How do I give the AI sats?

[Enigma_Nova]

I read a thread about it earlier,
but I couldn't find any way to edit the number of satellites aside from having a base build them.

I'm planning to Beef an AI by giving it:
32 of each type of Sat
A monsoon jungle filled with Forest/Nutbonus/River/Magtube/GeoThermal
64 Super Formers and 8 Colony Pods in 2101.

[Chaos Theory]

From what I've seen, if you give someone Orbital Spaceflight, you can edit satellites in the F6 screen. I haven't tested this myself, though. You may also have problems with the AIs building planet busters before re-discovering Orbital Spaceflight if you take it away improperly.

[Zeiter]

Whoa, Enigma! Are you sure you want to do that? I've found that giving the AI 30 min and energy sats, and just 2 bases beefs them up quite a bit already. Giving them a goody-filled monsoon jungle, a bunch of formers, and 8 bases might be setting yourself up for a game of pure masochism. But it would be interesting to see the AI play against each other with those kind of bonuses. Good luck on that game!

AFAIK, the only way to give a faction satellites is through the scenario editor. What you is:

1. choose which faction you (the human) will be playing.
2. Give that faction orb spaceflight.
3. right click or shift+right click on the sat numbers to set sat levels in the F6 screen.
4. Remove orb spaceflight from the human faction's techs.

Voila! If you happen to be able to build nukes somehow, it won't matter, you can just ignore it until you get orb space for real.

Hmmmm, this gives me an idea for a game where all factions have 50 of all sats, extra CP's and formers, and a goody-filled monsoon, much as you described, except played on Talent level, and let the comp manage your faction, so that it would be like watching all 7 AI battle it out. With the huge bonuses, it's possible that the AI would come up with new human-like tactics (as has been witnessed on previous occasions when the AI gets big bonuses, to a certain extent). Thanks Enigma!

[Commy]

Why not just give each faction a PB on a custom 16x16 map. Just set them all to war, and they'd all kill each other. Just another easy way to win...

[GeoModder]

Russian roulette indeed!!!

The last (surviving) in line is bound to win. Miriam?

[Commy]

Probably whoever was first, since they get that extra turn, or maybe the last person to move...

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Commy
Probably whoever was first, since they get that extra turn, or maybe the last person to move...

If its AIs, it would completely depend on their likes and dislikes. Going first would be irrelevant if you can't get all 6 opponents and firing first might result in attacks from all the rest

[Zeiter]

It would be really interesting to create a Cold War scenario, and see if the U.S. and USSR AIs choose to totally nuke each other into oblivion or not.

[GeoModder]

5 turns later... game over due to lack of bases.

[Zeiter]

Well, I'm in the middle of watching an AI free-for-all game with 40 sats of all types for each faction, being played on a large map of Europe. Lal is Britian, Morgan is France, Santiago is Italy, Deidre is Scandinavia, Zak is the Balkans, Miriam is Germany, and Yang is Russia. I have noticed some interesting things about the AI in this game:

*Agressive base expansion

*Air units being employed somewhat effectively. In this game, the AI's air units aren't just sitting in the bases. Almost every turn there are several airstrikes on either formers, rovers, sometimes even armored units (like 6-3-1's) and several times I even saw the AI use a group of needlejets to clear out a base before capturing it!

*A couple of successful amphibious attacks and landings!

*Massed attacks of 5-10 ground units on a heavily defended base cooridinated together on the same turn!. In one instance the Hive had about 10 units surrounding a base with only 3 Believing defenders in it. However, the defenders were really high morale, so they each took about 3 Hive units to kill. But the surprising thing was that the AI Hive was willing to expend 9 of its units to capture that city.

I think it definitely has something to do with the AI thinking its units are "expendable". That's the only thing I can think of to explain why the AI here is perfectly willing to use its air and ground units agressively. And with the mineral sats, the AI is pumping out A LOT of units - often a 6-3-1 in 2 or 3 turns, or a 6-1-2 in 2 turns. Even PB's only take about 10-15 turns mid-game. And the AI is building plenty of facilities too.

Now, with this said, a human, with similar bonuses as this AI, could do MUCH better. There are still plenty of instances where the AI is less efficient than it could be, and where it doesn't quite understand the big picture, and where its tactical maneuvering on the terrain could be a little bit better, etc. And the more spectacular performances (amphibious attacks, massed air attacks on bases) were the exceptions, rather than the norm. But still, lot's of improvement.