GalCiv II: Computer AI debugging

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Brad Wardell <bwardell@stardock.com> wrote:
>
> Anyway, here's the URL to the AI debugging session entitled "Human/Drengin
> wars". I through in flavor text as well to make it more interesting to
> read.
>
> http://www.galciv2.com/Journals.aspx?AID=98513

I hadn't read it yet when I made my previous comments, so here are some
more:

First you have trouble with the AI building too many Constructors early,
later you mention them reaching Transports too late. One easy fix (the
way a modder would do it), is too make Constructors availlable later,
and Transports availlable earlier. To be honest, exploiting those
mysterious Galactic Resources sounds a bit more high tech than getting
people from A to B anyway.

I really like the fact that the AI does counter design. A game with
ship design wouldn't be complete without it. A have a few questions,
though: is every ship a counter design, or does it also make alround
ships? Perhaps it depends on how much trouble its having with its
enemy's specialised ships? And can it make one design to counter two
different enemy designs?

Also, how predictable is it in its counter design? A big risk in
counter design in multiplayer games (Stars! is my main example), is
that you may not know exactly how many ships of a certain design the
enemy has built. If it responds to quickly to a new design, I may be
able to trick it into building a lot of ships on a type to counter a
design I only built two of, while I spent most of my time secretly
building a counter against the predictable AI's counter design. If
you know what I mean.

Ofcourse if players tend to specialise extremely in different weapon
technologies, this may not be much of a problem, but with more than
two players, I may be able to trade my advanced mass drivers against
an ally's advanced beams, and surprise my enemy who has just put a
lot of effort into a mass driver resistent fleet.

By the way, I love the unique Drengin ship names, and especially the
fact that their naming scheme changes when their alignment changes.
Probably not very hard to program, but still a very cute detail.

One comment about the Orbital Fleet Manager. For a software engineer,
it's natural to call everything that manages something a Manager, but
in a military SF setting, would Orbital Command Center sound better?

I'm pretty amazed that the Drengin still put up such a good fight,
despite not seeing the importance of most of its own planets.

Great read. Looks like a really exciting game. Any chance you're
looking for beta testers?


mcv.
--
"Serenity is a very personal work with political resonance and a
heartfelt message about the human condition and stuff blowing up.
'Cause let's face it, nobody cares about that 'human condition'
stuff... in fact if you notice it, try to keep it to yourself."
-- Joss Whedon on his new film

mcv <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote in
news:43d6395b$0$11071$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl:

> Also, the AI should realise that his speed 3 Death Knights
> aren't going to catch a speed 9 Starfighter, and that adding
> more Death Knights isn't going to increase the speed. In my
> current game, a handful of Starfighters managed to tie up a
> gigantic fleet of Arcean Death Knights while I still had to
> build my Dreadnoughts with which I wanted to conquer all of his
> planets.

It depends what is more important. Attacking a planet, or harrasing a
group of scouts. ~_^

mcv <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote in
news:43d6395b$0$11071$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl:

> Also, the AI should realise that his speed 3 Death Knights
> aren't going to catch a speed 9 Starfighter, and that adding
> more Death Knights isn't going to increase the speed. In my
> current game, a handful of Starfighters managed to tie up a
> gigantic fleet of Arcean Death Knights while I still had to
> build my Dreadnoughts with which I wanted to conquer all of his
> planets.

It depends what is more important. Attacking a planet, or harrasing a
group of scouts. ~_^

mcv <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote in
news:43d6395b$0$11071$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl:

> Also, the AI should realise that his speed 3 Death Knights
> aren't going to catch a speed 9 Starfighter, and that adding
> more Death Knights isn't going to increase the speed. In my
> current game, a handful of Starfighters managed to tie up a
> gigantic fleet of Arcean Death Knights while I still had to
> build my Dreadnoughts with which I wanted to conquer all of his
> planets.

