Wierd Accelerated Start

Googlie · August 10, 2000, 14:40

(And the server is deathly slow today

.. )

Started a game with the ogie variant (accelerated start gives the AI a better chance, since the first seven SP's are evenly distributed)

2130 start, small island, 3 bases as the Free drones.

I have all the level 1 techs, and only these.

BUT:

In Free Drone Central I have 2 units that are 13-5t-1*2

Right - Fusion Shard Photon Trance shock troops.

There's more:

Changing my build, I can insert shard nedlejets and foils, and already have AA capability.

Needless to say I ditched that game - the object of the accelerated start was to make the AI more powerful, not me.

Anyone else have this kind of weird starting position?

Googlie

ps - sorry for the typo in the Topic heading

[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited August 10, 2000).]

Mongoose · August 10, 2000, 17:15

I have only had that type of thing occur during IP starts. In those instances, it was because there were players in the starting screen before the host selected 'new game'. No splash sequence at start, and most factions had units available to build for which they hadn't the tech. I THINK they are designs held over from the previous game. No idea why this might have occured in SP mode, unless the time warp option invokes some part of the MP code.

In any event, there's no other alternative to a restart, at least in IP, because the game is unstable and crashes very quickly anyway.

Neptunus · August 10, 2000, 17:34

I never use accelerated start because the first years are the most exciting with all the mystery...

HOWEVER... Long ago before SMAX, I started as Yang and around 2115 I met Miriam...

Of course I gave her one tech and we became Pact Brothers. Then she offered me her map, as usual.

Surprise !!! She already had 15-20 bases (I can't remember). The worse thing was that I never ditched that game... Neither won

Ogie Oglethorpe · August 11, 2000, 11:18

Googs,

Doesn't Accelerated rock. Love it. One thing I routinely expereince is that faciliteis and units (mostly formers) are available even w/o requisite tech. Never had anything as blatant as fusion/photon or Shard but still I routine get formers w/o centauri eco. or Rec commons w/o Social Psych or Net nodes etc.

Good thing Miriam didn't get those little babies you wouldn't have even been able to buy them from her.

One last thing I'm finding is that the more warlike factions (aka Miriam, Santi, Yang) seem to be in better shape as the playing field is leveled and there is no real tech gaps that play to the builders strengths.

Googlie · August 11, 2000, 20:43

Ogie:

yes, I have relished the last couple of games with accelerated start.

Just finished one using KSG (Kinjiru's Static Gambit). Start a normal game, but just keep clicking enter for 30 or 50 turns to give the AI a head start, then get going.

I was Domai, gave the AO a fifty year headstart, then opened my base for business. Within ten turns Yang came calling, and we fought a naval battle every four or five turns, with the odd transport gettting thru and dumping a couple of impact rovers on my soil.

I micromanaged like you wouldn't believe to squeeze every last credit out, then in 2350 or thereabouts got the 20 year warning that Morgan was cornering the energy market, which he did, in 2403.

Did I ever get my butt kicked.

(double blind, transcend, 128 x 128 map, mostly islands)

great game tho, even though I lost to the AI

Googlie

[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited August 11, 2000).]

Misotu · August 13, 2000, 13:12

Ogie/Googlie

I've tried accelerated start and it works well for beefing up the AI, but I'm still trying to find a way of getting a better game without it (particularly since the game crashes on my PC when I've set up two or three accelerated starts. Such a pain.)

I realise that a created scenario spoils a lot of the discovery of the early game (for the creator), but I don't want to edit alpha.txt or get too artificial about helping the AI (ie giving them all my techs all the time or whatever).

So I've been messing with the scenario editor, intending to create a 2-human vs 5-AI game that would be seriously tough to win. Since this is my first attempt with the editor, I completely overdid the help for the AI but when I played through the game, the results were fascinating.

