This post is awsome.

It's official.

This is the post to end all posts.

The only kind of AI that would be able to stand up to a human intellectually..........

Is decades away from being built.

But there are always things that an AI will never be able to emulate.

Such as: Sheer Stupidity, Mindless Insanity, and Emotions (this last one is not relevant gaming-wise).

There was many an RTS game that I won, just by using those two tactics (Mindless Insanity, and Sheer Stupidity)

Impossible?

To defend 10 planets in this fashion, you have to build 10 separate defensive fleets. To take one planet, all you need to do is destroy one of those fleets.

The attacker has an innate advantage: being the instigator, they determine the time and place of the attack, and they determine how much force to bring to bear against a target. The point of this is to give the defender an advantage, thus reestablishing balance.

Modern warfare is not fun. Games are.

We're talking about GalCiv3, not an expansion for GalCiv2. GC2 made lots and lots of changes compared to GC1. If it makes the game better, it should be on the table for discussion.

The point is that, in the game as it stands, there is a problem with combat: defending ones territory requires the same military that attacking does (the exact same ships that are good for defense are good for attack). This one-dimensional system creates the unfortunate circumstance that a well-defended nation is also one that can readily attack others.

I'm not suggesting a patch onto GC2. I'm suggesting that the design of all of the aspects of combat should be such as to eliminate this problems. A bonus when in orbit is a beginning.

I think this is less from the quality of the AI and more due to the nature of the rules. There are fewer ways to screw up in Civ-style games. Or, to put it another way, the path that a human would obviously see when playing GC2 is not how the AI was told to play.

Look at Civ-style city improvement. For any given square, there are really only 2-3 things you can do with it. You'll build a road if it's between two of your cities. You'll clear jungle unless there's something more important to do. Otherwise, you choose what you want that square of terrain to focus on: food, production, or trade/commerce. Depending on the terrain and the tech, you may not have certain choices available, but towards the end of the game, you can basically make any city high growth, high production, or high commerce.

Having only three city resources (growth, commerce, production) means that choosing what to do with a particular square is usually a no-brainer (make a square that is good at something better at that something). And even if you choose the "wrong" one, the worst that can happen is that your city is level 7 when it could have been level 9 or something. Fairly minor overall.

Compare this with what happens if an AI screws up building up a planet. On a PQ8 planet, the AI decides to give it a farm and some tax buildings, along with 3 factories. Now, instead of having a mid-grade production center (with 6 factories and 1 StarPort), it now has... a big drag on its morale. It has given itself an economic handicap. This planet, because of the farm, will be a constant burden on the global tax rate. The computer may even decide to try to mitigate this somewhwat by turining a factory into a morale building. What does it get? The planet maybe provides a net 30 BC.

In a Civilization-style game, no improvements are ever bad; they are only differing levels of good. Even when buildings cost money, or an improvement decreases the health of the city that uses it, it is a local effect. It hurts that city's overall strength.

In GC2, building a farm on the wrong planet can cripple your global economy by suppressing tax rates. The rules of GC2 has innumerable pitfalls for a player/AI that doesn't know how to build cities. Players, being human, can learn from their mistakes. The AI can't; if it isn't programmed to avoid the pitfalls (and it isn't), it will fall face-first into them.

There are basically two possible solutions: remove the pitfalls or give the AI better abilities to develop worlds. The later shouldn't even be that hard: the AI has plenty of computing resources. It should be able to min/max factory-heavy vs. money heavy vs. research heavy planetary builds. The current AI doesn't. Instead, it tries to develop a world based on some kind of algorithm that was written 2 years ago before people learned how to maximize the economy of the game.

Of course, here's the question: would such a computer that could execute near-perfect economic builds, ever be defeatable? Considering how biased GC2 is towards economy (money wins), I'm not sure.

It's things like this that can easily be corrected to make the AI not so easy to defeat. Such as below, the Lentzlandians trading for things that they cannot even use.

"Harold Gibons thought later on, after the trading conference, what the hell am I gonna use these damn IP's for!?? I want a refund!"

