I loaded the save provided by @Quantomas and took stock of the situation. It wasn’t an ideal situation and there were mostly hostile worlds nearby. I decided to settle the low gravity swamp world at Jers, as it was actually the best planet I found, and instantly ran into the mutated Sulak on turn 16… so much for breathing room. Nine turns later those same Sulak asked for tribute… you can guess at my reply, something about hell and a snowball. The game continued apace when the Mutant Nova were encountered on turn 39 on account of the wormhole at Phei. Three turns later, they too asked for tribute and received the same reply as the Sulak… “come and take it” The first colony leader to show up was Cupid, but I decided to pass on him and was rewarded by having Ka show up on turn 46. I hired the little bug as his science skills were a must and sent him to govern Terra. Then… I cheated a bit. Santini showed up on turn 57, she is too valuable to pass up. I Scrapped my survey ship and used the cash to hire her, I replaced Ka as governor of Terra. Now here is the cheat, I had already researched econ cap, so in order to insure that both leaders would not ask for the same building, I kept Ka in limbo. I assigned him to Jers so his opinion would not decline, but prior to his arrival I re-assigned him, the trick was to not actually let him arrive. Once Santini asked for an econ cap, I quickly switched research to a tech cap and allowed Ka to arrive at his destination, knowing he would request that newly researched building. Pretty slick huh? On turn 63 I discovered a rogue lava world with the unique biota special, guess where my next colony would be founded. Hired Pike on turn 71, and declined a trade treaty from the Nova on 72. By turn 76 I declined a trade treaty with the Sulak and constructed one of two basic Destroyers to fulfill a defense desire for Santini. The second Destroyer was ready on turn 82 but I instantly scrapped it to gain cash so I could choose the free cruiser when the Militia event fire. The Cruiser is outfitted like dog poop and doesn’t even have shields, but the AI seems to respect ships, not how they are laid out. I met the Humans on turn 83 and hired my namesake on 84. My research in Lava colonization tech also completed and I sent my colony ship to the rogue planet at Omig. On turn 86 I declined trade with the Humans and one turn later told them to piss off when they asked for tribute. I paused for tonight at turn 95, when I scrapped a Frigate so I could hire another ship leader, Adams. By now I have only a single Cruiser, Destroyer and Frigate… three ships only. I am listed as last in all categories in comparison to the races I’ve met, with the exception of my Fleet which is ranked 2nd. The Sulak have the largest fleet by far and I suspect they may have found something as the AI is not in the habit of building warships this early. I estimate that I will be vulnerable for another 20 turns or so, after which I will gain enough offensive capability to pick a fight.
I continued my session and ran into the Lemurians on turn 99, as predicted, they had a massive lead in technology. Of course two turns later they too asked for tribute which I declined. By now I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve declined tribute and treaties, and even though I have a repulsive race, no one has attacked… By turn 112 I had declined trade with the Sulak yet again, and on the next turn the Humans. I am basically spitting in everyone’s eye, yet they do nothing. Then on turn 115, there was some action when the Lemurians declared war on the Nova. “Kill each other for all I care” I thought to myself, “Just give me a little more time to get ready, murhahaha!”… Ooops, sorry, I almost lost it there. The second event to fire in the game came on turn117, the “sleeper ship”, and I snagged myself another free cruiser Finally on turn 118 the Sulak had enough of me and executed a surprise attack, and I want to talk more about this It is all well and good that The AI will build Battleships and Titans early, but as I mentioned in a conversation with @Adam Solo and @aReclusiveMind one ship does not make a fleet. I defeated this attempt and it put a real hurt on the Sulak as they now have few units and most of those are Frigates, if I had any assault ships ready, I would be striking back now, instead it will have to wait. Clearly the AI would have been better served in producing a small fleet rather than a single battleship which is now lost. The situation on turn 120 is tough but not hopeless. My main problem is that I only have a single productive world, and I can’t build fast enough. I do have a colony ship on standby and am going to manipulate one of my leaders into asking for colonization so I can get some quick extra pops. It’s hard so far, but I do feel that I can defend myself, now my focus needs to shift to preparing enough forces for offensive action and invasions.
