A Radical Suggestion: AI Personalities

Something I thought might give the AI some more appeal.

from Sins Forums

While I was on the boat trip back home, I had an interesting thought. Something popped into my head that, perhaps, different AI factions - Tondam Corporation, Psi Order Zealots, and so on - could have different personality traits. These would correspond with their names and portraits, giving some uniqueness to the singleplayer and cooperative experiences.

Let's say, for instance, you start up a game and have the Nitheim Rebels, Slave Kar Majistra, and Voice of Senar as your opponents.

The Nitheim Rebels would have a far more underhanded approach, preferring hit-and-run attacks and surprise invasions of lesser-defended worlds. Slave Kar Majistra would be a combination of the current economist and aggressor AI profiles, focusing on taking worlds and making the most profit out of them. Meanwhile, the Voice of Senar would prefer a more diplomatic, culture-based approach, attempting to slowly make friends and start revolts.

You can see what I'm saying. I'd also entertained the idea of unique portraits and icons to further their more individual feel. If this were implemented, the current system of AI profiles - the generic "Fortifier", "Researcher", etc. templates - could be used to single out specific kinds of AI personalities. In example, economist would pick personalities such as Slave Kar Majistra, while aggressor would pick ones with traits more like the Nitheim Rebels.

I'm no fool. I know this would take a lot of work, AI improvements, and probably hair-pulling over at Ironclad, but this would add a great feature to help further extend the life of this already wonderful game. But I can understand if it's not something they're willing to pursue.

Any thoughts are welcome.

9,234 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Personally I'd rather just have the current AI templates more pronounced in their differences.  Perhaps it's the fog of war or other factors, but I never really notice the various AIs playing substantially different from the others.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

I love this idea! It would finaly be interesting to play with two ai's of the same race...

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

I have to agree. Make the specific types already in play more geared toward their own. Economist would be drastically different. And at least make aggressor build starbases at their star. It is frustrating to see that a defender hardly defends themselves any different than an economist. or a researcher.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

I agree with this, but it shouldn't be based on "Nithiem Rebels" or those other random faction names.  Instead this feature should replace our current "economist/aggressor/researcher/fortifier" set we have going.  There isn't a major difference in behavior or overall strategy between these four, they just have slightly different unit priorities.  If I set the behavior to random (and I usually do) I actually have a very tough time figuring out which kind I was up against.

 

My suggestions of replacements would be the following: 

 

Expansionist

This would be the replacement for the aggressor.  The expansionist desires to build the largest empire possible, and simply expects that a strong economy will follow if it does this.  The expansionist maintains a large fleet size to protect and further expand its holdings.  It aggressively attacks neighbours who do not fortify their own planets effectively, but spends little on defenses itself, mainly relying on repair bays and frigate factories to supplement its fleet.

The expansionist AI is all about momentum, pushing violently against its opponent and looking for easy prey.  It generally avoids expensive civic technologies, preferring to expend its money on high-end military tech.  Diplomatically the expanionist prefers to make allies with more distant empires, preferring to view its nearest neighbours as its next meal.

 

Planner

The planner is a more subtle AI that replaces the fortifier.  In many ways it's the opposite of the expanionist.  The planner will try to establish and consolidate a lean and stable empire, build up a powerful economy, then annihilate its foes.  The planner will expand its empire during the early game to a reasonable size, but will then set up defenses at a sensible choke point.  It will then focus on building a powerful economy until it can crush its opponents.

The planner is about biding its time, building a suitable foundation and then waiting for it to pay off.  The planner will keep both its military and economy lean until it's ready to boom, at which point it will hunker down and start economizing.  Once its got a kick-ass economy, it opens the proverbial gates.  The planner prefers to make allies with its neighbours, preferring the safety of being in a pocket (if it can...)

 

Raider

The raider is about hit and run tactics.  Its entire strategy revolves around wearing down an opponent and avoiding direct confrontations.  The raider uses a combination of very offensive and very defensive strategies to achieve this.  It will send in raiding parties - carriers laden with bombers, for instance - to destroy enemy assets and then retreat when its fleet arrives.  They will then fall back to starbased areas to reinforce.

The raider is all about keeping up a pressure game, preferring to distract an enemy across a large reach of space rather than fight him in a localized battle.  The raider is therefor less effective in more confined areas, and would prefer to make peace with its more nearby neighbours to attack its more distant opponents.  The raider is not above making a full-force push as a coup-de-grace.

 

I think those are a little ambitious, but hey, a guy can dream :-D

 

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

I find that singleplayer Advent AI is badly broken in the current version, as the AI Drone Hosts fail to produce strikecraft once mines are researched... does this affect anyone else?  If very basic bugs like this and the illuminator bug are allowed to persist there doesn't seem to be any prospect for a general improvement at all.

I agree that it might add character to the game if the faction names were matched to the traits.  Associating the names with the existing set of traits wouln't require much work either.  This matching of names wouldn't improve the single-player game by itself, though, especially as the existing AI types have all been altered by Entrenchment to be very similar- all variations on the Fortifier AI.