It depends what is more important. Attacking a planet, or harrasing a
group of scouts. ~_^

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Raghar <notfor@mail.com> wrote:
> mcv <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote in
> news:43d6395b$0$11071$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl:
>
>> Also, the AI should realise that his speed 3 Death Knights
>> aren't going to catch a speed 9 Starfighter, and that adding
>> more Death Knights isn't going to increase the speed. In my
>> current game, a handful of Starfighters managed to tie up a
>> gigantic fleet of Arcean Death Knights while I still had to
>> build my Dreadnoughts with which I wanted to conquer all of his
>> planets.
>
> It depends what is more important. Attacking a planet, or harrasing a
> group of scouts. ~_^

Considering my Starfighters still managed to kill a lot of freighters
and colony ships in orbit of his planets, the Arceans weren't doing a
very good job at harrassing them either.


mcv.
--
"Serenity is a very personal work with political resonance and a
heartfelt message about the human condition and stuff blowing up.
'Cause let's face it, nobody cares about that 'human condition'
stuff... in fact if you notice it, try to keep it to yourself."
-- Joss Whedon on his new film

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Raghar <notfor@mail.com> wrote:
> mcv <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote in
> news:43d6395b$0$11071$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl:
>
>> Also, the AI should realise that his speed 3 Death Knights
>> aren't going to catch a speed 9 Starfighter, and that adding
>> more Death Knights isn't going to increase the speed. In my
>> current game, a handful of Starfighters managed to tie up a
>> gigantic fleet of Arcean Death Knights while I still had to
>> build my Dreadnoughts with which I wanted to conquer all of his
>> planets.
>
> It depends what is more important. Attacking a planet, or harrasing a
> group of scouts. ~_^

Considering my Starfighters still managed to kill a lot of freighters
and colony ships in orbit of his planets, the Arceans weren't doing a
very good job at harrassing them either.


mcv.
--
"Serenity is a very personal work with political resonance and a
heartfelt message about the human condition and stuff blowing up.
'Cause let's face it, nobody cares about that 'human condition'
stuff... in fact if you notice it, try to keep it to yourself."
-- Joss Whedon on his new film

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Raghar <notfor@mail.com> wrote:
> mcv <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote in
> news:43d6395b$0$11071$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl:
>
>> Also, the AI should realise that his speed 3 Death Knights
>> aren't going to catch a speed 9 Starfighter, and that adding
>> more Death Knights isn't going to increase the speed. In my
>> current game, a handful of Starfighters managed to tie up a
>> gigantic fleet of Arcean Death Knights while I still had to
>> build my Dreadnoughts with which I wanted to conquer all of his
>> planets.
>
> It depends what is more important. Attacking a planet, or harrasing a
> group of scouts. ~_^

Considering my Starfighters still managed to kill a lot of freighters
and colony ships in orbit of his planets, the Arceans weren't doing a
very good job at harrassing them either.


mcv.
--
"Serenity is a very personal work with political resonance and a
heartfelt message about the human condition and stuff blowing up.
'Cause let's face it, nobody cares about that 'human condition'
stuff... in fact if you notice it, try to keep it to yourself."
-- Joss Whedon on his new film

"mcv" <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:43d6395b$0$11071$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
> In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Brad Wardell <bwardell@stardock.com>
> wrote:
>> Back a couple of years ago there was a great deal of discussion on Usenet
>> with regards to the GalCiv I AI. Most people thought it was pretty good
>> but
>> others felt the military tactics were bad.
>
> "Bad" is a bit stronger than I'd put it. It was still better than the
> vast majority of strategy games out there, but the vast majority of
> strategy games has seriously brain dead AI. I'm glad GalCiv1 at least
> made a serious attempt at decent AI, and it was all the more fun
> because of it. I'm still playing it.

Thanks. My beef with it was the death trains. There was all this work put
into having the AI intelligently project military force and in the end it
often looked no different than the standard death train stuff.

