Some save games for Brad/Frogboy

To summarize:

1.  The AI do not specialize their worlds.

2.  Generally poor tech choices.  

3.  The AI does not work towards any short-term goals.  They just appear to randomly build stuff.  

@marigoldran, yes and no. A lit of that stuff is known and acknowledged, but this also has specific examples and the save game files fo go with them. Non nonspecialiatoon is known and acknowledged, brad has said making the Ai recognize theaters smaller than "entire empire" is one of his target goals & some of that can't happen until then... But ewkples and saves where they should allows to see places that need extra sorts of work faster thsn others for example. Finally.... The tech choice by dartboard scatter of seeming randomness is oartly the last issue and partly what my next goal is in ilo (to the extent that we can right now), which is why I started a thread elsewhere asking people to post their favorite race to play and some dwtails on their regular tech path. Starting oht

Uh, Thalans.  

Yeah. Thalans.  

Take a look at Hives and Gaia Vortex and Hyperion Matrix and think about it.  

Then think about it some more.  

Tech choices for larger maps? Really obvious:

1.  1-2 Engine techs for faster ships. Self explanatory.

2.  Hives if Thalan.  

2.  Orbital manufacturing (small hulls for custom designed colony ships).

3.  Interstellar Government techs for massive boosts to raw production. 

4.  Hyperion Matrix if available (Thalan tech). 

5.  Adjacency bonus techs (once again, the Thalans have an awesome one).

6.  Gaia Vortex (Thalan tech.  The most amazing tech ever).  

Win.  

For Nassie's mod (he changed the way Colonial hospitals work) Planetary Adaption and Accelerated Growth becomes  a lot more important.  

Personally I'm sort of surprised you haven't tried Thalan tech yet.  

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iridium soak1 ***
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- planetary enhancement
- capital investment
- defense systems
- weapons systems
- marketing
- acquisitions
- miniaturization spec (weapons -10% size)
- soil enhancement
- research spec (+10% research)
- I left this overnight & the dog needs to go out... iridium have -two- worlds (iridia & vallus), both in their home system
- I think I disabled the shhipyard before starting the soak thinking the ai would flip it back on. Looks like the ai doesn't have a hook to enable shipyards if they somehow get disabled or perhaps were disabled when they somehow captured them. ging to restart it & go back to bed
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iridium soak2 ***
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- Planetary enhancement
- planetary enhancement
- capital investment
- defense systems
- marketing
- acquisitions
- universal translator
- miniaturization spec (weapons -10% size)
- soil enhancement
- research spec (+10% research)
- orbital mfg
- skilled starship construction (military mfg +10%)
- zero gravity construction
---- seriously this is almost wtf worthy, the ttech is maybe a quarter finished with 92 turns remaining on turn ~195. although they are building -three- more research labs, across their nine planets pumping out ~30 some research. while I was gathering data there, I they did -something- for about one turn because the research/turn jumped to like 80ish with 42 turns left on Cgc. I first assumed they had rush built some labs (which they might have), but before I could figure out what they did, research per turn was down at a dessicated 37 points/turn with 87 turns remaining. I'm attaching the soak for turn 200 & the two autosaves prior.
- turn 263, iridium are pushing out a sigh inducing 42 research/turn with zero gravity construction at 16 more turns, minus the apparant lack of specialization, the planets are looking to how I would expect to see them 20-40 turns after each was colonized (i.e. mostlky finished buildings & most tiles filled).
-- The Iridium are on the left side of wgat is roughly the lower right quadrant of the map with a small yor followed by krynn to their right. Both the krynn & yor are at war with them
- at some point they had sent out some form of scout/probe/cargo vessel/etc with enough range to reach from it's origin just north of their influence area almost all the way to the left and a second from just south diagonal to be level with about the middle of their empire just a bit less to the right as the other finger. The ai has a decent number of class 11+ uncolonized planets unmaked , but doesn't seem to have any interest in colonizing them despite a few of them being -just- outside their influence area
- at least one of those fingers is due to the third race they are at war with. It's surprising that the trade focused race managed to get into a war with three other species while only bordering one, almost as if they didn't even bother trying to setup trade routes?
at this point, galciv3.exe has been running for a few days running hundreds of turns of soaks on multiple races in insane galaxies, I seem to have reached a point where 8gigs & ~25gigs of swap space got close enough to maxed out to black screen galciv3.  two prior autosaves somewhere around turn 250ish(?) here

The AI cannot play the Thalans correctly.  A human, however, can.  If you want to play a multiplayer game where you play a custom Yor tech race and I play a custom Thalan tech race, then let's do it. 