Perhaps in 2011 (So far away....) when GC3 comes out

IMO, they should do away with rush-building period... makes no sense. And if you disagree, then perhaps they should allow rush-researching then... rush-everything. lol. If they do away with rush-building, what good is mass-money? It's not, unless they add an Economic Victory Condition (get your treasury to 2 trillion BC and you win). This would make you actually have to balance your economy between labs, econ bldg's, and factories. And you could still trade BC to other nations and use money to upgrade old ships.

Can't really blame the AI for things like this, it has to follow the retarded things it was programmed to do. As well as the brilliant things.

I would have to say 'not necissarily (mis-spelled that, I know). Civ style games had the same build issues, but in a slightly different way. It's cannot be 'that difficult' to make an semi-intelligent building AI. Also once an AI builds, I don't think it has the ability to change what it has built to something else.

If Morale is good or great, build farms only up to a certain point (14 bil, or 20 bil max). If morale sucks, build no farms and destroy farms that are build. (If something like this is overly difficult to program in, then there is something wrong). Instead the AI builds a super-farm on a 300% tile and fills the rest of the tiles on a Class 19 planet with moarle buildings.

If production is low, build a factory. Some civs in GC2 DO NOT build factories EVER! Many Torian colonies only build their special 1-per-planet factory and that's it. Then they build an uber ship for the next 259 turns.

There is not that many variables involved here. It is not even bad AI programming, it is more of 'neglected AI programming'. They got caught up in the graphics too much.

EDIT: The more likely culprit: "It is precisely the fact that we don't have enough processing power that gets in the way of more realistic AI in our games. Or, put more accurately, the problems we're trying to solve are intractable, and we've yet to find ways to fake all of them." Found at page: http://www.codeodor.com/index.cfm/2008/5/7/Why-Game-AI-Still-Sucks/2224

I'm curious...

Given GC2's "roll" system for weapons and defenses, how would squaring the current effect of defenses work for you guys?

So off-type now gives the absolute (positive, of course) value of its defense, and on-type gives that value squared.  Examples: 4/4/4 gives 4+2+2 or 8 against any given weapon type, now it would give 16+4+4=24 against any given weapon type-but don't forget to roll it.

This would certainly seem to tilt things in the defender's favor, albeit somewhat massively.  Defenses might need to be redone, though, both on a tech cost basis and on a component cost/size/armor value basis.

Do note that this is hypothetical only, as at present I know of no way to (easily) mod it in.

1. I believe, if the GC2 combat system stayed the same, that giving 'class modules' to ships would probably solve the whole problem. This way, not every ship in the fleet is an all-out attack vessel, and certain ships would have large bonus's for planetary defense, yet penalties if they launch an assault.

2. And, for ships in orbit, you can only put as many as your logistic's ability allow. And OCC would be applied once tech is discovered, not when OCC is built (terrific idea mentioned earlier!). Perhaps the OCC could still exist and be built only on 1 planet, but it would simply give additional bonuses to all ships in orbit on all planets (extra hp, defense, and weapons). So taking the planet with the OCC would still be worthwhile.

I think these 2 things would be enough to accomplish the defender combat goal. When you make a ship, you add a 'class module' to the ship, just as you would a weapon or w/e. A Defender Class Small hull would get, say, 25% bonus to attack and defense when it is in planetary orbit, but gets a 25% penalty to attack and defense if it is the attacker. And various bonuses/penalties would apply to all Class ships and to hull sizes (small hulls get attack bonus against huge hulls, etc). This would make a small hull craft have a chance to cause some damage / or stop the uber battleship flying around.

This way, defenders can at least have a better chance of defender against other fleets. The point is not to make it impossible, but to make it at least a bit more difficult to take the universe over. So the player has more of a feel of accomplishment from the struggle.

I think the way combat works needs to be redone, it is too difficult for even 'slightly older ships' to do any damage.  1 uber ship, cannot be stopped by anything except for another uber ship. Perhaps making it more likely that a ship will cause at least 1 damage instead of 0 would help. So in space, if a ship rolls 0 damage, there would be a 50% chance again that it will cause 1 damage. That way 1 strong large-hulled ship can't wipe out 40 fleets of slightly older ships. And allowing ships to get to Level 56 is a bit too much, the XP given to a ship needs to be massively reduced.

Ships in orbit defending a planet, if they roll a 0 damage roll, there would be a 75% chance that it will do 1 damage instead. This way, even very weak nations can still have a chance to do some damage. Remember Civ3, Spearman destroys Tank!

