Bad AI behavior

from GalCiv2 Forums
I play the Yor in my game, and my 3 closest neighbours are the Arceans, the Terrans and the Iconians. The Iconians, in peticular, were my main concern at first during the game. They were the closest to my border, and we shared 3 solar system (1 planet each in the same system).

So, naturally, when I built my military, I stockpiled many ships on criticaly-placed planet (in addition to a minimum of 1 defensive ship/planet). the 3 shared shared solar system, and 2 planets bordering the Arcean. I wasn't planning for war, but these were "just in case".

Eventually, the Iconians declared war on me. So I immediatly design a transport ship, buy them on some of my worlds, and send the stockpiled ship on attack. The Iconians never got any chance, and were wiped out. After 2 weeks, they had lost 3 planets to me, and their military position was quite bad. The most ironic is, I put the Iconians as the smartest opponent during the game (the lower level where they "cheat")

Which points out a critical failure of the AI's way to run military. It's one of the basic rule of Strategy: you attack when you are ready. You put the ennemy on the defensive, you make it react to you, never allowing him any chance to move. I could understand if I declared war on the Iconians that they were in no position to attack. But THEY declared war. They knew where my main fleets were located (in orbit near their own worlds), but they didn't had 1 transport ready. They didn't had 1 fleet located within striking range to wreak havoc among my fleet.

Now, I can understand how difficult it is to write those AI. Especially tactically sound AIs. On a range of 0 to 10, design these would take me about around 16.

However, would it be possible to include something like "Condition 1: Fleet within striking distance of ennemy world. Condition 2: Transport within striking distance of ennemy world. Condition 1 and 2 required to declare war".

It would be nice, when war is declared on me, to sweat and have to rush in order to scramble a desperate defence against the well-prepared ennemy. I have not even been attacked ONCE by the Iconians transports.

I know that when I declare war, I know where their fleet are. I know how protected my target planets are, and how long it will take for me to invade them all. Does the AI prepare a true coordonated empire-wide military campaign, or it simply sets itself target of opportunities and try to hit them? Does it need to be at war to build transport ships and prepare for an invasion?


Changing the topic, another strange behavior I noticed. Twice, during the game, the minor race called the Alixians declared war on me because "I stationned transport near their worlds, and they are not stupid". While I don't even know WHERE their world is (even with Eye of the Universe). I eventually always broke the peace with them witouth firing a single shot, and they always pay me a lot of $$ for the peace treaty. Weird.

But not weird as this: recently, they sent around 15 constructors unescorted inside my space, and they began to construct pointless influence starbases. What is going on????
5,267 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Minors always build influence bases.
And no one in their right mind would escort constructors.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Boy do I hate the stupid AI, one the game i'm currently on I bribed the drengin to attack the terrans to spice up the game, and while I was watching the war I noticed that the terrans did not build a single military ship, only frieghter, constructors, and colony ships, while the drengin had massive fleets. Now i'm making and selling old ships to the terrans just so they have a fighting chance.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
"and while I was watching the war I noticed that the terrans did not build a single military ship, only frieghter, constructors, and colony ships,"

That describes my normal strategy until quite late in the game. Constructing aand maintaining a large militry is a tremendous drag on your economy, especially during the exponential growth phase. So if you can get away with not building warships for as long as possible it gives you a big advantage.

I usually win my games, so maybe the AI isn't that stupid.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
But THEY declared war. They knew where my main fleets were located (in orbit near their own worlds), but they didn't had 1 transport ready. They didn't had 1 fleet located within striking range to wreak havoc among my fleet.


Yes the devs made the ai just declare war when it thinks that you are going to attack it(to prevent a exploit where you place fleets and transporters next to their worlds and "surprise" attack them). but the ai just cant think more than one turn ahead and prepare itself b4 doing so. And thats probably the main weakness. it can only react to situations but not make a overall plan like "i am going to attack X in x turns so i get some fleets and transporters near their border". also all fleets seem to think on their own. the ai cannot assemble fleets for a single strike. i saw games where an ai declared war on a minor race and had a line of transports from the major race homeworld all over the map to the homeworld of the minor race. though they only needed about 2 fleets to capture that planet. and in the same game, about 20 fleets of the same ai just entered my space to kill a weaponless mini freighter. i was like wtf are they going to attack me?! but no they used about 100 ships only to kill a single trader. and i was playing on painful.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I usually win my games, so maybe the AI isn't that stupid.


The terrans and the drengin were literally nighbors, and not only did the terrans not build any ships, they had no military ships AT All, not even any military tech at all, and the drengin just sent a few small fleets and simply anihalated every thing the terrans had, then once they did that, they parked their fleets next to their worlds and killed anything they made, I think that qualifies as "stupid".
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The AI is not all that in this game. I personally think it does very well, especially in areas that I think would be very difficult to code up. However relatively simple things like building planets up, or researching and using defenses against it's opponent are still beyond its grasp.

If it gets a tech lead, or just out colony rushes you, you can lose. Otherwise you're going to win as long as you play correctly. Things that allow you to do this are :

1) match up against your attacker. (max out defense, and get good weapon against them.)
2) take out the few "attack" fleets they send at you, and wipe out the hoards of transports.
3) slowly pick off a planet of theirs at a time. you only really need a few good fleets to win.
4) take over thier military resource starbases. (they don't defend them, so it's usually easy to do)

The other way the AI can win, is if you get 3 or 4 of them attacking you at once with different weapons. Best way of avoiding this, is to try to keep them off of you with diplomacy and military power.

Once they fix these AI issues, I think playing over crippling should be nay impossible. (but that could be another 6 months of develpment at least)