractors are too important to lose and send my fleet there, now a Halcyon and about 8 Disciples with the first Illuminators appearing. Meanwhile I have starbased the civics roid and upped the defense.
Though I lose the remaining turret before my fleet gets there, engaging the 10 cuttthroats and 9 basic frigates is easy, I just hug the edge of the gravwell and retreat any ship they attack. I still lose a couple of Disciples but by the end of the battle I have about 8 additional Illuminators, which together with fighters off the carrier make short work of the pirates. Straight after the battle I have to defend from blue at the ice, and then after that at the roid. Simultaneous attacks might have been more of a problem and now I can starbase the ice as well.
My relations have been disappointing, though I have researched two levels of flat rate plus gifts and envoys, my only achievement is a ceasefire with the Advent AI after I sent 3 envoys there- and lost a further 2 in a miscalculation, my most expensive error to date. I can't get a ceasefire with the blue AI which is what I desire most. Looking at the modifiers, the blue AI has vastly more ships than me yet I only get a negative modifier of -0.01 for that??? The most significant modifiers are -1.05 racial, -0.5 adjacent, -1.17 military actions and +2.6 research, but this leaves me far from a position where I might be motivated to build envoys. I'll just have to keep watching for an opening but -3 is not promising. I have +5.6 with the Advent in the other system which I haven't even located.
Blue pours on the pressure and now has anti-structure cruisers which is alarming, however I fight them off at first the ice, where the starbase is dangerously hurt, and then the roid, where they have only Marzas and frigates and which is expensive for them. I can build a second Halcyon, a third starbase at my other roid and finally my third civics lab at the ice, as well as a culture centre at the civics roid. I have to face a further couple of pirate attacks but they were only a danger to a very newly colonised roid, and my starbases with 6+ turrets and 3 regen laugh at them.
And that is where I saved the game to post this. I have my home 2 roids and an ice, as well as 4 neutral extractors which the aI has not contested. There are a further 2 extractors at the gas giant but blue has a grip on them and I just keep scouting to try to sneak my colony ships in.
My next move is trade to boost my income, including a fourth starbase at the plasma. Looking at the stats, even without trade my economy leads all others with a very low 20 credit rate.. some of the Vicious AIs have credit income rates as low as 7-8. Can this be right? Is the multiplier not reflected in the stats or something, so that they have a real income of 35-40? Otherwise something very wrong there, I'll look into that next session. I do have the lowest fleet strength of all at 37, while the highest is my direct opponent -blue has 156!! That might mean further problems, with blue just pressurising me too much for me to get a grip, though I can at last research phase inhibitors which just destroy a retreating AI. For some reason the AI does not prioritise the destruction of phase inhibitors, and phase inhibitors should always be the first priority, dont even attack if you cant take them out quickly. Another much-needed AI routine change.
Lastly.. I just can't see why you would regard even a Vicious Fortifier as difficult. Mines, starbases, so what? The AI cannot place structures to advantage anyway, mines included. The problem I'm having in this game is avoiding being overwhelmed by the most aggressive AI in the game, which just hates me more as it loses more ships. A fortifier AI would just allow me to ignore it, finish its missions and send envoys. Eventually I would mop it up with bombers, which kill even maxed Starbases without any risk from mines. AI mines are usually badly placed anyway, they are not very powerful, the loss of even a dozen or twenty scouts scarcely justfies the cost, and you can usually get away with losing less by using flak with the scouts. If it deployed starbases aggressively and constantly, well maybe. Can you explain further?
Those income amounts don't account for their cheat. So their actual income is 8*6 = 48, which is enough after-upkeep income to squeek by in an end-game scenario if they don't take heavy casualties. Combined with savings from earlier in the game (they can't seem to spend it fast enough even with the ability to purchase capital ship levels up to 6 and research technologies ridiculously quickly) they can keep going for a surprisingly long time.
Still, in the long-run even the vicious will lose to sheer attrition from a well-build player empire.
