Yes, the AI is pretty bad...

Hopefully it'll get fixed with Entrenchment.

Why, Mewse? Why resurrect an old and obsolte thread with inane banter?

Hey all, team the AI's together and lock teams and see how easy it is. I'm 11 hours into a 6 on 1 (2 hard, 4 medium, 7 on 1 if you include pirates, I couldn't afford bounty), and since entrenchment they actually coordinate their attacks and use more balanced fleets. Also, they do not retreat nearly as much. I had 5 out of six of them attack my chokepoint system at once!! (FRAPS reported 5 FPS at that time lmao)  If it werent for my fully upgraded SB, the game would have been over. Instead, my four caps jumped 5 levels each.

Also, I never would have been able to defend against all of them if I did not have a chockpoint entrenched.

AI has gotten a lot better since entrenchment IMO.

The problem is:

The AI did not get better in Entrenchment.

Quite the contrary,

in an attempt to reduce the need for boring mob-up operations of already beaten enemies, they made the AI so likely to surrender that it now surrenders almost instantly.

I recently thought the AI surrendered after I destroyed all its capital ships... but no, one Kol Battleship was still left, plus two starbases and its best planets...

oh my. Maybe the AI realized how bad it is and now does not even bother to fight anymore? /joke.

Just finished a game 1 on 1 against a hard AI. This was on a 3 star map with me and the AI starting in our own star and a third star up for graps. The AI surrendered after I took 2 planets from it which it had colonized in the third star. I hadn't even started invading the planets in its own star.

Some other thoughts about the AI...

- When there is a large bounty on an opponent, and the bounty doesn't go down, there isn't really any need to keep increasing it. At the end of the game I had almost 200000 bounty on my head, but the pirates were easy enough to kill. (Maybe the strength of the pirates should be increased late game?) Don't think the AI should keep spending money that doesn't give any results.

- If there are 4 fully upgraded Vasari star bases in a gravity well, you won't kill them with just a few ships. Either stay away, or come with a decent fleet. The AI shouldn't keep attacking the same way if it doesn't give any results.

- If you have a decent fleet it the gravity well of your star, and your enemy shows up and starts building 4 star bases, KILL them... If you give the player the chance to complete building them and upgrading them, you are dead.

Some more on these last two points... I created 4 starbases in the gravity well of the AI star. When they were fully upgraded, I put a nice fleet with 4 caps (lvl 5 - 7) in the middle of those bases and then went to dinner. When I came back, all those caps were lvl 8 - 9. So, because of these two points, it can be extremely easy to lvl some caps.

I know it was only 1 on 1, and I probably get my ass handed to me when I play against some more hard AI's (or real players...) but I still think some of these points really need looking at.

Hmmm... I've been looking at the graphs after the game, and I noticed something strange. The AI only spend 250 credits on bounty, but I hada bounty of almost 200000 credits. If it didn't come from the AI, who else wanted me dead?

Obligatory "come play online multiplayer for a better game" post.

For those who are tired of playing against the AI...I'd like to introduce...online multiplayer--what some people call "the real Sins game".  Imagine playing against challenging human opponents who don't always do what you expect them to do.  Imagine dealing with the suspense and intensity of the possiblity that you might actually lose the game.

So, for a more rewarding, suspenseful, intense, and challenging Sins game consider yourselves cordially invited to play Sins in online multiplayer.  Just click that Ironclad Online button, make an ICO account, and come join the fun.  You might even enjoy chatting with other players, coordinating teamwork with other people, and camraderie.  You might even make some online friends.

Also, note that online multiplayer games don't take forever.  If you have 2.5 hours you can play one.  3v3's and 4v4's on a single star maps are normally decided within two hours.  Also, for those who are afraid to play against the reallly good players, there are always humans v. AI comp stomps, which at least lets you get used to coming online and to having human teammates.

This thread may be of interest to some:

Does a "fear" of experienced (or pro) players keep you from playing Sins online?

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/330892

Agreed. This thread ended quite literaly over a year ago. Why ressurect it?

The foundation of the AI is much like older rts ai, with some slight improvements - it has a fairly strict build que and small selection of strategies.  It seems to have no long-term strategy, with the longest by placing their army on planets attached a lot.

Patches will improve it somewhat, but it won't be improved drasticly.

Just to clarify.. I thought we can only build 1 starbase in every gravity well?

I think you can build more in a star's gravity well.

You can build up to 4 star bases in the gravity well of a star...

 Cause we can, suck it.

 As for the AI, i think it could still use alot of work, though idc what anyone says it's come a long way from beta thats for sure, and considering they still have reported 2 other expansions comming out, theres still alot that can be done.

 Also when you look at the whole scheem of things this game is still extremely young, compare it to something like total war who's in there 5th generation game, and even they don't have it all right, AI is a fickle thing when it comes to RTS games, thats why really i find the AI is more for training, getting you prepared for Online.

 When you can destroy the AI and it is no longer of any difficulty then it's time for online, don't be afraid to roll with the big dogs, as for people whinning about internet connection and what not, the answer is simple....get a fucin better connection, end of story.

