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Quiet_Man

Join Date 07/2010

+11

How to make the AI "cheat fair", tips for balancing mods for the AI

I was testing a lot with the maelstrom and lately with the SOA mod about why the (unfair) AI is so bad. I don't play the higher levels cause they cheat too much (complete research after only 20 minutes, no more influence from the planets they control), taking away many strategic elements how to play the game. So I focus on why the "unfair" AI is so bad and how to improve it.

Some reasons the AI sucks are straight forward:

1. Bad resource management (it simply distributes resources over all areas: planets, modules, ships, research)

2. Bad ship management (wastes complete fleet, attacks from bad position)

Now the solution seams to increase the AI resources and ship build rate. But here the "not so" obivous quirks come in the way:

1. The AI will build huge research queues, finally hitting new ship models

2. It creates huge building queues with ships it actually cannot build, cause the required research is number 100+ in research queue

3. Ships in building queues take up fleet support points

4. The AI does not reserve fleet support points for capitals

Result is that at some point in the game the AI cannot build any more ships before it does not complete its 100+ research items. Also when it has maxed out it fleet support points (no more huge jumps creating free capacity) it will practicaly stop building capitals.

Hint for Mods: Ensure research is more expensive than ships, most important cruisers. Be careful with huge resource bonuses. You need to increase research cost the same time or they can shut down the AI ship production.

Example for additional "cheats" heavily improve the AI:

As I learned from the AI discussion that you can create research items that only the AI can activate, but not the player.

You can created following research item "RESEARCHSUBJECT_AI.entity":

TXT
entityType "ResearchSubject"
hudIcon ""
smallHudIcon ""
infoCardIcon ""
NameStringID ""
DescriptionStringID ""
researchWindowLocation
    block 2
   pos [ 8 , 0 ]
ResearchField "Fleet"
Prerequisites
   NumResearchPrerequisites 0
MinimumArtifactLevel -1
BaseUpgradeTime 0.000000
PerLevelUpgradeTime 0.000000
BaseCost
   credits 0.000000
   metal 0.000000
   crystal 0.000000
PerLevelCostIncrease
   credits 0.000000
   metal 0.000000
   crystal 0.000000
Tier 0
onlyWorksIfTierLabsExist FALSE
MaxNumResearchLevels 1
priority 10.00000
researchBoolModifiers 0
researchFloatModifiers 12
researchModifier
   modifierType "ResearchCostAdjustment"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 4.000000
researchModifier
   modifierType "IncomePercLost"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue -4.000000
researchModifier
   modifierType "ShipBuildRateAdjustment"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 20.000000
researchModifier
   modifierType "CapitalShipMaxSlots"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 8.00000
researchModifier
   modifierType "ExperienceAwardedAdjustment"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 2.000000
researchModifier
   modifierType "PlanetSlotsCivilianIncrease"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 24.000000
researchModifier
   modifierType "PlanetSlotsTacticalIncrease"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 8.000000
researchModifier
   modifierType "ResearchBuildRateAdjustment"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 0.250000
researchModifier
   modifierType "ModuleBuildRateAdjustment"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 0.250000
researchModifier
   modifierType "PlanetUpgradeBuildRateAdjustment"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 0.250000
   linkedPlanetUpgradeType "Invalid"
researchModifier
   modifierType "WeaponRangeAdjustment"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 0.500000
   linkedWeaponClass "Invalid"
researchModifier
   modifierType "PlanetSlotsShipsAdjustment"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 1.000000
artifactPicture ""

This will heavily improve the unfair AI with it still being dependent on the planets it has.

A further step is to use the open Capital building slots and created "AI" copies of the most important ships, set slotCount 0.0000 and add:

    ResearchPrerequisite
       Subject "RESEARCHSUBJECT_AI"
       Level 1

You should now face a much much strong "unfair" AI using fleets with 10+ capital ships, but without the quirks from the Cruel or Vicious AI (having completed all research after 20 minutes).

This are just examples, there might be even better possibility to improve the AI. But avoid the resource-research trap.

modding

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Lavo_2

psychoak

Join Date 07/2007

+225

I've watched more AI games than I can remember, there is no such problem with queued activity.