>
>> That while the AI provided a
>> challenge, it mostly was able to do so because it was more effective at
>> managing its economy/industry than the typical human and thus could
>> essentially "win" through brute force.
>
> It's not even that it's more effective at running its economy, but
> that it gets a big economic bonus. Given time, I will catch up
> economically even without wars. Mostly because of the wonders and
> trade goods ofcourse, because the AI rarely manages to grab more
> than one or two of those.

Yea, at the higher levels it did. In GalCiv II, the really high levels have
money bonuses as well. Up to "Intelligent" the AI will play its best game
without any special bonuses. The goal was to make it so that it could beat
a good strategy gamer without having to get any bonuses. I'm still tweaking
it even as we speak but it's very close.

In GalCiv I, I could beat the AI (without using some cheese tactic) way
beyond the point where it had started to get bonuses. In GalCiv II, I can
beat the AI solidly on intelligent but not a bit beyond that.

>
>> In general, my view was that the AI worked pretty well but militarily was
>> disappointed. The main issue was its lack of coordination in projecting
>> military power into a given quadrant. The result was hat looked like the
>> age-old "Death train" (That's where units uselessly throw themselves at a
>> wall dying with no purpose). There simply wasn't enough analysis on
>> putting
>> units together and using them effectivley.
>
> This is a problem with absolutely every complex strategy game out there.
> Their attacks lack focus, which means that in the best cases, they're
> decent at defense, but little else. The only exception I can think of
> is PG3SE; there, the AI sometimes seems to be mounting a decent counter
> offensive, although I think it's usually either prepared by the human
> creating the scenario, or the result of some clever scripting.
>
> I think an important part of fixing this is to:
> A) make the AI realise that Death Knights without transports aren't
> going to win the war, and

Yep. The AI is much more intelligent in this area.

> B) transports without support from superior firepower are going to
> lose the war.

This time there's a lot more emphasis on escorts. It will, especially at
higher levels, vigorously try to escort transports. The one gotcha is that
now that the AI doesn't "see all" like in GalCiv I that it will sometimes
still send a fast transport not seeing there's an enemy in the way.

>
> For good combined arms, you need:
> 1) Some tough ships of the line, and enough of them to fight off the
> enemy,
> 2) Transports to take planets, and
> 3) Fast raiders who use their speed to jump from behind the protection
> of the big ships and wreak some havoc.
>

Yep. And one of the other challenges which I'm still working on is
coordinating the attack -- tough ships take our orbital defenses, nearby
transport takes over. That probably wont' make it in to the boxed release
but I hope to get it into the bonus back (performance right now is a key
factor and coordination like this is expensive but with further algorithm
optimization it can be done).

> The AI should be trying to group his ships in groups with each of these
> types present in sufficient numbers (although type 3 isn't really
> vital). They don't have to travel to the front in these groups, but
> once they get to the enemy planets, something of the appropriate type
> has to be nearby, or he's just wasting time.

Yep. The fleets now are very nice in this regard.

>
> Also, the AI should realise that his speed 3 Death Knights aren't
> going to catch a speed 9 Starfighter, and that adding more Death
> Knights isn't going to increase the speed. In my current game, a
> handful of Starfighters managed to tie up a gigantic fleet of Arcean
> Death Knights while I still had to build my Dreadnoughts with which
> I wanted to conquer all of his planets. I think I had a single
> Battleship. He caught me with my pants down, and wasted his time
> and his fleet on chasing down Starfighters he could never hope to
> catch.

This one is more difficult than it sounds. It now TENDS to not go after
those ships but it will still go after them if it thinks it'll catch them
off guard. But no, it won't chase some scout around the galaxy.