Or if they would have brought their entire fleet for this attack. The map and location of the rival empires is actually fairly interesting, but without credible military threats we can mostly do as we please.
I'm not sure that two additional Frigates would have helped. This BB was home grown by the way, a lot of production went into it. There was a furious counter-attack some time later, but poorly executed. Here they could have focused and coordinated much better and I would have been in a difficult situation. You will see what I'm talking about once I get the next phase posted
Hmm. My Sulak had refitted their frigates with more weapons, better armor and even shields. Or these were additional frigates built later. It seems we are experiencing similar things here. I should never have been able to capture their advanced frigates with my two starting frigates and stock destroyer. Will play some more this evening and see. As always, it is a pleasure to have your company, as otherwise I would possibly already consider a different game, but these parallel AARs are decent fun. In my timeline the Lemurians decimate the Humans and the Draguul have decimated the Moltar.
And an equal pleasure to have yours. I am also enjoying your optimized AI races by the way. While I can handle them tactically they are quite potent. I will post my update in the morning and you will be able to see some rather impressive growth from them. Luckily a few of them are fighting one another, otherwise I would be in trouble, even with the the AI playing poorly on the tactical level.
Action resumed on turn 122 when the Sulak sent a lone Frigate to raid my colony at Jers. My forces there easily chased off the culprits. I hired another ship leader on turn 125 (Simone), and sent her off to explore the stars that had now come into range on account of my having expanded my logistical range. (The purpose behind this was to hopefully find some ruins with something useful, but alas, I have only discovered cobwebs and dust). Things stayed quiet till turn 137 when I encountered everyone, I am dead last in all categories with the exception of my fleet which is ranked 4th On turn 141 I declined trade with the Humans, (again), and one turn later caught and destroyed a Sulak Destroyer that was loitering around Iniupda. Then at last on turn 143, the Sulak attempted a serious counterattack, look at the screenshot for a bit as I want to discuss both the good and the bad here. As you can see, the Sulak are sending a wave of ships toward my territory, In total there are 5 Destroyers and one Battleship involved. The good is that the AI managed to build a new fleet as I wasn’t able to take the offensive yet… The bad is that this is a poor way to execute an operational counterattack. Note that three of the targets are not occupied by me, this is foolish as those forces would have been better off assigned to three targets I do occupy instead, (Terra, Zrops, and Chemoria) On top of that, what you can’t see is the less than perfect coordination. Terra and Zrops will be attacked in 3 turns, Chemoria in 4. As I only need a single turn to get from Terra to Chemoria, this means I can focus on defeating the Battleship headed to Terra and then arrive on Chemoria to defeat the Destroyer attacking that system. Had the AI coordinated all the strikes to arrive on the same turn, (as I do), and had it reinforced those strikes by not sending half of its forces to occupy uncontrolled systems, I would have had a difficult time… Instead, I destroyed the Battleship attacking Terra and the Destroyer attacking Zreps, I also chased off the Destroyer attacking Chemuria and suffered no losses of my own. On turn 148 I cleared the Monster at Sofiela and created a colony there, I also hired Jon Squeeg to govern it. I paused again at turn 150 and here is the situation now, The Draguul are ta war against the Nova and the Kaek decided to jump into the fray and attacked the Draguul. My own fleet is small as shown in the last screenshot, but it is now ranked 2nd I declined another trade treaty, this time with the Draguul. While I’m still boxed in, my state is easy to defend, my gradual build up of forces should allow me to conquer a system or two soon, @Quantomas has done a good job with these races, they are quite robust with the exception of the Moltar, who seem to be lagging in both time lines.