The AI blows every dime it gets, when it gets it. By it's very nature, such a problem can't occur. It can't even stack up five. Ship production is the same way, they never have the money to accomplish such things, as the time between selection and finishing of a research is never more than a minute or two.

The only way such things happen is if you are using resource cheats, or it's absurdly late game, where incomes are vast. In which case they've already finished unlocking the ships a long time ago. Even if you set it to researcher, this simply doesn't occur. Even in SOA2, where we have ships locked away behind other items, it still beelines them early enough that they're already done well before income snowballs enough to get ahead of it. Even then, it only happens when they're winning. A losing AI is perpetually broke.

The rest of it, meh. The AI is a moron. Not really a mod problem.

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One way to have an AI that isn't hampered by income is totally rework the guts -structures, ships, research- so you have an AI version.

Structures cost 0 credit, metal, crystal, but keep the civ/tact slot cost. Perhaps halve the tact slot costs.

Ships require no research.

Minimize research items while sustaining bonuses. Minimized research item has 1 level, but gives full bonus, but spread them across the 8 tiers of research.

Modify capitals and ships to half their current cost.

NPC starbase versions with modified starbase upgrades. The goal is to have starbases buffed up right?

These AI versions of the player.entity file can be used for bot stomps, while regular player files are used for MP stomps.

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Then we will have an AI that will perpetually build redundant, and unnecessary stuff.. Ridiculous stuff. Like 10-15 broadcast centers, or phase jump inhibitors on every grav well it owns, and has the available slots for. Not to shoot down the suggestion. You can try it out, and experiment. However. Most of the modders here know how the AI works, and that is exactly what will happen. Our main problem is that we cant mod the AI itself. It is hard coded. So we have to "work around" many of the AI's shortcomings as best as we can. The AI is stupid. what can we say?

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well, we could say F* rebellion and go back to the real world. just an option.

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Go for it.

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Who said anything about "Rebellion"? We are talking about Original Sins through Diplomacy

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Seleuceia

Join Date 01/2008

+240

Quoting SemazRalan,

reply 2

NPC starbase versions with modified starbase upgrades. The goal is to have starbases buffed up right?

Actually, if you increase or remove the cap on the number of SB upgrades, the AI actually will build all the other upgrades...they just prioritize weapons, defense, hangars, and trade first, so they never have the slots for the other things...

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Fuzzy Logic

Join Date 05/2002

+493

If you mod starbases so they are stronger the AI goes frantic trying to counter them. I just had a game wehere the AI threw 32 caps at me...

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Quoting psychoak,

reply 1

I've watched more AI games than I can remember, there is no such problem with queued activity.

The AI blows every dime it gets, when it gets it. By it's very nature, such a problem can't occur. It can't even stack up five. Ship production is the same way, they never have the money to accomplish such things, as the time between selection and finishing of a research is never more than a minute or two.

The only way such things happen is if you are using resource cheats, or it's absurdly late game, where incomes are vast. In which case they've already finished unlocking the ships a long time ago. Even if you set it to researcher, this simply doesn't occur. Even in SOA2, where we have ships locked away behind other items, it still beelines them early enough that they're already done well before income snowballs enough to get ahead of it. Even then, it only happens when they're winning. A losing AI is perpetually broke.

The rest of it, meh. The AI is a moron. Not really a mod problem.

Sorry if I was not clear. The problem does not really show in "normal" Sins, but as you say the AI is bad in normal Sins. And which AI level did you watch? I wonder if the issue is not one of the reasons they removed normal research from the higher AI levels?

I wanted a stronger AI, but not with the super fast research or just throwing useless frigates at me. So I just increased the income and ship building for the AI to counter the resource wasting it does, then you get the issue very clearly.

If you are fine with standard Sins you don't need to consider my proposals. If you want a better AI then you might want to look at it. I haven't tested everything, but so far it seams to work at least better than standard.

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WHIPperSNAPper2008

Join Date 03/2008

+126

Quiet_Man, have you considered the possibility that you may have advanced to the point where playing AI is just no longer very interesting? There is a solution to this problem. From the Main Menu, click "Ironclad Online", create an ICO account, and start playing real games without AIs and only human players. Once you start playing real games, you won't want to go back to playing against the AI. The 4v4 and 5v5 games are great fun and they only take 1.5-2 hours to play. They're more intense, more suspenseful, more challenging, more interesting, more strategically involved, and more meaningful than playing against computer algorithms that are essentially retarded.

