GC has always been about an intelligent AI rather than a heavily bonused AI. So I'm glad it's getting some work. Even on "Genius", I have yet to see it play a strong game.

I second Citizen Nitey's list. Personally, I'd give priority to #2 (use of Speed and preference for attacking) and #5 (sensible development of its planets).

I understanded that only planets and starbases increase range, influence has nothing to do with range.

Yes and when you build a starbase in open space you have to choose one of three kinds: Economy, influence and military. So unless one of the other two make sense for the spot they are being put in, might as well do influence. Not that they are building it to really increase their influence in the sector but they want to extend their range and you have to choose one of the 3 kinds when doing that.

Im not sure i am late for suggestin things but i write anyway

1. Enemy should use patrols around their borders

2. Escorts for larger vulnerable vessels (constructors,colonyships)

3. starbases should atleast have 1 fighter in the influence range. Just for support


Oh and please include so you can build a spaceship from scratch then the computer calculates the space availible. And more custom parts and maybe a option to color the vessels in anyway you want, ingames

The AI:s biggest problem to me is their ships. Especially early in the game.

In my current game (intelligent AI of course) I use 2 heavy fighter designs, one for attack and one for defense.
The first with two engines, 3 lasers and one support giving them Attack 3 & Speed 6.
The second with one engine and 4 lasers giving them Attack 4 & speed 4.

Every one of the nine AI races heavy fighter designs that is identical. ONE weapon (often missile giving them 2 in attack), ZERO engines.
This is a major problem, the AI has never attacked one of my fleets once. My defense ships has never been in combat because I always get to attack. And I also always win because my ships are so much better, sometimes I win with no losses at all when evensized fleets meet.
Sure, the AI:s ships cost less and are boosting their ego because they have so many but that doesn't help them when I'm invading their planets.
Drengin, the highest military power in the game, has begun building frigates and cruisers. I thought that he finally would begin to make some good ships. Unfortunatly they are exactly the same, one weapon and nothing else.

Hopefully you will get them to build some decent ships. At the moment, I don't feel threatened.

I for one am happy to hear the AI will become smarter and don't understand players difficulty beating it above level Normal. I agree with the above posts that even on Intelligent the AI is making some basic mistakes!

So far I have won the first 4 missions of the Dread Lords campaign on level Tough (meaning the AI is set at Intelligent). In the last one I finally encountered the Dread Lords. In this mission I killed 75 ships of the Dread Lords, Drengin, and Yor, losing only 1 constructor ship!

How did I win every battle without losing any combat ships even when battling a Dread Lords frigate (the most powerful ship I encountered in the mission lasting almost 2 years)?

I made sure I was always the attacker and that I had enough fire power to destory the defender in 1 round. The Dread Lord's powerful weapons mean nothing if they are destroyed before they can fire!!! The few times I failed the kill them in the first round thus allowing them to fire, my heavy fighters had leveled up enough to survive a hit even from their frigates. Remember a ship with attack 40 does on average damage 20.

To ensure you are the attacker you need to have fast fleets and see the enemy before he sees you (or only sees you after using up his movement points). Placing a Warp engine on your combat ships will give them movement 6 and even your ships without engines will have movement 3 (Researching Warp gives +2 movement to all ships) which is enough to take out Drengin and Yor attacking ships with movement 2! Building "Eyes of the Universe" allowed me to switch from defensive to offensive mode. Now my fleets could safely move away from my planets and starbases and hunt down the Dread Lords, Drengin, and Yor!

Researching Plasma III beam weapons allowed me to place attack 6 on my fast ships and with attack bonuses of 95% (50% race bonus + 2 X 22% from mining military resources + 1% from an anomally) giving me attack 11. 4 of these in a fleet gives the fleet attack 44, enough to usually take out a Dread Lords frigate with 22 hit points in a single round of fire!

By design the Dread Lords don't combine their advanced ships in fleets; otherwise, we could not defeat them. However, I never encountered a Drengin or Yor fleet with more than 2 ships but did encounter many stacked ships that I picked off one by one!!! In a previous mission when I parked my attack fleets next to the Drengin worlds it kept building constructors!!!

Maybe the Dread Lords will be harder to beat in the next mission. Maybe I'll see their battleships!

Oh bye the way in the end mission summary my military score was lower than the Drengin! I destroyed 75 enemy ships, lost only 1(a constructor), and lost 1 Billion troops invading the Drengin planet giving me a score of 502. They only destroyed 1 enemy ship, lost 24 ships, and lost 10 Billion troops due to my invasion of their planet giving them a score of 599! What gives!!! I created various screenshots of the mission including this report but I don't have an URL I can post them to. I know there are sites that give out free web space (e.g., Geocities, later bought by Yahoo) and I think my ISP does to so maybe I'll add them later.

They put in another API in today that the AI can access I think you guys will like.

I won't tell you what I"m going to use it for but I bet some of you can guess:

float pShip->TurnsToReachPoint(ulTileX,ulTileY);

 

float pShip->TurnsToReachPoint(ulTileX,ulTileY);

I'll put my money on the AI evaluating speed better: How many turns will it take for the AI to get from A to B? And how many turns is the enemy ship really away from an AI planet? - Things like that, sounds good!

Every AI improvement has been a welcome attack at my common playstyles. The tech brokering thing doesn't work near as well now, which is nice since the races have more unique tech paths. Also, the emphasis on speed rather than range has really put a damper on my high-speed strike forces. I can't knife in and destroy all their resource starbases in a couple of turns anymore. Evolving AI rocks

Oh and this... float pShip->TurnsToReachPoint(ulTileX,ulTileY);

Will tell the AI whether it can reach a new colony before you can. If it can't, the colony ship will turn to a better target

-Dewar

PS:

To Quote Nighty: Obviously attacking first is a strong advantage. IMO this is a bit too strong of an advantage. Is it possible to consider alternating ship attacks? The attacker's strongest ship still goes first, but the defenders strongest ship fires next? This would immediately make the AI much tougher IMO.

I support this whole-heartedly