The new ship design / adaption algorithms

1.1 will have some very interesting stuff

Published on April 9, 2006 By Draginol In GalCiv Journals

Just finished a whole new AI design algorithm for ships and for their adaptations of their ships.

The existing designed worked reasonably well if you didn't have every single alien in the game. But over time, due to the nature of what it decided was "optimal" you'd end up with a fairly homogenous set of ships. I.e. every player would have similar ships equipped in similar ways.

Some of this has been solved by fixing a glitch that was introduced in one of the 1.1 betas that was an attempt to have the AI not trade high end weapons techs with other players unless they're very close. But the way I was doing it wasn't working the way I thought so tonight I was able to close that once and for all.

That went a significant chunk of the way. The other half was in taking a new look at how the AI should design its ships. Having had the opportunity to play the released game for a month now has given me new ideas on how ships should be designed. Just as players get better at the game from playing, that too can be incorporated into the AI itself.

The results...well the results have simply been astounding so far. It's too early to say but it should result in a very significant improvement in how the AI designs ships. I did a bunch of other tweaks to help try to get it to squeeze every last bit of space out of the ship.

To help offset the improved gameplay of the AI, Normal and Bright have been penalized a bit so that they'll be easier (Normal in particular).

Comments

Rabid_Monkey

on Apr 10, 2006

On Painful the AI sure does fit their ships to counter my main ships. I research one weapon and equip it on 70% of my ships, then a lesser weapon tech on the rest 30%. After a few months into war, AI ships are likely (not always) to show up with defenses for my main weapon! There was even one instance the Drengi showed up with a fleet of brand new ships with shield rating of 6, they had a maximum of 1 before, instantly rendering all my main line frigates obsolete...they all had a beam attack of 5. So now I'm using extremely fast scout ships to scout ahead on their home worlds, trying to spot any new suprise designs.

Glad to know you are addressing the 'All AI using similar ships', I played a couple of games in beta two, in every game all of the AI's used exactly the same weapon tech (mass driver and armor). Beta3 somehow became easier for me on painful (maybe I'm getting better), I always have such a huge tech lead it didn't matter what the AI's had.

Despite what some players think, the AI is awesome already, I don't think the above mentioned situation has happend to any other strategy game I've played, and I've played alot. That is to have an AI really react to what you are doing. Great work! Can't wait to see your new algorithm in action!

Gorstagg

on Apr 10, 2006

Sweet.. now I just can't wait.. to you know.. actually play the game. So like when is it going to stop being a very long beta. And when can we get one of these useful updates, again?

Nasarog

on Apr 10, 2006

There has to be one setting where everything is optimized, and the computer is playing it's best without any extra goodies....

I think most players would be crushed by this optimized AI.... and the few who are utter geniouses will play at harder levels then that one.

Frogboy

on Apr 10, 2006

There has to be one setting where everything is optimized, and the computer is playing it's best without any extra goodies....

There is: AI set to intelligent.

MacsenLP

on Apr 10, 2006

Are the AI's still putting range on there attack ships? For me this is a waste of time and space, if there ships are out of range of there target it's probably a bad target in the first place eg (attacking an empire on the opposite side of the map or crappy range starbase is never a good idea). Or the AI's should just go up the range tech branch and take advantage of the inherrent bonuses instead of wasting space on range modules for their attack ships.

Oh journal entry sounds great as always, can't wait.

Lenius.

Peace Phoenix

on Apr 10, 2006

To help offset the improved gameplay of the AI, Normal and Bright have been penalized a bit so that they'll be easier

Is it me or will there be a bigger step when the AI will become intelligent? Somehow, I think that complaints about huge differences in AI levels will grow. Maybe it should be the time to insert new AI levels to help people to find an AI level matching their skill.

Frogboy

on Apr 10, 2006

Are the AI's still putting range on there attack ships? For me this is a waste of time and space, if there ships are out of range of there target it's probably a bad target in the first place eg (attacking an empire on the opposite side of the map or crappy range starbase is never a good idea). Or the AI's should just go up the range tech branch and take advantage of the inherrent bonuses instead of wasting space on range modules for their attack ships.

Oh journal entry sounds great as always, can't wait.

Depends on galaxy size.

cyberj914

on Apr 10, 2006

Oh my... it just keeps getting better and better and better and better and... wait shouldn't this be released at some point?!??

You guys keep up this fantastic work there may never be a need to build another space based 4x game again

. This one will have everything a fan could ever want.

MacsenLP

on Apr 10, 2006

Depends on galaxy size.

Must admit i havn't played on gigantic or huge maps i regularly play on large so i don't quite know if range bonuses along the tech branch scale up or something similar for these map sizes. But for the AI to put range modules on combat ships on large maps or smaller is definite waste of time and space and would signifcantly handicap them vs a half decent human opp.

Even on gigantic or large i would think that range modules should probably be only used on ships bigger than frigates just lowering the potential weapon/defence capacity a tiny bit can have a huge affect.

Apart from defender ships I also believe the AI's should fit their combat ships if not all ships with the latest engine avaliable to them. Although sometimes I don't always fit my ships with the latest smallest size engine(s) (always the fastest though) if I have a couple of unused space left (can't fit anymore weapons/defence) i use a slightly older engine version to make the cost cheaper but have no loss of speed.

Lenius.

Martimus

on Apr 10, 2006

Large is much smaller than both huge and gigantic. The range does scale up at those sizes, but even then it is useful to put 2 or even 3 life support modules on your ships. Besides that, the life support module is very small, and you can often put one on after you fill up the rest of the ship with other components (Weapons, engines, defense.) I always put at least one module on my ships, because I find that ships without at least one life support module are not very flexible, and can only be used for planned attacks, and short range defense. (I do build pure defenders early in the game with no life support, but once I have better technology I quit building those.)

pdesrivieres@yahoo.com

on Apr 10, 2006

v1.1 makes better use of speed but what about sensors? There is no need to waste space by placing sensors on combat ships; a sensor ship could escort a combat fleet (it would not be part of the fleet and thus would not take up any of its' logistics points).

ben_sphynx

on Apr 10, 2006

Depends on galaxy size.

Hmm, I would have thought it should depend on how close the enemy (or potential enemy) planets are to friendly planets or starbases.
Which is not so much dependant on galaxy sise as on habitable planet sparsity.

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