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Personally I think improving the AI at advanced levels is a goal well worth pursuing!

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I'm playing online from time to time. I just think some moders might find it interesting and the AI can become a real opponent with the changes.

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Seleuceia

Join Date 01/2008

+240

Quoting Fuzzy Logic,

reply 8

If you mod starbases so they are stronger the AI goes frantic trying to counter them. I just had a game wehere the AI threw 32 caps at me...

You can edit the AI retreat threshold to help with this....

Additionally, the AI (since it has more resources than you) has an easier time plopping these so called "overpowered" SBs on all its planets...

The AI also seems to work much better in locked team games...not uncommon for them to amass 30-50 ogrovs in these situations and to throw them at an SB...of course, they don't manage them as smartly as a human player...

That being said, I'm not aware of any other method of getting the AI to use SB abilities...

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Lavo_2

Join Date 05/2010

+112

Quoting Seleuceia,

reply 13

That being said, I'm not aware of any other method of getting the AI to use SB abilities...

I'm wondering if the AI even does the research for the abilities; as that might be the root cause of the problem.

Also Quiet_Man, you do realize that the ResearchCostAdjustment you put in the OP increases the cost of research by 200% right? I've personally given the AI this research setup, they still play like a bunch of idiots, but at times they can get pretty rough (on Entrenchment):

researchModifier
   modifierType "CapitalShipMaxSlots"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 1.000000
researchModifier
   modifierType "CapitalShipMaxSlotLevel"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 1.000000
researchModifier
   modifierType "ExperienceConstantGainRate"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 200.000000
researchModifier
   modifierType "ExperienceConstantGainLevelCap"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 2.000000
researchModifier
   modifierType "ShipMaxSlots"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 100.000000
researchModifier
   modifierType "ShipMaxSlotLevel"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 1.000000
researchModifier
   modifierType "DerivativeCreditsFromPurchasesPercent"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 0.010000
researchModifier
   modifierType "ResearchBuildRateAdjustment"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 0.150000
researchModifier
   modifierType "ResearchCostAdjustment"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue -1.000000
researchModifier
   modifierType "BlackMarketBuyPriceAdjustment"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 0.050000
researchModifier
   modifierType "CargoShipCapacityAdjustment"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 0.100000
researchModifier
   modifierType "PlanetSlotsCivilianIncrease"
   baseValue 0.000000
   perLevelValue 4.000000

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GoaFan77

Join Date 10/2008

+629

Quoting Lavo_2,

reply 14

I'm wondering if the AI even does the research for the abilities; as that might be the root cause of the problem.

The AI will research everything if it has the resources. The problem is that it prioritizes maxing out its fleet supply and other things first, and since the AI loses so many ships it requires a very large economy to keep replacing its force while researching at the same time.

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Seleuceia

Join Date 01/2008

+240

Quoting Lavo_2,

reply 14

I'm wondering if the AI even does the research for the abilities; as that might be the root cause of the problem.

It does, at least at unfair and above...you can tell if their SBs have abilities because the AM capacity will be non-zero...

That, and you see the abilities be used when you attack them...

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Quoting DirtySanchezz,

reply 10

and they only take 1.5-2 hours to play

More like 40 minutes to an hour and a bit, at least in my experience... when one guy conclusively dies most of the rest on the team seem to have called it quits, in the games I've played (unless one of the enemy players has been killed too)...

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WHIPperSNAPper2008

Join Date 03/2008

+126

Quoting Wrath89,

reply 17

Sometimes that happens and sometimes people keep playing. It depends on the overall situation and who exactly died. If an elite player or top pro that had been counted on to help carry the team to victory has died, then it's probably over. On the other hand, if it were the worst guy on the team who started out in the suicide spot and who wasn't expected to get too much done anyway, the game might continue. It's possible for the game to be 4v5 with the 4-man team having an advantage, depending on what's going on.