Beautiful.

Just some thoughts about various types of Ship Classes they could use:

Class

Gunboat: Smaller than a Patrol Craft, the Gunboat is a short-range interplanetary vessel used for policing actions in areas near the border and newly acquired territories.
 *Class Bonus: Weapons/Defense bonus when operating inside it's own sphere of influence.
 *Class Penalty: Weapons/Defense penalty when operating outside it's own sphere of influence.

Patrol Craft: Patrol Craft include a variety of vessels, such as Fighters, Defenders, Anti-Capital Ship Vessels, and Escorts. They are small, highly manoeuverable, lightly armed vessels. Larger than a Gunboat but smaller than a Corvette, these multi-purpose craft are most often used in planetary defense, patrol, escort, recon, fleet assistance, and covert raids.
 *Class Bonus and Penalties: too numerous to mention, depends on Fighter, Defender, Anti-Capital Ship etc.

Corvette: A small, manoeuverable, armed vessel, smaller than a Frigate and larger than a Patrol Craft. An easily built vessel, their main role is patrol, escort, and as a fast attack craft.
 *Class Bonus: +1 Speed, Weapons bonus against craft this size and smaller, and if it is the attacker.
 *Class Penalty: Defense penalty against Destroyers.

Frigate: Larger than a Corvette but smaller than a Destroyer, the Frigate is a long-range vessel with their main roles including escort and being used as a fleet defence platform. Variations: Escort Frigate, Patrol Frigate.
 *Class Bonus: Will protect smaller craft by drawing enemy fire to itself. Defense bonus when in a combined fleet.
 *Class Penalty: Defense penalty if not in a combined fleet.

Destroyer: Larger than a Frigate but smaller than a Cruiser. A fast and manoeuverable yet long-endurance vessel intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet or battle group and defend them against smaller, short-range but powerful attackers. Variations: Destroyer Escort.
 *Class Bonus: Will protect larger craft by drawing enemy fire to itself from smaller craft. Defense and hitpoint bonus when in a fleet with larger craft.
 *Class Penalty: Weapons penalty against larger ships.

Cruiser: Larger than a Destroyer but smaller than a Battleship. the Cruiser is a long-range "force projection" weapon. Their main role is to attack enemy merchant vessels, armed reconnaissance, and providing overall defence for a fleet. Variations: Light Cruiser, Heavy Cruiser, Battlecruiser, Auxillary Cruiser.
 *Class Bonus: Range bonus, Hitpoint bonus when outside of it's own sphere of influence, gives fleet a defense boost.
 *Class Penalty: Jack-of-all-trades design makes it not particularly well suited to take on any specific type of ship, thus it receives a small weapons penalty against any type of ship.

Battleship: Larger than a Cruiser but smaller than a Dreadnought, the Battleship is a large, heavily armored vessel with a main battery consisting of the largest of weaponry. Battleships were larger, better armed, and better armored than Cruisers and Destroyers. Battleships are the embodiment of space power, and serve to enhance a civ's force projection. Battleships, though, are vulnerable to much smaller, cheaper ordinance and craft.
 *Class Bonus: Weapons bonus against ships of size Destroyer and higher.
 *Class Penalty: Large weapons penalty against ships of size Corvette and smaller.

Dreadnought: Larger than a Battleship, these Super-Dreadnoughts are the most advanced and heavily armed vessels available. They are designed for long-range engagements, to take an incredible amount of damage, and are a crucial symbol of galactic power. Dreadnought's, like Battleships, are also vulnerable to much smaller, cheaper ordinance and craft.
 *Class Bonus: Range bonus. Weapons/Hitpoint bonus when in other civ's area of influence. Weapons bonus against ships of size Cruiser and higher.
 *Class Penalty: Weapons penalty against ships of size Frigate and smaller.

  Hull sizes effect ship manoeuverability, thus giving certain hull sizes bonuses and penalties against various other hull sizes. Weapon types could also be more/less effective against certain types of classes and hull sizes.

But you can have an improvement also improve planet quality (absolute, in terms of tiles) by 1-so that it doesn't really take up a tile.

