Getting the AI to practice the "Forest-n-Forget" strategy

[Darsnan]

Background

A few years ago I experimented with trying to "convince" the AIs to build boreholes, however after trying several different approaches and tangents I came to the conclusion that there is some hardcoding in place which prevents the AIs from building boreholes. At that same time I assumed the same was true with the AIs being precluded from planting forests, however this turns out to be an error: recently I was experimenting with giving AI factions free Hybrid Forests in an attempt to give them a good mid-game boost. After playtesting the scenario for about 50 turns I opened the game up in Scenario Editor and much to my surprise the AIs had planted forests all over their domain! After a little experimentation I concluded that increasing forest nutrients to 2 "convinced" the AIs to plant forests.

Advantages

Forests are now a huge advantage for the AI in the early game: previously the AIs would have a terraform pattern of "Farm + Solar Collector" (2/?/2) or "Farm + Mine" (1/2/?). By now having a worked forest tile give 2/2/1, and AI with 3 citizens can get 6 Nuts and 6 Mins, with the end result being they can chunk out some serious CPs and experience significant early game growth. Also, for the mid-game, because the AIs build Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests in their cities regardless of whether there are any forest tiles in the base radius, they will now receive the benefits of these base facilities.

Disadvantages

Because of increased nutrients early in the game (at least for human players who typically practice Forest-n-Forget) there is now a tendency for early drone problems. However looking at this from a slightly different perspective, why this puts more emphasis on researching Social Psych (as opposed to the traditional beeline for Industrial Automation). Another drawback is that this unbalances some of the AIs, as follows:

- Morganites AI doesn't enjoy the same level of advantage in the early game because of their pop limit of 4.

- this would leave aquatic AIs in the dust.

- this is an advantage for the Spartans in that they can more quickly overcome their -1 production.

- Since human players can manage specialists better than AIs, then because nutrients are more plentiful humans can dedicate even more of their citizens to specialists (although a lot of human super-science cities are completely supported by crawled nutrients anyways)

- The Cycon and Hive eat this up (pun intended ) and do quite well, however if a human were to play either of these factions it would probably make the game that much easier.

How to make the change

1. On your computer navigate to your "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri" subdirectory and open the alpha(x).txt file (alpha.txt for SMAC, alphax.txt for SMAX) via Notepad.

2. Save off the default file as "alpha(x)_bak.txt.

3. Press "Ctrl F" and locate the entry #RESOURCEINFO

4. Below this there will be an entry "Forest Square, 1, 2, 1, 0,": change it to "Forest Square, 2, 2, 1, 0,".

5. Select "File", "Save As", and save as "alpha(x).txt".

Enjoy!


D

[Hydro]

Howdy D,

Another strategy to increase the use of forsts by the AI that was used by Maniac is to put mines later in the tech tree. This eliminates the dreaded farm+mine combo the AI loves so much. I've noticed the Maniac AI builds farms all the time, but not as much as you might otherwise like. Of course, Maniac also gives the AI Super Formers (cost 1 row of mins, with fungicidal for free) which also hugely boosts AI terraforming.

Still, I like your idea. You may need to fiddle with the AI's to compensate:

* Morgan with a higher pop limit, or give him a good bonus (like Immunity FM). Note that forest resources also mitigates one of Morgans disadvantages, which is the inability to Pop Boom without Golden Ages. Like the Hive and Cyborgs he can grow himself without Pop Boom.
* Aquatic - boost mins on the ocean. The oceanic AIs already had high growth due to kelp and easier movement, so this might do the trick (and super-power the Pirates!)
* Tweak the Momentum factions to tone them down so they don't run away with the game, such as decreasing their industry rating (Sparta -2; Hive to zero).

Perhaps the growth will even itself out, though. The Builder and Hybrid factions will invest in infrastructure so they can take advantage of the greater resources from forests. Building a Rec Commons in an early base allows 2 more tiles to be harvested, and if they are Darnan forests this is huge.

Another aspect is that your forest strategy is that it completely blasts going Planet and getting nutrients from fungus. Simply put, getting resources from fungus was very weak in normal SMAC and doesn’t stand a chance with more nutrients with forest (and the bumps it will get from TF and HF later in the game). The techs that get you fungus resources are so late in the game that they don’t matter. Again, SMAniaC gives the fungus resources a bump earlier in the game so they are competitive and going Green (or in this case, Red) is viable.

Perhaps this could be the basis for a Darsnan Mod?

