In DA, will enemy troop transports occasionally actually make it to my planets?

I play on Crippling difficulty, or whatever the highest difficulty is where AI is fully maxed out, but not cheating yet. It is no exaggeration to say, in all my games, from release to version 1.4, Ive never had an enemy troop transport land on one of my planets (except in rare cases of sneaking up on me when my sensor networks werent in place).


The enemy simply never escorts or arms their transports that I can see. This weakness is so pronounced, I figured out thats its counter productive to keep expensive defensive fleets in orbit (unless Im protecting a starbase),risking damage. Transports (the only kind of ship thats a threat to a planet) are easily destroyed by a single quick (and not cheesy-quick) tiny hulled ship with a 1 attack playing a game of "wack-a-mole" with transports as they come up, while outmanuvering attack fleets. I guard my starbases, but leave my planets unguarded, save for one or two cheap troop killers patrolling borders. I dont believe this is as intended.


When you think about it, it kind of breaks the game, as enemy civs are really only a threat to your ships and starbases, but they can never take a world from you unless you let them...really eliminating any sort of real risk or aprehension over an invasion. I recall hearing talk in previous patches that the AI would start escoting their transports, but Ive never seen it happen, or happen competently enough that the trasport wasnt vulnerable at some point before threatening a world.


In DA, can I look forward to the AI finally doing a competent job of protecting trasports, either by escort or ship design, so the AI can actually threaten planets?


thanks!
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Reply #1 Top

If you have the high CPU option on in DA, yes, they aggressively escort transports.

It's one of those things that is very difficult (well not code-wise difficult but CPU-wise) to build a strategy that includes escorting. Thanks to the new CPU options, the AI has time to incorporate aggressive escorting.

Reply #2 Top
If you have the high CPU option on in DA, yes, they aggressively escort transports.

It's one of those things that is very difficult (well not code-wise difficult but CPU-wise) to build a strategy that includes escorting. Thanks to the new CPU options, the AI has time to incorporate aggressive escorting.



Thanks Brad! Encouraging to hear! Though...does this mean I need to have a multicore cpu in order for it to work the way it should? Im afraid Ill be stuck with my AMD 64 3500+ for some time. I'm able to run the "advanced cpu algorithms" in 1.4 just fine, but is this a performance drain even above this?

Reply #3 Top

You don't need a dualcore or quadcore. The difference is that dualcore get the feature for "free" (i.e. there's no affect on performance).

I'm doing all my weekend coding on a single core and I can't really tell much of a difference in the time between turns. But I can definitely tell a difference in how the AI plays. It's pretty dramatic IMO to watch which ships and other things the AI targets when it has more time to evaluate the playing field N turns into the future.

I also have been happy with the ship designs. I'm playing rihgt now and the Drengn designed literally the same ship I designed (Which is also a bit freaky). There isn't as much of that "round off" that occurs due to the AI having to be "quick" in its ship design.

Reply #4 Top
You don't need a dualcore or quadcore. The difference is that dualcore get the feature for "free" (i.e. there's no affect on performance).

I'm doing all my weekend coding on a single core and I can't really tell much of a difference in the time between turns. But I can definitely tell a difference in how the AI plays. It's pretty dramatic IMO to watch which ships and other things the AI targets when it has more time to evaluate the playing field N turns into the future.

I also have been happy with the ship designs. I'm playing rihgt now and the Drengn designed literally the same ship I designed (Which is also a bit freaky). There isn't as much of that "round off" that occurs due to the AI having to be "quick" in its ship design.



Thats great news! Thanks for the info and the teaser. If AI opponents start out-designing me, or even matching my designs, Ill be really impressed.

Reply #5 Top
I play on a rig I built awhile back. It has an AMD 3000+ Barton, and I haven't noticed any real difference in loading times. The difference in the AI, however, is amazing. It's like a new game. Thanks, Frogboy, for all the hard work. I just want you to know that I really appreciate your efforts.
Reply #6 Top
I don't know, they sometimes protect them. I wish they would add engnes to them. I played on suicidal and they didn't have any enigines on them. I had it on Max AI usage.
Reply #7 Top

I play on a rig I built awhile back. It has an AMD 3000+ Barton, and I haven't noticed any real difference in loading times. The difference in the AI, however, is amazing. It's like a new game. Thanks, Frogboy, for all the hard work. I just want you to know that I really appreciate your efforts.