Thanks for the feedback. The AI still needs some tweaking on a number of points, which I've scheduled for Rebellion. Depending on how that goes and if it's possible, we may be able to backport some of those changes to Diplomacy.
DesConner - You may be happy to know that I've completely rewritten the Diplomatic Victory condition for Rebellion.
WOOHOO!!!
I've always considered that the game needed more detailed commentary to help it improve. I wouldn't be too concerned with backporting, either, just get one version of the game right.
I'm extremely pleased to learn of the unlamented demise of the Diplomatic Victory, though I'd like a few hints as to what you've gone for as a replacement, as I couldn't see how any points-based system could function without not only being crap but also dragging the rest of the relations system down with it. I've tried to describe a few other victory styles from other RTS, the artifact and wonder styles are favourites and the latter might be especially suitable for Rebellion, wwith its vast Titans. Assassin-style might also be good for a game where the major units can't hide.
I continued my Vicious game for a short time last night. Theere's a passage in 'For Whom The Bell Tolls' when Golz has given the orders for his attack, knowing that it will fail 'Bon. Nous ferons notre petit possible.' The Vicious game started more lively than the other two, which made me hopeful despite having dragged through two very straightforward wins before. However the Vicious AI seems to have a vast flaw which has doomed this game already.
It occurred to me that though I had sent envoys to the Advent AI, they might be more useful at the planets of the yellow TEC AI, and I had almost the relations level required for a ceasefire. What was holding me back was their relations to me and I discovered that completing the third level of relations tech would give me a self-bonus that would put me over the 3.5 needed. This was an especially easy ceasefire considering that it was Advent-TEC, they hadn't done anything for me and I had completed none of their missions and I had a ceasefire with their Advent enemy. The numbers really need some more work if this is a good example. Here's a concept- what if racial dislike was a multiplier rather than a flat modifier?
Incidentally, the Advent are Rasaeida Sect and the yellow TEC Luopica Colonists. The blue TEC fighting me are Provians. There was a thread earlier about linking specific faction names to specific strategies, to give the game a little more character, so that Provians would always indicate a Fortifier AI, for instance, rather than the aggressive AI in this game. With new factions emerging in Rebellion is it possible to add this feature? I can link to the thread if it helps?
Anyway, having obtained the ceasefire, I duly sent the envoys to the TEC where they were more needed. At the TEC home planet I made the Awful Discovery. The Advent AI had secured the ice planet just next to the TEC and had culture there... but there were no culture centres in the entire yellow TEC empire. Facepalm time. Also, the yellow TEC fleet were just sitting there, unaware of the imminent downfall of their beloved home. I had a culture centre on my roid but it hadn't been until much later that I had been able to build a second one on the ice, and neither were right next to the blue Provians home... however, it was at about the same time that the Provians volcanic planet went down to my culture, so that TEC has no culture either.
So this Vicious game will now be a walkover, I'll easily get a full peace with the other Advent and I already had ceasefires in the other system without having seen the other factions anyway, another dull game. I only had one other Advent than myself in the Cruel game, and it went down early to Vasari, which must be why I didn't see this then, unless it is something specific to do with the Vicious AI and its early fleeting. Perhaps it is only one type of TEC AI that it applies to and I was just unlucky enough to have them both turn up in this game? Anyway, I'll play it out and run a few tests, I had avoided playing the Vicious AI before because I'm not keen on the cheat level, it just seems an excuse to hide flaws in the basic AI.
The blue Provians have continued to press though, without their secret flaw this might have been a better game, as I would be very much delayed taking them down and I can't get a ceasefire. I found Forewarning necessary, which I don't often research, but this time it allowed me to have a fleet at the home planet and cover both the ice and the roid. I suppose I should congratulate myself for this, because my star radius is twice standard, allowing phase lanes that are long enough for Forewarning to have value. Many custom maps ignore this, perhaps because having fleets travel for any length of time is considered dull.
