Improve the AI Please

If it took two weeks to beat the AI on unfair, then I'd say there's a strong argument to leave it as is.

-HM

The AI in general is weakest 1v1, because it's designed to take advantage of diplomacy elements that aren't present in 1v1 games.



If the teams are locked, the AI shouldn't, and if it does it's a bug. In FFA, well, the AI doesn't know what goals the human player had, and gets to create its own.

That said, do you have any specific AI suggestions or areas of improvement? Saying "AI needs to be better" doesn't give Ironclad much to work with.

The (very soon) upcoming patch 1.04 is projected to fix the locked-teams-unlocked-upon-reload bug.

Like the previous poster mentioned, it is a bug.

That makes no sense. Shouldn't a verteran player be able to face off against AI in 1v1 and still be challenged?

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I'm not sure about specific improvements because I know nothing about AI or game design. I just found it surprising that the AI continued to use light frigates when I was beating him with LRMs. Perhaps program it to try new tactics if its current one is not working. It also did no military teching up..

That's not required What I meant is if you saw anything specific (like in your case that the AI kept sending light frigates to get slaughtered by your LRMs), and you thought "Well, maybe it should prioritize researching/building a ship type that's more effective against LRMs (like carriers or heavy cruisers)"

That's all that's needed. If I had to guess, since you were playing a small map I imagine the AI also didn't have much of an opportunity to get its economy up, either. The AI is generally more balanced than a lot of players, it doesn't "rush" techs, and as such a player can get certain ship types or "key" techs that the AI doesn't know how to properly deal with if you don't give it much time.

1v1 AI will always be more limited, though I know Ironclad is working on improving what they can. Something that Blair revealed in a recent podcast is that the AI already uses the majority of processing power, and they have advanced stuff they don't know how to optimize and keep it playable, so it's waiting on the side until they figure out how to integrate it.

Just a guess but I think he read your post as saying that one game took two weeks to complete. If I'm wrong, then yeah. I don't get it either.

And I won't rehash what's been talked to death around here but I agree. It would be nice to see some improvement in this department. The AI makes a point of sending scouts all over the place but it doesn't seem to do anything worthwhile with that information.

LRMs are kind of stupid strong right now considering their tech level, cost and versatility. A Sova rush can be difficult for even a decent human player to counter if they are not expecting it (it makes me scared to do a Progenitor Mothership, since a Radiance with Detonate Anti-Matter is needed to make sure it can't cause you trouble). TEC is currently the strongest faction, with their brutal early game and killer economy. And finally, you're a human and capable of thought and actual strategy, while the AI lacks the innate problem solving abilities of a human being.

Put all these together, and it isn't surprising that you can beat the AI on a small map with these tactics.

For more of a challenge, I would move away from TEC, Vasari can be better although Returning Armada steamrolls the AI, Advent can be challenging to play as since Cobalts hold up well against many of Advent's units due to their strange Long Range Frigate and weak Disciples. Going for multiple AI's and larger maps where the AI can get it's game rolling might also help.

So you used an unfair tactic that you read about and used rather than figuring it out yourself or beating it 'fairly' and that makes the AI poor and needing an overhaul and a harder setting?

LOL

"Mom, this game was too easy after I used the cheat codes, can you write to the devs and tell them to make it harder?"

study the players.. emulate their behavior in the ai.. for example, allow the ai to buy metals or crystals when it needs them, or right off the bat.. make an ai option for zerg rush option, where it builds a couple of scouts to find you, then a cap and a bunch of lrms to rush with..
Make a non rush ai that develops many/all of the caps, then sends them out in teams, or all in one armada.. have the ai use the train crews option after all the neutral stars are taken and it is apparent that xp is gonna be harder to get..
Instead of all platform defense, make it sometimes use hangar defense, phase space inhibitors, and overlapping repair stations
Have the ai evaluate the map to find chokepoints and then fortify the heck out of them.
Put a bravery variable into the ai so that it'll range from fight to the death, all the way down to flee at 20% damaged
stop the ai from cheating.. when I set a structure to scuttle, it is amazing that the ai stops attacking it and then goes on to it's next target, so I cheat back, and then cancel the scuttle
have the ai evaluate positional data on the defense platforms, not just the number of them, or greatly increase defense platform range so they can almost hit anywhere in the gravity well (reduce effectiveness for range perhaps?)
Figure out which structures currently don't get targeted for whatever reasons and give them some weight.. like frigate factories, pirate/neutral gun platforms, etc.

ok, there's my constructive criticism for what it is worth

I just won a 4 hour 1v1 against a random unfair ai where I only built capital ships, and nothing else, so I'd still say there's room for improvement. There was a planet that was on the front lines for an hour, and when I finally attacked it, they had never bothered to upgrade the planet's health even a single level, so the planet was easily destroyed before reinforcements could arrive for it.

They still run even when they have a significant advantage, one of my capitals was a few hundred health away from death and they turned and fled the system with their 60 or so ships.

Don't hold Sins to an unfair standard. There is no AI in ANY RTS game that can defeat a veteran player who knows what he's doing. If one AI isn't hard enough for you, play against two. If that's not hard enough for you, play against nine.

ps. make sure to put them all on the same team against you.

They should at least give us the option to set the AI handicap or something. I'd rather face one powerful computer than an army of weak ones.

i think they should have more autonamy. I should not have to tell a unfair teamate to phase over to the next planet were there army is and save it from destruction they should know. I find that if i let them do what ever they dont do much of anything. I play on agressive unfairs 2v2 and it was not difficult simply because they didnt attack when they could have they never split there forces and basicly let me do what ever i wanted to there planets aslong as i did not attack there fleet. I think thats the main reason why they are so bad the dont seperate there forces unless its just a group of planet attackers which run away when you get there. What did they do to make the AI unfair give them a 2x to resorces and call it good i see little imporvement.

O and Age of Empires III the expert comps rape me and my friends and we are good at it.

A good solution would be to make the AI scripts modable... they did it in kohan II and some player released extremely brutal Ai's.

Fgrea

Great suggestion. Kohan had the best AI of any rts game.

If anything, the AI is too predictable. It rarely builds the right ships for the situation, and rarely, if ever uses them correctly. About the only thing it does well is retreat quickly when it's out gunned.

The AI needs to get out of the "I built me a Capital Ship, and now I'm OK to rule the Galaxy" mentality. It needs to stop spamming single units, especially 2nd Gen heavy frigates. I had a game where the the AI had 2 CapShips, A couple frigates and a boat load of carrier frigates. I decimated his fighters... he went oops, and then was no more. If he had had a few more Caps, some LRMs or equivalent, it would have been a much bigger fight, and with some good targeting, he may have won the day. I have YET to see an AI amass a quality fleet.

This, IMHO, is the number one priority change that needs to be addressed for the AI.

T

Agree. My biggest beef is the ease at which mods can break early game AI decision making. Like if you make capitols require hours of research and resources, the AI is highly likely to simply give up.

P.S. I would like an option to completely turn off the market.

Thanks !

I doubt we'll get access to AI scripting. That's sort of an aside to the "Improving AI" discussion, though, let's try to keep on topic

Even though a veteran player will always be able to beat the AI, doen't mean that things can't be done to make it more challenging, so keep stuff coming