Map of Planet - humans are PK/Gaians in the centre island. Surrounded by UoP, Hive, Believers, Drones, Pirates in an unbreakable five-way pact. The Hive are in the Monsoon jungle, and all the AI factions have three good bases and three formers, including at least one sea former. Pirates started off with one land base, to overcome the usual problems they get themselves into. I chucked a bit of forest around the AI bases to give them a hint about terraforming, too

I played through quickly to test the set up with an AI pactmate, not putting in too much effort really - and was absolutely slaughtered. The AI did things I've never seen before including:

o It's conventional wisdom that the AI doesn't use choppers. Well ... not in this game. EVERY AI faction, with the exception of the Believers, built choppers. Not only that, the Hive actually built choppers in preference to needlejets and overcame the range problem by housing them in a captured Gaian base. Prior to having a base on my island, the Hive did not return its choppers to a base at the end of each turn and thus achieved the required range. It was quite an experience watching the Hive plink all my crawlers in about 3 turns

Even worse was watching their chop and drop attack that took my first base effortlessly. Three choppers, followed by two armoured shard paratroopers. Which would have been quite fun if my best weapon had been better than missile

o The Pirates built foil probes. Yup. That thing the AI never does. And they built them in serious numbers, sending them in pairs or threes against my bases.

o The AI is usually reluctant to mount a serious attack on human bases using air power. Hah! They all went straight for it. The Pirates started hitting me with squadrons of missile/chaos jets even though I had AAA silksteel/aerospace complex. And they kept going for it until they had taken the base.

Within 100 years, the Hive tried for the Supreme Leader victory, and would have won effortlessly if two of their pactmates hadn't abstained

They tried this twice in the game.

All of the AI factions terraformed like crazy and built sensible improvements in their bases, including (gasp) tree farms built by Hive, Drones, UoP. All right, the terraforming wasn't brilliant but the forests I'd seeded expanded well and were not converted into farms by the AI. AI research rates were *stonking*, they took the PKs and the Gaians apart in no time.

So I'm going to have to fine-tune I think

But it's definitely showing promise if I can get the balance a little better. What interests me is how come the AI can use choppers well, and knows about foil probes, but doesn't usually build them? Do they have to be in a massively superior position before they will build these units?

RedFred · August 13, 2000, 16:35

AI foil probes? Helicopters in great numbers? Chop and drop attacks?

It sounds like a dream game.

I am sure that I speak for many with the following request. Any chance that you could provide us with all the details of your game mods after you fine tune so we could try it out ourselves?

Beör · August 14, 2000, 09:14

Hear, hear!

Misotu · August 14, 2000, 13:13

Red Fred, Beor, HP: I'd be delighted to provide you with all the details. I'll zip and send you the scenario too, if you'd like it. I'm no expert with the scenario editor though, so it may take me a while to get the balance better, it's *way* out right now.

The other difficulty is that I intended it to be an MP game, rather than SP. My experience with an AI pactmate was not good in the early stages - Deirdre wouldn't exchange techs until the WP was built, and did a lot of dumb things when we were under fire. (Like transferring practically her entire airforce to a single, tiny base of mine, which didn't have the minerals to support all those units). So the balance for an SP game would have to be quite different. Still, I'll give it a go, can't be that hard.

I'm sure that the unbreakable pact thing is significant - I put that in because I remembered Zsozso's account of his fast transcendence game. He reported that, once all the AI factions are submissive and there is no-one to attack, they turn into builders and stop military development. Now that doesn't happen here, of course, as they are in vendetta with the PK/Gaian axis. But, perhaps because their situation is more secure than normal, they do seem to focus on building more than is typical.

My instinct says that the AI behaves differently when it perceives that it is very strong. And see this quote from Stuntman19, posted yesterday, coincidentally, in the Tech Share Challenge thread on AC-Strategy:

"Also it seems the AI for some reason becomes smarter when it is way stronger than you. It built choppers, probe foils, crawlers, bore holes, orbital facilities , and university even built skybases. Most of these I had never seen the AI build and especially in large quantities. I wonder if the AI has to perceive itself as way superior to build some of this stuff? Anybody more knowledgeable have some insights?"

So it seems that my experience with this scenario is not an isolated one.

In Zsozso's Ultimate Builder scenario the human player played Cha Dawn against 6 AI's in an unbreakable pact and the results were quite different. The AI factions did nothing at all unusual when I played it - but then, their lead over me was never as pronounced as in this game. So it could indeed be that "might" is the key.