Another help is the turrets, having criticised the fortifier AI it might seem odd that I would build so many myself. There are obvious differences- I cluster mine and support them with repair, but what I need turrets for is to take the pressure off my expensive-to-replace starbases. The AI may still be dumb when it comes to starbase attack, but now its fleet composition is stunningly improved from what it used to be in previos versions and at least the TEC AI fields structure-busters which destroy starbases. Just a shame that the TEC AIs are doomed.. Anyway, the turrets soak up damage from these ships giving me time to save the starbase. Also, the starbase attack is not much when first built, and turrets greatly improve it. the AI still loses too many ships attacking starbases- wouldn't it be easy to have a simple rule that compared the size of fleet to the starbase, and said to quit attacking or not to attack without a chance of success? Why do AI carriers not stay on the gravwell edges?
Bombers might still be a problem, which brings me to a discussion of the carrier capital. There is really no other choice, if I had any other the Vicious AI might have overwhelmed me. And if a ship is that far out of line compared with its rivals, even against AI, that should have implications for multiplayer balance. The Halcyon can produce vast clouds of fighters to destroy anti-structure cruisers while also sitting under the starbase and destroying enemy strikecraft, and it costs almost no antimatter in your own culture. After repelling a few more attacks I am building Drone Hosts, my intention is to use these to host my fighters and convert my carrier caps to bombers when it comes to my turn to attack starbases. Bombers take more damage in strikecraft combat and cost nothing to rebuild on the carrier capitals, which I have long argued against (should be half-cost for carrier capital strikecraft). The Halcyon is thus fulfilling the roles of at least three different types of ship for my fleet, anti-artillery, flak and anti-structure. A Radiance would do almost nothing for me, and a Mothership would only be useful on the defensive. This, far more than single ship capital vs capital (which they win), is why carrier capitals outclass the others.
By the end of this session I was able to build a fourth starbase in the plasma storm, making trade viable. I wanted six military bases for illlusion for the Illuminators and for Meteors, so the amount of space was limited, however I scuttled my capital ship factory for the moment and built a route roid-plasma-home-ice. At the very end I built a fifth starbase at home with more trade, giving me an income of just under 30. Not great, but sufficient to finance the next supply step, and my aim is then to extend it by taking the Provians roid. After one battle at the ice I was able to chase their fleet into the gas giant and take the two extractors there as well. They did send a colony ship to my coveted three-extractor plasma storm, but I exploded it ha ha.
This is where I have more doubts about the vicious AI. They might have enough income to 'squeak by'- but hang on, they are supposed to be Vicious, not barely effective. Their early strength should go into investment- at least the Economic AI? Maybe there just isn't an Economic in this game, but I led the Cruel game easily as well.. Again, I suppose I can run another test and deliberately put various AIs in to see what they do. This sort of testing takes a lot of time though. It would be a pain if Cruel and Vicious AI merely implied that, if they are close enough to your home, you have to defend at the start. Otherwise, it seems that the advantage of the super-AIs disappears quickly as they fleet, no? At the beginning Vicious might have five times my income but if its base remains low its advantage will be cut very heavily. If I have 30 net income and a Vicious has 10 (x5) that is less than double? Perhaps I should have played the 1.3 or 1.31 Vicious AI which might have had the bonus diplomatic advantage I had asked for repeatedly, but which has now largely disappeared.
Though I've been very critical of the current AI throughout this playtest series, perhaps its as well to mention what goes into it. Age of Empires 2 had scriptable AI, but that entailed a manual about six times as long as the manual that came with Sins- or with Age of Empires 2 itself, for that matter. Good AI scripts require a lot of work and especially testing, which is why only the community and the ability to set competing scripts against each other will help. Sins has been around for years now, had the community been able to mod the AI and fight each other by remote as it were, the improvement would no doubt be unimaginable. The tactical AI needs far less work than the production/placement AI. It is very difficult for a small development team to produce the kind of effort required. However, decent Sins AI may not be a hopeless dream, there have been some improvements, long may they continue.