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Hello Lavo_2,

yes the increased research cost is intended. As I explained in the first post, if research is too cheap for AI resources, the AI will create a long research queue, with the risk of adding new ship designs. I will then put this ships into its ship build queue and then sit and wait.

So what you need to do is to give the AI more resources (IncomePercLost) to build ships and faster ship building (ShipBuildRateAdjustment) while increasing research cost, so it will buy more ships than doing research.

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Quiet man you need to keep experimenting with your stats until you ether find your desired results, or the AI test ultimately fails. Even if it does fail you need to keep trying. That is what modding is all about. Trial, and error. You are doing what nobody else here has tried to do, or has been arsed to do. So +1 for you. Personally i am not expecting much from this, However, if you succeed, and find a way to improve the AI without actually modding the AI itself (which is brick wall hard coded) then you will have achieved something big. Many sins players are looking for a better AI

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Lavo_2

Join Date 05/2010

+112

I've found that if you give the AI capital ships that level up to 3 as soon as they are built the AI will spam capital ships. It isn't unusual to see fleets with 6+ capitals per fleet with such autoleveling. This was observed in the SoGE beta, before this was bumped down to level 2 due to being overwhelming because of our titans. As well, if you reduce the research cost to 0 for the AI, it will keep researching. I realize this sounds silly, but it makes the AI play a good deal better, in particular it ensures that ability unlocking techs are researched, among other things.

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@Major Stress

The results are very promising. But I don't count me as a good Sins player, so other need to test this and balance it.

I changed the research (see first post) to what I currently use for my AI Borg. In addtion I copied the cubes to _AI versions with slotcount = 0 and research dependencies e.g. for the battleship:

Prerequisites
   NumResearchPrerequisites 2
   ResearchPrerequisite
       Subject "RESEARCHSUBJECT_ELITEACCESS_BATTLESHIPBORG"
       Level 1
   ResearchPrerequisite
       Subject "RESEARCHSUBJECT_AI"
       Level 1

So my Borg player looks that way:

    capitalShipInfo
       Page:0
           count 9
           entityDefName "CAPITALSHIP_BORGCOLONY"
           entityDefName "CAPITALSHIP_BORGSUPPORT_AI"
           entityDefName "CAPITALSHIP_BORGCARRIER_AI"
           entityDefName "CAPITALSHIP_BORGBATTLESHIP_AI"
           entityDefName "CAPITALSHIP_BORGSIEGE_AI"
           entityDefName "CAPITALSHIP_BORGSUPPORT"
           entityDefName "CAPITALSHIP_BORGCARRIER"
           entityDefName "CAPITALSHIP_BORGBATTLESHIP"
           entityDefName "CAPITALSHIP_BORGSIEGE"

I'm thinking about changing the research to Tier 7, as they seam now too strong to me?

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a little update:

I was playing a some test games and it works fine. If you enable the debug log you get some messages about research being out of frame. But no dumps even on very long games.

The games where much more interesting. With the hidden research you can tweak the AI to perform much more "similar" to a human player. "Similar" but not "same", as the AI will have more ships to compensate his bad management. But research and overall performance will depend on number of planets and time same as for a human player.

On limitation is the way the AI splits its fleets and sends groups to join up to a fleet at the frontline. At large maps the AI fleet becomes "thin", with many groups moving towards you. If you keep pushing and take out group by group, the AI will never more get a larger fleet.

I wonder how the group size is defined in the AI game logic how it could be influenced?

e.g. if there is a fixed fleet support sum the group has to fulfill, you could just scale down all fleet support requirements, e.g. by half. So the AI would add double the number of ships to a group.

If it is a portion of the total fleet support value the AI (e.g. 10% from 2000) you could increase the total fleet support for the AI. But then on smaller maps the AI will simply roll over you with a incredible large fleet.

another item is the difficulty the AI has around Stars. Their "groups" try to join to a fleet on whatever end, even going straight through your fleet. And enemy starbases at stars are a major obstacle for the AI. The only Ideas I have on this is to allow no starbases at stars (sounds curious ) and maybe give ships a speed and weapon range boost when at stars, so they work a little more like planets?

when we are talking about starbases, it is a good idea to give the AI constructors with 0 fleetsupport requirements. They build then starbases more often.

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