View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0007016 | AI War 1 / Classic | Suggestion - AI Behavior And Tactics | Apr 7, 2012 11:23 pm | Sep 4, 2012 12:07 am | |
| Reporter | TechSY730 | Assigned To | |||
| Status | considering | Resolution | open | ||
| Product Version | 5.032 | ||||
| Summary | 0007016: Reduce the firepower cutoff ratio that "stalking a wormhole" AI ships will wait for before entering | ||||
| Description | Copied from http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,10047.msg98222.html#msg98222 Inspired by this (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,10135.msg98052.html#msg98052) post and others demonstrating insane threat balls, I am wondering if a reduction in the amount of firepower the AI waits or should go down. As mentioned in Keiths post, if the AI did decide to come in with that threat ball, even though they might not of won, they would of done severe economic damage. Right now it is chosen such that the AI waits until it has a reasonable chance to win. While this is a great idea, frequently, this will cause stagnation due to good players tending to have well defended planets. Instead, maybe the firepower ratio to wait for should be sized such that the AI will wait until it has a reasonable chance to do a good amount of damage. Frequently, even if the AI can't win, taking out a large percentage of the stuff on the planet can be quite damaging to the player, and will open the door for future AI threat or even AI threat balls on other wormholes a chance to come in and "finish the job" Even if no such threat comes along in time before the rebuild, a significant amount of resources will have to be spent to rebuild everything, which may help tip the balance towards the AIs favor in the long run. (This would be in addition to the AI no longer severely underestimating turrets) | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| Internal Weight | Feature Suggestion | ||||
| related to | 0005001 | resolved | keith.lamothe | AI Undervalues Turret Firepower |
| related to | 0009467 | new | Have the AI consider firepower of planets adjacent to the planet they are considering to enter | |
| related to | 0009396 | resolved | keith.lamothe | After waiting a long time on a wormhole, threat should "reroll" which planet to stalk |
| related to | 0009465 | resolved | keith.lamothe | Give Freed AI Ships more possible actions |
| related to | 0009466 | resolved | keith.lamothe | Let threat attack at random sometimes |
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Alright, digging through the release notes, I finally found some of the numbers used: The AI now uses the intel data it has about the relative strengths of planets (as human players do), when determining whether or not to send its ships through a wormhole they are waiting on. This is different from the prior method, which was partly randomized, partly based on an accumulated number of 200 ships, and partly based on having a lot of ships incoming. This is a far-reaching change to the emergent behavior, which will have many effects on the gameplay, some of which are likely to be unanticipated at this time. The general expected result is that the AI will not attack players with "trickles" of ships very often anymore, and will instead choose to build up before breaching. The other expected result is the AI acting more sensibly when its command station has been prematuraly destroyed or when ships are freed from a guard post. On lower difficulties (<5), the AI actually overestimates its strength 5x, leading it to make dumber decisions. On difficulties less than 6, it overestimates its strength by half, leading it to make occasional stupid decisions there. Both of these are examples of the intentionally-sometimes-off decisions that make the lower-level AIs easier while also making reasonable mistakes a human might. On difficulty 9 and up, the AI actually underestimates its strength by half, leading to it to have a greater tendency to wait to strike with overwhelming force. These changes should also make the AI more effective in defender mode. |
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HOLY COW, under estimating its strength by half?! That seems unreasonable, and also means that playing against 9+ will lead to giant threatballs when they probably could of taken you out. Maybe bumping down that effect a bit? |
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I think you should try playing level 9 and 10 a little bit more and feel the rhythm of it. There is an issue with threatballs, but one of the side effects is giving the player a little bit more time to deal with it when the rate and size of waves is keeping them occupied. Having a more regular incursion rate is that much more challenging for those difficulties. Level 10 right now is actually fairly nice because it does allow for the hardcore players to get a challenge (and make no mistake, most of our winners on those levels are selectively choosing their modifiers and AI) and achieve something that most never will. If they do want more of a challenge, there is no shortage of modifiers and AI to obtain that. If anything, we should just have more achievements for level 10. |
