As the title states, I have some major concerns about the AI. For the current patch I've mostly been running soaks, most with fowtrans so I could observe more than just the faction I chose to start with. However I started to notice that while the AI now has to search for planets it still knows where resources and relics are. I confirmed this be running a soak from a fresh start of the game without using fowtrans and still saw constructors bee line for resources and relics in unexplored space. The pirates still seem to share sight with the player too, heading straight for player ships when they come close and in the case of the last soak I ran before starting this post when the AI built a sensor ship(really excited about that) and the pirates with sensors 2 started heading toward the sensor ship from 20 tiles away and eventually caught it(really disappointed at that...).
On to concerns, first pirates, the AI doesn't prioritize stopping the pirates, ran soak for hundreds of turn on insane galaxies and most of the time the AI was still more concerned with colonizing and mining in pirate infested space than trying to deal with the pirates. This needs to be addressed, the AI will see the pirates and run away but still doesn't build a fleet to take them down for hundreds of turns. The devs have repeated said its their game so I'm not even going to make a suggestion to resolve it because your going to do your own thing anyway. Next pirate behavior, the pirates will suicide into starbases and shipards constantly. They should not do this, they should prioritize attacking unarmed and weaker ships and run away from anything that is a real threat. This is pirate 101 guys, I shouldn't have to point this out. These issues should be resolved by release.
Colony management, this is a mess. The AI doesn't seem to get the adjacency system, in my last soak the AI had a powerplant with 2 research labs and a farm next to it. The farm was at least on a farming improvement tile so I can give you that one. Further the AI doesn't seem to plan ahead and seems to just builds whatever it needs right now when it builds something without building up a manufacturing base then specializing. Initial priorities are skewed as well, every new colony in a new system builds a starbase first and many times builds a terraforming tile next while slowly building colony ships. This happens even on small maps, I mainly run on insane because that's what I prefer. I don't understand how this could be at all challenging on a small map let alone a larger map with the way the AI leaves the pirates alone. The AI needs to make a plan and prioritize not just build haphazardly. In my last soak before this post at turn 207 the AI had not built on all of the tiles on its home planet and had run projects on it for most of the game, this shouldn't happen either. At the very least the AI should know to build a manufacturing base on each planet first then make a plan to pursue its goals. This too should be fixed by release.
The AI doesn't play to win. Its busy and does a lot of things but it doesn't focus and really pursue a goal well. It seems to mainly be a hindrance to the player and the other AIs rather than focusing on winning until it becomes overwhelmingly powerful. It's debatable whether this needs to be fixed at all, my preference is that they AI try to win and do so from launch but I can see the merits of having it frustrate the player more than pursue a victory.
Warfare, the AI does a decent job of making war but still doesn't prioritize fleets as much as it should, the same for deciding when to fight. It also needs to better choose what ships to build while I war, in several soaks I watched the AI build freighters when it should have been building warships. I think it needs to value ships surviving battles a bit higher although this is kind of hard to determine from watching soaks. My impression comes more from fighting the AI in previous games and this may have already been addressed.
Diplomacy also seems to be undervalued especially with other AIs, while writing this post I started a new soak on a small map and watched the game progress, none of the AIs pursued a diplomatic victory at all, none seems to make treaties with the others just trade and fight. Again this is hard to determine from watching soaks and I wasn't watching closely but at least one fo the AIs should have tried to make alliances.
Now I've said the AI is weak and needs a lot of work before release but I do think its a good start. My issues are mainly polish and refinement but I think the AI needs about another 2 months of work before release. Brad has made some comments about the AI learning strategies from players as well so a bit more time for it to learn some better strategies would make a big difference too.
