New AI changes: What are they?

And I would like to know if it has made a big difference that the AI now has to spend half of its income on ships. That seems like it could have a large impact.

I'd like to know too because the 'Normal' AI seems to be broken atm and basically doesn't do anything.

2 starting factories mean earlier tension due to the increased number of ships built, AI is said to collect resources for bigger projects like titans, not always drain resources to zero..

I think yes.. From the several games I played with the 1.5 it seems to be the actual position.

They're definitely more active early game, but late game they fall pretty flat and don't really seem to do a whole lot much of the time, at least with normal AI. It also seems like to me they're allying less than they used to, leading me and my one allied AI to pretty much steamroll everything, although I could just be getting bad race/faction combos.

Looks like your AI's got bad die rolls (lousy planet bonus's or dead worlds) or something. I played against 3 normal AI's on the Systems of War map. I turtled it out in my own system just to see if the AI would even attack me, and attack they did! At first it was the usual steady trickle of suicide units vs. my fleet, and 5 starbases sitting in the sun, and leveling my titan, and caps. In the late game the 3 AI's allied up against me, because they weren't shooting at each other any more. It was kind of a shock to see 3 titans, and 3 fleets as huge as mine at my doorstep. So far i am holding the line. I am still playing that game. May post an autorecord of it.

The AI was changed to better spend its resources. So they wouldn't stall their economy trying to tech up, and build a titan. For me the early game is pretty much the same, but its late game where the AI becomes more aggressive.

I'm currently 5 hours into one save against 3 Hard AI on a random map (just a typical round map as it turned out).

Early game, I felt very much like I was in a rock and a hard place, playing TL and turtling my few planets against their fleets.

Things got hectic at about the 2.5 hours mark, but then one AI derped and randomly died (After I took one of his planets. Ended up pushing to the capital, it was fine and intact. Shortly after that, all aggressive action kinda stopped.

I'll upload a replay when I'm done, but since the Advent guy died, the other AIs just... stopped.

They're still alive, and they sent a fleet in when I started moving in on their territory, but nothing aggressive. And the weirder part is, the Vasari Loyalist have had a TEC Rebel AI cornered on three planets for most of the game- and haven't managed to seal the deal. I know the TR have a Titan, but I actually lost my 75 HC main fleet against the Vasari AI. Those TEC don't have anything like that.

This is my first game against a Hard AI, but I'm not really feeling the pinch- it never got to the point where I was screwed, or even near screwed. The Vasari threw three fleets, one after the other against my 'pivot' world (TL Starbases are just lol against AI. Pivot as in, the main fleet is hooking around the rest of the galaxy, while that stops any pushes.

What is with this AI, even on Hard, they're just lacking a direction. Huge fleets, no goal.

Try playing on Unfair.. You will get your ass handed to you.. If they ally and get the pacts even your upgraded ships will die in no moment, not speaking about even a fully upgraded orkulus going down  just from some (not more than 15) crazy damage heavy cruisers (they had 50+ damage per sec each..) and a titan supported by some carriers having not more than 10 bomber squads.. And if you attack, your heavies will get crushed in no moment, and your carriers will be destroyed too (his starbases focused on them and i could hardly evade his attacks by moving carriers around..), his starbase can attack like 350 per sec.. and this is only the pulse gun, the others were 150 and 200(disintegrator and phase missiles).. even my titan was badly wounded..

EDIT: and when your ally constantly loses capital ships and level10 Eradicas.... barely survives till you kill the other opponent.. VL unfair is crazy..

... so as you can see, the changelog was wrong and no changes were made. It's just that StarDock couldn't be arsed to edit the changelog - I mean, nobody reads them anyway, right?

...

I measured the income rates of a hard AI in a recorded game, and it seemed to me that AI had a 2x multiplier there. Tooltips showed the expected values, but the numbers on the top right section of the UI were growing twice faster.

Does anybody know where these mulitpliers are set?

Hardcoded.

I know this for sure, the AI is definitely building more Capships in their fleets when they attack you.  We played against 2 AI on the setting below the hardest and they came in with 6 caps ships per fleet.  Was fun to say  the least.

All i know is that any AI above hard is a cheating AI. I usually play hard because it is the highest non cheating AI. I dont like to see novalith's being built 5 minutes into a game, or level 10 titans 10 minutes into it.

I thought the Hard AI is cheating as well, i mean if the definition of cheating includes resource bonus. Cause the Hard AI tends to have about 2x as much ships as i have early game, even if i go for the fleet. I doubt that would be possible without any bonuses.

It may have changed. ill look into it. Hard AI is now getting things way faster than it should.

Funnily, i looked into it myself already, as i was not really sure - there is always possibility i am just a shit player and the advantage in ship numbers the AI has is just down to it doing everything faster and better. When i play with my buddies, they always end up with higher number user actions than i do...

Anyway, i started a game against Hard AI, i chose the same faction for both me and AI and let the game run for few minutes. Then i shut it down and checked the graphs - and there is indeed difference in planet income from the very first minute. The Hard AI gets 2,24 x more than you do, in other words by the time you got cca 1200 credits, the AI got 2600, few minutes later its 8000 to 18000 and so on...

EDIT> Checked on Normal and Unfair as well. Normal is indeed the one to do no cheating of this sort, its plane income "copies" mine. Unfair on other hand, gets about 3,5x more than i do. Based on this i can guess that the bonus income "increment" between difficulties is 125 percent (100 + 125 = 225, 225 + 125 = 350, etc...), so under this assumption i woud expect Cruel to get 4,75x and Vicious 6x more.  

