Hey everyone,

So I've been running a few trials with just AIP11. Well it's not going bad but I'm going to restart with the current AI settings because, well, this is taking a tad bit to long and besides. AI research doesn't have to be perfect.

A few changes that worked well are:

Connecting Extreme Colonisation to Soil Enhancement/Habitat improvement. This gives the AIP11 some pause before they dive head long into the extreme colonisation techs.

Connecting the new starbase improvement modules to Interstellar Construction. There's enough tech hanging on Xeno Engineering. This limit's the AI's choice a bit and as a bonus, it looks good as well.

Connecting Planetary Invasion to Space Weapons. This ensures the AI's have soem weapon before they pick up this vital tech. It gives the AIP11 some pause as well since they'll research it the second they come across it.

Connecting Advanced Computers (Hyper mainframes) off the first research structure (Research Center, Universities, etc). This prevents the AI picking up this tech until they have some decent labs on their planets and perhaps still their hunger on Computing with something useful.

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Regards,

A.

Yor Techtree.

Typo in the ID.

<Commputing ID="XalaxDefenseCoord">
</Commputing>

Uploaded a community ZIP with a few changes. (The ones I listed above contain them). All changes are marked with <!--MA--> to make them easy to find and to review.

I did a bit of work on the Arceans but it's not panning out exactly what I had in mind. I think they need to be the only culture that gets a discount to their invasion tech though.

General testing showed the AIValue of 60 and Military categories for AIP8 work well in most cases. 

Agreed. It just has to be good enough so the AI provides a challenge.

I'm sorry, but the layout of the tech trees is finalised. No more adding of new techs, removal of old techs, or changing of requirements. I asked, if anyone had objections to this, two weeks ago, because I wanted to get started with updating the scenarios and campaigns. Everyone was okay with it. That I removed Xeno Farm Construction III last weekend was an exception I'm not willing to repeat. And I only did that, because it 1. was the only way to achieve the intended effect, and 2. only had a negligible effect on the Battle of the Gods scenario.

Plus, some of the suggestion should be possible to achieve by adjusting the AIValue. Making AIP 11 less wild about going for Planetary Invasion and Extreme Colonisation, for example. Both techs have a very high AIValue at the moment. Reducing that should help a bit.

Also, the current placement of the Industrial Starbase techs is intentional. The factory-users don't start out with any production-assist modules, making economy starbases entirely worthless for them, until they research those techs. Some of the races already take a long time before they research Industrial Starbase Construction. Sometimes, they don't research them at all. Moving those techs even further down the tree would make this even worse.

Fixed. Thanks.

I did that change, because I think militaristic races should have an easier time researching PI actually, not to make the AI quicker to go for it.

I'm not certain, if the AIValue is even needed for AIP 8. As you said before, AIP 8 seems to ignore AIValues.

I'm also going to test, if changing Space Weapons to provide a Weapons bonus, instead of a Military Production one, will make the AI more likely to go for it. I mean, that did seem to be the case with the Atlas techs. The AI did go after some of them before Space Weapons, even though they are more expensive and have a lower AIValue.

I'm currently taking another look at the starting abilities of all races. Some of the races still felt a bit weak, or their bonuses didn't quite fit, in my opinion. I used the original bonuses from DL and DA as a base, and adjusted accordingly, with some deviations, when other bonuses made more sense. Here are my current values:

Terrans:
+10% Speed
+10% Morale
-10% Social Production
-10% Military Production
+25% Trade
+30% Diplomacy
+1 Trade Routes

Drengin:
+20% Weapons
+25% Morale
+20% Military Production
-25% Diplomacy
+10% Hit Points
+20% Soldiering

Altarians:
-20% Weapons
+20% Morale
+25% Research
+10% Luck
+25% Creativity

Arceans:
+20% Morale
+20% Military Production
+30% Hit Points
+20% Soldiering
+25% Courage

Torians:
+25% Morale
+10% Population Growth
+20% Social Production
+10% Luck
+25% Courage