>
>> A lot -- A LOT -- of work has been going into the AI of Galactic
>> Civilizations II in order to not just make it "challenging" but to make
>> it
>> play intelligently. There were significant chunks of the GalCiv I AI
>> that
>> were scripted. That is, the AI is programmed to do certain things due to
>> play-testing over and over. This time around, we're trying our best to
>> make
>> the AI build strategies based on analysis and not rely on scripts.
>
> This is really good news. Can't wait to see it. That should help fix
> some of the problems I mentioned above.
>
>> The improvements in the AI have led to a lot of changes, probably the
>> biggest one being the elimination of the infamous "The AI knows where the
>> good planets are" issue that GalCiv from the OS/2 days on up to the 2003
>> release of GalCiv. GalCiv II's AI has to build scouts and look for good
>> planets just like everyone else.
>
> That would be really great. But is the AI smart enough to do that? I
> was one of the people who criticised your claim that the game had a
> "level palying field", when in fact the AI didn't need scouts at all,
> but at the same time, I do understand that smart scouting isn't easy.
> And what is the AI going to do when I find a Starfighter early and
> start killing off his scouts?

The big difference was going to 3D. By going to 3D, the graphics were taken
off the CPU and onto the video card. So I could have the AI do more CPU
intensive stuff.

>
> Although I'd love a truly level playing field, an able opponent is
> still more important.

At the highest levels, the AI gets bonuses. But right now, even at the
highest level it still has to explore and such.

>
>> The idea being that when the game's
>> released, the difficulty levels will determine how smartly the AI plays
>> rather than age old "Here's some money (or less of)" way that strategy
>> games
>> have used as a crutch.
>
> Another decision I love. I mean, crutches are better than limping along,
> but, to stretch this metaphor a bit further, I would love to see an AI
> that can actually stand on its own legs. I've never seen anything like
> that.
>
> And again, don't be afraid to make use of the things the AI is good at:
> working the numbers, fast processing speed, etc. Make it mean and
> nasty and rip my guts out at the toughest levels. It's gonna need it.
>
>

I've passed on your feedback btw, great stuff. I can't wait to hear what
you think of the final game.

Brad
--
Brad Wardell
Project Manager: Galactic Civilizations II (www.galciv2.com)
Stardock - http://www.stardock.com

> mcv.
> --
> "Serenity is a very personal work with political resonance and a
> heartfelt message about the human condition and stuff blowing up.
> 'Cause let's face it, nobody cares about that 'human condition'
> stuff... in fact if you notice it, try to keep it to yourself."
> -- Joss Whedon on his new film

"mcv" <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:43d6395b$0$11071$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
> In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Brad Wardell <bwardell@stardock.com>
> wrote:
>> Back a couple of years ago there was a great deal of discussion on Usenet
>> with regards to the GalCiv I AI. Most people thought it was pretty good
>> but
>> others felt the military tactics were bad.
>
> "Bad" is a bit stronger than I'd put it. It was still better than the
> vast majority of strategy games out there, but the vast majority of
> strategy games has seriously brain dead AI. I'm glad GalCiv1 at least
> made a serious attempt at decent AI, and it was all the more fun
> because of it. I'm still playing it.

Thanks. My beef with it was the death trains. There was all this work put
into having the AI intelligently project military force and in the end it
often looked no different than the standard death train stuff.

>
>> That while the AI provided a
>> challenge, it mostly was able to do so because it was more effective at
>> managing its economy/industry than the typical human and thus could
>> essentially "win" through brute force.
>
> It's not even that it's more effective at running its economy, but
> that it gets a big economic bonus. Given time, I will catch up
> economically even without wars. Mostly because of the wonders and
> trade goods ofcourse, because the AI rarely manages to grab more
> than one or two of those.

Yea, at the higher levels it did. In GalCiv II, the really high levels have
money bonuses as well. Up to "Intelligent" the AI will play its best game
without any special bonuses. The goal was to make it so that it could beat
a good strategy gamer without having to get any bonuses. I'm still tweaking
it even as we speak but it's very close.

In GalCiv I, I could beat the AI (without using some cheese tactic) way
beyond the point where it had started to get bonuses. In GalCiv II, I can
beat the AI solidly on intelligent but not a bit beyond that.

