I'm looking at their exponentially growing raw production numbers and I think they'll be fine.  Even if their economy crashes for a turn or two, they'll generate so much money on the 100% money turns they can fund their economy for 10 or more turns before another one of those episodes.  

It'll actually do a pretty good job of mirroring the US economy (which goes through these boom bust cycles every once in a while).  The second place AI's raw production is two or three times that of mine.  This is a little troubling. They're also called "The Reapers" which seems sort of ominous.  

Now if the Reapers would build twenty transports with some medium hulled escort and send them in my direction I'm f-ed.  They're out-producing everyone by 2x with twice the power score.  

But the AI is not smart enough to do that.

Hohohhohohohhohohohoho.  

Turn 55, with 45 colonies and growing.  No deficit and morale is 100% (thank you Krynn temples).  

The AI LOVES building mining starbases.  Every AI has 20+ colonies at this point.   Some of them have significantly more.  

I think by adding maintenance costs to starbases it would reduce, rather than increase, starbase/shipyard spam. Starbases would be most useful to provide navigation routes and "internal" starbases would follow long after that, perhaps only being justifiable in one's core worlds where the research/manufacturing/wealth dividends would outweigh the maintenance costs.

To make the expansion less viable, I suggest that you take the following steps in addition:

• Give one's home world 100 base population (you did say you scaled that up by 10)
• Return to 1 total production point per citizen
• BUT you should attach a maintenance cost (not just an opportunity cost) to military production. In real life it is rare that anyone would get to 50% military production; the only time that has been reached was during World War II. Nowadays, even the US's 5% of GDP going to the military is considered extreme. Military production ought not to go above 10% ordinarily without bankrupting your treasury.

This would make colonization significantly more realistic - the majority of your population would remain on your home world for a good portion of the game. It would also enable the creation of a clear hierarchy of core worlds, mid-ranked planets, and outer colonies.

Even with the current checks you have placed on colonization, some AIs are expanding too rapidly. Within the first 150 turns I was only able to grab half of one large cluster, while the Iconians (by geographic chance) had taken 3 large clusters and most of the relics around them by that time. Expansion ought to be something that is carefully considered even within a cluster and difficult without.

Quoting naselus,

reply 280

... If you've set them all to Expansionists, then they shouldn't be able to build mining starbases at all until turn 50 with the other mod in place. There's no weights for constructors - just colony ships and a very small chance of scouts (for difficulties where the AI can't see the map).

 

Are you sure you've set it up right?

Uh, I don't know. I put both of those folders in my mod folder (separate from one another but both in the Gal Civ III mod folder) and selected the "Enable Mods" button.  Was I supposed to move the xmarigoldstrat file INTO the Insane/Abundant file?

Did I do it right?  

Regardless I'll continue with the current game.  I'm pretty happy with what the AI is doing so far.  

Quoting marigoldran,

reply 283

Quoting naselus,

reply 280

... If you've set them all to Expansionists, then they shouldn't be able to build mining starbases at all until turn 50 with the other mod in place. There's no weights for constructors - just colony ships and a very small chance of scouts (for difficulties where the AI can't see the map).

 

Are you sure you've set it up right?   

Uh, I don't know. I put both of those folders in my mod folder (separate from one another but both in the Gal Civ III mod folder) and selected the "Enable Mods" button.  Was I supposed to move the xmarigoldstrat file INTO the Insane/Abundant file?

Did I do it right?     

Regardless I'll continue with the current game.  I'm pretty happy with what the AI is doing so far.  

If it works at all, it'll work that way. But there'll be two sets of scripts for expansionist AIs for the first 50 turns, and I'm not sure which it'll pick. It may just be using the general expansionist AI from this mod, which is largely the same for the opening 30 turns or so but then consolidates.

Not if it ends up bankrupting itself. Remember, we don't care how the AI plays on Godlike, because the AI doesn't really play on Godlike. AI which relies on handicaps is not the objective here (whereas it was for the other AI mod).

No, the game never goes that far. At the highest level, it gets a 50% chance of some amount of money between 500-1000 credits every 10 turns, has a 50% bonus in attack power, has a 40% chance of receiving a free war technology every so often, starts with 20 ideology, has a 40% chance of getting a free ideology point every turn, has a +0.3 growth bonus, gets +8 approval, gets +10 logistics cap, has doubled ship range, gets +25% research (basically a free T1 lab), gets 200% more credits per turn, has +300% production points, all construction and maintenance costs halved, +15% accuracy, +50% mass cap, and +50% hit points.

I would suggest that, if bonuses like these aren't enough to make the AI play well, possibly the AI's problems are not going to be solved with more handicap bonuses. 

Above Gifted it can see the whole map from the start. Plus, it's just hilariously immune to more or less the whole rulebook by Godlike. Range doesn't apply on most maps. Morale doesn't apply, because it's immune to LEP until it until hits 40 planets. Money doesn't apply even to the limited extent it effects the player in vanilla, because it generates huge amounts and gets bonus lumps of cash if it has under 10000 credits. It doesn't really need to research, because it gets free techs - though it researches anyway. It'll eventually acquire all ideologies regardless of buildings or planets; and it's production is so immense it doesn't even really need buildings any more. 

At that point, I'd largely say it's not really playing the game at all anymore, personally. I don't really mind that - it's godlike, it's meant to be buffed beyond all reasonable pretense of still playing. But it does make it completely useless for trying to judge good AI play; I could code an excellent AI script for Godlike fairly easily simply because it doesn't have to think about 90% of the things the other AIs do. You can just set it to spam colony ships for 50 turns or so, then have it concentrate heavily on research for 20, and then let it go 50-50 for the rest of the game. But because it ignores everything else, this AI would only be useful for Godlike.

Meanwhile, if I can script an AI people find challenging on normal, it'll just be more challenging on Godlike; it'll be less powerful than the scripted-for-godlike-alone AI... but it'll still have normal's challenge but with all those bonuses. Hence, I only play on normal. In fact, I mostly watch soaks on normal, to see how the AI does without my input at all.

4 of the top 5 have over 45 colonies.  The Krogan are on 38 colonies (the only one of the top five that doesn't have over 45 colonies).  Turn 66, currently on 62 colonies and expanding.  No deficit.  

15th place overall.  Mind you, though, the score is misleading because it's based on industrial production.  Still, I'm not even in first on population, and due to the AI bonuses I'm significantly behind in raw production.  

This looks like the first game that I might play into the later stages.  

I'm on God-like but I gave myself 3 free techs at the beginning.  

  Damn you and your hyper fast updates.

Time to start over.

Change the power calculations to reflect ONLY raw production and current military to get a better idea of where the AI is.

In the vast majority of games on insane/abundant, only those two things matter.  

The problem with the game is that I treat un-colonized planets like the way a Saudi Prince treats attractive, unmarried Arab women.  At some point the upkeep is simply not worth it, but I JUST CAN'T RESIST.  

I currently have 101 colonies, which sort of is like having 101 wives.  Not quite as bad but the micro and upkeep is nonetheless getting pretty large.  

-700 credits/turn.  10 turns of solvency left.  Time to expand more! Getting close to 120 colonies.  Turn 90-ish or so.  It'll be fine.  As long as you can service your debt, it's all good.  

Thank god for comparative advantage.  Taking full advantage of it by trading research for money to stave off bankruptcy.  

The economic system of this game is actually pretty complex and gorgeous.  Now if only the AI would get better at economic specialization and warring.