AI diplomacy

[Archaic]

When I "retired" from active play years back, while most of the game's mysteries had been solved, this was one that was still rather puzzling. I know that some players, myself included, had developed a few rules of thumb to use in dealing with the AI, to the point where it was possible to maintain a Pact with every single AI faction for the length of a rush Transcend game (Roughly 50-70 years, depending on the timing of the Empath Guild, and allowing for a lag in getting them to Pact level), but those were fairly loose, and were still mainly developed from trial and error, and lots of reloads of previous turns to change decisions.

So, in the intervening length of time, has this mystery finally been solved, or is this still one of the few areas open to further research? Do we actually know anything more than we did back then?

[Maniac]

Off topic:
You can transcend in 50 turns? I thought the fastest was around 90 turns?

[Archaic]

I meant 50-70 years as being approximately the length of the game from the time of finishing building of the Empath Guild to Transcendence. My average total turns for that kind of game (using DD's Ultimate Builder Map) is still around 90-100 turns.

[vyeh]

Originally posted by Maniac
Off topic:
You can transcend in 50 turns? I thought the fastest was around 90 turns?

You can find a reference to some fast transcend times in the thread

Fastest transcend: 54 turns! by zsozso

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=77308

This thread was found in the post by Minute Mirage linking a lot of interesting threads:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=3991837#post3991837

Minute Mirage's post is linked by Petek in a stickied thread in this forum

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=4627403#post4627403

The thread was started by Illuminatus to provide a reference

The SMAC/X FAQ: COMMON QUESTIONS and their ANSWERS

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=143989

zsozso was able to transcend in 54 turns under artificial conditions that included a 16 x 16 map.

There is a link to a 72 game transcend on a huge map.

So I refer Maniac to the first thread; apparently, you CAN transcend in less than 90 turns.

[waab]

and I thought I was good succeding with a under 100 turns elimination victory on the hardest level....(tiny map)

some of you guys are ****ing insane

[vyeh]

Originally posted by waab
and I thought I was good succeding with a under 100 turns elimination victory on the hardest level....(tiny map)

some of you guys are ****ing insane

The 52 turn transcedence game was done under special conditions.

These guys were insane, but there insanity led to some very interesting research into the minutae of the game.

[Archaic]

Which I'd like to get back to, if we could get back on topic. ;p

I take it then that there hasn't been any research on the AI Diplomacy in the intervening years? How then could we set up a game to test predictions, and work out the system?

[Verrucosus]

"Working out AI Diplomacy" is a daunting task by any definition. I am not too familiar with the techniques of researching hidden game mechanics, but I suspect that the first step would be to find out how the AI attitudes (magnanimous, seething, etc) develop in the absence of any diplomacy.

Is it possible to mod the game so that commlinks are permanently disabled as they are during sunspot activities? To eliminate as many other factors as possible I would also consider setting all AI personalities to "erratic" (assuming that this is the base value) and turning off social engineering. If you set up the game like that, it should be possible to (a) have an amazingly boring SMAC experience and (b) observe without too many distracting factors how the AI attitudes towards the human player develop in response to the relative position of the two factions in the power ranking.

Beyond that point (ie. after turning commlinks back on), I don't see how you can create a controlled enough environment to get something more reliable than a rule of thumb for AI behaviour in a standard game. On that note, if you remember any of those rules of thumb, please feel free to share. I would be keen to observe them when I play the Peacekeeper again.

Verrucosus

[Archaic]

The only three I can remember off the top of my head, and keeping in mind that these are from the perspective of an arrogant speed transcend-er who knew the AI could never catch him, are...

1. Be generous. Avoid giving things when threatened, but be willing to give even those who had threatened you gifts, gratis. Some factions (Morgan) appear to prefer trade than gifts, but gifts will always be appreciated.

2. Don't contact the AI too frequently, unless something has really changed. If you research at 1 tech every 3 turns (fairly standard for much of a fast transcend game), then contact pactmates after every new tech, treaty states after every 2 techs, and anyone else at least once every 10 years.