Well I played another session of this, though it has become something of a chore, the Vicious AI fills every gravwell with mines very early on and Advent aren't the best at sieging- unless the enemy fails to deploy culture.
I researched the meteor upgrade and with 2 levels of upgrade my bigger starbases can hold entire AI fleets. THe AM cost is negligible. With all the fuss about phasic traps I wondered whether Advent starbases will become nerf flavour of the month sometime? Being able to spam such a deadly ability forever with low CD is certainly very strong in single player.
I wasn't able to take the Provian roid before upgrading supply though, so I put trade on more starbases. First I had to fight again at the gas giant, and then rush over to my own roid as my starbase there hadn't finished its meteor upgrade and was still only level 2 health upgrade when Provians attacked, which cost them their fleet. With my fleet there I decided to take the volcanic first, the metal would be very useful. I also sent a further 6 envoys to Rasaeida Sect, and after a give metal mission gained vision, though they had yet to penetrate the other system either.
Provians still had a fleet at one of their dead roids but it did nothing as I began to attack the volcanic, with its 18000 health starbase, seven hangars and mines with turrets dispersed in them. Unfortunately for them their defence was in two halves, one half with a repair, four hangars and three turrets, so I started there. First the bombers took out the repair and turrets, then scouts/flak destroyed the mines and finally my Illuminators got the hangars. During the attack on the massive starbase, Provians mounted an attack on my roid starbase so I sent the frigates back for that, and also a sneak attack on the plasma storm which sniped my very weak trade starbase there and took my extractors. Swine, just after I commented that smaller AI fleets do nothing!
AI minefields really are a pain though, they make the game a chore and hit framerate hard. Also the TEC mines are fairly hopeless, I ran my capitals over them to help clear the well and even then they fail to explode or are very late exploding, and 460 damage is not much to a capital. The devs should have acted on mines after the discussion we had, I don't know why they didn't. If they haven't a fix before Rebellion, then expect posts on how useful Titans are as giant minesweepers... ho hum. Fewer mines, but mines which hit far harder is the solution. That would also allow a smaller number to cover a greater area. And I don't mean +10% either I mean five times harder, possibly with upgrades for more. The history of warfare has mines as extremely deadly, just one hit could sink a frigate or cruiser- even a capital ship, there have been many examples of this.
I captured the volcanic while the Provian starbase was still up and started building. I replaced my capital ship factory and added 2 frigate factories, with culture and civics. This allowed me to scuttle my factories at home and replace them with trade, so it was nearly as good as taking the roid. I then built a colony capital. Half the fleet were sent to cover the rebuilding of my starbase at the plasma, while the other half pounced on the Provian home, which only had a small starbase, quickly destroyed. However a Provian fleet showed up as I was bombing the planet and before I had made inroads on the mines, so I retreated my half-fleet, really no more than capitals, Drone Hosts, flak and scouts. I hadn't been able to bomb the Provian home planet fully, but when I left it was at 10% allegiance and it was dubious whether I could have finished bombing it before they gave up anyway.
Meanwhile relations with Rasaeida Sect have improved to the extent that I have a research pact, after I upgraded my envoys.. do the upgrades mean that envoys are more effective? Also, I took a ceasefire with Lexmada even though I still have no clue where they are. I began to research jumps to get my scouts to the other system, however the only faction I am still at war with other than Provians is Korsul Armada, so I could send them via the phase lanes now. Just as I was about to save and quit I noticed that the Luopica Colonist fleet had finally decided to fight Rasaeida Sect- for an asteroid belt... they were winning as well, but another Rasaeida Sect fleet have taken their home planet after the culture revolt.
Here are the positions:
My Advent- credit rate 34, 820 supply, 5 planets. Lexmada- 19, 1975 supply, 8 planets. Adjun Imperials- 14, 2293 supply, 9 planets. Rasaeida Sect- 14, 1984 supply, 5 planets. Hand of Illus- 11, 1664 supply, 4 planets. Luopica Colonists- 8, 562 supply, 2 planets (both dead roids). Provians- 8, 1284 supply, 5 planets. Korsul Armada- 5, 8 supply, 1 planet.