Yor:
+10% Economics
+10% Morale
-10% Population Growth
+20% Social Production
+20% Military Production
+30% Soldiering
+100% Loyalty
+10% Miniaturization

Korx:
+15% Economics
+50% Trade
+10% Diplomacy
+3 Trade Routes
-20% Loyalty

Drath:
-20% Population Growth
+30% Diplomacy
+25% Espionage
+50% Soldiering
+1 Trade Routes

Thalan:
+25% Economics
-50% Population Growth
+33% Social Production
+33% Military Production
-30% Diplomacy
+40% Loyalty

Iconians:
+10% Economics
+20% Morale
+20% Research

Korath:
+25% Weapons
+25% Morale
+25% Military Production
-25% Diplomacy
+10% Hit Points
+30% Soldiering

Krynn:
+50% Morale
-10% Research
+10% Influence
+25% Diplomacy
+100% Espionage

Well, what does everyone think?  

re: I'm sorry, but the layout of the tech trees is finalised. No more adding of new techs, removal of old techs, or changing of requirements. I asked, if anyone had objections to this, two weeks ago, because I wanted to get started with updating the scenarios and campaigns.

I wasn't aware of this. Pity. There's no way to give AIP11 pause in getting Extreme Conolisation though. I tried, but to no avail that why I liked move to Habitation Improvement as it act as a natural throttle. Oh well. I'll see what I can do.

re: I'm not certain, if the AIValue is even needed for AIP 8. As you said before, AIP 8 seems to ignore AIValues.

It's not completely deaf to them. You can get them to research Extreme Colonisation at an AIValue of 500+ e.g. What I mean is that the current combination seems to work better than, i.e., Industry/Pure Research.

Testing Extreme Colonisation on Category biology, AIValue 25. This puts it into direct competinion with the terraforming techs. First results are encouraging..

@Gaunathor. Do these bonuses include 10 customisation point or not?

Those are just the base values.

Hmmm. The Iconians seem to lack a bonus. Then again, they are really ,really powerful in the game as is.

Btw I'm nearly done with a set of updates that yielded some great results. I'm still looking into AIValues for Life Support, Logistics, and Miniaturization.

That's the intent. As a race, they are rather weak, but their techs more than make up for this.

That's good to hear. My own efforts have proven rather fruitless today.

Hello there, I'm currently watching early-game behaviour of AI autoplay, esp. research & planetary development.

Setup is maso-diff, no techtrade/broker, techspeed normal, all other settings randomized.

Here's an excerpt of the results from tests with Yor. There's good/mediocre/bad taken.

Some observations/conclusions:

The AI seems oftentimes to bounce between Industry & Weapons in order to get his MMR high. He gets wrongly caught into Labs because the tags are set to industry. Because of this there are 2 times the amount of industry tags and he cannot finish quickly, instead gets stuck. The irony is that Labs should actually speed-up the research progress, but he doesn't build any so the opposite is the case.

The AI also forgets about other and very important techs such as Logistics, Miniaturization & Hulls. These could be researched far more easily than end-tier facs/labs and would provide better support for his MMR.

The Yor's economy is based on high pop, but he doesn't research into Soil Enhancement so many worlds are stuck in their development & growth. His econ is occasionally dragged down by SB & constructor-maint, researching into primary SB defenses would help to use the constructors and also to keep the SB intactvs enemies.

Yor consistently build Research Matrix to take RP out of it, but they oftentimes seem to ignore other 1pp such as Recruiting Center and Trade Goods/SP/GA.

Scatter Blaster makes cheap ships which can be massproduced but only with sufficient logistics will they pose a threat.

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Hope the forums won't eat the post again   

Next are Iconians. So long...

@Maiden

My latest update will include Logistics and Miniaturization changes. The AIValues were still set on 10.

Before I forget. I ran a test game where several starbases got to level 53 and had over 500 hp. The AI could not destroy them. However, this was when I noticed the low logistics scores and very small fleets. Perhaps that will solve this problem.

