Weird AI shipbuilding in 1.50X.068

Why spamming cheap ships is a bad idea

from GalCiv2 Forums
Howdy! Noticed something really weird interesting in my last game of DA.

My settings:
Tough
Large
Blah, blah (not relevant in this case)
Playing as the Krynn Consulate

AI's were: Drengin, Terran, Altarian, Arcean. Minors: Corinoids, Akilians

So... On to the (space) oddity.

Late in the game, and the Drengin were at war (as usual), this time with the Arceans. Since I had Eyes of the Universe, and had given the Arceans some advanced ships, I had a nice view of the action. The Drengin had really decent tech (photon torpedoes, PD Defense, etc...), but I am not exaggerating when I say that they had literally hundreds of a small hulled fighter simply called "Super Dominator Corvette", which was simply armed with a few Mass Drivers, no defense, and no engines. They were swarming everywhere!

The really odd thing about this is that the Drengin had some advanced Frigates utilizing all their tech. Is there some event that I missed involving the Super Dominator Corvettes, or did the AI get loopy from sniffing too much silicone?

My other notes on the new DA patch (besides the fact that this game is freakin' awesome!):

-The Jagged Knife event happens WAY too often. I can almost count on it occurring every game. I wanna see the other mega-events!

-The AI builds Fusion plants etc. on planets that have little to no manufacturing buildings. This is useless, to my knowledge, in that for a fusion plant (or whatever) to be worthwhile, there has to be X factory-type buildings, where X is a number that will at least equal the output of one building. I.E. - For fusion plants (+25% - could be wrong on that though), you need a minimum of FOUR factory-type structures in order to justify having the power plant (4 x.25 = 1); the power plant's bonus would be the equivalant of 1 factory. Maybe I'm calculating wrong?

-When AI ships have orders to go somewhere, they're pretty inflexible. Case in point: I mistakenly stranded a transport less than one turn away from an enemy world which was undefended. Unfortunately, there was an enemy fleet right next to the transport (gotta put more sensors on my transports!). My intelligence level was such that I could see that the fleet had orders to travel to far-off lands to attempt wreaking havoc on me. I clicked "Next Turn", expecting to lose the transport, but the fleet completely ignored it!


Meh, there's probably more I could think of, but it's likely already been documented, and why take time out of a Saturday morning writing posts when I could be out conquering the galaxy!

Cheers!
8,409 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

-The Jagged Knife event happens WAY too often. I can almost count on it occurring every game. I wanna see the other mega-events!


Funny, I've only seen in twice in 15 games. What I get almost every game is the gimpy Dread Lords event. I think the triggering may be responding to our respective playstyles. The ME's are supposed to react to the game state, not just be random. I've never seen the pirates or peacekeepers, for example.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!

This is en event you can get. I also personally got this event in my latest game. The ships where many but they where crap and costed me alot of bucks so I killed them off asap.

Karl
TouchTasks - Access tasks with ease on Windows touchscreens.
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
-The AI builds Fusion plants etc. on planets that have little to no manufacturing buildings. This is useless, to my knowledge, in that for a fusion plant (or whatever) to be worthwhile, there has to be X factory-type buildings, where X is a number that will at least equal the output of one building. I.E. - For fusion plants (+25% - could be wrong on that though), you need a minimum of FOUR factory-type structures in order to justify having the power plant (4 x.25 = 1); the power plant's bonus would be the equivalant of 1 factory. Maybe I'm calculating wrong?


The AI is really stupid when it comes to developing planets period. Now that I can view their planets right from the beginning of the game, I can see how badly they do this. I've seen Factories on research bonus squares, while there's a Research Lab on just an ordinary tile. They seem to totally disregard all the bonus tiles on a planet, which to me doesn't make sense at all. I always try to match the building to the bonus, you get alot more bang for your buck that way.

BTW, as of 1.5x Fusion Plants are no longer 25%, they're only 10%. And Quantum Plants are only 30% instead of 100%. So until you get up to the Quantum level, they're mainly just useful on planets being supplied by asteroid fields. Unless you've got a large planet with scads of Factories. And don't forget to factor in the manufacturing you get from the initial colony.

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think that the AI needs to start off the colony (no matter the end goal of it) with at least one factory. When I invade and they have 2 factories, and a farm in que but have already made a starport and have every terraforming tile in que before it....it just is really really stupid.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Aye, they need to make sure that in any build order, factories always come first. This goes for upgrades, too... it'd be nice if the game automatically stuck factories at the front of other upgrades in the queue.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
By the way, those "Super Dominator Corvettes" are the Drengin super ability... they get a whole bunch of them every time they declare war.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would have to agree with Belanos that AI do build stupid. For example, when I want a quick "action-packed" game 1v1 with all techs researched on a small map with about 5-6 planets I expect the AI to evaluate its priorities and make factories and economic buildings for ships. But all 3 of it's planets I captured to win the game all had 6,7, and then 10 research labs (on each planet respectively). However, this is in Dread Lords not DA...cannot say much about that.

Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
But all 3 of it's planets I captured to win the game all had 6,7, and then 10 research labs (on each planet respectively). However, this is in Dread Lords not DA...cannot say much about that.



It hasn't changed much. I'm seeing mainly Factories and Research Labs, with the odd Market. There's no diversification with any of their planets, they all get built the same way. Even when they're at risk of a cultural takeover, they won't deviate enough to build an Embassy or two to hold it off. And as I said, they totally disregard the bonus tiles on a planet. I don't understand why Stardock can't write in some code that gets them to use these squares effectively, it shouldn't be that hard to do.

Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Super Dominator Corvette", which was simply armed with a few Mass Drivers, no defense, and no engines. They were swarming everywhere!



these are free ships that come with super dominator

if you have super dominator you get free ships when you go to war wether you attack or defend
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
By the way, those "Super Dominator Corvettes" are the Drengin super ability... they get a whole bunch of them every time they declare war.


Ohhhhhhhhh! Gotcha!   

Thanks for the corrections on the fusion and such calcs too - I didn't think about the initial colony or asteroid field bonuses that it could be useful for... I still think, however, that the AI doesn't always plan its' planets(!) very well.

Or...

Maybe the AI has a master scheme going on that we just don't know about, a diabolical (in the Drengin's case) blueprint that doesn't always include building factories on every planet. It could be that it decides that it needs to go nuts on research, so instead of wasting time/credits building factories, it plops down the labs and buys them outright. Maybe that's what the computer does with all the money you give it for techs...