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Lately I've been searching for simple ways to beef up the AI. I've found that the explore and build priorities helps, but I still ran into the same problem:
Whenever I beefed up the AI, they were really strong, almost overpowering in the early game. Then, once the human player resisted the first wave of attacks and got IA the human player started cruising ahead. Or, if the human player started to fall behind, the AI started to get exponentially more powerful to the point of running away with the game.
What I want (and probably what you want too) is an AI like a good human opponent - challenging from the beginning of the game to the end, but never hopelessly powerful, and never pathetically easy.
Well, a while back in the creation forum I created a thread to ask how to decrease satellites in the scenario editor. What sparked from that was some speculation as to how giving the AI free satellites might help it.
So, I created a scenario to test it. I gave all of the factions only 2 Cp's and 1 scout to start out with (same for AIs and human). Thus, everyone started out on equal footing - no boosted starts for the AI. Then I played around with giving the AI factions different #'s of satellites. I quickly noticed that giving the AI nutrient sats along with the other sats is a BIG NO-NO! This causes them to exponentially rocket up the powerchart in the early game, and gives the human player no chance whatsoever. As the AI faction grows insanely fast due to its nut bonuses, it harvests more and more from the mineral and energy sats, and thus becomes unstoppable.
However, I did find one setting that seemed to work. I gave all of the AI factions 30 min and energy sats, but NO NUTRIENT SATS! This allows the AI to gain the benefit of the satellites GRADUALLY as their population grows naturally. Thus, for instance, let's say in 2130 the AI has a pop of 10. The AI at this point gets +10 min and +10 energy total throughout its empire. As the faction grows, so do the sat benefits. In 2160, with a pop of 30, it is getting +30 of min and energy throughout its empire. In 2200, with a pop of...oh, let's say 100, +100 for each, and so on. This effectively compensates for the AI's poor terraforming and lack of crawlers, and the bonuses increase gradually, keeping the AI at a competitive level throughout the majority of the game. With 30 sats, the AI only stops receiving benefits after hab domes, and by then the game is either usually over, or the AI can build more sats as it sees fit, which it is much more likely to do with a decent infrastructure in place.
Some minor problems with this modification:
*Either shrink or edit out completely the monsoon jungle from such a scenario. The faction who gets this will experience the monstrous growth of the jungle, which will enable its satellites much earlier, causing this faction to practically run away with the game.
*Obviously, factions with a growth bonus will tend to benefit more from the sats than others, and vice-versa. Likewise with popboom enabled factions. Although in my test runs this wasn't an unbalancing function in the game. In fact, I found it somewhat curious that most of the factions stayed in a tightly packed swath on the powerchart throughout much of the game, everyone pretty much at the same level most of the time. Each faction benefits in its own way from the early sats. Zak has awesome research in the early game due to the energy sats. The min sats make the momentum factions more powerful by giving them good +20 min bases with which to build and support many units, etc.
Another added benefit of the early sats is that the SP's are much more competitive, not only between the human and AI factions, but even amongst the AI factions themselves. In my tests every faction managed to score an early SP or two. I, the human, only barely managed to snag the HGP with 2 AA's!
So far I've only run 4 test games, but it looks very promising, and I recommend trying it out. To give the AI factions early sats, just give one faction orbital spaceflight. Then go to the F6 screen (with the scenario editor on) and right click on the numbers of sats (shift + rightclick to decrease sats). Then go back and take away orbital spaceflight from the faction. The sats will still give their bonuses, but the AI won't be able to build more until they get orbital spaceflight in the game.
I hope this is of some help in making the AI better. Of course, the AI still makes the same dumb military manuevering and tactical mistakes as before, but the sats compensate for the bad terraforming and lack of crawlers, which, added to the AI's already huge bonuses on transcend level, seem to make the AI quite competitive for most if not all of the game.
Whenever I beefed up the AI, they were really strong, almost overpowering in the early game. Then, once the human player resisted the first wave of attacks and got IA the human player started cruising ahead. Or, if the human player started to fall behind, the AI started to get exponentially more powerful to the point of running away with the game.
What I want (and probably what you want too) is an AI like a good human opponent - challenging from the beginning of the game to the end, but never hopelessly powerful, and never pathetically easy.
Well, a while back in the creation forum I created a thread to ask how to decrease satellites in the scenario editor. What sparked from that was some speculation as to how giving the AI free satellites might help it.
So, I created a scenario to test it. I gave all of the factions only 2 Cp's and 1 scout to start out with (same for AIs and human). Thus, everyone started out on equal footing - no boosted starts for the AI. Then I played around with giving the AI factions different #'s of satellites. I quickly noticed that giving the AI nutrient sats along with the other sats is a BIG NO-NO! This causes them to exponentially rocket up the powerchart in the early game, and gives the human player no chance whatsoever. As the AI faction grows insanely fast due to its nut bonuses, it harvests more and more from the mineral and energy sats, and thus becomes unstoppable.
However, I did find one setting that seemed to work. I gave all of the AI factions 30 min and energy sats, but NO NUTRIENT SATS! This allows the AI to gain the benefit of the satellites GRADUALLY as their population grows naturally. Thus, for instance, let's say in 2130 the AI has a pop of 10. The AI at this point gets +10 min and +10 energy total throughout its empire. As the faction grows, so do the sat benefits. In 2160, with a pop of 30, it is getting +30 of min and energy throughout its empire. In 2200, with a pop of...oh, let's say 100, +100 for each, and so on. This effectively compensates for the AI's poor terraforming and lack of crawlers, and the bonuses increase gradually, keeping the AI at a competitive level throughout the majority of the game. With 30 sats, the AI only stops receiving benefits after hab domes, and by then the game is either usually over, or the AI can build more sats as it sees fit, which it is much more likely to do with a decent infrastructure in place.
Some minor problems with this modification:
*Either shrink or edit out completely the monsoon jungle from such a scenario. The faction who gets this will experience the monstrous growth of the jungle, which will enable its satellites much earlier, causing this faction to practically run away with the game.
*Obviously, factions with a growth bonus will tend to benefit more from the sats than others, and vice-versa. Likewise with popboom enabled factions. Although in my test runs this wasn't an unbalancing function in the game. In fact, I found it somewhat curious that most of the factions stayed in a tightly packed swath on the powerchart throughout much of the game, everyone pretty much at the same level most of the time. Each faction benefits in its own way from the early sats. Zak has awesome research in the early game due to the energy sats. The min sats make the momentum factions more powerful by giving them good +20 min bases with which to build and support many units, etc.
Another added benefit of the early sats is that the SP's are much more competitive, not only between the human and AI factions, but even amongst the AI factions themselves. In my tests every faction managed to score an early SP or two. I, the human, only barely managed to snag the HGP with 2 AA's!
So far I've only run 4 test games, but it looks very promising, and I recommend trying it out. To give the AI factions early sats, just give one faction orbital spaceflight. Then go to the F6 screen (with the scenario editor on) and right click on the numbers of sats (shift + rightclick to decrease sats). Then go back and take away orbital spaceflight from the faction. The sats will still give their bonuses, but the AI won't be able to build more until they get orbital spaceflight in the game.
I hope this is of some help in making the AI better. Of course, the AI still makes the same dumb military manuevering and tactical mistakes as before, but the sats compensate for the bad terraforming and lack of crawlers, which, added to the AI's already huge bonuses on transcend level, seem to make the AI quite competitive for most if not all of the game.
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