[5.83] - The AI apparently counts Starbases and Shipyards as military units

AKA I'm 4th place in Military and the 3rd place has no army

from GalCiv3 Forums

The way this game calculates military power is a little strange. Like, as soon as I meet any of the AIs, they all immediately declare war because of how "weak" I am compared to them, even if I actually have a military, and they don't. Today, I took a closer look at this by going full military and conquest right off the bat. Even though I have a free frigate, as soon as I met the Krynn, they declare war. I met the Altarians, too, and even they give me the minus for being weak. No matter how many AIs I meet, it seems I am always last place for Military Power. I thought that was very strange, and when I went to talk to the Altarians, who in my current game are 3rd place to my 4th place in Military, I looked at how many units they had.

Literally the only armed ship in their entire navy was their starting Survey ship. Nothing else even had defenses. They hadn't even researched weapons yet.

However, when I looked down at how many planets they had, they had a ridiculous number of colonies, and since we all know the AI always builds a Shipyard straight away once it colonizes a system, I think I know exactly why everyone seems to think they have such a massive military: the game counts their Starbases and Shipyards as military units, and since each of those has about 80 hp and 3/3/3 of everything, the game acts like they have dozens and dozens of Frigates, even though they are immobile and incapable of attacking. I, meanwhile, am always last place because I tend to only build shipyards around clusters of planets. This might also explain why the AI never seems to build defenders - it thinks it has one really good defender in every system already!

It got truly ridiculous in one game, where I once went romping through the entire Altarian sector just blowing everything up with the same 3 corvettes, with over 80 military ships back home just waiting, and the game still wouldn't put them as below me in military power -- they had been in first place for Military! When I went to go find this military, I found maybe 3 armed ships in total. All the rest was Shipyards and mining Starbases. For all I know, it might even be counting anything with HP as a military unit for the purposes of Military Power, which would include scouts, colony ships, and freighters.

This needs to get fixed soon, because it's making the AI declare utterly suicidal wars that they have no chance of winning, and it's also ruining trade and diplomacy.

15,490 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

  Is that why even minors make insane demands of 25 credits a turn as as soon as I meet them and have universal translator?

  Immoble assets need to be totalled seperately from mobile ones in power.

 

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Just confirming that this IS the reason. I built 3 shipyards in a single turn and immediately shot up to 2nd place in Military power (up from dead last).

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

maybie this should be copied over to one of frogboys posts on AI modding 

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I thought I read a journal post saying that potential military mIghtfield was figured into the calculation for military might. So even though you have a stronger military it calculates with their potential  for producing ships they could quickly over take you so are more powerful in reality. Of course if they haven't  even researched weapons yet that calculation  needs some refinement obviously.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I think the military might should be based on actual power, not on a potentual one, because the potentual one is/can become part of the actual one IF the specific AI/player decides to use it in order to build military. However, there are so many factors available which could disturb this process and that renders a potentual MMR useless.

Besides, if I go to war versus someone that already has an actual MMR, and if I'm successful in destroyin ghis fleets (without conquering planets) I'd except that his MMR falls equally - which would invite other factions to declare war unto this weakened AI or player. Which should be the case, so you have to be fast in rounding up the planets otherwise others will get them while you've done the hard work. 

 

 

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Maiden666, reply 5

I think the military might should be based on actual power, not on a potentual one,

i think it needs both it just needs to be balanced 
if i can change my shipyard construction and crank out an army to match your army in 10 turns that should be a consideration in will you go to war with me  

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Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Sure, but when number of shipyards is the only thing the AI seems to care about, it's a little silly. Number of shipyards doesn't translate well into how fast you can build units, since it's far more efficient to sponsor a shipyard with 3-4 planets clustered together. If the game really is considering potential, rather than just assuming shipyards are units as I'm guessing, it's doing a very poor job of it.

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Shipyards do weigh heavily. I have been playing catch up with the Thalians in a current game and I notice that a shipyard will give you more points than a nice fighting ship. Once you start building dreadnaughts it swings a little.

The problem with counting AI shipyards is that they build one at every planet (or at least every system), and that is not efficient in this game. It can actually hurt you if you limit sponsors to just your home system.

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Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I fixed this just after the build went gold because I ran into the same issue.

Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Yes apparently there are fixes in this area in the list of stuff in Beta6.