Hydro

[Petek]

Darsnan,

I spent several hours experimenting with your suggestion. I also found that the AI builds more forests with this change to Alphax.txt. I also found that some of the map parameters affect the forest building. As Blake pointed out in this thread, flat, arid maps encourage the AI to plant more forests. I've found this to be true. Combining the two ideas (forest = +2 nuts and flat, arid maps) results in the AI building almost nothing but forests (although they still build mines on rocky squares).

All my tests were with AI-only games. I noticed that some factions (such as the Spartans) tend not to research CentEco very early. To counteract this, I modified each faction's text file (original seven only, at this point) to provide a free former upon Planetfall. This change greatly helped the laggards.

I'll now start a SP game with the modified Alphax.txt and will disband my free former at turn one (to equalize matters). I play on really large maps, so it might take some time before I see what happens. I'll report my findings later.

Good idea!

Petek

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Hydro
Howdy D,

Another strategy to increase the use of forsts by the AI that was used by Maniac is to put mines later in the tech tree. This eliminates the dreaded farm+mine combo the AI loves so much.

I'm doing something similar, as follows:

- cheapened Formers (1 row of minerals) available as a default unit (Maurid Adran put me on to this idea). No more playing 50 turns and encountering an AI who has done no terraforming!

- Solar Collectors available with Industrial Base

- Mines available with Industrial Economics

On a side note I'm probably going to post a thread detailing all the alpha(x).txt changes I've been fiddling with lately.

Maniac also gives the AI Super Formers (cost 1 row of mins, with fungicidal for free) which also hugely boosts AI terraforming.

I'm mirroring the 1 row of minerals idea, however I am staying away from the "AI-only units" concept: my thought is that human players will limit the number of formers he builds at each base, as there is still the mineral support issue to contend with (i.e. a human isnt' going to spam Formers forever at a base knowing the base will become mineral limited due to support issues).

Still, I like your idea. You may need to fiddle with the AI's to compensate:

* Morgan with a higher pop limit, or give him a good bonus (like Immunity FM). Note that forest resources also mitigates one of Morgans disadvantages, which is the inability to Pop Boom without Golden Ages. Like the Hive and Cyborgs he can grow himself without Pop Boom.
* Aquatic - boost mins on the ocean. The oceanic AIs already had high growth due to kelp and easier movement, so this might do the trick (and super-power the Pirates!)
* Tweak the Momentum factions to tone them down so they don't run away with the game, such as decreasing their industry rating (Sparta -2; Hive to zero).

There would definately need to be some tweaking involved in order to get the Factions more balanced in regards to this. However that would be a discussion for another day (or another thread perhaps).

Perhaps the growth will even itself out, though. The Builder and Hybrid factions will invest in infrastructure so they can take advantage of the greater resources from forests. Building a Rec Commons in an early base allows 2 more tiles to be harvested, and if they are Darnan forests this is huge.

Yes, it is huge, moreso for the AIs, which is of course the aim.

Another aspect is that your forest strategy is that it completely blasts going Planet and getting nutrients from fungus. Simply put, getting resources from fungus was very weak in normal SMAC and doesn’t stand a chance with more nutrients with forest (and the bumps it will get from TF and HF later in the game). The techs that get you fungus resources are so late in the game that they don’t matter.

A very broad and high level observation on my part is that there is only one alpha(x).txt file for the game, and it must cover a broad spectrum of planets (from Tiny to Huge, mostly water to mostly land, fungal covered to no fungus at all, etc.). The final revision of the alpha(x).txt file is what the developers thought was the best generic solution to cover the gamut of possibilities. The tack I am taking is developing a myriad of alpha(x).txt files, each one customized for the world (map) I have built, with the only rule being that implemented changes must benefit the AIs more than human players. If there ever is a SMAC2 I think it would be neat to see something like this implemented in that there are folders which contain the analogs of customized files (alpha(x).txt, Faction.txt, etc.) that are specific for each planetary type (I think an old game I used to play call "Deadlock" did something similar), as I do believe the AIs would play better under these circumstances.

Again, SMAniaC gives the fungus resources a bump earlier in the game so they are competitive and going Green (or in this case, Red) is viable.

Can you give a synopsis as to where in the SMAniaC tech tree these fungal improvement bonuses occur (i.e. an E3 tech gives this bonus, an E4 gives that bonus, etc.)?

Perhaps this could be the basis for a Darsnan Mod?

