who beat the game with all "genius" AI?

Yes it is possible. I just finished a game with 5 genius AIs on a medium map.

I was playing very agressively and started building transports as soon as possible as the drengin started close to me and took two of the nearest habitable planets. A bit of luck with finding a battle cruiser early on to let me destroy all their defences and having a +soldiering resource nearby.

perhaps on a smaller map you can win by not letting AI expand too much. But on large maps it grows out of control too fast.

Maybe the trick is try the genius level on a smaller map.

I usually have to work hard when Aliens are set to Average on the gigantic map.

I think the difficulty of winning should not change with the map size but I guess it happens.

the AI cheats =} can't win a diplomatic game on genius.. cause of expansion so early in game. Which shouldn't be possible. DO hope that gets fixed as its a SP only game so the AI should be programmed well.

How does it cheat? Other than the fact that it knows where everything is, but it's supposed to...

I had no trouble beating the Genius AI on larger maps. Did it several times. It's giving me problems on the small map that I'm playing now. I'm waiting for beta 3C before I finish it, because I'm at the wrong end of a bad bug.

Ok, it looks like I made this post too early. The last game I started is going surprisingly well. I started relatively far from the other races and was able to colonize a good chunk of space before aliens took all the good planets.

Here's the strategy:
In begining, set Income Distribution to 70% military, 15% for other 2 fields. Government spending to 100%, tax at 33%. Net income will be negative but with the initial 1000 credits it can last for a long time.
Set all planets to building colony ships.
For social projects and research, focus on improving industry and morale, no military.
All the good planets will be taken pretty fast, switch all military production to Constructors. Focus on getting moral improving resources.
After about 15 Constructors have been built, reduce military spending to 15%, increase social spending to 60%.
As this is happening, Approval Rating will gradually go up. Right now I have 75% Tax, 78% government spending, and 69% Approval Rating. I'm actually outproducing all the other empires.

I dunno yet if this is the winning strategy or just a freak game.

Cheats cause I played 4 dumbs and one average player, and within 60 turns the average player owned almsot all the sectors and had demolished another of the AI's. only way it can do that is if it purchased everything.. On another game when I used espionage to look at another race, there tresury was around -60000000BC

both games was on a medium universe.

I think there is no purchacing limits on the AI's

And why should it know where everything is? I don't.. But i have no problem with that.

However i understand the difcculty of programming AI's so the secret typically is of course the AI cheats, otherwise single player would not be challenging. But since there is no multiplayer, the AI should have a little more focus on it.

If the AI can purchase everything, then a diplomatic win becomes much more diffcult then a miltary one. Though it was ammsuing on idiotic that i got all of everyones planets in exchange for all my tech...

XenoArch,

To understand why the AI knows where all of the good planets, anomalies, and resources are, look at the item titled "A brief history" in the encyclopedia (see the buttons at the top of this forum), particularly the last two paragraphs (heading = "black out").

The treasury thing is a bug. I've never seen it happen with a major race, but it always happens with minor races after they've been traded with a while. Their treasury always goes to a very large negative number.

yeah, but thats just a story rational for the AI "cheat" , doesn't quite match the game as it stands today though.. as new anomolies pop up all the time in this beta. And it didn't before.

so for rational there probes are invisable to us.. so our sensor drones should be invisable to them.(to blance that out) I've had mine attacked in the past.

If they can see everything they know where all my ships are.

XenoArch actually makes a very good point.

You can come up with all the backstory you like, but to me it just seems like a point of imbalance in the game. The AI knows where the good planets are, you don't.

And please, don't give me that BS about "better planet distro for the humans" because it isn't true. I find the distro to be remarkably even.

I don't mind AI knowing everything, but how can it build things so fast and maintain high population?

Does AI start with same population count as player? If no, then that's a cheat I don't like

all the AI "cheats" should be presented to player as options during game setup

It's a beta. Say it to yourself. It's a beta. Right now the AI gets more money to start with than you do. So it can buy more colony ships.

The AI at genius level is going to get extra stuff though even in the final game. That's the whole thing about the genius level, it's supposed to be for people who have mastered the game.

BTW, the AI knowing where the good planets are is part of the back story and if you don't like it, that's too bad.

You'll find that the AI in this game plays much more fairly and non-cheatingly than pretty much any strategy game out there.

And yes, the planet distribution favors the humans. I don't really care whether you believe that to be the case or not. Since I personally programmed that aspect of the game I know it to be true.

can you write an article about the scoring of the game? like what things contribute how much to the final scoew

Yeah it favors the humans.. till the AI comes it and takes them over My own inital complaints shows the distrubution is favored to humans.. Cause they already had colony ships and went straight towards the good planets that are in a sparse destance, hence why they owned alot of sectors so early in the game, while I was well clumped around (granted only had 3 systems colonized then but it was all in the same sector)

Question on the How did you implement galaxy is pre explored by the AI's? They have the whole galaxy explored. but do they know where every ship and new anamoly is after turn 1? (Untill they grab up eyes of the universe) More curious then anything.. Game AI is a hobby of mine.

I didn't realize the dist was favored to humans before, which then blances it out and has truely thematic reasons. Lots of sci-fi where huamns succed has large alien empire spread about the galaxy and humans are clumped to gether at Sol, Proxima Centauri, Tau Ceti.

I appollogize if i sounded whiney, wasn't my intention.. as i said before AI cheats are a needed evil.. until we have a an AI card like whe have 3d cards and sound cards

They don't know where ships are. They only know the contents of the stars.

Imagine it as not having the unexplored fog of war.

The reason for doing that was to save a lot of time programming.

Consider:
1) From a "fun" point of view you want the human players to be able to find good planets early on. If we made it "fair" you'd have many games where humans didn't have anything good near them (which is the scenario the AI regularly findts iself in).

2) Weeks of AI coding would need to be done building a scout, sendingthe scout around, having a per player tracking of which stars it knows about and so forth. That's time that could be spent on tactics or economic management. Most AIs cheat like crazy. GalCiv's plays by the same rules you do with this one exception. And btw, on the lower levels, the AI can't even PURCHASE ships, it has to wait for them to be built.

Oh buts thats the fun stuff to code (Yes okay I'm a closet masochist...)


Ahh so that explains why the Average AI beatup on the dumb ones.

Note to self.. never have just one average ai..

'On another game when I used espionage to look at another race, there tresury was around -60000000BC

both games was on a medium universe.

I think there is no purchacing limits on the AI's'

This specifically, seems to be a bug in the computing of the AI's economy rating. I've seen them come up with nine digit Economy scores on the diplomacy, which would cause their treasury to overflow very rapidly, thus possibly also causing the similarly common observation that the AI tends to be grossly bankrupt.

The AI can't purchase things if it's <0.

Still trying to find out what causes this particular issue.

I have found it easy to drive the treasury of other races into the red. Every time I see their treasury in the plus I find something to sell them and work the most expensive short term deal I can get them to take ($100/10 months instead of $10/100 months, as an example). While I suspect there are other problems causing some of the more severe negative AI treasuries (such as overflow problems), the dendancy of the AI to accept some of the deals I try for certainly needs some work. Then again, I like the advantage I get with the way it is.

That could drive them a little bit into the read but not nearly -342432423. That sort of thing is caused by someone using a ULONG instead of a LONG when dealing with treasury.

The morale improving resources are too powerful. By now I get +80% moral bonus. I have Tax of 100%, Approval rating of almost 100%, government spending of 100%, and I still make extra money!

while AI doesn't seem to care much for this resource, they usually go for military and research.

This is definite imbalance. I suggest reducing moral giving bonus.

I tend to agree. This needs to be tweaked.