Some examples on why the AI on intelligent needs to be better.

from GalCiv2 Forums
Ok, before I get to that please consider the following. I am using the latest 1.0 version not 1.1 yet, I don't know if Stardock is
working on them already.

These issues really detract from a great game:
Have ships in only one square selectable at one time unless holding CTRL so that I don't send fleets from different squares all over the place.
Add access to all ship commands for stacked ships on the UI. Fleet, disband, upgrade.
Add move points left for stacked fleets on the UI. You can't see how many move points are left for the selected fleet.
I am always guessing what new upgrades are available for starbases, there is no way to tell what is available except to send a constructor to the starbase. The starbase info screen should show both the added components AND the available ones.
Galciv2 has been a fun, stable game for me, but these issues seem so obvious that they should have been addressed before release.

Here is my current game setup.
I'm playing terrans, on the largest map, with all the races, and all set to intelligent. I started against the edge in a mediocre
position, and all the other races quickly surpassed me in all areas. My biggest neighbor, the altarians, are fighting a war with the yor on their opposite border. They are two of the biggest empires in the game and far superior to me. The altarians took a dislike to me, so I built some good defenses and scouted their defenses and nearby systems. They had several mining resources just over the border, plus a fantastic class 28 world(really good planets were uncommon in my setup), with poor defenses. My strategy if they declared war on me was to have several fleets ready with ships tailored to beat the current altarian designs, and race across the border, grab the resources and class 28 planet, and dig in.

So they declared war on me, and I grabbed what I had scouted and covered my new aquisitions with military bases. Their fleets were inferior to me, but they had 10 times the ships I had. Fortunately they didn't attack en masse, but attacked in a non-coordinated fashion, and I was able to hold them off and replace my losses.

With the AI set to intelligent I saw the following:
Strong, well run economies, research, and diplomacy.
Big strong empires see my sorry, weak empire as easy pickings and try to extort or take me out.
Workable ship design strategy, the altarians went for a swarm of cheap quantity over expensive quality.
Altarians began adapting to my ships.

With the AI set to intelligent I DID NOT expect to see the following:
Their economy was far stronger than mine yet all their starbases were either helpless or lightly developed.
Keeping special resources should be a high priority, yet the AI failed to respond to my attack.
I knew they had a class 28 planet for a long time, yet when I captured it it was almost completely undeveloped. It was probably one of the best planets on the map, and it was empty, and weakly defended. Developing and keeping a planet that good should be a high priority for the AI.
The AI declared war on me, but seemed unable to WAGE war on me. They had no fleets prepared to invade my territory. Their response to my taking their planets/resources was uncoordinated and weak.
They had a vast number of fleets that although inferior in terms of quality could have easily overrun my incursion, but didn't. I know they were fighting the yor, but I could see a lot of fleets in the center of their territory just sitting around doing nothing, while I took a cluster of 4 of their planets.

Main failings of the intelligent AI in my example:
The AI failed to protect two key special resources and a class 28 planet. These give a tremendous advantage and they just gave them away.
Undeveloped class 28 planet?
The AI was using a strategy of slow, cheap ships, but did not use the critical mass of fleets when attacking necessary to make this strategy work. They had the ships to beat me, but no focus.
The AI did not recognize the tactical advantage that my faster fleets had, and failed to concentrate its fleets as a defense,
allowing me to atack and retreat.
The AI declared war on me, placing it in the middle of a two front war. I know I looked weak, but it's still a strategic no-no.
The AI failed to recognize that the area of control around my military bases was a suicidal place to be for weak fleets and to not go there if not in force.

This is just an example of some precautions that I would expect a mediocre human player to take into account. The AI may not be able to size up a human player well, and may just think I'm not worth worrying about. Stardock did say the AI's don't know who the human player is. I'm just another AI to them, so they might not be as cautious as they should be, given the fact that I am going to find their weaknesses and exploit them.
7,654 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Another thing I am noticing about the AI is that is does adapt, just slowly. In my battle with the altarians above I sent out some ships and hit all of their starbases. Yes they let me wipe out everything they had because they didn't have anything to catch my ships, and their starbases were weakly defended or helpless. They did up the speed of some of their newer ships from 2 to 4, I assume to try to catch my ships. Not great but it's a start.

The problem with adapting slowly is that even on the biggest map, a prepared human player could attack and wipe out a much larger race before the AI could respond. Increasing the AI priority on upgrading starbases would make this much more difficult.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i dont have any good experience with the a.i. aswell.

they only seem to build little hull ships with only one weapon and no defence....and then like 10.000 of em
while this might seem a fun race tactic at first, it gets boring real fast if u notice that EVERY a.i. controlled race acts like that.
they hardly ever build medium or large hull ships that are well designed in terms of weapon/defenses.
even when i gave em the tech to build it they hardly use it.
meanwhile they pound my ships with waves of meaningless litlle fighters, causing my warships to gain crazy xp points....again this is fun the first time....not when all a.i. seems to act like that.
(i started on normal and now i am at painfull difficulty...and on all levels i noticed the same)

i really like the game but the a.i. really needs some work imo
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Are you playing on the largest map? I've found that the AI will build larger/better ships as it it completes more research. It completes more research when it has lots of good planets. In my current game the Drath on the other side of the map have a military rating of 385 to my 22, so while my immediate neighbors with a rating around 140 and medium hull ships can be dealt with, I'm sure It will be getting much more difficult soon enough.

Speed should be a priority for AI on larger maps. Sure the AI may build 300 ships but at 2 squares a turn they are nearly useless.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've had the same thing, the AI seems to declare war if they don't like you whether or not they're ready to actually fight that war.
I had an AI declare war on me before they even had any ships with weapons.

Another big problem is they don't seem to actually realize they are at war with you. Still sending unarmed freighters and scout ships through your territory.
In my current game I've got a pair of ships dedicated simply to hunting down this stupidity that consist of nothing more then a single laser and engines. The ships probably have racked up 100 kills between them.

The AI also doesn't seem to appreciate the fact that I can speed help in to defend a planet. I commonly leave planets open and the AI will predictably send a wave of transports to try to capture that planet only to have my pee shooters (what I've named the ships mentioned above:) ) swoop in and pick of their attack force.

Another dumb thing they'll do is they'll chase ships faster than theirs. So I just lead their force to the waiting arms of one of my slower but more powerful attack fleets.

I haven't really played that many rounds against the computer… so maybe it will learn, but some of this is very basic tactics it's missing.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The latest build, pre 1.1 usually has decent escorts for the transports, but they still move into range of my more powerful fleets.

The AI just hit me with what seemed to be a coordinated attack from the Archeans and Altarians. They upped their logistics, and their ships are now considerable larger than mine. My starbase and my fleet experience saved my butt, but I am going to have to change strategy or they are going to grind me down. My biggest problem is that they won't make peace with me even though I've hit them both really hard, they "see" my empire as so weak that they think I'm on the ropes.

You people that are restarting to get better positions are really missing out. The fun is doing the best with the empire you've got and using your imagination to get an advantage.