Borg AI & cube

posted on December 5th, 2011, 9:21 pm

Hi all,

Please help me: i choose borg to enemy in hard or merciless level, but borg don't hard and not create cubes. Why?

  Thank you

posted on December 5th, 2011, 9:35 pm

Hi all,

Please help me: i choose borg to enemy in hard or merciless level, but borg don't hard and not create cubes. Why?

  Thank you

are you using double/unlimited resources? i've heard that doing that can break the ai. try use normal resources.

also this probably belongs in it's own thread, hopefully our posts will both get moved.

posted on December 5th, 2011, 9:44 pm

are you using double/unlimited resources? i've heard that doing that can break the ai. try use normal resources.

also this probably belongs in it's own thread, hopefully our posts will both get moved.

thanks, i will try it.

posted on December 6th, 2011, 1:40 pm

Happens to me too. Hard AI, normal resources, AI just makes a downpour of ships, with the asimilator being the biggest he ever makes. I purposely turtled up to see how far he will go, but all i got was even more ships, never getting past the assimilator.

posted on December 6th, 2011, 5:41 pm

Thats odd, when I turtle fighting normal ai, normal resources I occassionly see spheres.

posted on December 6th, 2011, 6:17 pm

I've seen cubes, but it's been a long time.  I think the normal AI is more likely to build then than the hard AI, since the hard AI is tuned for having more resources and thus build more ships of each class.  It never gets past the assim because it attacks and starts losing ships before getting any higher.

posted on December 6th, 2011, 8:27 pm

I've seen cubes, but it's been a long time.  I think the normal AI is more likely to build then than the hard AI, since the hard AI is tuned for having more resources and thus build more ships of each class.  It never gets past the assim because it attacks and starts losing ships before getting any higher.

I remember in v3.0.7, the Borg-AI was very hard actually. Whenever I didn't prevent the first expansion, spheres were all around and on large maps several cubes scattered around... I also remember I always lost against Borg-AI on large maps
Not sure though if this changed with FO 3.1.0+ or 3.2.0+...

posted on December 6th, 2011, 9:55 pm

I don't picture normal AI ever building a cube unless you leave it be for hours.

I haven't played many borg games recently, however the last time I know for sure there were AI cubes was with unlimited settings.

I remember starting a post about this when I first came here and I couldn't get the borg to build cubes. Eventually I got it to work, and I think it was with unlimited settings. Some variation on that. Make the AI settings towards harder maybe.

Can't remember though.

All in all, I remember getting them to cubes and realizing it would be impossible to beat them when they get their. Unless you implement cheats. So, I just beat them when they're around assimilators and spheres. In recent games, I know they reach spheres, but I don't like them getting anywhere past that.

On large maps... cubes should make an appearance. But you will have to leave the AI be, and survive an onslaught of ships. It would probably require cheating.

To do it legitimately, you would need to prevent the borg from ever getting to cubes, and beat them early.

On smaller maps, I don't see them ever doing it. Merciless or not.

posted on December 6th, 2011, 10:11 pm

i actualy got them to build cubes a few times when they are on hard, normal resources with teams.

so 2vs2vs2 or something similar. this is on maps with lots of moons however so not sure if that has some influence aswell.

posted on December 7th, 2011, 2:21 am

Maybe even if the AI doesn't follow its build orders according to what its collected manually, it still needs to be hauling in large amounts of di and tri in order to build cubes.

Would make sense.

posted on December 7th, 2011, 9:18 am

In that case duel maps are out of the question then?

posted on December 14th, 2011, 6:52 am

Yes, I would think so.

I've played a few games as Klingons vs Borg recently. Argues Array, Wasteland, Very First Map, several others... although none to small, but I can't get the AI to tech very much at all in a fair game, i.e. normal resources with any setting of difficulty.

The very best I got was on the very first map, I did not build a single ship. So there was no offensive on my part. I had 12ish star bases built over 4 expansions, and 3 blocking a main path. The AI eventually built pyramids. I waited out roughly 7 AI fleet attacks. Perhaps more. In the beginning, it built smaller ships none above assimilator. Then it finally got to sphere, then pyramid. This took ages and ages of waiting though. And I never destroyed a single station.

So having said that, and accommodating a slight lack of attention on my part, being that maybe the AI built 10 fleets before building a pyramid, I could imagine a scenario where the AI would reach cubes. Although I did not have the patience for it. Maybe if you let it launch 20 full scale assaults on you, it would finally reach cubes.