>
>> In general, my view was that the AI worked pretty well but militarily was
>> disappointed. The main issue was its lack of coordination in projecting
>> military power into a given quadrant. The result was hat looked like the
>> age-old "Death train" (That's where units uselessly throw themselves at a
>> wall dying with no purpose). There simply wasn't enough analysis on
>> putting
>> units together and using them effectivley.
>
> This is a problem with absolutely every complex strategy game out there.
> Their attacks lack focus, which means that in the best cases, they're
> decent at defense, but little else. The only exception I can think of
> is PG3SE; there, the AI sometimes seems to be mounting a decent counter
> offensive, although I think it's usually either prepared by the human
> creating the scenario, or the result of some clever scripting.
>
> I think an important part of fixing this is to:
> A) make the AI realise that Death Knights without transports aren't
> going to win the war, and

Yep. The AI is much more intelligent in this area.

> B) transports without support from superior firepower are going to
> lose the war.

This time there's a lot more emphasis on escorts. It will, especially at
higher levels, vigorously try to escort transports. The one gotcha is that
now that the AI doesn't "see all" like in GalCiv I that it will sometimes
still send a fast transport not seeing there's an enemy in the way.

>
> For good combined arms, you need:
> 1) Some tough ships of the line, and enough of them to fight off the
> enemy,
> 2) Transports to take planets, and
> 3) Fast raiders who use their speed to jump from behind the protection
> of the big ships and wreak some havoc.
>

Yep. And one of the other challenges which I'm still working on is
coordinating the attack -- tough ships take our orbital defenses, nearby
transport takes over. That probably wont' make it in to the boxed release
but I hope to get it into the bonus back (performance right now is a key
factor and coordination like this is expensive but with further algorithm
optimization it can be done).

> The AI should be trying to group his ships in groups with each of these
> types present in sufficient numbers (although type 3 isn't really
> vital). They don't have to travel to the front in these groups, but
> once they get to the enemy planets, something of the appropriate type
> has to be nearby, or he's just wasting time.

Yep. The fleets now are very nice in this regard.

>
> Also, the AI should realise that his speed 3 Death Knights aren't
> going to catch a speed 9 Starfighter, and that adding more Death
> Knights isn't going to increase the speed. In my current game, a
> handful of Starfighters managed to tie up a gigantic fleet of Arcean
> Death Knights while I still had to build my Dreadnoughts with which
> I wanted to conquer all of his planets. I think I had a single
> Battleship. He caught me with my pants down, and wasted his time
> and his fleet on chasing down Starfighters he could never hope to
> catch.

This one is more difficult than it sounds. It now TENDS to not go after
those ships but it will still go after them if it thinks it'll catch them
off guard. But no, it won't chase some scout around the galaxy.

>
>> A lot -- A LOT -- of work has been going into the AI of Galactic
>> Civilizations II in order to not just make it "challenging" but to make
>> it
>> play intelligently. There were significant chunks of the GalCiv I AI
>> that
>> were scripted. That is, the AI is programmed to do certain things due to
>> play-testing over and over. This time around, we're trying our best to
>> make
>> the AI build strategies based on analysis and not rely on scripts.
>
> This is really good news. Can't wait to see it. That should help fix
> some of the problems I mentioned above.
>
>> The improvements in the AI have led to a lot of changes, probably the
>> biggest one being the elimination of the infamous "The AI knows where the
>> good planets are" issue that GalCiv from the OS/2 days on up to the 2003
>> release of GalCiv. GalCiv II's AI has to build scouts and look for good
>> planets just like everyone else.
>
> That would be really great. But is the AI smart enough to do that? I
> was one of the people who criticised your claim that the game had a
> "level palying field", when in fact the AI didn't need scouts at all,
> but at the same time, I do understand that smart scouting isn't easy.
> And what is the AI going to do when I find a Starfighter early and
> start killing off his scouts?

The big difference was going to 3D. By going to 3D, the graphics were taken
off the CPU and onto the video card. So I could have the AI do more CPU
intensive stuff.

>
> Although I'd love a truly level playing field, an able opponent is
> still more important.

At the highest levels, the AI gets bonuses. But right now, even at the
highest level it still has to explore and such.