So I have at least a ceasefire with every faction in the game except the one I'm attacking and another one about to go out. Thats without making any effort to fulfil missions not aimed at Provians, and any other effort apart from flat rate research, except that I have sent envoys to Raseida Sect. Diplomacy seems very easy, considering this is Vicious AI. The missions need more work, how about ensuring that every mission is aimed at the AI's #1 enemy rather than randomising them. It seems odd to have Korsul Armada demanding that I destroy Provian civic structures when they are in another system and losing hard to the factions there. Adjun Imperials, the faction opposite Provians across the asteroid phase lane, might make more sense with their demands for attacks on tactical structures- but still it is difficult to see why my taking out Provian tactical structures on my side helps them? I'll check how much they have been fighting Provians next time. My suggestion is to take the random element out of the missions though, just make them make sense. Also, at the moment the self-help element of the flat rate boost is too effective when it comes to gaining ceasefires with factions your population hate. I would pitch the bonus at a lower level, to ensure AI empires other than those of the same race need to work far harder for your people to approve of ceasefires with them.
As a further note on the mines, I suppose that when an AI has limited gravwell space and can't spend on research, it is somewhat inevitable that their gravwells will become heavily defended, it might be that that creates the chore element of Vicious AI. It will be interesting to look at how Lexmada has done so well when the other TEC AIs have failed miserably. The reason I am continuing this is to see if the remaining Vicious AIs can profit later in the game by me being held up. It seems doubtful, however in the Cruel game I had a greater preponderance over the surviving faction in the same system than it seems I will over Rasaeida Sect- I had both the enemy homeworlds in the Cruel game, while my ally got only dead asteroids.
I haven't had time to read through this all yet, but please keep posting here. I've bookmarked the thread.
Well rest assured that it takes me longer to write than it takes to read! My attempts to play-test the game have made me more aware what a mammoth task a proper playtest would be, I can't see how it is even possible to do a proper job. Compare it to Starcraft 2 where there is much less variation, and even then it is constantly cut down, and their custom maps all tend to an ideal configuration, whereas the maps of Sins differ wildly. Also there is no FFA aspect and therefore no AI diplomacy... I can try for another Vicious multistar test with selected rather than random types of AI, and maybe a couple of single star tests, but even then it would entail about a month's play. Four tests is almost an insignificant number .. Also, if I was forced to test on the official maps rather than my own custom maps a) the games would not work as tests or as games and its impossible to test the game has far too many official maps. I have always intended one day to produce a review of all the maps included with the game, but even this would take a long time, never mind playtesting them. Why have so many maps...?
Its no secret that I have never liked the Vicious or Cruel AIs, I have always considered them just cover for poor AI routines. The Vicious AI especially should be just unplayable, and until it is the AI is useless. However, for playtesting only having such extreme cheat levels might be useful to 'dial in' the AI as it were. It seems that my confidence that my first Vicious game was almost over was misplaced!
Having reunited my fleet I proceeded to the capture of the Provian home after it was overwhelmed my our mixture of pro-Advent cop and reality shows and Advent-coloured news broadcasts. However the annoying Provians raided the plasma storm and destroyed my newly reconstructed trade starbase. I celebrated the nearing end of the Provian war with another supply rise and built more envoys destined for Adjun Imperials, also another capital ship, a Rapture, and small fleet to protect my third starbase at the plasma storm. I also decided to snipe the ex-Luopica colonists roid next to my own roid beyond the plasma, hoping to profit by taking a roid defended by Luopica structures and Raseida culture. While clearing the Provian home I had time to check the diplomacy levels and noticed that curiously the military actions modifier had become very significant, at a level of 2.84- but also, it was at exactly the same level for each of my opponents no matter their nature or the stage of my relatiuons with them, except the Provians of course. Something extremely fishy there, its either working wrongly or needs more thought. There should be substanial difference between how Raseida, with whom I have started to get pacts, view my slaughter of the Provians, and say the opinion of Lexmada with whom I have a mere ceasefire and am murdering fellow TEC... no? Having the military actions have a more significant influence can only be a good thing though.
