Faction Balance on Trandesdi Difficulty

[Impaler[WrG]]

I have been noticing that many factions don't seem balanced when played on high difficulty levels. Mainly the Hive and Spartans. On highest difficulty all computer factions recive a growth and industry bonus, I think the industry bonus is -30% mineral cost and the Growth bonus is -30% nutrients to grow. So that means each AI faction needs only 7 minerals or nutrients per row.

The Hive though recives +1 industry and +1 growth at all levels so the hives production and growth drop to 6 per row. Conversly the Spartans -1 industry now causes them to have 8 minerals per row. If you do the math you can see that the difference between the Spartans and Hive is now ~30%! Because each level of Industry now actualy represents a ~15% change for AI factins. Its no wonder why in every Transendi game I play the Hive kicks ass and the Spartans have their ass kicked.

Also as everyone probly realizes the University seems very strong at all levels, especialy when played by humans who can realy maximize their reserch. Also the extra drone penalty makes practicaly no difference on highest difficulty level because everyones a drone in your faction and in all others. I have been experimenting with a modified university witch has no free Net Nodes and no extra drones, its a lot harder ofcorces.

[BustaMike]

The Hive, the Believers, and the Drones kick the crap out of the other AI's (not including aliens) on pretty much all the difficulty levels. The AI just plays them better.

If you really want to test this start a game, activate the scenario editor and eliminate yourself. Tape down your enter key and watch the computer try and play itself. Kinda fun.

[Fitz]

Busta, 2 of the three factions you mentioned have industry bonuses (arguably one of the most powerful bonuses). The other an attack bonus (+25%) and a support bonus (4 free units) which effectively means 2-3 free minerals per base.

Given the penchant of the AI to have small, low mineral bases, and a high unit per base ratio, this gives all three a huge production to number of units advantage. Toss in the generally agressive nature of the AI, and certainly all three of those factions, and there is no suprise as to why they kick ass.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Wow cool I never though of that before, I will definatly give it a try. Also I was trying to point out that the industrial and growth bonusus are MORE important on higher difficulty levels because they reduced costs by much more then 10%. I will try some experiments like you sugjested and by prediction is that at the Default difficulty level (ware the AI dose not recive any bonus) the factions will be much better balanced. Could you give me some more details on having the AI fight itself, is it possible to change the faction your playing into an AI so that it reamins a 7 player game?

[Fitz]

One of the options allows you to change which faction you are. It also contains an option to not play any faction (which keeps all seven), but if I remember correctly is somewhat misleading.

And I did get your point about the increase having a larger effect on higher difficulty levels, I was just pointing out that in addition to that the AI playing style makes industry a very important factor in how powerful they are, so combined with your point, it is even less suprising that the traditionally dominant factions are even more dominant.

Be aware that also that for some reason the AI is coded so that once it is far behind, it tends to stagnate, meaning that a weak faction stays weak and a powerful faction gets more powerful. This is especially noticable if you as a human player get far far ahead of the AI, and compare that to a game in which you intentionally stay weak. The AI starts busting out all sorts of cool units and tactics, launches satelites, and probably even builds some of the more advanced facilities.

[Blake]

I think the far behind thing works like this:
The AI sees you are far ahead.
The AI starts churning out units to attack you.
The AI stops building anything else.
The AI builds so many units that it cant build anything.
The AI stagments.

The main problem is the AI is programmed to attack you with units when you get ahead... you can also improve the AI play by making it less agressive (reducing the chance of it getting into the war state). If you play 'peace-monger' and aim to keep the AI's all at peace with you and each other you'll see that the AI is actually quite good at being a builder when it's not busy churning out units.

[Patashu]

Yep that's a common problem for me. the AI builds so many units that it runs out of minerals and refuses to disband anything, and on top of that, they tend to stop growing around that point, so they have small bases that are more productive then the core bases and HQ
Why does the AI like building native lifeforms so much?

[BustaMike]

I don't think you can get seven AI's in a game. Contrary to what Fitz said (I could be wrong, haven't looked in a while), I think the only option besides selecting a specific faction selects all factions (you play all seven for scenario building), not select none. This is why you can only have six AI's. There is no way to lose control of your faction other than killing it off.

I've seen the AI do some pretty dumb stuff fighting itself. The Conciousness was 4 turns from building the Ascent to Transcendence and it switched production to building a mindworm. The Drones won a few turns later.

I've also seen the AI refuse to build its first city because it can't make up its mind where it wants to go. This usually happens when it starts between 2 landmarks. The computer just moves back and forth until someone else kills it.

If you are gonna do this also be aware that later some of the turns can take FOREVER. Early on hold shift to speed the turns up, but later you have to hit 'y' to disable the omniscient view. You only get popups and can't see anything, but at least the turn doesn't take 5 mins. Every few turns you can hit 'y' again to see what's going on.

[Blake]

You can set the AI to control your faction... the only thing is you still have some 'control' too. You can just skip past all the dialouges it brings up (if it's SE the AI will set it regardless of what you choose)... just hold the enter key down with something.

Another thing to do is put your tile on a fortress island, I suggest a single city on a single tile island surronded by single tile wide strip of water, then a single tile wide strip of land+fungus then the ocean. The AI can never cross such a barrier, making you pretty safe, atleast until locusts and PB's.

[Fitz]

Originally posted by BustaMike
I think the only option besides selecting a specific faction selects all factions (you play all seven for scenario building), not select none.

Select all (no specific faction) is the option that I was refering too. Like I said, it is a misleading label. As Blake says, you still have to hit enter to get past the dialogs.

Firaxis used this mode to test the game. They would set up a game, tape down the enter key (to skip past dialogs) and gome back and see the result the next day. Pretty cool really.

[Grail Quest]

Originally posted by Patashu

Why does the AI like building native lifeforms so much?

I noticed that it likes native lifeforms when confronted with superior war tech. Native lifeforms force more "equal footing" combat because of PSI combat--superior techs don't matter.

Theoretically it can hurt a lot if the AI's opponent runs Social Engineering options which reduce Morale (such as Wealth and Eudaimoia, which I like for the Minerals bonus), but I haven't seen the AI crunch out enough units to make the strategy worthwhile.