Okay, I've just tested it with the Yor, and see it too now. This really is a problem. But then, how many people are actually editing the Personality of the AI races? Well, I do, by giving them bonuses, so nevermind.

For the Torians and Thalan this only means the loss of the racial dialogue, because they are already using AIP 11. For the Drengin, Iconians, and Yor, however, this is much worse.

So, how about we reduce the number of affected races, instead of hoping Stardock will add a 3rd party program to fix this (which they most likely won't)? Move the Thalan back to AIP 8 (they were already pretty good there), and the Iconians to AIP 11 (if they do okay there). This leaves only the Drengin and Yor to be greatly affected by this. Not much we can do about that though, because moving them back to AIP 7 isn't really a good idea.

Yes, like I said: 3rd party.

I've been working on the Korath, and had a little success.

The 2nd last test-game was pretty good. They didn't have a great starting position (only 7 planets in total), but researched well. Eventually, they had everything they needed to crush all opposition.

Even the Drath wilfully joined up. Well, after some hard negotiations from both the Korath and the Terrans.

16 + 5 = dead Terrans.

The research still needs some work, but it was okay.

The last game, however, wasn't so good. They had a better starting position (8 planets this time), but their research was worse. Not because what they researched was bad though, but because they didn't get Spore Weapons. At all. I've run the test until 2233, and the Korath got large hulls, Photonic Torpedoes, Slave Canyons, Extreme Colonizations, and at lot more. They had been at war with the Terrans and Drath for over three years, yet still they refused to research Spore.

I really have no idea what more I could do, to get the Korath to reliably research Spore Weapons.

I've already tried that before, with no success. It really has nothing to do with the cost. I've seen the Korath research Spore Weapons when it took them 30+ weeks to do so, and I've seen them refuse to do so when it would have taken them 4 weeks to do so.

Quoting DARCA1213,

reply 471

Admit it Gaunathor. You built the Yor too well!?!

They are overbuffed, but that seems to be the current status-quo with basically everything.

However, I don't know your current modus operandi, but playing an immense map on very fast tech speed isn't helpful here^^

To do this, I would need to add Germ Warfare and Spore Weapons to the Korath tech tree, and then add them as starting techs for the Korath in the RaceConfgig.xml.

However, that would cause the Korath to get those techs, even if SAs have been disabled, while any custom race with Super Annihilator would still need to research Spore Weapons. In other words, it wouldn't be a "true fix" for the problem.

In what area? Industry? Economy? Both? Or something completely different?

You could make suggestions for changes, if you don't like that. This is a community project, after all, and I'm more than willing to implement anything that is reasonable, feasible, and usable by the AI. 

Drengin: I would need to test, if they are any good there.

Torian: They are already there.

Yor: I'd rather set them back to AIP 7 than do that.

Iconians: I was already going to test (again), if they are any good there.

Thalan: I would prefer that anyhow.

Also, we could set the Drengin and Yor back to AIP 7. As has been said before, it does work under specific circumstances. The biggest problem is the research. Setting that up properly is going to take a lot of time (as can be seen by the Korath), and depends greatly on how the colony rush goes.

No! Just, no! It is not up to us to decide what players can and cannot do within the game. We are not the devs. If some players want to change the AI of a race, in a screen specifically made for this purpose by the developer, then that's their choice. I'm not willing to take that away from them.

Quoting Maiden666,

reply 486

Quoting DARCA1213,

reply 471

Admit it Gaunathor. You built the Yor too well!?!

They are overbuffed, but that seems to be the current status-quo with basically everything.

However, I don't know your current modus operandi, but playing an immense map on very fast tech speed isn't helpful here^^

actually that made the other races catch up better. I've gotta perfect game goiing on wiith very slow tech speed and loving it. Before I switched some stuff, on slow tech speeds the torian and Yor would have ¾ the map already. :/

@Mabus: don't be a naughty boy, we can't change that! Listen to papa Gaunathor. Lol

Quoting Gaunathor,

reply 482

I really have no idea what more I could do, to get the Korath to reliably research Spore Weapons.

Well, in the game that I played as the Korath, I made a point of getting to the third-tier lab before researching Spore Weapons, because the increase in research output made it worthwhile to research Spore Weapons.  Perhaps you could similarly get the AI to prioritise better labs?

I mean, it's no guarantee, but I think one of the reasons why Spore Weapons get overlooked is because after a certain point, there's always something with a better perceived cost/benefit ratio.  If you get the Korath to upgrade their labs early on, then maybe you'll increase their chances of snapping up early on when there's nothing better to research?