You are too lenient with these inept Sulak admirals. I had my small low-tech fleet capture all their invasion forces. Once on the offensive it did the same with the token resistance they encountered. It got so bad that my support points dropped so much into negative territory that ship production was seriously hampered as a penalty and ship stats suffered. But even then the Sulak never put a dent in any of my ships. Plus, with the negative support points I was forced into scrapping ships which netted me huge amounts of BC. I have no clue how @Adam Solo arrives at the conclusion that this AI is serviceable. I had my two starting frigates plus a stock destroyer, then the Sulak gifted me so many ships that I could take over their empire. I will post my report from the Sulak front soon. The problem with the Moltar is most likely their reduced population growth. I respected it as a defining trait and thus left it in, but it is severely penalising. Otherwise, together with their favourable starts, the better optimized races would boost the game considerably, if their inept fleet admirals wouldn't ruin the game.
Not really my friend, here is an update On turn 154 I intercepted and chased off a Sulak Destroyer that was escorting an outpost ship at Delebos. I followed that up by blockading the Sulak at Yaihex on the next turn. By 156 the Sulak tried to relieve Yaihex and I destroyed another Cruiser of theirs before destroying one of the two colonies in that system completely, (I will occupy the other one). That same turn the Sulak attempted their most potent counterattack and hit me at Chemoria, I had scant forces to defend with, but even though we were evenly matched in military technology, my tactics resulted in this On the following Turn, (157), I occupied one of their new outposts at Hodorth and destroyed another Battleship sent to relieve Yaihex, afterwards I bombed the planet to eliminate the garrison there. So while I understand that you and I can defeat this easily (using different styles might I add), a lot of players would find it more difficult to do so. In my case, I have destroyed many enemy ships, always fighting outnumbered, without a single loss. In your case, you just borrowed their own fleet. I believe better designed ships from the AI, combined with better operational understanding and tactics, would solve a great many problems. On the strategic level, the AI is actually quite good, I mean look at the shot below, they expand well, they research well, but they have a very hard time against a human player during war.
On turn 158 I invaded and occupied Yainex II, giving me control of the system. I immediately followed this up by sending a portion of my forces, led by Constantine, to blockade the Sulak Homeworld itself. Two turns later, after my forces destroyed another Frigate, a Destroyer, and the Battlestation present, my blockade was in place. I also paused construction of the industrial conglomerate at my HW in order to make additional forces available. Turn 163 was also very eventful. I continued my blockade and bombardment of the Sulak HW, was framed by an unknown empire which caused relations with the Kaek to suffer, and The Draguul signed a peace treaty with the Moltar. If that wasn’t bad enough, the “More than a diploma”t event fired and my choice deteriorated relations with the Kaek further. The Draguul also took the opportunity to attack the Sulak and acquire some easy conquests. On 164 I chased away a Frigate that attempted to raid Sofiela On 165 the Kaek and Dragul signed a peace treaty as I damaged my relations with the later even more by refusing them tribute Finally, on 166 I defeated a feeble attempt to relieve the Sulak HW and added another Destroyer and Frigate to my tally of ships killed. I occupied the planet and managed to gain a second econ cap in the process, while also conducting a quick raid at Vadus where my lone Frigate destroyed the two un-escorted support ships in orbit. I hired “guru” to govern my new conquest and recalled my Frigate as the Draguul were fast approaching. A note about the Draguul, we are currently at peace, but they have some very fast ships with a drive superior to my own, they would present a different type of problem if I get into hostilities with them now as my forces are slower and would not be able to react to them well.