There are various levels of improvement that could be made to the AI-

It's been claimed that the AI use of siege will be reassessed for the new expansion.  Currently the AI don't seem to build enough fleet, build siege too early and as too much of a proportion of fleet even when they have many capital ships, fail to build repair bays and overspend on starbases.  If these basic flaws are corrected the existing AI will be somewhat improved, perhaps even back to pre-Entrenchment levels.  I haven't reproduced the bug that makes the AI fail to use it's resources, but this would hinder the AI being granted a 5x cheat on resources.  I would far prefer that the AI wasn't 'improved' by this method, it would just mean that no further effort had been made. 

It might also be possible for the developers to add new types of AIs like the replacements above, within the limits of the existing system.  However, while some elements of the strategies suggested depend on production and research, others may depend on better scripting.  Altering variables to produces different types of AI takes far less developer time than scripting. 

With more work, a limited customisation of the AI could be possible.  A crude method would allow the blocking of some researches at setup.  A more sophisticated method would allow research priorities to be set at setup.  The existing tec tree screens could be used, and the adjustments would affect existing priorities or variables, though how much work would be involved depends on the code.  If the game had a campaign, this sort of research blocking is a standard mode of limiting progression at the start.

However, the best method of improving the AI is for an AI editor and/or AI script editor to be produced, along with a means for the AI to battle itself.  Then players can invest the time that a small development team can't afford, to produce better AI.  It must be a huge drawback for a game that was intended to be moddable, that the AI is so difficult to alter?  I know from my own observations on the AI that I could produce an AI using the existing framework that would defeat every existing AI in the standard set.  It wouldn't take me long, either... 

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

I think these are great ideas. We'll see if we can get them into the game, but they may not make it (there's already more that we want to include than we really have time for). Depending on how much work it would take, perhaps we can do this via a patch post-release if we don't get them in sooner.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Yarlen, reply 6
I think these are great ideas. We'll see if we can get them into the game, but they may not make it (there's already more that we want to include than we really have time for). Depending on how much work it would take, perhaps we can do this via a patch post-release if we don't get them in sooner.

It's great to hear that you guys are interested in elevating the AI past basic functionality. I look forward to when we might hear more on it. biggrin.gif

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Again, different traits in the different leaders is something featured in the Civilization series. In Sins, we have that option in assigning 'aggressor' or 'researcher' etc strategies for the AI's.

Overall, I'd like to see Sins take in a lot of Civilization's features. It would help Sins be more truly '4X' than just a generic (albeit very good) RTS.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

        All they would have to do is change the aggress,fortify,research to names of different factions, and you would'nt know the difference. But before we expand the current ai how about things that need improvement now. The ai needs to make superweapons and utilize the current techs correctly.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

i say screw a timeline add everything and make it mind blowingly awsome:drool:

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

I find that singleplayer Advent AI is badly broken in the current version, as the AI Drone Hosts fail to produce strikecraft once mines are researched... does this affect anyone else?

Yeah, I've noticed this too.  I tend to avoid using Advent AIs because of this.  Visari too, due to their total inability to deal with starbases.  TEC is really the only AI in Entrenchment that has any sort of chance to beat a human player at the moment.

 

On topic, I agree that major revisions in the AI scripts would be a good use of development time for the expansion.  Single player is the core of the community, and mediocre AI really hurts the single player experience.

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

You know I have only ever had one request in regards to AI. I would really like the ability to turn off the AI surrender option. I find that very often when I am playing with friends against AI they will surrender very shortly after we go on the offensive. I have had an AI surrender on me after taking 2 of his planets when playing a 1vs1.

 

It leaves me feeling kind of unsatisfied and I really wish I had the option to turn it off.

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

I wouldn't mind if you could control the planets/ships etc of the "surrendered" player as your own and you would get all their stuff with it, e.g built starbases, defences, tradeports etc.

A way of doing it could be when an AI/Player surrenders then you have to take an envoy ship to their home planet, and then have to wait 10 minute (or so) while it "negotiates" control of the surrendered empire. In this time other factions (minus the surrendered faction) could attack the envoy cruser in that planets gravity well while using its "negotiation" ability.

A way i think this may help with coding (i'm not a coder so it may sound insane to one).

Ideas on how it could work

Idea 1: All ships/buildings etc are replaced by their "conquered" counterparts (could scuttle them and then spawn them in - like the lost armada feature for replacement) e.g if the surrendered player is advent and the "conquerer" player is TEC then all like for like units will be replaced automatically by their counterparts. e.g advent scout for TEC scout/Advent tradeport for TEC tradeport. I assume that if a TEC player were using advent it would crash?

Idea 2: All "surrendered" units/buildings/planets are transfered from team 2 (surrenderer) to team 1 (conquerer). It may have to save first?

Idea 3: It is brough into an automatic locked "alliance" which the player can control

Idea 4: All surrendered empires ships are automatically hit with the "advents ship take over ability" and transfered to the conquerer player - perhaps a new one could be modified for buildings/planets?

 

What ya think coders? (or others). Would it be feasable? Or are my ideas not code-realistic?