At this point the game lost its routine nature and seems to have become more of a challenge. This may have been due to my not being aware enough of the impact of the recent changes to the system which I had myself argued for but have not really had a chance to playtest before. It seems that I may have been in error or even wrong (gasp!) about the influence of the flat rate self-boost, possibly misguided by the collapse of the neighbouring TEC AIs due to lack of any culture centres. Anyway, it seems that I had lost my ceasefires with both Adjun Imperials and Luopica Colonists without realising it. This was not because I had done anything out of the ordinary to make them dislike me, but instead my own population's liking of them had dropped to such an extent that the ceasefires no longer held... I'm not sure why this slipped past me, either I was just overworked- though I was routinely checking my Forewarnings- or possibly because alert messages aren't going off if you lose ceasefires due to your own population 'revoking' them, which I suspect is distinctly possible as it is a new development in the diplomacy system?
Anyway, two events happened almost at the same time. Luopica Colonist defences opened up on my 'friendly' colony ship, which had to retreat (and in any case the neutrality of the planet was assured by the starbase, which I hadn't known could happen before,that starbases protected non-governed planets as well). Then the Adjun Imperials though they liked me, began attacking my envoys, because I wasn't friendly to them... perhaps they made some protocol error? Anyway, I had sent them deep into the other system and it was hard to extract them, and of course every one that was destroyed made my population dislike Adjun more, and their liking for me at about 6.5 was never a problem anyway- sigh. Had I had more experience with hthe new system I migh have realised that I needed to check their relation to me as well, and assign them missions to keep it up, which I began to institute for my remaining allies. Note that the UI is not optimised for this as it used to be for the previous them liking us only relations which was on one screen- to check us-them relations you have to check each individual one, and assigning them basic 200 metal missions takes time too.. Perhaps a new variant screen where with one click you could swiftly check us-them would help? Anyone understand what I mean here?
My relations with Luopica and Adjun seemed to have deteriorated so fast that even assigning missions might not have been enough though. I noticed that with the complete defeat of Korsul Armada the Adjuns had begun to raid Rasaeida's recently acquired ex-Luopica roid from the star. Also, Luopica had at last been actively fighting Luopica.. It might be that war with my closest ally had driven my own populations liking for them down in some manner? I had assumed that everyone else having the same factor for miltary actions towards me for attacking Provians was wrong, but does it reflect how much they hate Provians and not their opinion of me at all? This is where Ironclad secrecy about how mechanics are supposed to work begins to hamper testing- just consider how much JJ had to work out about the game by himself before he discovered the Illuminator bug. Sins is such an unnecessarily complex game!
I still can't consider this entirely right, it seems that there should be more variation in how other factions regard the destruction of a faction's ships than just 'not having a ceasefire yet,' the public opinion of TEC factions can't be that callous about the destruction of TEC ships by the hated Advent, but regardless of a lack of additional sophistication the modifier has somewhat rescued this game from dullness. Luopica are more or less dead, but Adjun are very strong, and also began to transit the wormhole near me to the dead roid occupied by the Provians- which took them through my plasma storm. The loss of the ceasefire meant that my second fleet, already struggling with the Provians to protect my third starbase, had to try to engage them without firing on the Adjuns who attacked them, if I ever hoped to retain their affection- and of course every ship lost made my population dislike Adjuns more. Then some Luopicans turned up and I just abandoned the plasma storm until I could bring more ships. I wasn't really losing much but it was a relations disaster. I split my fleet at the Provians home and sent the carriers, capital ships scouts and flak to mop up the roid I had first wanted to take, and the rest regrouped at my own home with the Rapture and its fleet. Then the Adjuns began to raid me in earnest- the ex-Provian home, my volcanic and my ice using the wormhole. The raids weren't difficult to deal with as starbases near planets are a much tougher prospect than trade-dedicated ones in plasma storms, but any prospect of peace with the Adjuns has expired, and the Provians have the desert in my system and are not finished either, so war with two Vicious at once, what I had tried to avoid. At the close of the session I had however built my fourth trade starbase at the plasma storm and also occupied the ex-Provian roid, so my own position is far stronger. I still have ceasefires with Lexmada and the two Advent. Adjun just seems to have gone empire-buildingly mad, though it makes some sense from their viewpoint, there are no other Vasari left and they have a large empire, they might as well try now while they are strong.