I debunked that here: Lemurians Challenge - Quantomas. If you set your mind to it, you can outpace the computer empires too easily. I analyzed the synergies quite thoroughly, so this is understandable. An AI design that uses the same model would do wonders for its performance, though. It is not so simple. I am developing AI for ten years and have played strategy games for much longer. I can kind of see what kind of AI concepts are implemented in a game and whether they work, context sensitivity, lookahead, threat leveraging, opposition tracking and so on. It's simply not there. No amount of tinkering will change this. Adam Solo is a nice guy and seems to believe otherwise, but for me it is straightforward. This is true. If the goal is merely to establish a viable business and occupy a niche, this is fine. It is a bit like Sid Meier's Civilization V. Nothing veteran strategy players would write home about, but a nice pastime. For me it is not so simple. ISG is on the one hand a beautiful game, but on the other hand it lacks something. I can see it and experience it everytime the AI fails. It troubles me not only as a player but also as a dev. In one month I can write an AI that is vastly superior to what we have now, in three months the AI would be solid so that it gives you and me a thorough challenge, and in six months it would be the mythical AI without cheats that hardly anybody can beat, i.e. it can vary the degree of difficulty to suit everyone. MoO2 would never have gained the following it had without an AI that imbued all the different gameplay elements with integrity. I'd say if you want to follow in the footsteps of MoO2, you need to do better than calling veteran strategy players those who want an extra challenge. This is too convenient. You can disagree of course. This is actually something that made discovering the lack of challenge in ISG for me bearable. It's kind of a highlight. As Fantasy General II will most likely not provide a similar opportunity for us, it would still be nice if we could do something similar in the future. Actually, I am developing an AI for a TBS strategy game that is not that far from release. I think you would like it. Its core pillars are combat and exploration, there is no diplomacy, so simply clear-cut enemies. There are also bases but nothing in the vein of a 300 turn tech research tree and nurturing the population. Anyway, it will have a challenging AI and its huge maps lend it naturally to AARs, inclusive the recording of battles, to show the highlights. If you are interested, I can send you an invitation once it is done. Don't worry though, I will still read your AAR and comment from time to time.
It would solve some problems, but would it actually make the game much different, or just draw out the same gameplay a bit longer, the way AI bonuses would? I suppose that's fine if all you want is battles. The perfect balance, with lots of stalemates, and winning one world only to lose a different one, would be really hard to achieve. I'm looking for something with a bit more variety of gameplay. Maybe one game develops as military conquest, but another, due to the map and the races, turns out with few battles but a lot of development and construction, and the next game develops as several races allying against one race that is outpacing everyone else. Hmm, I suppose I'd like the development of the story of the galaxy to be a surprise. So far, the AARs have differed mainly in the names of which race gets conquered before which other race. Another thing I've noticed is that none of the choices, whether in race generation or tech tree or whatever have made a significant difference in general outcome. In MOM, at least the choices in nation creation had some effect: well-equipped heroes in one game, and magic-supported regular troops in another. Lots of gold and little mana, or maybe the opposite. I think ISG would be better off expanding those sorts of options, rather than just making the AI races 'harder'.
By all means, I would be happy and honoured to accept. I prefer strategy as it is, Ultimate general, Ageods Civil war, HOI series etc. It sounds like it would be a lot of fun. You are correct, but that is because I am focusing on what I perceive to be a glaring deficiency, mainly that the AI can't fight its way out of a wet paper bag at the moment. Regardless what other improvements are made to the game, this must be rectified. I think some new and innovative victory conditions would help with that. Add in a variety of crises and some quest like events and it should be a good start. What you propose would also fit nicely and I believe we will see positive evolution in this area of the game over the course of time. It may seem that way but that is not entirely true. For example, I am considerably outpaced in technology by all races, however, my focus on weaponry and defences, ship designs, and tactics, gives me the edge. Were I to alter that in this session, it might not make much of a difference due to the poor fighting capabilities of the AI, if those capabilities are enhanced... Look there is still a lot of work to be done, for example, once you get your feet wet, the economy is a breeze, note that I refuse to get into trade treaties yet I am running a modest surplus, with trade involved, I could build with impunity, choices need to matter more here. I do agree that the races don't need to be harder or receive additional advantages, they just need to learn how to use the existing ones in a better fashion. Think about this. At max difficulty, they get extra pop, extra infrastructure, a free mine and an econ cap, along with better starting tech. This means they start out with a significantly higher production across the board, it should be enough. Any suggestions you have here are welcome.
