AI's respons to an economic boom

from GalCiv2 Forums
I think the AI's response to a galactic economic boom is a bit careless.

It frequently happens that there is a economic boom increasing the tax revenue of all races. The AI usually uses this extra weath to build ships/buildings (mostly ships i think) and thus increasing its maintenance costs. For as long as the economic boom lasts, that's not a problem. However, when the economic boom is over the AI players are usually left with more expenses than income (sometimes a balance of -2000bc per week or more). The result is that their economy always crashes after an economic boom.

There is nothing wrong with using the extra money, however, the AI needs to be a bit more carefull not to create a large drain on their economy while the economic boom lasts so it doesn't crash afterwards. It certainly makes them vulnerable and a human player can take advantage of it.
economics
25,979 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
That sort of thing happens in real life, too. And the bigger the boom, the bigger the crash. Economics is what I do in real life, so I couldn't help but make the comparison.

You make a good point, though. If there were some way for the AI to take advantage of the economic boom without incurring long-term expenses that cripple it, that would be ideal.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Does that matter? I was under the assumption that the AI makes its decisions based upon current income, although if it factors a boom into the equation on the higher settings then this isn't a problem.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think the key is to increase the AI's probability of purchasing ships by the full amount in one lump sum rather than pay a lump sum and then a number of bc weekly to pay the full amount required. It could last 100's of weeks for a single ship to be repayed in such a way depending on the expense of the ship and the how much of the ship was payed for in the initial lump sum. If the AI is purchasing more than 1 ship this way (which looks to be very likely) it wont be long before the kind of huge weekly negative figures mentioned above start appearing, that could possibly last 100's of week. Because the AI doent know the economic boom is an economic boom, im assuming it thinks its going to get this kind of grealty increased income indefinelty and thus is spending appropriatly.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I play at 'intelligent' so even the full AI makes this 'mistake'.

I don't know whether it has huge 'leases' on ships or buildings or it is fleet maintenance cost(or a combination of both), which create the large drain on their economy. If fleet maintenance is the problem, the AI needs to get rid of a portion of it's fleet. This can be done by scrapping ships(which the AI raraly does, if ever). Or sending them into combat, thus getting rid of them and giving its enemy a bloody noose.

Next time it happens i'll see what precisely happens.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It does matter. The lower AI is supposed to make stupid mistakes. It's simulating a player that is just a beginner. It's not only gimped economically.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I got hit the same way when I was playing and I didn't account for the downturn....
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Playing at challenging level the AI makes this mistake. During my play we have had the boom twice. During the boom late in the game there was a huge arms race where I lost my #1 to the Drengin and Drath. After the boom I did have a -2000 shortfall myself, so Im sure the AI was hurting bad. Sure enough I could see their economies were crashing hard.

Im not sure how to get around this, other than to adjust like I had to after the money stopped. Just start deleting old non-used ships. Definately something that needs to be looked at, but not a real important bug.