3. If you ever have war declared on you, going back a turn and doing something in diplo to try and avert it won't work. Going back 2 turns and doing the same thing will.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Archaic
The only three I can remember off the top of my head, and keeping in mind that these are from the perspective of an arrogant speed transcend-er who knew the AI could never catch him, are...

1. Be generous. Avoid giving things when threatened, but be willing to give even those who had threatened you gifts, gratis. Some factions (Morgan) appear to prefer trade than gifts, but gifts will always be appreciated.

2. Don't contact the AI too frequently, unless something has really changed. If you research at 1 tech every 3 turns (fairly standard for much of a fast transcend game), then contact pactmates after every new tech, treaty states after every 2 techs, and anyone else at least once every 10 years.

3. If you ever have war declared on you, going back a turn and doing something in diplo to try and avert it won't work. Going back 2 turns and doing the same thing will.

Those sound good to me

I found the easiest way to have good AI relations was to appear weak-- I recall playing SP games as the Drones where the AI was gifting my `poor unfortunate`faction stuff a mere few turns before I totally dominated the game. It seemed that much AI behavior was determined by their view of you according to the powergraph. Delaying a popboom and hoarding AAs are example of ways a human can abuse these AI behaviors to great effect

[vyeh]

Originally posted by Flubber
I found the easiest way to have good AI relations was to appear weak-- I recall playing SP games as the Drones where the AI was gifting my `poor unfortunate`faction stuff a mere few turns before I totally dominated the game. It seemed that much AI behavior was determined by their view of you according to the powergraph. Delaying a popboom and hoarding AAs are example of ways a human can abuse these AI behaviors to great effect

I don't consider this tactic an abuse. Appearing non-threatening is a valid diplomatic strategy in the real world.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by vyeh


I don't consider this tactic an abuse. Appearing non-threatening is a valid diplomatic strategy in the real world.

True-- I did not mean it was an exploit

Its just that it is so very very easy to beat the AI that intentionally taking advantage of their inability to accurately assess a position somehow seems abusive.

In the real world I doubt that a country would see its neighbor as non-threatening if it possessed few tanks but built a massive battle tank construction capacity for instance.

In some challenges though I have used the AI's tendencies to good advantage-- The switching factions challenge is one where you don't have to artificially appear weak to see these behaviors exhibited. It was almost funny to have them play nice (the hardest part of those challenges is always overcoming the factions you yourself created)

[Archaic]

It's true that it's pathetically easy to have good AI relations when you're weaker. Actually, I'd expect you'd see a lot more variety in AI relations if you managed to be pretty much dead even with the AI's...which is probably where the programmers expected human players to be, not foreseeing how huge crawlers would be. I think the AI is actually a lot more predictable at the extremes of the power graph, which is really what we're more concerned with anyway.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Archaic
It's true that it's pathetically easy to have good AI relations when you're weaker. Actually, I'd expect you'd see a lot more variety in AI relations if you managed to be pretty much dead even with the AI's...which is probably where the programmers expected human players to be, not foreseeing how huge crawlers would be. I think the AI is actually a lot more predictable at the extremes of the power graph, which is really what we're more concerned with anyway.

Generally when I have a big lead

1. I find the AI pretty much hates me but

2. For most factions there seems to be be some sort of power tipping point where you are so powerful that they surrender to you-- While this happens with your near dead military victims most often, I have had factions that surrendered to me when I was nowhere close ot even attacking them-- I did find running SE choices they liked did help a lot

The tipping point seemed to vary faction by faction and some factions seem to react better to agression than others

I have never really made any real tests of AI behavior since frankly I could usually conquer or steal everything I would ever want from them except in the most deviously designed scenaros

[Archaic]

What you can't conquer and steal from them (effectively) though is a well developed economic partner to boost your energy rate, and through that your research rate. Sure, you can take over the bases then gift them back later, but that takes time and expenditure of resources that could be used better elsewhere.

The trick I suppose is to grab that Empath Guild early, so you've got contact with everyone before you're too far in the lead, and can start to form relationships so they won't just ignore you off the bat.