Uploaded a new optimized version again.

TechTree.XML

InterstellarConstruction
AI 35 to 55

FortifiedFreighters
AI 20 to 10. This prevents the AI from grabbing this tech to early.

InterstellarNavigation
AI 35 to 10. I noticed this really didn't help the AI all that much. By the time they get it the colony rush is over.

SubspaceDrive
AI 35 to 10. I noticed this really didn't help the AI all that much. By the time they get it the colony rush is over.

Space Mining
AI 10 to 25. Dirt cheap tech that increases production and gives the AI's space miners something to do.

XenoGeology
AI 20 to 55. Must have tech and dirt cheap.

Mercenaries
AI 15 to 25. AI left it alone to often.

CutThroatCompetition
AI 15 to 55. Must have tech that saves the buy out loving AI a ton of money in the beginning.

Soil Enhancement
AI 35 to 25. This value is more than enough to get the AI to research it and it allows some wiggeling room for other high
priority biological techs.

WeatherControl
AI 35 to 20. The AI would grab this way to early and it would open up the Extreme Colony techs to soon.

ExtremeColonization
AI 55 to 20.
Category Colonization to Biology.
This paces AIP11 a bit better.

Planetary Invasion
AI 30 to 35. AI11 would leave this one alone to often.

AdvancedStarbaseConstruction
AI 20 to 5. I'd rather have the AI research factories first.

StarbaseMilitarization, StarbaseMobilization, StarbaseProjection, StarbaseDomination, StarbaseConquestStrategry
AI 10 to 5. The AI'd love to grab this way to quickly and it prevents them from progressing to Space Weapons.

Planetart Invasion
CanBeTraded 1 to 0 (this is part of the AIP8 Military fix)

Basic Miniaturization
AI 10 to 30

Enhanced Miniaturization.
AI 10 to 25

Advanced Miniaturization.
AI 10 to 20

Expert Miniaturization.
AI 10 to 15

Ultimate Miniaturization.
AI 10 to 15

Supreme Miniaturization
AI 10 to 10

Basic Logistics
AI 10 to 30

Enhanced Logistics
AI 10 to 35

Advanced Logistics
AI 10 to 30

Expert Logistics
AI 10 to 25

Ultimate Logistics
AI 10 to 15

Tier 2 weapons
AI 10 to 8

Tier 3 weapons
AI 10 to 6

Tier 3 weapons
AI 10 to 4

Tier 4 weapons
AI 10 to 2

Tier 5 (Final tier)
AI 10 to 1

AIP8 Fixes

By setting Galactic Warfare and Space Militarization to Pure Research AIP8 will pick up these technologies very quickly and it will counterbalance their mad desire for manufacturing/research tech. To force AIP8 to research Planetart Invasion I have set it's Category to Pure Research and AIValue to a 1000 in each specific tree. Because of it's super high AIValue PI is no longer safely be traded (small loss) but it can still be stolen. I also removed the AIValue of 120 on Space Weapons for AIP8's. It's no longer needed. In addition. I set Military Starbase Construction to Weapons instead of Defenses. AIP8 doesn't research Defenses. I applied these fixes to each race tree and left TechTree.XML alone.

AIP11 Fixes

I've set Artificial Gravity and Xeno Engineering to AIValues of 20 for all AIP11 races to get them to Planetary Improvements,
etc. BEFORE they hit their weapon tree.

I applied these fixes to each race tree and left TechTree.XML alone.

ICONIANS

AIP8 fixes.

EnhancedAdaptation
ID: Biology to Industry
Category: Biology to Pure Research.

KRYNN

AIP8 fixes.

EnhancedAdaptation
ID: Biology to Industry
Category: Biology to Pure Research.

ARCEANS

AIP11 fixes.

Removed all AI 35 tags.

Tidal Disruption
Cost set to 400 (default = 600)

Space Marines
Cost set to 600 (default = 800)

Advanced Troop Mods
Cost set to 350

These changes attempt to get the Arceans to focus on their own industry and give them a unique advantage getting soldering bonus.