I don't know, I haven't studied any historical inter-stellar societies (HAR HAR), but this certainly IS the case with GC2.  The Influence system is, in fact, centered entirely around inter-stellar societies interacting.  "Influence" is described as "food, clothing, and music," among other things.  Considering that military tech by-and-large becomes consumer tech further down the line (or even vice versa), and certainly social tech is passed hand-to-hand through tourism (another aspect of the existing Influence system), I would assume that inter-racial societies intercourse frequently (twice a week?  HAR HAR) in the GC2 model, and there are plenty of opportunities to get some hints as to How That Thing Works.

Also, someone earlier suggested dead-end techs?  I can't find it, now.  But I would like to stress how much I hate this idea: just reading it made me screw up my face and go "EWWW."  It seems to me that's mistaking "challenge" for "luck", as the player has no control over the how his effort translates into results.  So, yeah, it makes it harder to tech up.  But not in any good or fun way.

EDIT: aaaaaand one final note.  I feel like a large portion of this discussion is really dancing around the idea that the current implementation of military starbases SUCKS.  Aren't those supposed to be our world-protecting static defenses?

Now that's a good idea, although I'm not sure I would make it linear, simply on the basis that we can assume in combat that the engineers and command staff are going "Dammit, screw life support - if they get a shot through the starboard shield we won't have to *worry* about getting back to Proxima!" (Um, yeah. I RP in my head a lot. Why do you ask? - {G})

I would translate it from the percentage of damge to gradients (You may not rmember this from high school - 100 gradients = 90 degrees, 50 gradients = 45 degrees, etcetera) and calculate the sin(percent working in gradients)

So a ship running at 90% hit points would be running at 98% effectiveness, 30% structural integrity would give 45% effectivness, et al - minor damage has almost no effect (IMO here truncating works pretty realistically - even minor damage means there is one weapons battery offline etcetera)

Frankly, it works across the board - Making the self repair systems and engines on ships respect this means a ship with minor damage could repair itself very quickly, but a heavily damaged ship would need to limp back home to a starbase (or fleet repair dock? A ship that enhances the self repair capacity in a fleet?) or spend months out of action.

Jonnan

Speaking strictly in terms of offense vs. defense, "weaknesses that can be strategically exploited" is another way of saying "defense that talks big but walks with a limp".  I have to assume that "weaknesses" in this case refers to non-military weaknesses, ex: drained economy, low morale, or being susceptable to influence flips.

But if we want to talk about balancing those, we go up one level of abstraction and we arrive right where we started: building military defenses is not worth it because you can't defend against the culture war.  So they can't take your planet with a gun, but you can't stop them from selling you iPods.  And it becomes smarter to be on the offensive, again.

OTOH, if you make it so that defense trumps, then it's a war of attrition again.  And regardless of whether or not there's an end-game (we'll go there later), attrition is not fun.

There's another fundamental difference between defense and offense that makes scaling defense past offense a bad idea, IMO: investing in defense allows you to postpone offense investment, but it still allows you to invest in offense later.  If you build this "no one can hurt me" defense, you win by definition.  Given equivalent investments, at some point in the curve offense MUST beat defense.  I mean, even Chess has a stalemate rule.  Where you put that point in the curve generally defines the usefulness of defense in general, the viability of rush strategies, etc...  But it has to happen or the game has no progression.  Defending your way to the win?  Attrition.

What?  No.  Efficient maintenance and growth is not "luck."  In fact, reaching the end first is the whole point of the game!  I will grant you that in many cases in GC2 it comes down to luck - but not because this is a universal law.  It's because in GC2 it is too difficult to catch up if you fall behind early.  That's the entire point of this discussion.  How to make it so that winning early still requires you to play hard throughout to win late.

That's not a good solution.  It's still end-game.  If you make them too powerful, they trump the pre-existing tech and you create the condition you bemoaned earlier, where the game "is meant to be played" one way, but there's actually a better way to play it, and the AI fails.  If you don't make them too powerful, they're just another notch at the end of the pre-existing tech tree.

The only way I can see this working is if you mean for it to accelerate the end-game (and not, as you claim, to eliminate it.  Because, well, you're not eliminating it, you're just redefining it).  The thing is this is already in the game.  It's called Technology Victory, if you want the Super Infrastructure Win, or Ascension Victory, if you want the Super Military Weapons Win.