Strange behavior of some factions

[DilithiumDad]

For more challenging AI:

1. Dense cloud cover is good, and a preset resource-rich map is even better. The Ultimate Builder Map is optimized for AI performance and the Map of Planet or Huge Map of Planet that come with the game are almost as good.

2. The lamest AI factions are those that do not research Centauri Ecology. Make it a point to gift or sell cheap Centauri Ecology to any faciton that doesn't have it even if they are hostile. Why? Because you are going to be taking their land sooner or later anyway. Better that it should have a little terraforming.

But for some reason the AI will just stop making colony pods even with good base sites available. What makes this even weirder is that they totally fixed this problem in Civ3. The AI civs build colony pods like mad and beeline for all best base sites. How about a SMAC patch incorporating the Civ3 AI engine??

[Lazerus]

The Drones always seem to be the worst faction when I play, for some reason they get quite high in the tech early on, get a SP or two and then just sit and wait to be killed with nothing more then 15 synthmetal garrissons in each of 3-4 bases trying to stop my fusion choppers.
Yang,Santiago and such always forget to terraform.
Sven declares war on me as soon as we speak (I normally play as Hive) but does nothing apart from kill a few sea formers at best.

All this at transcend level. Keeping my drones in check is often harder then killing all the AI factions.

Best challenge is often having the 2 aliens on a tiny map and annoying them both so they declare war, real struggle early on.

[Main_Brain]

Really? the Drones tend to get much more Mineral Production than the other AI's due to Boreholes?
-2 Research doesnt do tehm Good though

[CEO Aaron]

The Drones' Industry can more than make up for bad research, but I think Lazerus' point is that under normal circumstances, the Drones tend to be very reluctant to expand, an observation that I concur with. The only factions that ever present a consistent threat are Yang and Miriam, the other factions tend only to be a nuisance, and only get threatening if they get spread out on jungle.

[waab]

Actully I think the drones is often isgoing very good. But as Lazerus said, they are often going in to a stal...nothing is happening.

[Ned]

I found that changing the AI to "passive" and including a "build" interest materially helps their ability to invest in infrastructure.

Also, playing on worlds heavily preseeded with forests helps the AI enormously.

I am currently playing a game where I randomized the AI's political agenda's. Morgan is interested in "power." Well, this is the very first game I have ever played where Morgan is a factor. He expanded and grew at a very large rate and has kept neck and neck with me, Miriam, well into the late game.

[Ned]

One more point, I have added +1 police to Fundy and Power to help the AI factions who seem to love FM. By using either or both SE choices, they reduce the crippling effects of staying in FM.

[The Vagabond]

The Drones usually do well on small maps.

[MariOne]

OK, the AI is lame, and I agree or at least don't object to all of the above.
On top of that, I'd like to point out one thing that you shouldn't forget:

they built-in a mechanism which intentionally gives you a *range* of opposing factions levels in a game.

True, all the above limitations hinder the proper development of AI factions, and differences in starting locations can seriously cripple them too.
But you know that in SMAX you can easily select 6 identical opposing factions from the setup interface.
Even those identical factions, landed in rouglhy the same environment (if a huge map and lucky seeding allow for that), will show great differences in their development, because the game IS designed to produce that effect, as it was in Civ. Or at least, this is my perception.

Thus, in a game you wil inevitably see a couple of faction sticking at the stone age and behaving ludicrously even compared to the already lame AI potential, despite the game is on transcend (=massive AI cheating), despite those factions would be supposedly the best for the AI and got a favorable landing and environment.

[Xian]

where can i get the ultimate builder map

[Arnelos]

I almost always play with dense cloud cover and I do find that the AI behaves better because of it.

My observations about the AI factions are similar to others'... the Hive is typically always a threat, regardless of how other factions fair. I agree that this has A LOT to do with Yang's increased support value. The Believers are typically an early threat in most games, but sputter out pretty quickly unless they conquer 1-2 other AIs very early and take at least 1/4 of the map (then they become a holy terror... ). I find that the Consciousness does particularly well in nearly every game I play with them. Aki Zeti isn't typically very agressive toward me like Yang or Miriam, but she typically always is either the best AI or one of the best.

AI factions that typically do at least decently would be the Gaians, though I've personally found that they aren't terribly difficult to defeat in battle compared to other factions I typically fight (such as Yang, Santiago, or Miriam). Sven does reasonably well as long as he doesn't get too much competition (interestingly, I find that Sven many times gets the most competition from Miriam).

The factions that typically do terribly in almost every game I've seen:

Data
Planet Cult
Morgan

The other four human factions (Peacekeepers, University, Spartans, and Drones) vary ENTIRELY based upon the land you put them on. Any of them other than the Spartans have the capability to become true terrors in the hands of the AI if given good land (especially the University). The Spartans, at least in my experience, tend to have something of a plateau effect... the AI just doesn't seem to be able to handle them very well. They typically don't do poorly even on moderate land, but they just don't become very dominant even on exceptional land (at least in my experience).

On the off-chance that they get exceptional land, I agree that Morgan suddenly becomes a true terror in the hands of the AI. Free Market economics and exceptional land on top of his innate bonus really make AI Morgan kick butt. The trick is that he has to have truly EXCEPTIONAL land in order for the AI to pull this off. As someone else posted, I've seen a game where AI Morgan was actually conquering multiple other AIs and it truly stunned me. I'll grant that it helped a bit that I had a pact with Morgan and had been tech-trading with him, but still...

Since I typically play as the Peacekeepers, I don't have a lot of experience watching the AI handle them. However, the times I've played other factions I like to play (such as Morgan), I find that Brother Lal either becomes a truly dominant power or he just sits there waiting for someone to please take him out of his misery. Sadly, the latter has happened a good bit more often than the former.

So yeah, the AI is pretty lousy... the worst part about it is that the AI is NOT taylored to faction.... considering that the designers of the game only made 7 factions and went to so much trouble to balance them for MP purposes (and they didn't do so bad a job), the least they could have done for the AI was specialize it better to the faction it was playing and responding to the environment it landed in...

Oh well

I've progressed to playing more Civ3. It's not as intellectually stimulating as SMAC and its gameplay isn't as open-ended, and the multiplayer is deplorable by comparison, but at least they wrote marginal AI for it. The AI has a horrible sense of planning, but at least it doesn't just sit and wait to be killed off like some factions do in SMAC.

For multiplayer, though (and I've played a large number of LAN games, especially and now a few LAN PTW games, too), there's no question that SMAC is the better game

[Method]

Originally posted by Xian
where can i get the ultimate builder map

i think there's a link to it in DD's sig. i'll see if i can find it.

EDIT: quote from said sig:

Creator of the Ultimate Builder Map, based on the Huge Map of Planet, available at The Chironian Guild:
http://guild.ask-klan.net.pl/eng/index.html

[Method]

hmm that link doesn't work....let me see if i can attach it

[The Mad Monk]

In a recent game, Lal did a good imitation of Singapore -- by the time I reached his territory, he had a size fifteen and a size thirteen city, both with every available improvement, both on a fully terraformed postage stamp of an island, both coastal -- and nothing else.

[waab]

Actuly I most confess that I have lost two games in may days of SMACx. Bouth times playing the drones (might be because that I am only plaing the drones), the first time I ended up surounde by Miriam, Santiago and Yang and all declared war against me. I had place to build two more cities.

Second I lost was when Morgan bought the energy market. But I think that it was the only time Morgan was speciell good.