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@Cyborg I'm a little confused about what you are trying to say. Are you saying you like the extreme "hesitance" of threatballs that high level AIs have? I'm not arguing with you, just making sure I understand what you are saying. |
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On higher levels, yes. Consider that on higher levels, it's extremely hectic and there are so many things going on at once. Increasing the incursion rate is just that much more. It looks intentional to me, anyway, the way that the developers did this. |
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Fair enough. So you do like high level AIs underestimating their "threatball" strength, but do you agree with the current magnitude of it? |
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Right now, yes, especially with the economic adjustment. Higher-level play is so much fun right now. Really, if you haven't tried it, jump right in because the water's warm. It's fast-paced, it's fun, is challenging, and for long-time players of this game, it's the latest and greatest we have. I don't see threatballs as being a big issue right now, and I think we should let high-level play settle down for a bit and watch the action reports that are coming in. |
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@Cyborg Fair enough. My bigger concern is the related issue, the sheer magnitude that the AI underestimates turret firepower. While this is very abusable, it is quite blatantly dumb play by the AI. But the concern would be that if the AI gets a sane consideration of turrets, then the AI would start almost never sending turret balls in, thus making their "committal issues" even worse. Thus this change was inspired, to offset this (thus, the net "committalness" of threat balls would be about the same, thanks to most worlds built for defense having turrets) |
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I like the massive, empire-threatening threatballs, unless they *never* attack. I think that threat should have periodic random rolls, which occasionally lead to an attack order regardless of FP calculations. All threat should also attack or rally to the HW if an AIHW is under attack, to ensure they do something at some point. |
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@Faulty Logic That is an interesting idea too, though there should probably be a minimum number of freedships and/or firepower before this roll is even considered (to prevent cases like 10 freed ships charging into a fortified planet like idiots every now and then) Could you post that as a separate issue and relate it to the "new behaviors for freed ships" idea, and maybe this idea too? |
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I disagree. The (very) occasional loss of tiny threatballs would be offset by them occasionally taking out something you thought was safe (like if some had ff immunity, or they hit during an energy brownout). New issue and relationship added. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 7, 2012 11:23 pm | TechSY730 | New Issue | |
| Apr 7, 2012 11:23 pm | TechSY730 | Relationship added | related to 0005001 |
| Apr 7, 2012 11:28 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0021849 | |
| Apr 7, 2012 11:30 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0021850 | |
| Apr 8, 2012 11:30 am | Cyborg | Note Added: 0021854 | |
| Apr 8, 2012 1:00 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0021856 | |
| Apr 8, 2012 1:48 pm | Cyborg | Note Added: 0021860 | |
| Apr 8, 2012 1:49 pm | Cyborg | Note Edited: 0021860 | |
| Apr 8, 2012 1:51 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0021862 | |
| Apr 8, 2012 1:54 pm | Cyborg | Note Added: 0021863 | |
| Apr 8, 2012 3:15 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0021864 | |
| Apr 9, 2012 3:47 pm | tigersfan | Internal Weight | => Feature Suggestion |
| Apr 9, 2012 3:47 pm | tigersfan | Status | new => considering |
| Sep 2, 2012 8:03 am | TechSY730 | Relationship added | related to 0009396 |
| Sep 3, 2012 9:09 pm | TechSY730 | Relationship added | related to 0009465 |
| Sep 3, 2012 9:13 pm | Faulty Logic | Note Added: 0028173 | |
| Sep 3, 2012 9:17 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0028174 | |
| Sep 3, 2012 9:31 pm | Faulty Logic | Relationship added | related to 0009466 |
| Sep 3, 2012 9:33 pm | Faulty Logic | Note Added: 0028176 | |
| Sep 4, 2012 12:07 am | TechSY730 | Relationship added | related to 0009467 |