Just a thought.

Nope.

I waited until 2230, but they still haven't got Spore Weapons.

This really makes no sense. Sometimes, the Korath go almost immediately for it, not caring that it takes half a year (or longer) to research. Other times, they just can't be bothered with it, no matter how long it would take.

I'd like to see the AI doing better in managing its finances, right now, only the Korx seems sometimes to be able to keep their production slider at 100% (due to early freighter income)

I've increased my testgames to also include year3 but still production is generally between 33%-80%. That's bad, such an AI isn't much of a challenge, because I can keep it at 100% throughout the game even with all the added racial & improvement bonuses.

The basic problem seems to be that population is too low in comparison to the rest of his develoment. Because of all the new bonuses that has been introduced, the lower build cost of improvements etc everything goes now way faster, but not population, because pop growth is mostly dependant on the number of turns.

The AI isn't behaving intelligently. Not that I expect him to be, but we actually should modify the game to counterbalance it and not increase its weaknesses.

For example, what kind of an advantage can it be to let the AI dive into tier4/5 labs/facs when he cannot fund this production? He is going to waste SP on improvements he doesn't need currently, those will be completed fastly (because now all upgrades require way less SP) but, because he faces increased maintenance cost, his global production won't be accelerated.

In that case, and this is pretty much the case in all the test-games I've analysed, a focus on econ/pop growth would have ment an increased production/research simple by adjusting the slider up.

But something always keeps the AI from this. And it's not always espionage, which only seems to be raised once a certain income plus has been achieved. 

There's too much shipmaint from unused constructors. I see them heading to one base and back, because there's no modules to attach. And because they always have a lot of range aboard, the distances they travel are self-destructive. What good could possible come out of starbases that are that far away?

The AI also doesn't build Military Starbases anymore, at least not so often than in vanilla, because he hasn't any modules for them.

All starbases go down right after declaration of war, because they are unarmed. Without weapons the increase in starbase hitpoints is pointless....

Some AI also tried to build up a military even during the colony rush. That's not good because to colonize empty planets is easier and more efficient than to invade worlds. Additionally, in none of these games did the AI already have a resonable economy establish which could have taken care of the warshipmaint. Then they had to do it by decreasing their global production slider which negatively effected their overall progress, besides they weren't even at war with anybody.

This is also a point - why focusing so early on weapons when usually there are no wars that early. The diplomatic penalties don't kick in that fast....

Maybe we could tweak a few things here and there to make the situation better, to give the human player a harder challenge.

- Increase the base speed of the starting Survey Vessel so AI's can have more anomalies. Right now, they don't build another Survey Vessel it's pretty easy for a human player to establish an early economy by taking 80% of all galactical anomalies (later these ships make superior warships)

- Increase the capacity of the colony pod to 500. This has a very strong and positive effect on popgrowth/economy. I've done tests even so far as 1000 colonists, but that sometimes ment the homeplanet was emptied. 

- Besides, the starting colony ship should be taken out of the game, although I cannot see a beautiful solution for this. This ship will establish a 0.1b colony early on, which will rushbuy a starport and in a lot of cases release a colony ship also very early which will then establish a colony with only 0.03b colonists (!). This colony, and all other colonies spawned from these 2 planets will never be in positive numbers during the first years (except Torians).

- Eradicate the +20% morale bonus from the CivCap and replace it with a +50% economy bonus. The problem here is that the starting planet is the main income intitially and the AI will adjust his tax slider in accordance with the moral of this planet. If there is a morale tile on this planet this can lead to a severe problem in that he will jack up the slider so high none initial colonies will have any pop growth at all. I've seen this with Iconians in a few games, it did totally screw their game. In these scenarios, he had +40 planets where 90% of them were still below 0.3b pop in year3 and not growing (!), and he couldn't afford any production at all because of maint (initial col impr). As a matter of fact this is a more serious problem than the farm-tile dilemma (which will only produce a bad moral mid/late game) but powerful starting moral improvements can do so right from turn1 on. Initially, the AI needs to have his morals as homogenous as somehow possible - and it doesn't help that he builds only facs on low PQ worlds (who additionally lack some moral).

- Do something against the initial colony maint without harming the good alignment bonus. It's not a beautiful solution but attributing a negative maintenance on the starport does wonders here.