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iconian soak1 ***
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pretty excited about this soak since it's the first race someone gave me their favorite tech strategy to (https://forums.galciv3.com/470478/page/1/#3582438) so I'm excited about _improving_ them, but first I need to watch their default!
- xeno industrialization
- planetary improvement
- defense systems
- manufacturing specialization (mfg +10%)
- universal translator
- molecular fabrication
- precursor traditions
- diplomatic reasoning
- accelerated growth
- advanced construction
- shield specialization (-10% sheld cost)
- resistance forces
- rl stuff, saved it & letting it continue before starting xmltweaks
- diplomacy
- advanced recirculation (ship range +2)
- shield systems
- targeting spec (+10% accuracy)
--- turn 147 done with stuff, civ stats on turn 147:
* gross income 35/turn (all tourism)
* expenses -48
* net income -12/turn w/917 treasury
* research 49/turn
* manufacturing 73/turn
* 7 planets colonized
* 0 battles won or lost
* 12 starbases built (bumping the StarbaseRange massively cut down on starbase spam)
* all in all, a highly unimpressive result
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iconian soak2 ***
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- initial tech selections should look -something- like this give or take. if all goes well, I'll exit the float & pop back into the techdefs file to continue nudging a couplke more techs into order with a drengin tech tree type sledghammer. by explicitly avoiding factory upgrade buildings & similar things early on, this will give the iconians a chance to lay a foundation on colonies while researching stuff that will help them get off on good footing early on & as the game progresses leverage that solid foundation
<GenericName>PlanetaryImprovement</GenericName>
<GenericName>PlanetarySpecialization2</GenericName>
<GenericName>XenoBiology</GenericName>
<GenericName>InterstellarTravel</GenericName>
<GenericName>XenoCommerce</GenericName>
<GenericName>CommerceSpecialization2</GenericName> (supportive pop)
- I think that as long as the initial tech choices are somewhat like those, that I'll let it float for a while to see how that little difference affects things
- interstellar travel, finished on turn 10
- planetary improvement
- accelerated growth
- it's turn 17 and they are -already- doing 28/turn research, -nine less than turn 147 before-
- new iconia has 1 factory, 1 lab, 2 consolate -built- and the following queue/turns xenofactory/1, xenofactory/3, xenofactory/3, xeno researchlab/3, researchlab/3... Sanctum has a factory, a lab, and a rushbuilt farm waiting till next turn
- xeno commerce, research is down to 16... and now 15....
- it's turn 35, they are pumping out 41 research/turn, xeno commerce is 3 turns away... instead of scouting stars, irs leaf-1 is just doing explore. ships need a "scout stars" option or something to help the ai & minimize micromanagement in the earlt game.
- xeno bilogy, I also notice they are pushing out 43 research/turn now at turn 39
- supportive population
0 new iconia & sanctum are doing birthing subsidies, umeria (pq 19) has 1 factory built, is building a shipyard, and has two more factories queued now at turn 50
- I notice they built a freighter & sent it wayyyyyy out, directly at a star near the very edge of its reach. I ran an fowtrans and it looks like they sent it direct to a fow obscured planet they want to trade with :/ bad normal ai, you aren't supposed to know it's there :/. although to be fair, I don't expect ot will make it past the pirates that are already visible along its route.
- It's turn 56 & income is at +/-0, I expect that will improve soon as well from birthing subsidies & supportive pop.
-molecular fabrication. Income is now 3/turn
- precursor traditions
-diplomatic reasoning
- shield spec (cost -10%)
- industrial spec (mfg cost -5%)

by pushing the factory update back & putting more traditional early goal techs just outside the gate, the iconians did leagues better and were actually able to do things like build colonies & use the build queue.

How many colonies does it have? 

<GenericName>PlanetaryImprovement</GenericName> 50
<GenericName>PlanetarySpecialization2</GenericName> 50
<GenericName>XenoBiology</GenericName>50
<GenericName>InterstellarTravel</GenericName>100/100/100//1
<GenericName>XenoCommerce</GenericName>50
<GenericName>CommerceSpecialization2</GenericName> (supportive pop) 55
thalan add hivetech @50
---  self note Gaia Vortex and Hyperion Matrix A might also be important early thalan techs

Yor instead get:
InterstellarTravel 50, YorPowerTech has growth jump from 20>25, YorInterstellarTourism @45, xeno entertainment @45, logisticaloptimization4 (range+15%) expansion 16>20.. why are yortreated wih more nuance & subtlety? I'm most familiar playing with them & have gotten -very- few replies https://forums.galciv3.com/470478 telling me about other's tech priorities in race $x

1 terran
2 iconian
3 iridium
4 altarian
5 drengin
6 yor
7 krynn
8 thalan

untouched:
- thalan
- yor
- krynn

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yor soak1***
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I did an extremely blunt & ugly pass on the aiweights for all but the thalan/yor/drengin/krynn because those ai's always seem to do ok or are well, unique. Going to let them soak overnight & check on them in the morning
- at this point, I'm partly avoiding messing with the ai scripts simply because most of the ai races have such a seemingly dartboard guided early set of tech choices to run through leaving them with a foundation made of quicksand. The problem with that is that pretty much any human player has certain key early foundational techs that tend to be pretty common. I want to address the initial trouble first & go from there
- I notice the ai is still doing some bomneheaded stuff like colonize a planet & queue a planetary soil upgrade followed by a 40+ turn wait for a durantium refinery
-when I went to bed, I was concerned because the terrans were running a -19ish/turn deficit & trying to start a vouple worlds with durantium refineries, but after taking the dog out abd seeing the state of the game at turn 353 I'm -extremely- impressed. turns obviously go a lot faster with 8 races than 36, but the ai was much less schitziphrenic
- yor& thalan were at the bottom of the pile in the graphs though

