AI Behaviour

posted on June 28th, 2014, 3:30 pm

So, lately I've being playing a 8 player - Hard mode game type as every race in fleet ops. (my usual setup is in the picture)

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While playing these games as different races Ive noticed some strainge behaviour in the AI.

The Dominion always seem to be over powered. They just send un-endless waves of fleets to my homebase and wipe me and my ally out within the space of 5 miniutes, The strange thing is ive noticed that the Dominion are also attacking another player aswell as me and my ally with redicuilous amount of ships. In some games the AI even expands into the middle with 2 starbases and the nearest moons with starbases and turrets. This all occurs before I can even build a counter attack. In all of my playthroughs i only manage to beat them onces with Federation Mason, (turret spammed my mining stations)

The Romulan, well there a different story. The AI for them are not that bad there just challenging, but it can result to a fleet rush.

The Federation loves to build many newton class, and then send them towards a massive fleet to damage them with its repair laser its not annoying it just seems a waste of resources for the AI to be using on Newtons if they dont use them to support there own fleet. also I've noticed I haven't seen a enemy sovereign attack my ships or bases or anything, its like they dont exist when the AI plays.

posted on June 28th, 2014, 5:15 pm

what you've noticed is not a bug. it's just sadly the state that the ai is in. single player is not a priority, so the experience in single player is far less fun than multiplayer.

the dominion is the most difficult ai to face because of supply. normally a human buys supply or sets up miners for it as dominion. the ai can't handle such complications. so the ai doesn't truly use supply. all its ships cost the same in supply, but the ai gets given more supply than it can use every second for free, to prevent the ai ever getting stuck.

now look at dominion ship costs, they cost comparatively little dil/tri, but are balanced by costing lots of supply. so basically dominion ships are dirt cheap for the ai.

feel free to increase the ai's build costs in the pregame setup.

the ai also doesn't tech up well. try leaving them alone if you can, assuming they don't march single file to your base. if you destroy their little ships before they get big ships, they'll probably just rebuild all the little ships again.

posted on June 28th, 2014, 6:17 pm

I see, is this due to the old armada 2 code the game runs off ? also, the AI doesnt use the experimental yards ether. in your opinion do you think that the AI will be improved in the NX Engine ?

posted on June 28th, 2014, 6:43 pm

I see, is this due to the old armada 2 code the game runs off ?

i think so. I don't think the devs have made huge changes to the ai, so it shares many of the same limits and issues as stock ai.

in your opinion do you think that the AI will be improved in the NX Engine ?

i don't know. they haven't announced anything yet on the ai for NX. if i were a betting man I'd guess that when NX launches it will either not have single player, or have basic single player. single player has always been a low priority for fleetops (this community is too small for it to consist entirely of disconnected people who don't play online), so I'd guess the effort will go into making multiplayer awesome first.

posted on June 28th, 2014, 11:00 pm

If you're ever bored, run an 8 player AI game with yourself as an observer and watch what the different races do. Most matches I've played start with early Klingon/Romulan domination and end with the Dominion screwing everything over.

If you're even more bored, try an 8 player AI game with yourself as an observer and every AI a Merciless Dominion.