YOR

AIP8 Fixes.

TERRAN

AIP8 Fixes

ZeroGSportsArena
Removed AI 45 tag

Virtual Reality Centers
Removed AI 45 tag

TORIAN

AIP11 fixes.

KORX

AIP11 fixes.

DRENGIN

AIP8 fixes.

ALTARIAN

AIP11 fixes.

DRATH

AIP8 fixes.

THALAN

AIP8 fixes.

STRUCTURES
Basic Lab
AI 10 to 35

Xeno Lab
AI 10 to 35

Research Center
AI 10 to 35

Research Academy
AI 10 to 25

Invention Matrix
AI 10 to 25

Discovery Sphere
AI 10 to 25

Schools
AI 10 to 35

University
AI 10 to 25

City of Learning
AI 10 to 20

This forces the AI to build more labs. I may have over done it just a bit and I haven't paid any attention to the Korath/Drengin (yet).

Impressions

AIP8
Now researches Planetary Invasion reliably, gets some logistics and maybe some Miniaturization but it's focus is still industry, industry and more industry. It is so hell bend on doing it's own thing there's little I can do beyond what's done. We simply can't turn everything "Orange" to entice it.

AIP11
Gets everything with the exception of maybe some culture tech. AIP11 "owns" AIP8 in AI vs AI battles now because it fully terraforms, uses tons of miniaturization and logistics and with some extra labs it researches its needs quickly. In addition, it will grab extreme planets, defenses. etc, etc. The AIP11 races could still use some tweaking though but they get the good stuff!

I'm not entirely convinced of this change. I've run now a couple test-games, and there were still several instances were some of the AIP 8 races researched PI only three years or later into the game. It just doesn't feel that much better than the previous attempts.

AIP 8 does research Defenses. It just requires a bit more time and/or a higher AIValue. In any case, I've set the AIValue of Starbase Militarization & Co. to 1 in the AIP 8 tech trees. It's a vain hope, but it may reduce the AIs interest in those techs a little bit.

Overall though, this is pretty good work. 

I've uploaded a new version, which includes your changes (with the exception of the no-trading part of PI), and some of my own. Most importantly the new race abilities. One important note, the races don't come pre-configured in this version, because I want to know how the AI handles them on its own.

I also had a look at how the AI assigns the customisation points, and it's not that bad actually. Most points go into Economics, Morale, and Research. The rest are then assigned into whatever the AI deems appropriate. However, it looks like the AI uses the values from the un-modded AbilityBonuses.xml, because I've seen it assign +5% Influence bonuses, among things, which aren't possible with the modded version.

@Gaunathor

re: I'm not entirely convinced of this change. I've run now a couple test-games, and there were still several instances were some of the AIP 8 races researched PI only three years or later into the game. It just doesn't feel that much better than the previous attempts.

It's not perfect but imo it is better. I'm aiming for an 8 here.

Perhaps we could put a few races on AIP11? AIP8 seems to run Thalans, Yor and Iconians well enough but fails with the rest with the possible exception of the Terrans. AIP8 does well on +Research races because it desperately wants to research all of the available factory technology. The mentioned races have "odd" techtrees where the next choice is very limited.

In short:

Krynn, 11
Korath, 7
Iconians, 8
Thalan, 8
Drath, 11 (I think their SA works in 11)
Korx, 11
Terran,11
Drengin, 11
Altarian, 11
Arcean, 11
Torian, 11
Yor, 8

RE: AIP 8 does research Defenses. It just requires a bit more time and/or a higher AIValue. In any case, I've set the AIValue of Starbase Militarization & Co. to 1 in the AIP 8 tech trees. It's a vain hope, but it may reduce the AIs interest in those techs a little bit.

Good to know but I may have been overzealous in this chance since Starbase Militarization & Co. are now researched very early in the game by both AI's. We should turn the entire group to Computing/Research to stop this from happening.

Well I'm going to take the lastest update for a spin and stream it to Twitch.  I probably won't do any commentary, but I'll try to give you an idea of how each race is progressing.