- running a yor soak to see how their tech progression goes
- collective manufacturing
- planet utilization
- defense systems
- militarization
- weapons systems
- miniaturization spec (weapon mass -10%)
- missile weapons
- power matrix
- research spec
- enhanced training
- industrial mechanization
- shield spec (cost -10%)
- transportation spec (mass -25%)
- xeno commerce
- spark of life
- rapid fire missiles
- shield systems
- technological capacity
- ion drive
- terraforming
- wealthy population
- passionate communicator

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thalan soak1
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- industrial adaptation
- manufacturing spec (+10% manufacturing)
- xeno anthropology
- defense systems
- weapons systems
- hyperion matrix
- hives <- impotrant
- universal translator
- gravitonics (capacity +10%)
- adaptive anthropology
- targeting spec (accuracy +10%)
- missile weapons
- enhanced training
- hyperdrive spec (moves +1)
- offensicve gravitonics (weapon mass -5%)
- advanced construction
-shield spec (cost -10%)
- shield systems
- ion drive
- interstellar survey
- life support
- missile miniaturization
- orbital manufacturing
- skilled starship construcyion (military mfg 10%)
- zero gravity construction

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yor soak2***
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interstellar travel
xeno commerce
supportive pop
collective mfg
xeno entertainment
militarization
planet utilization
defense sysetems
power matrix
miniaturization spec (weapon mass -10%)
missile weapons
<-- Industrial mechanization<-- needs much lower priority, yor are still upgrading mfg yor to ollective mfg tile on some worlds
- enhanced training
- diplomatic reasoning
- interstellar tourism
- orbital manufacturing
- skilled space ship construction (+10% military mfg)
- zero gravity construction
- turn 197 the Yor established their firsttrade route giving them 8 credits/turn from trade with the altarians, but they are absolutely seeing through the fow for traderoute direction

- I'm going to let this continue to marinate for a while to see if the yor setup a second/third traderoute
- turn 281 still only 1 trade route from yor but I see two others on the map
- hull reinforcement
- large scale construction
-- it's about turn 330, the ai (ll ai's normal) yor are:
1st in military power
2nd economic power
3rd population
6th influence
7 approval
social mfg 7th
9th treasury
10th tech power
There is a war with the krynn, but nobody seems to care much aside from two fleets of warships near them
Krynn & drengin are two factions I didn't tweak, largely because they always seemed to do pretty good on their own compared to most
all of the races appear to be doing reasonably well, the minor races are kicking ass
- turn 349 that war judt got hot, a huge trail of yor & krynn warships collided on the border & it looked like he yor freaking stomped the krynn... yep... retire screen shows enemy ships destroyed ==65, lost=41. Battles won 38, lost 14

Looking at the rankings:
yor colonized 9 plamets, iconian 21, iridium 25, altarian 9, drengin 14, krynn 20, terran 12, thalan 11
"most population": Yor 175, iconian 192, irridium 198, altarian 95, drengin 167, krynn 272 (wow), terran 101, thalan 105.
not a single race lost -a- planet or starbase for any reason.
going to relaunch galciv3.exe, load the save & let the soak continue to see where the war goes
- turn 562, game has slowed a lot & it's getting time for ne to test some new stuff

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yor soak3 *
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did a bunch of build queue & minor aiscript tweaking, going to check to watch now

- after letting the soak run overnight, the results atre pretty significant. It's turn 578 and well, the easiest way I can put this into words is this... I can visibly tell what almost every colony is supposed to be for. the "Power" tab is as follow:"
*Thalan
* krynn
*Yor
*Iridium
*Terran
*Iconian

currently pretty pleased where the ais are running among themselves, going to play a game for a while & see how they feel against me

I'm not sure that modded saves will be that useful for the devs, tbh. Most won't consider anything outside their own codebase for analytic work, as it may be doing stuff based on your changes rather than theirs.

Thanks for these.  

I'll take what I can get.  Alan is set to make the AI a major focus of 1.4 and I hope to get more involved with it after the Ashes of the Singularity beta is ready.

Im not a fan of scripted/data drive. AI as some of you already know. That said, at least it does let molders get more involved. The general issue is that good AI adapts and that is what I did with the galciv 2 AI.  You see this in the planet building area.  We are probably going to slowly move to a more blended solution where we look at the Xml for cues but adapt on a planet by planet, game by game basis.

What about something like a module that could be called from within .py scripts?  Being able to tweak the ai a bit in the xml files is cool & all, but it hits a very hard wall very fast.  Two examples of that wall:

• Naselus has mentioned elsewhere that he'd like to make more resource types (i.e. durantium/thulium/ultra spice) to use as components to building various things, but the wall comes in with  the ai not knowing it would need to consider them
• I briefly considered playing with making manufacturing starbase modules that give flat bonuses to maxmanufacturing and altering the researchPlanet Governor queues to reflect something a little more specialized, but the wall appears with the ai likely having no idea that it would need to use them and it died on the idea vine.

That will be something to look forward to.  Extremely cool.