Insane AI comments (TheRealWarpStorm)
AshesoftheSingularity ForumsTheRealWarpstorm,
Here is a complete post about what I see in the AI right now (you said in my last post to mention anything I think the AI is doing wrong). I'm writing it now as I have successfully defeated the insane AI on Xendar, Cerius, Altar, and Deneb in a 1v1. I'm going to break this up into three parts.
Part three is by far the most important to me.
How to (seemingly) most easily defeat insane AI
- Do not build static defenses. None. At all. They don't move, cost to much, and it's pretty clear spam overcomes them easily (more DPS for metal cost). In one of 4 games I built a few smarties and sentinels, but they never got the chance to be used. Invest everything into offensive units.
- Spam t1 out the wazzoo. I usually have about 10-15 assisted factories cranking out units (larger maps obviously). Yes, my first factory at my seed even shuttles units slowly to the front from beginning to end of game.
- Mix in a few t2 units, mostly t2 artillery as they have by far the greatest damage output against everything, and flatten the static defense the AI constantly puts up. I don't find much use for the Zeus, the healing tank, and the AI doesn't build air right now so you don't need the AA tank.
- Truck right on through everything! Choo Choo Mother******
- Not much reason to bother with air or t3 as the above gets the job done. Air is mostly useless due to the amount of smarties the AI uses, and t3 is much too slow to get anything done. Use t3 when you can't spend you're metal even when you have around 15 factories making units. I usually just do it for fun and to really "seal the deal" with the AI xD
Part One - Me vs. insane AI
Macro level thoughts
1) I have yet to play a game against the insane AI where they built an advanced factory and made t3 units. I honestly have no explanation for why the AI could potentially be doing this, as the AI clearly has the resource income to build them, especially on the larger maps.
2) The AI it not good at attacking open flanks. In only 1 of my 4 games did I build any form of static defense (and the one I did they were barely used). This means that any borderline region won't have a single thing guarding it unless I send a army through it. Yet the AI has never attempted to attack me in areas that are clearly weak. I feel the AI should prioritize which way it goes. If it sees weakness on a certain route it should go there. Instead, it seems the AI gets a region to capture once it's meta group is formed, and then it will go take it, or die trying. The meta group doesn't seem to shift or change tactics. I have had entire armies ignore critical regions (like the one in front of my seed) and infrastructure by driving right past them, just to go capture some more outlying regions that I own.
3) The AI occasionally just stops. For example, the map Cerius has 2 expansions with 4 metal deposits each. In the game I played, the AI destroyed my army on that plateau (AI had around 60 units there), captured the point, and just sat there. They did not continue to press against me. They stayed put until I had another army built up to take the region back. This is reoccurring on all the maps, where the AI seems to just take territory up to a certain point, and then just stops. Also, I sent a few bombers to harass that army. The army never moved, and the AI never sent mobile AA there.
4) Twice the AI had massive armies near my seed. But instead of going to my seed (which clearly could have been destroyed), they kept breaking this army up and attempting to capture various regions that I owned. I think the AI should be able to realize when it can just go straight for the seed kill, or kill enough eco and manufacturing and damage me to the point of no recovery.
5) The AI seems to never build more than 2 factories. This doesn't matter much as I will explain in part 2 due to the ludicrous amount of cheating the AI has, but it just feels off.. to build so few factories..
6) Alot of this will have to do with part 2, but essentially, the AI does not keep up production well. The AI seems to make units in "spurts" where it makes a series of units (conceivably to form a template meta unit), and then simply stops. All the factories go idle.
Micro level thoughts
7) Although also based off part 2, the AI seems to build a 1:1 ratio of brutes to archers, occasionally I feel I see armies that are vastly populated by archers. And boy is that effective (not sarcasm, seriously, try making only archers in a game, you'll wreck through almost anything no problem).
8) The AI is not capable of reacting to bomber threats. As in, they will not build mobile AA where they need it. The only reason the AI doesn't die even faster to bomber harass is because the AI builds such a huge amount of smarty systems that air play is mostly useless right now (and certainly not cost efficient).
9) Running on #8, the AI seems to build at minimum 4 smarty systems per region, up to 6. Rather silly, the AI should be more focused on offensive units, and fortifying when needed.
Part Two - Observing the insane AI
I observed the insane AI in a 2v2 on the map Drengi. I did not do anything at all, I simply watched my ally take on 2 insane AI's
Macro level thoughts
10) Oddly enough, this is the first time I have seen the AI build t3 units. And this time, by minute 13, my ally was rocking 8 t3 assault ships lol!
11) This map gives each player many bases behind his seed, all of which can be easily capped and not harassed by enemy ground forces (since there is only 1 route to these bases by land). My Ally capped the 7 immediate regions behind his seed, and then stopped, leaving the last 4 uncapped. No reason for this as these regions only have creeps. The AI also captured regions until he was 2 regions away from my seed, and then stopped. The AI could have continued to take regions that should have been mine but did not.
12) The enemy AI hardly attacked the middle of the map at all. This resulted in the 15-20 units that actually attacked to be steam rolled by the t3 ships, and a win at around 21 minutes due to holding the middle point. My single insane AI defeated 2 insane AI's with barely a battle at all xD!
Micro level thoughts
13) Can long range units not fire on radar signatures? Because I never see any long range unit firing on a radar signature. Seems you need to have physical line of sight for these units to fire.
Also, as mentioned, the AI seems to build units in spurts. I think this is rather inefficient, as it would be better to have a continuous stream of units, but I guess right now it doesn't matter because of part 3 below.
Part Three - Oh Lawdy the Cheating!
14) I think it was frog boy who mentioned the 2 hardest AI cheats, but the level at which they cheat is rather incredible.
- An insane AI engineer can build a factory in 6.5 seconds. It takes me 30. That's over 4 and a half times the build power!
- An insane AI engineer can build a metal extractor in 2.5 seconds. It takes me 9.5. That is 3.8 times slower!
- An insane AI can build t1 units at such a rate that the 1st built unit will not have left the factories decal before the next one pops out. Keep in mind that that is an unassisted factory.
- This also goes for t3 units. I didn't do the numbers, but as I mentioned, the insane AI had 8 t3 ships by minute 13. I think by minute 21 and end game, the AI had about 14 of them. The rate at which those ships come out is amazing.
- From the beginning to middle of the game, the insane AI absolutely matches, or exceeds, the unit count that I have. And I build mostly t1, no air factories, no research matrices, no metal or reactive storage, no static defenses. Just pure army and nothing else. The AI matches or exceeds my unit count, while still managing to build all those extra buildings, and the crazy amounts of smarties!
15) Remember, I understand that we are in pre-alpha, I'm not surprised by this level AI. But since you guys have said that you are interested in a strong single player/friends vs. AI scenario, then this type of AI has to go eventually. The last thing I want is another Sins of a Solar empire scenario where the hardest AI is near impossible to defeat just because it has such a massive economical advantage over you.
This type of AI is outright lazy and has been in the industry for, well, decades now. Every Total War game did this, every Supreme Commander game did this, Age of Empires did this, AI War did this, the Warhammer games did this, Star Wars Empire at War did this.. the list is endless.
I think it is time for something different.
Right now the only game that I know of that has a functional and intelligent AI that can defeat you by wit and no cheats, is the AI in Ultimate General Gettysburg. UGG has a leg up in that it is only one battle, ergo, lots of situations are more predictable. So let's see what you AoS devs can do with modern technology! I am very excited!
Hope this was helpful. Sorry for the wall of text. I couldn't really explain AI issues with pictures, and I don't really know how to make quality videos =\
- Shurtugalll
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