Some observations: The Borg Faction does not expand. It does not build additional Starbases. It builds entire fleets from a single uplink which does not need to be rebuilt. If you see a fleet of 15 borg ships, they all came from this one uplink. Hence long time in between. Now, it does do minor expansions, maybe one or two, where you might see an incubation centre or something. But no shipyards or star bases to extend the expansion.

So... if you play nice, it will build upwards to spheres and pyramids if you play a strict defensive game. I imagine if you let that game drag on for more than an hour (my longest game was probably closer to hour and a half - 2 hours ... I got to pyramid and that was only once and I was just hoping but after waiting a very long time even after that first pyramid still no cube). So it might be that after three hours of no attacks, the AI will finally tech up to cube in single player AI... but yeah.

I did not test unlimited resources, but in previous patches I.e. 3.1.5 I remember for a fact they did build cubes on these with unlimited resources.

Beyond this, maybe something can be done by the devs to encourage AI cubes getting build. But I know its been like this for a while... no borg ai cubes and such.

posted on December 14th, 2011, 9:41 am

with normal resources the borg is hard thanks idea!

[godsvoice]

posted on December 14th, 2011, 10:04 am

Last edited by godsvoice on December 14th, 2011, 10:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

with normal resources the borg is hard thanks idea!

"brief" suggestion: as Klingons Vs Borg Merci - argus array map specific example

Do not build yards or research stations. First things to do: use given construction ships to build di and tri refinery, queue eight topmeys and 1 constructor, scout out closest two expansions then send it to the middle to let you know when the Borg are coming if they use that path. (Choose fixed placement, you take bottom right, give AI Top left)

Once construction ships finish that build, send them immediately to the expansion right below you on the map. Build di and tri there as well. The eight topmey from you station will be split between these two expansions. Fill up 1st tri fully, then 1st di fully, topmey 5 - 2nd tri, 6 2nd di 7 2nd tri 8 2nd di.

Once construction ships finish the second expansion, send them upwards to the expansion horizontally to your left of home base. Build di and tri. Starbase queue up construction ship and four topmeys. When the construction ship is complete, build research station right by the star base. The following topmeys use to fill up third expansion.

Once Construction ships have completed the 3rd expansion, have each build a field yard. Extend both field yards with kvort and kbeajq, and continuous spam kvort and kbeajq.

Once field yards are complete, send them to the moon pairs above your home base at the very top right of the map (Argus array, is the one I'm commenting on, i think it is called) There are two expansions there. Have them each build dilithium moon expansions and 1 tri. You will have all the tri you need now to continuously build these ships 5 di moons, and three tri moons you can comfortably spam 2x kvort, 2x kbeajq, and have surplus to buy supply when needed.

Do not build turrets, do not build the yards or research stations prematurely. This will cause resource shortages that won't allow you to expand to the moons you will need to sustain spam.

The completion of the third constructor and field research will coincide with the double yard extensions. Build kbeajq extensions first and queue ten each. Then kvort yard, you may or may not have to wait for the field research to finish building. Depends how quickly you get things up.

The borg has a long enough down time to let you build all of this. You should get at least 4 ships out before seeing a single merci borg ship. And then you'll have eight soon enough. These will munch on early scubes probes and adaptors. rank. you will soon have fleet of 12, then 16.

Crush the AI. You will have them vastly outgunned and outnumbered.

The part around 4 - 8 ships may require time. I.e., you may lose ships , once you build 4 you lose 2, then get 4 more for total of six and lose 2 of those, but eventually you will come out on top. Likewise, you may lose topmeys... just rebuild them at star base. I didn't build qawduj from star base... but you easily could.

Once you get a clear base fleet of 8-12 ships, and have secured your 3rd expansion where you two yards are spamming, you can send you scout out again looking and attack.

Queue the yards to automatically put all ships into a single fleet, i.e. fleet 2. When fleet 2 has sufficient numbers i.e. 12, send that fleet to attack, and set yards to fleet 3. The second fleet attacks, if any straggling probes or scubas attack the point expansion, send ships 3 to attack them. Retreat fleet 2 if necessary. But fleet three will at least offer some resistance.

Also, during the early phase of 4-8 ships, you can always cycle ships to repair. four yards close by to repair and all.

eventually redeploy all ships from fleet 3 to fleet 2, eventually you will have 20-30 ships. and kaboom. bye bye borg

EDIT: "brief" in that it is one (of many more other ways to possibly) beat the borg, on a particular map. not really brief description. but its one option that just wins. other maps the strat is easily customizable, whereas others need different approaches.