>
>> The idea being that when the game's
>> released, the difficulty levels will determine how smartly the AI plays
>> rather than age old "Here's some money (or less of)" way that strategy
>> games
>> have used as a crutch.
>
> Another decision I love. I mean, crutches are better than limping along,
> but, to stretch this metaphor a bit further, I would love to see an AI
> that can actually stand on its own legs. I've never seen anything like
> that.
>
> And again, don't be afraid to make use of the things the AI is good at:
> working the numbers, fast processing speed, etc. Make it mean and
> nasty and rip my guts out at the toughest levels. It's gonna need it.
>
>

I've passed on your feedback btw, great stuff. I can't wait to hear what
you think of the final game.

Brad
--
Brad Wardell
Project Manager: Galactic Civilizations II (www.galciv2.com)
Stardock - http://www.stardock.com

> mcv.
> --
> "Serenity is a very personal work with political resonance and a
> heartfelt message about the human condition and stuff blowing up.
> 'Cause let's face it, nobody cares about that 'human condition'
> stuff... in fact if you notice it, try to keep it to yourself."
> -- Joss Whedon on his new film

"mcv" <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:43d6395b$0$11071$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
> In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Brad Wardell <bwardell@stardock.com>
> wrote:
>> Back a couple of years ago there was a great deal of discussion on Usenet
>> with regards to the GalCiv I AI. Most people thought it was pretty good
>> but
>> others felt the military tactics were bad.
>
> "Bad" is a bit stronger than I'd put it. It was still better than the
> vast majority of strategy games out there, but the vast majority of
> strategy games has seriously brain dead AI. I'm glad GalCiv1 at least
> made a serious attempt at decent AI, and it was all the more fun
> because of it. I'm still playing it.

Thanks. My beef with it was the death trains. There was all this work put
into having the AI intelligently project military force and in the end it
often looked no different than the standard death train stuff.

>
>> That while the AI provided a
>> challenge, it mostly was able to do so because it was more effective at
>> managing its economy/industry than the typical human and thus could
>> essentially "win" through brute force.
>
> It's not even that it's more effective at running its economy, but
> that it gets a big economic bonus. Given time, I will catch up
> economically even without wars. Mostly because of the wonders and
> trade goods ofcourse, because the AI rarely manages to grab more
> than one or two of those.

Yea, at the higher levels it did. In GalCiv II, the really high levels have
money bonuses as well. Up to "Intelligent" the AI will play its best game
without any special bonuses. The goal was to make it so that it could beat
a good strategy gamer without having to get any bonuses. I'm still tweaking
it even as we speak but it's very close.

In GalCiv I, I could beat the AI (without using some cheese tactic) way
beyond the point where it had started to get bonuses. In GalCiv II, I can
beat the AI solidly on intelligent but not a bit beyond that.

>
>> In general, my view was that the AI worked pretty well but militarily was
>> disappointed. The main issue was its lack of coordination in projecting
>> military power into a given quadrant. The result was hat looked like the
>> age-old "Death train" (That's where units uselessly throw themselves at a
>> wall dying with no purpose). There simply wasn't enough analysis on
>> putting
>> units together and using them effectivley.
>
> This is a problem with absolutely every complex strategy game out there.
> Their attacks lack focus, which means that in the best cases, they're
> decent at defense, but little else. The only exception I can think of
> is PG3SE; there, the AI sometimes seems to be mounting a decent counter
> offensive, although I think it's usually either prepared by the human
> creating the scenario, or the result of some clever scripting.
>
> I think an important part of fixing this is to:
> A) make the AI realise that Death Knights without transports aren't
> going to win the war, and

Yep. The AI is much more intelligent in this area.

> B) transports without support from superior firepower are going to
> lose the war.

This time there's a lot more emphasis on escorts. It will, especially at
higher levels, vigorously try to escort transports. The one gotcha is that
now that the AI doesn't "see all" like in GalCiv I that it will sometimes
still send a fast transport not seeing there's an enemy in the way.