So with the Vicious game, relations are beginning to be a factor and I finally have to start using the diplomatic screens. This is good, but it should happen at lower levels as well. A big difference is time, the sheer scale of the Vicious attacks and defences has slowed me to a great extent compared to the Unfair and Cruel games despite the TEC AI flaw, I wonder how the game might have gone without the culture aspect? Even the beaten Provians can still destroy my starbases, though in the plasma storm their anti-structure cruisers have a huge advantage without a fleet being there.
I have been considering the AI problems with starbases. One aspect is that the AI does have some purpose to bringing a fleet near to a starbase, as the Provians proved. They lost many ships, but attrition is to their advantage. If we could just improve the AI routines slightly when dealing with attacks on starbases it might help greatly. Carrier cruisers are of no help at all when you bring them to a starbase and should always remain on the edge of a gravwell anyway- it would seem a simple enough AI rule that carrier cruisers do not move into a gravwell unless in transit? Also, the AI is notoriously bad at looking after its capitals- another simple rule, that they retreat once shields are down, might help? The same rule could apply to carrier cruisers? If you just save its expensive capital ships and carrier cruisers to fight again it will improve the AI. You might expect that with Titans the AI will improve as it finally deals better with starbases, but in fact as it is at the moment the more expensive the ship the more problems the AI has. I would hope that the AI will have special rules for Titans, and it would seem easy to extend them to special rules for carrier cruisers and capitals as well. If they begin to protect ships that are needlessly destroyed by this means and by prioritising phase inhibitors, then the AI will improve.
That brings me to another issue. Again it seems a pity that the TEC AIs have gone down to culture as the TEC AIs seem by far the best at dealing with starbases, using their Ogrovs. One reason is that the AI will not build starbases in enemy gravwells when attacking, to exploit its attrition advantage more. It is as well for me that the Provians have not starbased the plasma storm.. but even more so that they have not starbased any of my planets, far more effective for them than the credits they have squandered on mines. Vasari AI might be different, though the Adjun certainly have the credits to build with they have not accompanied any of their raids with starbases yet, we shall see. With Advent the situation is different again, as the Starfish is quite simply an ineffective ship. It is very expensive and takes too much supply. It is also too fragile for its role. To work, the Starfish needs to be in the middle of enemy defences so it has to be able to take fire, this requires support cruisers as well. The more of them you have the better they work, but they are too expensive to lose. Three of them cost nearly the price of a starbase. The ship badly needs rebalancing, and this hampers the Advent AI even more since it has not the skill required to use the ship even if it were useful. Add more shield, cut the supply and price please. Perhaps even move the Starfish to the heavy cruiser class? It also seems a drawback for the AI that the siege and anti-structure artillery were ever divided, it complicates matters perhaps needlessly. When Entrenchment was released the basic siege frigate was badly hampered in its role without ever gaining any upgrades or new roles. The big leap in the AI was when they stopped using siege frigate packs as a primary offensive technique, but siege is still a weak spot. For Rebellion, as well as introducing many new ships, it would be nice if there was an attempt to make siege frigates useful again. Specialist anti-mine upgrades- always assuming that corvettes aren't to take this possible role? Or how about having siege frigates as longer ranged specialist planet bombers, as a Vasari upgrade seemed to hint at. If they only had to go halfway into a well, or upgraded Vasari ones could hug the edge, that might allow them to be covered by special rules aimed at their presevation also. It would also help with the stupid planet colonising methods employed by 'skilled' players at the start.