Oh the stuff in beta 2A was just the start. 

If I rated the AI in terms of competence I would put it like this:

GalCiv II 1.0:  1

GalCiv II 1.1:  2

GalCiv II 1.2:  3

GalCiv II: 1.3: 3

GalCiv II: 1.4X: 3.5

GalCiv II: DA Beta 2A: 2.5 / 4.0 (Normal/CPU Option)  (the normal AI actually become less effective in beta 2A due to utilizing new features)

GalCiv II: DA Gamma: 5 / 7

So we're talking twice as intelligent in playing at 1.4X.   

Reply #8 Top
So we're talking twice as intelligent in playing at 1.4X


That will be downright scary and fun all at the same time.  
Reply #9 Top
So we're talking twice as intelligent in playing at 1.4X.


I gotta say, the loss of the Epic generator sort of let the wind out of my sails a bit, but this statement has me excited again if it turns out to be true.


If you guys could go ahead and finish up this week, so I can play right away, that would be super
Reply #10 Top

I gotta say, the loss of the Epic generator sort of let the wind out of my sails a bit, but this statement has me excited again if it turns out to be true.


If you guys could go ahead and finish up this week, so I can play right away, that would be super

The difference should be VERY noticeable. It's not a sublte improvement to the way the AI plays. So it's something you should definitely observe fairly quickly, particularly if you're already experienced at the game.

Reply #11 Top
Oh the stuff in beta 2A was just the start.

If I rated the AI in terms of competence I would put it like this:

GalCiv II 1.0: 1

GalCiv II 1.1: 2

GalCiv II 1.2: 3

GalCiv II: 1.3: 3

GalCiv II: 1.4X: 3.5

GalCiv II: DA Beta 2A: 2.5 / 4.0 (Normal/CPU Option) (the normal AI actually become less effective in beta 2A due to utilizing new features)

GalCiv II: DA Gamma: 5 / 7

So we're talking twice as intelligent in playing at 1.4X.


This is good news but what does twice as intelligent actually mean? Does it just do more statistical calculations or is it able of more advanced tactics like:

Actually defend its colonies besides having ships in orbit? Like a fleet designated to protect its borders?

Observe how other empires play and react if some empire is going for military/influence or research victory. Besides sending the message that this and that empire is growing too strong. For example it could stop trading with an empire which is growing too strong and team up with other empires to bring the winning empire down before its too late.

Protect its resources with fleets, and not just starbase improvments which are relatively weak compared to ships, and going straight for unprotected enemy resources.





Reply #12 Top
While I did notice the countless new ways that I could outmanuver the AI in the DA beta, I did notice some new and very interesting (and sometimes ominous) behaviours. For instance, in my last game, I was relying on specially constructed fleets of one capital ship and many super cheap tiny hulls, using military starbases to give me any kind of military power. I was in a constant war with my neighbours, and I'd been noticing the hostile diplomatic status with the Yor and the many, MANY fleets of technologically superior ships... I would have done a premptive strike on them, but I wanted my Ally involved in the fight and not to peeve of the Yor's treaty partners too much. The Yor moved all the ships right into the middle of my territory, in easy striking range of all my ships and starbases... no problem, if I stationed my ships near them I could hit a lot of them on the first turn of the war, right? Well, that turned out to be a mistake... the Korx, who I was already at war with, took advantage of the fewer guard fleets around my military starbases and took them out. When the Yor declared war a couple turns later, I was doomed to start out.
Reply #13 Top
I'm giddy

I have to echo that comment about the epic generator. I really miss the idea of having it. I know you mentioned that there may be a chance we may see that again. I would really love to see that come back.

Who knows....there have been a couple big patches before.....