How do you play Single Player?

Random medium map. All AI on different teams. Random personality, either regular or hard intelligence, not unfair. You can lock the teams if you hate diplomacy or leave them unlocked. I prefer unlocked for more variety, but I play both and a lot of players seem to pick one and stick to it exclusively.

Not every random map will turn out to be a challenge of course, especially if you've become skilled. Taking a non-random map usually gives a big advantage to humans though because they can read the description and plan a strategy accordingly. The SoaSE AI is completely general and has none of the "map hints" common in RTS games featuring a limited number of pre-made maps. That means that if you want to play it on "even terms" as much as possible you have to deny yourself any advance knowledge of the playing field.

BTW, I do not agree that the AI "sucks". Game "AI" has inherent limits and SoaSE does perfectly well within those limits. It isn't fair to insult the AI programmer simply because humans usually outplay the computer... that is after all part of the implicit design brief for a computer game since very few people pay for a sequel to a game they can never win at. I would be happier if SoaSE's AI could beat me more often without having to give it a resource advantage, but it does put up enough of a fight that I'm writing to defend it.

For a new game with fresh AI to expect to consistently beat humans who've played computer games for 25 years isn't realistic. Civ-type games spent a long time incorporating cunning tricks copied from flesh and blood players and they had the advantage of being many games all using a standardised playing field. SoaSE has it's own engine and "universe model" and nothing to build from but experience with the beta test.

I think you read a little too much into my post. I have absolutely none of the unrealistic expectations of game AI that you seem to think I have.

Just as a quick aside: the comparison to Civ4 is completely pointless. Understand that the only reason I brought up Civ4 in my original post was as a success story for allowing players to fiddle with the AI. You also seem a little confused as far as the performance of the original Civ 4 AI goes--in short, it sucked big time. Difficulty in Civ4 is basically a question of "how much do you want the AI to cheat?". But Civ4 is an infinitely more complex game than SoaSE, so as I said, the comparison doesn't work.

I don't think any AI should (or could!) be able to beat an experienced (even mildly experienced) human player. Even for a simple game like chess it took us decades to write an AI that can beat a good human player. For me, the AI typically fulfills the role of intermediary challenge, between learning the basics of the game and actually being ready to compete against other humans. I do think that a decent AI should be able to beat a human who plays the game for the very first time, who has absolutely no idea what all these buildings and units do, who spends half of his time reading descriptions and trying to figure out the finer point of the UI and lets half of his income go to waste.

I'm going to compare Sins to Warcraft 3. For the first ten games or so, the AI on hard is going to be a challenge. You need to learn how to micro your hero in battle, how to keep producing units while fighting, how to expand in time, etc. While your performance in these very basic aspects of the game is still bad, the AI poses a real threat. Once you get a handle on these basic aspects, you can beat the AI every game and you know you're ready to move on to competing against people.

Game AIs do have limits. They're very bad at contextualizing--at the meta game, that is. They don't know when it is a good time to expand, when you should focus on engaging the enemy, when you can hope to win the battle against slightly uneven odds, etc. That's fine, and that's what I expect and accept. But there's really no excuse for AIs to fail completely at basic game tasks. When I see the SoaSE AI sink a considerable amount of resources into building siege ships with absolutely no chance of besieging any of my planets (because I'm there, in the AI's system, dismantling everything they've got in orbit, and still it's pumping out those siege frigates), when I see an AI build four or five orbital defense guns early game when those credits would have been much better spent on ships and then on top of that when I see said AI *not* stay behind those stationary defenses but much rather come out and fight me at the corner of the gravity well where I can safely ignore the defenses... that is just a failure to perform even modestly well at the game's most basic aspects.

When I say these things I'm trying to report objectively on what I'm finding. I'm not saying "you suck because I say so", I'm saying "the AI sucks, and here's my list of evidence". It's really silly to read an insult into my objective statements. If anything, I'm trying to help. Evidently if I didn't think that SoaSE was a great game I would have moved on long ago.

Thank you for your suggestions re: game modes! I'm going to try them out with a couple of Unfair AIs and really hope to have my ass handed to me. Their resource boost might be more noticeable on a larger map when they're given time to build up etc.

Heh. Sorry if my digression on the AI seemed to imply anything about your post. I didn't intend to do so, the only things about it I was directly questioning were the specific language ("sucks") and the general assertion that the AI was seriously defective. I wasn't reading between the lines looking for an insult - although I do think saying a piece of programming "sucks" could legitimately be taken as one and I wish you had chosen another way to make your point.

I've had fun with SoaSE, and at first the AI managed to win a few games. That is actually the standard I use to measure a "good" AI. If it can beat me at its own game for a few days while I'm still learning it is good. If I'm handicapped by having to learn some reflex or dexterity-based gameplay element at the same time the AI gets less credit - but the SoaSE interface didn't seem a handicap so I rate the AI as good. Even so, after a few games I win consistently vs the AI.. but I've played hundreds of different strategy games and anything less than a good AI just loses from day one so long as we're playing with no handicaps. I think you're probably facing the same situation.

Good luck with the game modes. I didn't suggest the Unfair AI for two reasons. First it is very new and my medium games were played before it was introduced. Second because there is a common problem with giving AI extra bonuses. If there's more than one of them the extra power can skew the game balance and simply result in the AI players smashing each other to bits while the humans keep their heads down and then stand up and defeat the remnants. If you want to play Unfair you should probably arrange teams. Maybe 2v2v2 on a custom random map with you teamed with a hard AI versus two pairs of unfair AI. I haven't tried that out myself though.

The AI handles badly on small maps. They do 500% better on much larger maps.

Agreed with windexglow. If you really want to have fun, try playing a medium map next against 3 other AI's. The game just doesn't realistically know how to do a one-on-one against a human.

-- Retro

Yea from my post on the same subject . A small basic map basically makes the computer constantly run or be on the defensive.

Best way to get a challenge is a large or huge map. Always use hard AI or unfair and I would say Lock the teams for the best challenge. I would suggest 2v1 or 3v1. or 4v2 you and 1 ally AI. Would always suggest aggressive AI as the others seem to not do what they are supposed to at all. eg. Fortifier AI does not build defenses at all really.

Point Blank is a horrible map to use to judge the AI. If I remember right, the Home worlds are right next to each other. Not saying the AI is great or anything, but I find it pointless to play the AI on that particular map.

Okay, so it really had a lot to do with the map size. You've got to give the AI time to build up. That's what I wanted to know. Thanks!

I really do hope they are or have considered releasing an SDK for the modding community, i can tell you the demand for it is there .

I'll echo others: big random maps on medium-hard. It's not impossible, but it will be a challenge to a casual gamer. Even if you know your victory is inevitable, it will keep you on your toes and sweating.