Adaptability. While asymmetry would add to the game, it is not the problem here. ISG offers a wealth of different gameplay elements that you can use to adapt differently to each situation you encounter, even creatively. But the game is flat because the AI applies the same pattern to every situation, it does not adapt. That is also the root cause why the game is not challenging on the operational and tactical level. While it can be expressed briefly in a few words, terms like understanding and recognition and adaptation present major tasks for implementing AI. Unfortunately, many devs have no idea how much work it actually requires. A few weeks ago I talked to the indie devs of a new 4X TBS announced during E3, a highly attractive game that I would love to play, if it had a proper AI. They intended to use Utility Theory for the AI , so I explained to them why this would not work and introduced them to path sequencing. After they had grasped the concept and understood that evaluating at different points in the lookahead makes all the difference, they were enthusiastic about it and believed that they could now implement proper AI all on their own. But in truth implementing the AI for their game properly requires scores of concepts of a similar magnitude as path sequencing, which all together form the AI. They are going to spend a year of their valuable work on the AI and then hit a wall, where they will no longer be able to improve it. Or worse, they may believe that meticulous fine-tuning will get them there. Instead getting a professional AI in three months for less than 100K, and being ready to test their game early, would have been a steal. Not at least because a challenging AI can give them an edge against their competitors, and even work to propagate word of mouth ("Hey, did you play that game with the mean AI?" ). Many indie devs lack the professionalism to succeed and make it big. As a player I am still inclined to give indie devs my money, even for the short hope to discover something great, but maybe it would be better if I don't. Noted, maybe one nice day you will find a PM from me in your inbox.
With the Sulak Homeworld in my possession I ceased my offensive and regrouped. The Sulak were now down to half a system but I decided to leave it be so that the Draguul would focus on them for a while longer, besides, neither of those two concerned me. My only concern was now the Kaek who had come too close to my borders for my taste. But we will get to them soon. I destroyed a Sulak DD on turn 167 at Sulaka and nother Battleship at Hodorth 10 turns later, such a waste, these ships would have been better spent attempting to regain the planets at Vadus instead. Relations continued to sour as I was framed again, this time against the Draguul, no matter, there is nothing you can do stop these activities other than find every leader with espionage traits and kill them. I concluded my Galactic conglomerate project on 177 and began constructing additional units for the coming war against the bugs. Perhaps I will also exploit my own territory a bit more before I commence hostilities, we shall see...
Well it happened. The Kaek declared war on the Nova and started gobbling them up, I just couldn’t let them grow more powerful. (Besides, I believe they are responsible for targeting Pike and farming me against the Draguul) I attacked them on turn 201 (even though I was not quite ready) and destroyed their new colony at Acriu…It was glorious There is no going back now, I intend to cripple them once and for all, and anyone else that gets in my way...
"Admiral! They've launched an englobement weapon at us. It's a wet paper bag!" "Oh no! We're doomed! Send the surrender signal."
I hope you are not trying to entice me to continue my AAR. I could say something about your approach, but I am not sure whether you want to hear it.
No, no need to continue your AAR, I don't think anything will change... Who knows though, tonight I will get into more battles, maybe I'm too cocky but I expect to win. After all, I've lost track of how many AI ships I've destroyed without losing so much as a rowboat. As far as my approach... do tell, I have a thick skin.
Absolutely. As things stand, you could add a leader with high defense stats (preferably 9 or 10) to your fleet that bombed Acriu, and the Kaek ships would possibly never hit your ships at all. If you want to be on the safe side, use a single battleship with a solid shield (maybe class V) and enough weaponry to damage a titan with class VIII shields and a frigate for your leader, with a solid shield to guard against a stray shot, and you are set. You could just romp through the entire Kaek empire, as mighty as it seems. Under the right conditions it could even work with a lone cruiser, without the Kaek ever realizing what hit them. In principle it is good that the game offers such options, you can be really creative, but as long as the AI does not counter appropriately, these are just exploits. The thing is the game gives you the tools to counter effectively even strategies like this and a human player would use these. The Kaek in this game should have all the means to research battle sensors and ultrawave scanner plus other means to boost attack, and could simply assemble the majority of their ships into one giant fleet, add a leader with high attack stats and go about bombing out your colonies one by one. That would be something to watch.