You know, in all the playtests I've done, this last session is the first one where there has been the glimmerings of an improvement in the relations system, even if it was generated by the new us-them dynamic. It seems far easier to convince other factions to like me than to convince me to like them.. But I'm starting to believe that with only a few simple overhauls the AI could begin to produce a decent game, nowhere near as sophisticated as a human, but not bad. With some aspects like mines and Starfish and having all capitals useful, the AI will improve as the game improves. A few straightforward AI tactical rules to protect the bigger and more expensive ships that it wastes at the moment would help considerably. The AI needs to attack with starbases and prioritise phase inhibitors for destruction. Its structure placement needs some attention- even simple rules creating different types like all clumped/some spread might help, especially for testing. Advent profit most from clumped while Vasari might want some structures spread out? Also, and as a most basic AI improvement, their economies need work it should be possible to get big boosts with simple rules- the AI needs to learn the advantages of trade starbases for one thing. You might have simple rules to help the AI with trade routes, and also improve the AI use of refineries. This is another aspect where game improvements will help the AI, as Advent refineries are woeful at the moment.
Finally I'll point out that the AI might be working better because I made the map for this game, and I made it so that even though it is a multistar the AI shouldn't have too much trouble deploying fleets. I'm not sure how Ironclad expected Sins to develop. Many of the provided maps are far to small to be influenced by relations, and there is a distinct shortage of large FFA maps. I've always wondered whether Sins should be considered a Master of Orion type game or a Homeworld style game. Sins has advantages over both, all turn-based grand scale games get into enormous trouble with the amount of tasks to be done at the end but the turn-based combat in Master of Orion could become a nightmare and was awful for multiplay. Homeworld needed its campaign (not a feature of MoO) because otherwise in single player it had so little to offer in terms of depth, and the 3D movement could get very fiddly. Sins would have been a better game had it used the MoO system of phaselanes only between stars and used star gravwells for combat, with planets in them, I also have issues with the planet control mechanic set up by the unviable lore, the silly mitigation rules (for one thing mitigation grows so fast you must focus fire) and curious flak/strikecraft implementation, generally poor combat concepts (combat is a type of weapon against a type of defence, not one class of ship against another), the unsophisticated economies and infinite resources, the lack of variation in victory conditions and of all things the lack of variation in planet and gravwell types, a long list I'm sure I could add to. However even with these self-imposed limitations, many of which are difficult or impossible to alter, the game still has a great deal of unrealised potential, especially for multiplayer FFA- and if it were to succeed as a multiplayer FFA space grand strategy game it would be the only one of its kind.
This would seem to help the AI tremendously!!!
Another valid point for consideration.
Very good even in multiplayer. However, you must be mindful against bombers (particularly Vasari ones) and uplinked TEC Ogrovs, which outrange it. An antimatter cost increase on this ability is probably merited. The biggest issue is actually in the Advent mirror match, since starfish suck and your bombers aren't as good as the Vasari variety.
You've basically hit home the key issues with the the Adjudicator. Too expensive, too much supply, too fragile. Its combination of long-range and diffused attack gives it no discernable role, since it generally cannot target effectively at long ranges.
I'd like to see the Adjudicator reworked into a tougher short-range unit with wider firing arcs and maybe a special effect on attack.
Agreed; siege frigates remain very very niche, especially for TEC and Vasari since they have superb siege options from capital ships.
With the Vasari Vulkoras rush currently a potent opener, I really don't see any justification to keep the siege frigates where they are.
Personally, I believe that Siege Frigates got nerfed into oblivion, and need to be rebuffed a little, much like the Terran Reaper in StarCraft II.
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