I have to say that the notion of playing against "challenging human opponents" doesn't appeal to me at all, because most of the time, these "challenging human opponents" are obnoxious, they quit the game when things don't go their way, they exploit weaknesses in the game to their ends and in general just aren't fun to play against.  I'd take really good AI--ala galciv2 or sins--over a human opponent any day.  Then I can play slowly at my own pace...I can play for an hour, then pause, get coffee, save and come back the next day.  That's a strategy game to me.  In fact, I'd be happy if these games didn't even have a multiplayer option.

I guess the problem is that the AI doesn't attack you, but only attack when you get to them. That is somewhat true, because I had AI attack me several times and I wiped out an entire fleet or 200 ships or so, but AI do attack you in a gravity well, if u are in a planet they want, they will send a large force to attack and colonize it, but they will retreat sadly

What I suggest is that you edit the gameplay.constants edit the AI section, see if there is any difference, and if there is, play 9 Unfair agressive ai.

You will get your ships worth

they never build superweapons, they never really research fleet techs (NOT supply, but they never max that out anyway) they never max out their fleet supply with ships, they NEVER use ultimate abilities, even with a lvl9 cap, and they don't have any idea how to attack

I just (kind of) finished a 5 system game against 4 AIs, all set to hard.  I ended with over 2 million credits, 1.5 million crystal and metal, and everything researched, my fleet supply maxed, full supply used, all 16 caps, etc. once I had conquered my system - which was quite easy, having only 2 AIs in it - they were pretty much done.  I just jumped in to a small resource system, took every planet one by one, their fleets either escaping through the sun or getting cornered and vaporized.  the final AI surrendured when I jumped half my fleet into her (advent) last system.

("kind of" because I haven't bothered taking the last system yet)

I mean come on.  over 2 million credits? I was having no losses. zero, zilch, nada against their full fleet.  yeah, occasionally they sent a cap and a few frigates to my home system, but my static defenses drove them away.

I have some of the same complaints and started my own thread about the Unfair AI before seeing yours.

I'd like to add to this that the allied AI doesn't really co-operate with itself very well either.  I always dominate research, capital ships, and economy is a juggernaut...I have more production capacity than I can use by endgame.

Anyway, same complaints +1.  Thought I'd register my vote for continuing AI improvements.

My prof once had a guest lecture on programming AI, it is always to easy to dumb down the AI, but it is much more harder for them to get even smarter, and also, AI algorthims are complex, unless you can program a better one, I won't complain that much

Even if you use a program the create an AI, they usually costs thousands of dollars

I do understand that it isn't easy to program a good AI.  I do know programming, and no, I could NEVER program a better AI.  But SO MANY games are released with piss-poor AI that the developers didn't even try to fix.  Supreme Commander/Forged Alliance is a good example...they even released a cheating AI for it in the end that did nothing to fix it...just made the thing cheat....wasn't strategically any "better."

Sins is NOT the worst AI.  It's "fair to good"...I think, and hope, that Stardock is very capable of improving it to the point of "very good to excellent."  When creating RTSes for singleplayer/multiplayer, a company really shouldn't skimp resources on programming the AI or pathfinding.  I'd rather see worse graphics and have better gameplay, personally.  I am NOT implying that Stardock skimped on their AI in any way (Battle for Middle Earth, Kohan, Supreme Commander sure did), but I just wish to see a few improvements in how it plays. 

Stardock is good with addressing player concerns and issues and issuing patches to correct them.  I'm hoping that, by speaking my mind here, they will recognize that some of their player base would like to see a better more challenging AI as they improve the game.

As a side note, one good AI I remember was Rise of Legends.  Took a long time for a friend and I to beat 3 of the Toughest allied against us.  I never could figure out if it was cheating, and it did cooperate with itself, making it harder to defeat one because his allies would help him.

To be honest one of the best AIs is probably in Simcity

IMO, the best AI is Halo Wars Legendary.

not sure if it's tactics or resources, tho.  haven't played it enough

either way, no one's really beaten that AI, even though it's only been out since late Feburaury

The best RTS AI (single player) is for me Rise of Nations. Great game !

SoaSE in second place. But they can still improve it.

thread!

People have unbelievably unrealisitc expectations of AI.  I am yet to find a game forum where this sort of thread doesn't exist.  The Sins AI is not at all bad compared to some, and is better since the OP (which was OVER A YEAR AGO if you check the date).

agreed. The AI was indeed very good but SOASE is more complex to deal with that a classic RTS like Rise of Nations. Nevertheless, some things must be improved : just tell the IA to not throw his caps to starbase, to use repair bay to fix a capital ship after a battle and to research the military tree !

I don't think it is "unbelievably unrealisitc expectations of AI.", astrath.

Rise of Legends was (kind of) part of the Rise of Nations game.  Rise of Nations AI was pretty good, I think Rise of Legends was even better.  They gave me one heck of a fight.

Agreed.  And make it co-operate with its allies!

Overall I feel that AI isn't as bad as some people make out, its certainly improved recently as it doesent run away from your attacks the moment that you send anthing more than a few frigates or caps at it. It does still have that annoying tendancy to spam up on siege ships though.