It would be somewhat ironic if the only way to get a decent game against the AI were to let it win

In which case HP, that's an interesting idea - rigging the AI's perception of its own might in order to produce a more interesting game. I still find it confusing that the AI should play differently because it's winning, but if it makes for a better game, that's fine by me

I'll tweak the scenario and play it through again. We'll see if the AI suddenly goes back to skulking in a corner if it isn't so far ahead ... if anyone wants my file to play with (on the understanding that it's not really playable right now unless you're a masochist!) just drop me an email at misotu@hotmail.com or post here.
[This message has been edited by Misotu (edited August 14, 2000).]

Helium Pond · August 15, 2000, 00:06

Misotu:

Wow, yeah, great findings. What I really wonder is what the critical adjustment is for the AI to start behaving in this way. If you can isolate it down to one or two small changes, it might be possible to alter the faction files or the alpha.txt so that the AI behaves this way in every game!

Here's a thought: is there a way to adjust how might is calculated? If the more intelligent AI behavior is based on the AI's perception of its own might, perhaps one could rig it so that the AI always thinks it is way ahead of you?

(And if it turns out that the unbreakable pact thing is a significant factor, I'm going to laugh at everybody who razzed me for suggesting a SUBMISSIVE parameter be added to the faction files...)

Helium Pond · August 15, 2000, 13:22

Here's an idea, Misotu, to test out the effects of might. Edit the alpha.txt so that one of the user-defined techs has values of 100, 100, 100, 100, and make it unresearchable, but give it to all the AIs. I've tested this a little, and it makes their might graph go orbital. I'm not sure how you could implement this idea in a non-scenario context, but you could at least use it to test the AI behavior. I'm too busy to spend the needed time playtesting, but I thought I'd pass the concept on to you. I'm also posting about this in the AC-Creation forum, if you want to check that out.
[This message has been edited by Helium Pond (edited August 15, 2000).]

Chowlett · August 16, 2000, 09:50

You want that in a non-scenario context? Just make that 100,100,100,100 tech a starting tech for all the factions which are likely to be AI in your next game.

Kinjiru · August 16, 2000, 13:35

The only problem with making a tech like that is that it makes tech-trading difficult. Sooner or later you will reach a position where you want to trade with the AI for a normal tech, but the only thing they will offer is the super-tech.

And a bigger problem is probes. If you are going to steal tech, you will have to always use the directed attack option, which as you know, drastically lowers your success rate.

Helium Pond · August 17, 2000, 00:14

Chowlett, that's true, and it's probably what anyone who wants to test this out should do, but it's not a great solution, just because it involves a lot of messing with faction files each time you want to play a different faction, and also renders SMAX's randomization feature un-usable. I'm trying to figure out a way around this, which I describe in greater detail in the AC-Creation forum. I want to avoid messing with faction files, and find something purely alpha.txt based. Had a couple interesting results, check it out.

Black Sunrise · August 17, 2000, 01:08

I just had an opponent chop-and-drop really viciously on me.
Year is around 2300, mid-to-late game. Everyone has a continent, pretty much. Huge map. Shared tons of technology, so we're all fighting nasty wars with shard interceptors and tanks. Everyone was at war with Miriam but me (she used a couple planet busters on Marr) when she decided the time had come for a double cross. Renounced treaty, Vendetta'ed, brought in about 8 or 9 shard choppers, wiped out every unit in half my continent(!!!!), airdropped on about four cities. Her choppers each came in, attacked, attacked, attacked. At least 4-6 attacks per chopper. Thank god I had 5 good cities producing shard tanks and interceptors, as well as a nice mag-tupe network, she couldn't hold her gains.
Personally, I think the AI spends a LOT of time building up, more than a human, because if it attacked prematurely, you'd beat it and complain that it was too easy. So they only pull the wicked many-probe, many-chopper, mass invasions when they have a LOT of power. Let them build a good infrastructure, keep them up to par on tech, and they get good.
I think the reason the AI doesn't build tree farms is because it only builds them if there are trees. It doesn't plant trees because they aren't as good as farms/mines/solar collectors untill you have tree farms.
I've had some interesting luck with home home scenarios by planting a forest next to each AI players start location. By mid game, that forest has usually become quite huge, and the AI has build the roads/mines they need and is playing a sherwood forest strategy on me.
In short: AI behaves badly because a) is small, b) has poor infrastructure and c) has low tech.
Share tech (benefits you, they have more to steal), give them a small edge on infrastructure (like my forest/start idea (which could make a nice faction, start faction with 1 former unit...)), and either hope he expands or choose yang, sven, etc.
Then you get wicked wicked opponents, and it gets really hard to roll over them.
Black Sunrise

