Improved AI, scale?

I'm wondering how improved the AI. I haven't got a chance to play them, but I'm curious.
 
I understand they're vastly improved, but what does that mean?
 
Are they 2x better, 3x better, 1.5x better?
 
 
Anyone know? I just want a sense of scale here.
21,965 views 10 replies
Reply #1 Top
-3x worse

Somehow they are worse then before, My friend and I just played 2v2 we fought 2 hard random computers on a medium map “Entanglement” One computer colonized as many planets as he could and did not upgrade them, due to this he was minus credits the hole game and never had a fleeta nd could not even afford extractors on the planets.. the other computer had a mediocre army.. and later he had his lvl 6 cap ship off by itself to be destroyed… we have played many 2vs2 games, and this was the easiest AI yet.. and I thought they where easy before.. Still have the replay if proof is needed
Reply #2 Top
I've only played two comp games so far, but I have to agree that the AI in fact seems less competent than before, even on the "Unfair" setting. They built almost no units. Bug?
Reply #3 Top
The AI just seems to be aloooooooooot slower... If you want a decent game you need to camp for about 5 hours.. before they start doing anything.
Reply #4 Top
Heh. Yeah. I played a 3v3 online, and people started quitting(They give up, for whatever reason.) and AI takes over....


WOW. They moved ships around yes, and made ships. But utterely useless. He just kept a small fleet of his capital ship and 15 disciples sitting at a dead asteroid while his colonies were getting destroyed.
Reply #5 Top
I'm currently playing my own map with a 3v3v3 setting over multiple stars. AI is set to normal/random and so far I've not seeen anything thats been listed here. I'll be sure to report back if I notice any odd things.
Reply #6 Top
Can't say I've noticed that it's any better. The only difference I've noticed is that once an AI surrendered when it was down to one ice planet, and once a fleet stuck around getting killed rather than running. Other than that .. still not even as good as a total newbie human player.
Reply #7 Top
Haven't noticed any of the issues posted here :o The AI generally doesn't handle 1v1s very well, but in larger games it's been doing quite a bit better - it builds up defenses now, uses more than just a capital + 100 light frigates, and usually wastes less resources on siege frigates.

I certainly wouldn't say it's worse than 1.02 AI - still room to be better, but I wouldn't want to go back to the 1.02 version.
Reply #8 Top
I actually had a decent experience with the AI last night while messing around.

Granted, the Unfair AI had one of the best starting areas it could hope for (Homeworld, Desert, 2 Ice and a Volcanic all very close) but it fairly fast got up a fleet of two capitals and 30 or so Light Frigates, with which it attacked me in reasonably short order. It still turned around and ran once it lost one capital ship, and didn't seem too keen on ever going beyond Capital Ships and Light Frigates, so once the Heavy Cruisers came to play it didn't have long.

I don't know why this was so different from everyone else's. Maybe the Unfair can only do decent when it's given all the right worlds around it. The AI that takes over for players though I've seen be pretty bad, it's taken planets but built little things of use (including multiple capital ship factories, bizarre).
Reply #9 Top
I haven't downloaded 1.03 yet but am looking forward to it.

I'm just throwing this out there but could it be that the computer is playing its "personality" a little better with the patch? What I mean is, for instance, does the researcher "personality" actually put more emphasis on research. Could that explain any of the behavior?

I mean, I'm quite aware that there is no "act foolish" or "do nothing" personality so my theory might not hold much water ;)

I'll finish up my game that I'm working on tonight and check out the patch.
Reply #10 Top
I would say the ai is better in the following areas

1) base defense: more intelligent building locations and choices
2) fleet compostion (no more worthless 60+ light frigates). Much more powerful ship mix now. Seeing alot more lrms now and heavies now. Before I wouldnt even blink at engaging the AI unless he had at LEAST 2-1 numbers on me. Now it seems to actually throw some good punches. THANK YOU!
3) Combat: partly due to fleet compostion but the AI also seems to be better about which targets to attack and focus firing
4) Diplomacy: less eratic

What its gotten WORSE at
1) colonization and general early game: Seems considerably worse than before. Ive played 2 games and in both the ai's were really really slow in the intial land grab. I saw one that only had 3 total colonies by the time I had 8 and he had plenty of free space around him. Really not sure what it was doing all that time. This is probably my number one plea in terms of things to fix in 1.04

2) Still seeing a poor ratio of support cruisers. 25+ robotics cruisers when you only have about 35 lrms and carriers? Thats just called cannon fodder

3) Robotics cruisers still dont seem to be all that intelligent about auto-healing/auto-disabling.

4) planet upgrades. Im thinking that one of the AI "personalities" is just broken because the one that had only 3 colonies (in 2 different games) also had done next to nothing to upgrade his planets. I saw 2 AI's though that seemed to roll along quite nicely in terms of planet management and colonization. WIll have to play with AI's on the different personality settings to figure out which one it is. Have just been going with random