Previous to 1.50, all AI above Easy got a resource bonus.  As of 1.50, only Hard and higher get a resource bonus.  The AI is more challenging now for two main reasons:  1) All players now start with 2 frigate factories; and 2) the AI can now properly save up for expensive items (i.e., titans) without just sitting there and doing nothing while it does so.  All AI players will also devote at least 50% of their income to ships, but it's really the two items above that made the key difference.

Cruel and Vicious get substantially more resource bonuses than the other levels, plus get instant research. Despite this, there's actually a fair number of players who are still able to beat it (don't ask me how).

You have to exploit their weaknesses, they're dumb as bricks when it comes to actual tactics.

That still does not solve your immediately problem of surviving the beginning of the game, especially on smaller maps.

All joking aside, I am quite happy with the AI overhaul. In fact, I recently noticed quite a few cases of downright Artificial Brilliance

in my games.   

• For starters, the AI now seems to take your invasion fleets a lot more serious. While before it often just sent a few ship here and there, you now usually will face its main fleet
• It also seems to make more use of defensive structures, especially Starbases, which it does rebuild rather quickly when destroyed. Grinding the AI down has become significant more difficult because of this.
• If in danger it does sent its Titan into quite elaborate evasion schemes:
  
  6 Player FFA, 5 Hard AI, one human. Multi Star Map with everyone starting in his own star system.
  
  Planet
  Phase Lane
  
  Star----------------Planet A ----------------Planet B ----------------Planet C----------------Star----------------Planet A
  
  I approached Planet A from the star and crushed the Vasari Loyalist Resistance on Planet A. I bombed it into oblivion but was unable to colonize due to strong enemy culture. When I was about to leave for the next Planet B the Vasari main fleet arrived. After a costly battle victory seemed certain, as only the level 4 Vorastra Titan remained. It took heavy damage and withdraw when it reached below 1000 hitpoints. It jumped right to Planet B. I followed suit, having the clear intension to finish it off.
  
  When my fleet arrived at Planet B, I only caught a glimpse of the Vorastra.... it was charging up for a jump back to Planet A. My ships turned arround and phase jumped to Planet A again.... only to see the Vorastra phase jumping to Planet B again.
  
  I told myself that two people can play this game, and so I divided my fleet. The capitalships stayed at planet A while my level 5 Ankylon jumped to Planet B again. I expected to see the Vorastra preparing to phase jump to Planet A again.... and phase jumping he was... but to planet C.
  
  Annoyed I send my Anklyon right behind it while telling the rest of my fleet to approach from the other side via the star route.
  
  When my Ankylon arrived at Planet C it immediately came under heavy fire from an fully upgraded Orkulus Starbase supported by Phase missile turrets (with the OP 5 minutes Disruptor Nanites) and hangar defenses.
  
  Knowing the the Anklyon can take enourmous amounts of punsishment I moved in to engage he Titan anway. When I got into range in miro phase jumped and evaded it again, now en route to Planet B again. I moved in pursuit but now the Orky and the 5 minutes passive Regenaration disable did take its toll, the Anklyon was in bad shape when he arrived at Planet B, while the Vorastra had been regenerating for several minutes now. That there was another Orky at Planet B did not help matters.
  
  At this time I decided to crush the Vasari.... I called my entire fleet to planet A to repair the Anklyon in preparation.... but that sneaky AI in the meantime had rebuild its maxed out Orky there and reclaimed the planet, adding PJI, too.
  
  With the Ankylon being litte more than a wreck and the rest of my decimated fleet being no match for an Orkulus and a Vorastra I withdraw under loud cursing. Thanks to the PJI one of my level 6 Akkans didnt make it back home.
  
  
  
  
  
• The TEC Loyalist AI seems to benefit the most from the AI improvement. Before 1.5, no matter if you gave it "Aggressor" or Fortifier and even at an additional level of difficulty it usually died against the other AIs.
  
  Not anymore.
  
  The hard TEC Loyalist AI with "Fortifier" managed to wipe, yes to WIPE OUT the Vasari that caused my initial fleet so much trouble. I have never seen any TEC wiping out a Vasari in an FFA AI game without having 2 times the ships, which in this case, he did not have.

My compliments to the AI developer for a job well done! 

False in one case. If your AI ALLY is Vasari prepare for a defeat. Vasari AI if it's your ally never builds a starbase and it is disappointing to lose 2v2 because of this. Talking about hard and unfair. Though seen this only in few games, but still very annoying, all other races do their job nicely, and build starbase on borders.

I'm not sure about enemy Vasari, but the times I faced them (though not many times, I don't have much time nowadays to play ) they did have a brutal orkulus on their borders..

Sounds like you just got unlucky, though I did get paired with a moronic Vasari AI who didn't know where to send its fleets for crap, it did build starbases, even on normal

multiple times? I saw other players complain about this too... Yeah AI waits for bigger projects to have enough resources, so hard to collect 3000 350 300 or something.. last time he had 2 colony frigates with starbase building ability on his frontline, 1:5 fleet ratio (and not he was the stronger), but he still had no starbase, not even selected it to build one.

Hm, perhaps there is a problem then. 

heh want to watch me beat the vicious AI? ive been comp stomping this game since it came out always on the hardest difficulty available. my best was 1 vs 3 ... definitely 50%+ luck though. you gotta turtle really hard! and get economy maxed fast!!! 

on a super hard turtle against those odds you cant afford to waste many ships, so i never attack until i have max research. you need to get the most out of all your ships.  i also find that a large corvette fast response fleet is helpful, 1 they get where they are needed fast, and 2 they are great at titans... 3 they present more targets so your good ships get focus fired less.

i stopped playing for a year and am working my way back up to 1v2... but the ai is defiantly different now. (id say harder)