>
> For good combined arms, you need:
> 1) Some tough ships of the line, and enough of them to fight off the
> enemy,
> 2) Transports to take planets, and
> 3) Fast raiders who use their speed to jump from behind the protection
> of the big ships and wreak some havoc.
>

Yep. And one of the other challenges which I'm still working on is
coordinating the attack -- tough ships take our orbital defenses, nearby
transport takes over. That probably wont' make it in to the boxed release
but I hope to get it into the bonus back (performance right now is a key
factor and coordination like this is expensive but with further algorithm
optimization it can be done).

> The AI should be trying to group his ships in groups with each of these
> types present in sufficient numbers (although type 3 isn't really
> vital). They don't have to travel to the front in these groups, but
> once they get to the enemy planets, something of the appropriate type
> has to be nearby, or he's just wasting time.

Yep. The fleets now are very nice in this regard.

>
> Also, the AI should realise that his speed 3 Death Knights aren't
> going to catch a speed 9 Starfighter, and that adding more Death
> Knights isn't going to increase the speed. In my current game, a
> handful of Starfighters managed to tie up a gigantic fleet of Arcean
> Death Knights while I still had to build my Dreadnoughts with which
> I wanted to conquer all of his planets. I think I had a single
> Battleship. He caught me with my pants down, and wasted his time
> and his fleet on chasing down Starfighters he could never hope to
> catch.

This one is more difficult than it sounds. It now TENDS to not go after
those ships but it will still go after them if it thinks it'll catch them
off guard. But no, it won't chase some scout around the galaxy.

>
>> A lot -- A LOT -- of work has been going into the AI of Galactic
>> Civilizations II in order to not just make it "challenging" but to make
>> it
>> play intelligently. There were significant chunks of the GalCiv I AI
>> that
>> were scripted. That is, the AI is programmed to do certain things due to
>> play-testing over and over. This time around, we're trying our best to
>> make
>> the AI build strategies based on analysis and not rely on scripts.
>
> This is really good news. Can't wait to see it. That should help fix
> some of the problems I mentioned above.
>
>> The improvements in the AI have led to a lot of changes, probably the
>> biggest one being the elimination of the infamous "The AI knows where the
>> good planets are" issue that GalCiv from the OS/2 days on up to the 2003
>> release of GalCiv. GalCiv II's AI has to build scouts and look for good
>> planets just like everyone else.
>
> That would be really great. But is the AI smart enough to do that? I
> was one of the people who criticised your claim that the game had a
> "level palying field", when in fact the AI didn't need scouts at all,
> but at the same time, I do understand that smart scouting isn't easy.
> And what is the AI going to do when I find a Starfighter early and
> start killing off his scouts?

The big difference was going to 3D. By going to 3D, the graphics were taken
off the CPU and onto the video card. So I could have the AI do more CPU
intensive stuff.

>
> Although I'd love a truly level playing field, an able opponent is
> still more important.

At the highest levels, the AI gets bonuses. But right now, even at the
highest level it still has to explore and such.

>
>> The idea being that when the game's
>> released, the difficulty levels will determine how smartly the AI plays
>> rather than age old "Here's some money (or less of)" way that strategy
>> games
>> have used as a crutch.
>
> Another decision I love. I mean, crutches are better than limping along,
> but, to stretch this metaphor a bit further, I would love to see an AI
> that can actually stand on its own legs. I've never seen anything like
> that.
>
> And again, don't be afraid to make use of the things the AI is good at:
> working the numbers, fast processing speed, etc. Make it mean and
> nasty and rip my guts out at the toughest levels. It's gonna need it.
>
>

I've passed on your feedback btw, great stuff. I can't wait to hear what
you think of the final game.

Brad
--
Brad Wardell
Project Manager: Galactic Civilizations II (www.galciv2.com)
Stardock - http://www.stardock.com

> mcv.
> --
> "Serenity is a very personal work with political resonance and a
> heartfelt message about the human condition and stuff blowing up.
> 'Cause let's face it, nobody cares about that 'human condition'
> stuff... in fact if you notice it, try to keep it to yourself."
> -- Joss Whedon on his new film