- The constructor spam needs to be adressed. Give them additional speed or less range or both and let the AI have some modules he can use. The point of getting constructors (besides maxing resources out) is to get additional production/freight-income/influence but as it is now it's reversing the effect: A constructor is -11bc/turn and sometimes these costs are responsible for him not being able to set his sliders up correctly. It's counter-productive.

The AI somehow isn't hot on the RC anymore... why? In my current vanilla testgames this is build in almost all instances....

Me too. However, a lot of those issues are due to the way the AI has been coded, and there is nothing we can do to change that.

When I began adjusting the improvements, I asked, if the new buildcosts were okay, or if anyone saw any problems with them. I didn't get any response, so I had to assume that everyone was fine with them.

However, if the low costs cause problems for the AI, then we have to adjust them. Questions is, by how much? I'd like to keep the linear increase, because those big, sudden jumps in the vanilla game always bothered me. So, would an increase by 100% of the cost of the original building, instead of the current 50%, work? For example, Traditional Factory costs 35, Enhanced Factory 70, Xeno Factory 105, Manufacturing Center 140, and Industrial Sector 175.

Still, increasing the buildcost reintroduces another issue. The AI rarely, if ever, increases Social Production beyond 20%. Increasing the cost too much can cause the AI to never finish anything. Especially if the planet was recently colonised or invaded, late in the game. I've seen enough cases in the vanilla game, where planets, that had been colonised years ago, were still working on the first Industrial Sector.

There is too much shipmaint. period, in my opinion. The AI keeps building warships, even if it doesn't have the means to support all of them. Still, there is nothing we can do about either problem. This is the way the AI is coded.

I'm still working on this. Getting the AI to research Military Starbase Construction, without it immediately trying to get the subsequent techs too, isn't easy. I've managed to get some of the races to research MSC, but they currently don't research any of the subsequent techs.

I agree. However, this is another area that is hard to adjust. The AI either goes for weapons early, or after it has already been at war for some time. Ditto for Planetary Invasion. Finding the right values isn't easy.

How would that work? Any changes to the design of the Survey Vessel also affect the player. He would then get the anomalies just as quickly as the AI. Which makes this change moot.

Also, the only way to do this is to either increase the number of engines, or to add more advanced ones, to the design. Neither is really appealing to me, because the current design already stretches believability. I mean, how were you able to build a ship that is way beyond your current level of technology?

I was already considering to do this. Primarily because I never understood why Stardock reduced the capacity to 250 in the first place. Still, this won't help much, if the AI isn't making use of the increased capacity.

The only way I can think of doing this, is to change the InternalName of the colony ship design. However, this would affect a lot of areas in the game (sandbox, campaigns, scenarios, etc.). Making sure that everything is working okay after this change, would take a lot of time. Plus, almost all of the introduction texts state that you start out with a finished colony ship. Not starting out with one would be a serious immersion-braker, in my opinion.

I've seen the problem you describe countless times. With and without bonus tiles. Caused by the homeworld or even other planets (and the homeworld almost without population). Usually it's either the Iconians or Thalan, but it can happen to pretty much any race (especially the ones set to AIP 11).

However, I don't think removing the +25% morale bonus from the Capital will help. There's only a 15% difference between it and the bonus from the Initial Colony. Not that big, in my opinion. In Autumn Twilight, I used the 25% bonus for both the Capital and the Colony, but it didn't change a thing. The only way to truly fix this, in my opinion, is to make absolutely sure, that all planets have the same morale bonus. That's just not possible with how the game is currently. It would require far too extensive changes. At least a complete removal of all morale improvements, because, even if you turn them into 1pps, you can never guarantee that the AI will build them on all planets.

As for Increasing the econ bonus of the Capital, it might help a little in the beginning, but once the AI has any planet with a vastly different approval rating, things will go sour again. Still, I'll give it a try, but I don't have high hopes.

How am I supposed to do that?   Any reduction to the maintenance cost would harm the bonus. 50bc just aren't that much.

Adding even one more Hyperdrive to the Constructor design makes it impossible to build at the beginning, because most races would need Expert Miniaturization to do so. Removing both Support Modules would lower this to Basic Miniaturization. All in all, I just don't see how we can do this without making the AI require researching more tech before it can use Constructors. This isn't something I want to do, because it gives the player an unfair advantage. The AI, as far as I know, doesn't redesign Constructors.

I have no idea. I already increased the AI value, but it barely helps. Some races just don't build the RC, or only on a few planets.

I think, you should ask Stardock for permission, before you continue. Just in case.

Edit: I've updated the spreadsheet with the new buildcosts. Please tell me what you think about them.