I've seen AIP 8 do well with the Terrans, Drengin, Drath, and Krynn, on occasion. There is always room for improvement, but I don't think we need to use such drastic measures as switching them from the AI that was written specifically for them just yet.

I would suggest Defenses/Starbase. The point isn't to prevent the AI from researching those techs, just to slow it down. Otherwise we end with a situation where the starbases of the player are almost invulnerable, while the ones of the AI have no defences at all. Well, except for the Thalan.

Also, what do think about a feature-lockdown? No adding in new features anymore. Only focussing on bugfixes (if there are any left) and the AI from now on.

re: I would suggest Defenses/Starbase. The point isn't to prevent the AI from researching those techs, just to slow it down. Otherwise we end with a situation where the starbases of the player are almost invulnerable, while the ones of the AI have no defences at all. Well, except for the Thalan.

I can live with that.

re: Also, what do think about a feature-lockdown? No adding in new features anymore. Only focussing on bugfixes (if there are any left) and the AI from now on.

Now I'm confused. What do you mean by new features exactly because if the techtrees are locked in there's very little we can do other than add bonuses and structures. I was already limiting myself to optomising techtree research and /improvement building.

re: I've seen AIP 8 do well with the Terrans, Drengin, Drath, and Krynn, on occasion. There is always room for improvement, but I don't think we need to use such drastic measures as switching them from the AI that was written specifically for them just yet.

How about just switching out the Yor? We got 7 AIP8's and 4 AIP11's and that's a little bit unbalanced. I'm confident I can have the Yor up and running on AIP11 in no time.

Radical thought...

Logistics and Miniaturization are difficult techs to get right. The AI doesn't consider them to valuable and they offer a player a quick out because they allow for more ships in a fleet with more weapons on them.

What... if we got rid of them an instead integrated them into existing tech.

For example.
Factories and labs both could offer miniturization as a bonus to convey the increasing aptitude of your race.

Hulls could give logistics as an extra bonuses to accomodate bigger ships.

We'd have to give each race a bigger logistics score but I think this could work and work well. We'd be able to limit exactly how big a fleet can get per race and use this as a balancing mechanism. E.g. The Arceans could get low logistics but very strong ships.

I know this means tearing up the techtree's and saying goodbye to two types of research we're all very familiar with but I think that it will work and it will work well.

As a bonus we could add, say, 1% extra minuaturization on every first weapon in a new tier. (Or first and last, who knows).

New tech bonuses, new improvements, new starbase modules, or anything else that would change how the game plays. Things like this:

It's an interesting idea, but it changes the game too much (plus, the tech trees are already locked down), in my opinion. I'd say, leave this for mods.

Give it a try.

Finished my live playthrough for today.  You can catch the replay here.

I have to say, it's a sobering experience to lose a planet to the Torians as the Drengin.  Too bad there isn't an achievement for that.

Overall, I would say that the AI plays quite well.  It's especially nasty at using military starbases (the Torians had one of my planets basically locked down with two of those which gave their ships a +8 bonus to attack).  It's a bit hesitant to jump into the improved weapons research but it seems to do so in between other things.  And it researches Logistics.

Even though the Terrans were pretty happy to research all the way up to Industrial Sector, they did grab some research techs on the way and thus improved their research capacity by quite a bit.

I didn't see a lot of economic improvements on the foreign planets I checked out.  It may have something to do with the galaxy size and the availability of farms to create high-population planets and get taxes that way.

Here's something interesting. If you want the AI (both) to really, really research something, give the AIValue a negative value. Say -2. Works like a charm but unfortunately it makes the tech untradable similarly to AIValues over 26.

Useful for PI though. Also works really well to get AIP8 to research green tech.

I think that may be because it gets converted to an unsigned integer.  Just a wild guess, though.

Could be. -1 crashes the game though. A pity really, for a moment I hoped I was onto something because I had the Krynn researching everything in sight.

None of it could be traded however