Black Sunrise · August 17, 2000, 01:12

Duh, that was an AI opponent who did the chop-drop, hence the interest to this thread.
Just realizes I wasn't clear.
Black Sunrise

DilithiumDad · August 18, 2000, 21:00

This scenario sounds a lot like "AI's Revenge" which is popular on ACOL. I set up Zak, Yang and Miriam on the Ultimate Builder Map in unbreakable pacts with pre-forested baes with prebuilt facilities. They never made choppers or probe foils, but they did probe effectively and shared tech with 100% efficiency. The only loophole I left was they were still willing to sell tech --Miriam sold Air Power for 100 credits. Even with that loophole, the only way for the 4 humans to win was to combine forces and coordinate attacks. The AI factions were able to maintain a stalemate in 1-on-1. AI's Revenge 2, 3, and 4 are currently running on ACOL with the loophole eliminated --all AI factions are in vendetta with the humans. Some very interesting stragizing among the pitiful human factions.

I also created a single-player scenario based on the same principles and neither I nor Mongoose could beat.

------------------
Creator of the Ultimate Builder Map, based on the Huge Map of Planet

Googlie · April 25, 2004, 19:16

^^

Patashu · April 25, 2004, 19:47

Wow...3 and 2/3 year bump.

smacksim · June 26, 2004, 14:39

It is a good thread, and one I've come back to a few times over the years. Getting the AI to perform is like being a blind and deaf schoolteacher with a bunch of spastic kids. Yet, sometimes it is possible to get performance.

-Smack

Darsnan · June 26, 2004, 16:22

So I was editing a game a few months ago, and saved it off. When I went back to work on it some more later why, well, you'll see.....

The premise for this game: aliens have invaded your planet! Eliminate them by whatever means necessary!

Have fun!

D

Commy · June 26, 2004, 23:31

Things the AI does rarely, or never...

Build clean reactor units--although an obvious to humans, apparently not to the AI

Build rover formers--seen this one a couple of times, but for only one reason, to build a road to a pactmate, then the unit apparently dissapears, probably disbanded...

Build satellites--excluding OPDs, only seen this once, on transcend against Zakhorav, who had the entire map except my OCC city...

Terraform bunkers--Never seen the AI do this

Win an economic victory--I have even given away enough energy to the AI to do this, but they never do...

Use crawlers--Only in pictures on this site, but not in my experience...

If any of you have seen this weird stuff, I'd like to see it too...

Darsnan · June 26, 2004, 23:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Commy
Things the AI does rarely, or never...

Build satellites--excluding OPDs, only seen this once, on transcend against Zakhorav, who had the entire map except my OCC city...

If any of you have seen this weird stuff, I'd like to see it too...

Just wait! The PBEM landscape is changing in this respect as we speak! Sign up for some advanced PBEM's now and I guarrantee the AI's will be launching satelites of all kinds!

D

Googlie · June 26, 2004, 23:53

Quote:

Originally posted by Commy
Things the AI does rarely, or never...

Build satellites--excluding OPDs, only seen this once, on transcend against Zakhorav, who had the entire map except my OCC city...

Win an economic victory--I have even given away enough energy to the AI to do this, but they never do...

If any of you have seen this weird stuff, I'd like to see it too...

commy - try Zeiter's scenario here

and if you survive long enough you'll see the AI (Yang) do these that I've quoted from your post.