Not a mod per se. A while ago I grew bored with the base game and backstory, and after a little thought came up with the idea that the humans on Planet had discovered the wreckage of a Prog spaceship, cloned its hyperdrive and downloaded its galactic navigation maps, and started colonizing the galaxy themselves. Since there are presumably millions of inhabitable planets (or at least "interesting" star systems) out there, then there is a corresponding story that goes with each. And the one thing I have been blessed with is coming up with a myriad of premises and ideas in which to place the Factions which populate my scenarios. So as I said previously I generate a map around an idea, build the alpha(x).txt and Faction.txt files to suit, and write a little prologue for each scenario. So, no, not a mod, but rather the metaverse in which I build my games and play in. The best of these (perhaps one in ten) I share with you guys.

D

[Hydro]

D,

I dug in the AlphaX.txt for SMAniaC and here is what I found (nutrient/mineral/energy):

Centauri Eco (E1) 1/0/0
Centauri Empathy (E2) 0/1/0
Env Eco (E3) 0/1/0
Xenobiology (E3) 0/0/1
Cent Genetics (E5) 1/0/0
Cent Psi (E6) 0/0/1
Artif Genet (E7) 0/0/1
Sec of Manif (E9) 0/1/0

What I didn’t see was the base fungus production, which I seem to recall is 1/0/0 unless you have a negative Planet rating, and then you get a -1 penalty for each Planet negative to all fungus resources. Note that in SMAniaC the default SE is -1 Planet, so almost all factions can’t utilize fungus resources.

The Bree get +2 fungus nutrients and Cult get +1 min and +1 energy (!!!!). As you may guess, if a Planet-based faction (or Red faction) gets through level 3 Explore they get huge resources in Fungus: 2/2/1. That makes it competitive with your forests, but you’ll have to work to get there. If you stick on Explore the trip isn’t that far. Note that if you’re Bree you get 4/2/1 and Cult 2/3/2. The blighted Cult looks pretty good now, doesn’t it?

Hydro

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Darsnan
I'm mirroring the 1 row of minerals idea, however I am staying away from the "AI-only units" concept: my thought is that human players will limit the number of formers he builds at each base, as there is still the mineral support issue to contend with (i.e. a human isnt' going to spam Formers forever at a base knowing the base will become mineral limited due to support issues).

I disagree. Just build more crawlers to support your formers, and place them on forests which can be planted at a faster rate due to having more formers. The maximum GDP from a certain territory will not increase, but the speed at which you reach the maximum possible resource extraction will.

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Maniac
I disagree. Just build more crawlers to support your formers, and place them on forests which can be planted at a faster rate due to having more formers. The maximum GDP from a certain territory will not increase, but the speed at which you reach the maximum possible resource extraction will.

This is a good and valid point. However a) this thread is about getting the AI to plant forests, and b) this approach sounds like a lot of micromanagement, which isn't something I am into in my SP games.

Anyways, it does sound like I should post a thread discussing all the tweaks I'm doing to the alpha(x).txt and why - maybe we can continue this discussion there. Either that or you can post a thread detailing the merits of "AI-only" units?

D

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Darsnan
This is a good and valid point. However a) this thread is about getting the AI to plant forests

My apologies. It's just that, while I assume your discovery is interesting theoretically speaking, I don't see what practical value it has if the solution has all kinds of, IMO undesirable and unbalancing, consequences on core parts of the gameplay.

A question: does the AI plant forests if they produce 2/1/1 instead of 1/2/1 or 2/2/1? While that would change the function of forests, it would not dramatically increase the overall economic growth or make forests even more valuable compared to other terrain improvements.

Another take on the matter:

Instead of trying to make the AI plant forests by making them even more valuable, why not do the opposite and make them less attractive compared to mines and solar collectors (eg 1/2/0)? That way it would matter less that the AI didn't plant them.

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Maniac
My apologies. It's just that, while I assume your discovery is interesting theoretically speaking, I don't see what practical value it has if the solution has all kinds of, IMO undesirable and unbalancing, consequences on core parts of the gameplay.

The practical value is that a) it can be done, and if you wish then this is a way to do it, and b) one of the great things about SMAC has been the immersion value, as I said previously:

A while ago I grew bored with the base game and backstory, and after a little thought came up with the idea that the humans on Planet had discovered the wreckage of a Prog spaceship, cloned its hyperdrive and downloaded its galactic navigation maps, and started colonizing the galaxy themselves. Since there are presumably millions of inhabitable planets (or at least "interesting" star systems) out there, then there is a corresponding story that goes with each

So, millions of planets, millions of stories. On this one planet (out of these millions) I tried this idea and it worked. Its a change of pace, a puzzle for a human player to figure out. At no time did I say this was a magic bullet for the AI. I even went to great lengths to detail observations as far as the deficiencies I had seen while playtesting. If you like the idea, then try it out. If not, well, then move along.....


D