I survived (as Sparta) only 'cos I got beaten in 2198 and my colony pods escaped to Borneo, and with 2 bases I got to 2345 before realizing that I couldn't stop Yang from winning an economic victory (I was about 5 years into the 20 year warning)

And he had 30 of each of the 3 resource sats launched (plus 11 ODP's although he was the only spacefaring faction) - that's 101 satellites in total !!

Awesome display of how the AI can play if it senses it has the overall lead - it actually becomes a pretty good builder (but only 6 crawlers, though)

G. (version 1 of Zeiter's game - he toned down the AI in later iterations)

smacksim · June 27, 2004, 00:32

You've never seen AI bunkers? That's very common in my experience. Commy, just what game are you playing? The AI does all those things in the right circumstances. You've entered the ethereal realm of the Level beyond Transcend. Welcome to the club.

-Smack

Commy · June 27, 2004, 12:21

Note the key words "right circumstances". I really don't care about the AI doing it, I want to see the reason, the conditions, that have caused the AI to do it. This way I can learn more about how the AI works.

Oh, and I have seen Zeiters game already with the dominant Hive, but didn't realize that it was going for an economic victory...

As for the satellites, I did say I have seen them once...

Dis · July 6, 2004, 21:33

I'm posting this here to. I know it is a duplicate. But it fits this thread more.

I finally tried another time warp game. As the spartans- I need to practice with them more since I'm on a spartan team.

I had 3 bases. 2 of the bases had no facilities. Although I was quite please Sparta command had many facilities built. And 1 wonder.

Spartans (me): weather paradigm

Believers: Human Genome project. I quickly took this project over and many believer cities after I had finished my expansion in my limited space. And then forced them to surrender. I probably should have finished booting them off my continent. It's not like they can contribute research.

University: command Nexus. Interesting SP for them to get.

U.N. Peacekeepers- Merchant Exchange

Planet Cult- Citizens Defense Force

Pirates- Virtual World

Hive- Planet Transitory System

Anyways after forcing the believers to submit, I built some transports and am now currently stomping on the Hive. Who was #2 in this game after I finished stomping the believers. I didn't want them to get too powerful. It hasn't been easy with impact weapons though. They got defense of 3 on their units (I can never remember the names of the armour

). And their inherant base perimenter defense. It hasn't been easy. But I have been using infantry for that addition 25%. I've had to sacrifice some, but I'm getting the job done. I'm not sure if they will surrender. If not, I may just annhilate them.

the University was on too small a continent/island. they aren't doing much. the Pirates have some amazing research. They are #1 in research.

As for my start. I started next to last on the bar graph. The Believers were last.

Natalinasmpf · July 13, 2004, 08:07

I'm not sure if its might. I was playing as Svensgaard, unsurpassed, but I think its when the AI feels secure to "invest" in new, radical, things. Ie. Domai built THIRTY FOUR sky farms in a game, but only when it had a treaty with me, and was considerably advanced, even though it was just "potent" (oh fine I conceded unsurpassed a few moments :P).

When I declared vendetta, he stopped building them. Funny thing, the AI started to overdo it too, because not even I had reached supertensile solids yet for habitation domes, (he had Ascetic Virtues, nevertheless) and it wasn't doing a lot of good for new satellites after a while. But he kept building them. Oh, yeah, we were jockeying peacefully for top position.

Only when Domai decided it was time for the double cross, did his downfall start, and stopped building pods. Then I came out with orbital defense pods (once I had taken his HQ - which he managed to evacuate (!!) , but his bloody Cloudbase Academy was preventing MY air drops) to finally kill his last dissenting bases who wouldn't die because of all the food they were releasing, but would take forever to fight the garrison..

Too much might perception seems to be bad in this case. Overestimation of himself and his arrogance of his position led to his downfall

Same with Roze. She was in fact, in a "sufficient" position, but she had a treaty with five other people. She build her own countless orbital defense pods. She was also with a treaty with me, and I dominated the sea, perhaps it elevated her perception of security? Her last vendetta was against an eliminated faction.

The unbreakable pact has something to do with it. Perhaps might too...its a question of, does the AI feel secure enough to take a gamble?

Does intense rivalry have something to do with it? Perhaps it affects the AI's perception of what is a gamble, and what is not? After all, aggressive doesn't mean smart.