Another close look at how the AI builds up its worlds: 1.6 edition

[OdinTGE]

That´s what i do since 1.0, just with the unlimited core world/systems mod.

This is why I always get driven away from Stellaris. I come back every few months to check but I always quit over the frustration of having to micro 5, 10, 15, 20, etc. worlds because there's no way I'm letting the past or current AI build my worlds. Once I get past about planet 5 in a game I'm done enjoying the micro. I want to move on to managing things on a more galactic level for conquest o liberation or whatever I'm up do. Instead I'm stuck constantly going from top to bottom on the outliner checking each planet to see what it needs built next.

 

[Keltosh]

Very interesting video, GC13.
I think that 80% of the problems would be solved if the AI simply said: I want to reach x minerals, y energy and z food production on this planet. And work to reach that. Instead, it probably checks from second to second what it needs and what it wants, and that causes needless rebuilding. Probably rebuilding also has a higher weight than building on a new tile...

This is why I always get driven away from Stellaris. I come back every few months to check but I always quit over the frustration of having to micro 5, 10, 15, 20, etc. worlds because there's no way I'm letting the past or current AI build my worlds. Once I get past about planet 5 in a game I'm done enjoying the micro. I want to move on to managing things on a more galactic level for conquest o liberation or whatever I'm up do. Instead I'm stuck constantly going from top to bottom on the outliner checking each planet to see what it needs built next.

I never do that. It feels unfair micro-ing the planets I put into the sectors, because I KNOW the AI does not do that. It just makes the game easier...

Still yes, after a year sectors should be more intelligent..

 

[OdinTGE]

I never do that. It feels unfair micro-ing the planets I put into the sectors, because I KNOW the AI does not do that. It just makes the game easier...

Well, the AI does micro everything. Just...badly. My point was that I never put anything in sectors until it's a completed planet. Near the end of the mid game when minerals start flowing I sometimes queue up an entire planet's initial construction then dump it but even that is very annoying.

 

[Stoßtrupp Gold]

After i have reached a certain productivity i do this after a colonization:
- resettle pops so 5 are reached
- upgrade the shelter
- then queue up all buildings i wanted
- give it to a sector so it can upgrade the buildings. Which it does, at least good enough.

Respect tiles, no redevelopment, no anything.

I never do that. It feels unfair micro-ing the planets I put into the sectors, because I KNOW the AI does not do that. It just makes the game easier...

I am pretty surprise how "strong" AI empires are with that faulty micromanaging, even at normal. They must have a flat income bonus of ec and minerals per planet, otherwise they would have trouble colonizing 3+ worlds.

 

[OdinTGE]

- resettle pops so 5 are reached

but all the influence!

 

[SolarGuy]

I've survived one year without ever using sectors, so I guess I'll survive a few more months until this gets completely fixed?

 

[laptor]

I started 1.6 yesterday and recogniced irrational AI buildingbehaviour, too. Really sad this is still not satisfying :/

 

[MrSoulbinder]

Do you think it will be fixed? ...

If this really reflects the general AI performance... in my oppinion that would be embarassing ... and my sincere hope is that any Paradox dev who sees this feels the same way. OMG, every second semester computer science student could formulate a SIMPLE greedy strategy that is vastly superior (and could probably also implement it).

It seems there was the intention to consider a lot of factors for AI decision making. But apparantly the result is horrible. Would be good to have a simple approach working in a comprehensible way first...

 

[Mrakvampire]

AI must be improved ASAP

 

[ross-g]

Yeah, people on the forums always talk about "The AI team" and I think they're vastly overestimating the staff size at PDS. Then they're also forgetting that PDS makes more than just Stellaris.

This is true, the entire Stellaris team is roughly 20 people I think. One of whom is a full time AI programmer.
https://twitter.com/merni_/status/849938034699141120

@Jamor @merni I really hope this can get pushed up the priority list and investigated. It would be great to see some improvement in the AI decision making for tile development.
Thanks for the hard work so far!

 

[Jorrhast]

One other thing about how AI handles building. Well, not exactly building, but spaceports. So I have my old save where I, being a pacifile, let Prethoryn have some snack (hey, we're sure they're not as bad as they look! they're just grumpy because they're hungry! if they'll eat enough... ehm... food... they will eventually become friendly, right?), then I get a request for protectorate from a new 1-system empire near scourge feeding ground.
The problem is, I place 200k fleet at their system. They begin building their spaceport. But the moment any scourge fleet warps in, they disband it, every single time. Despite the fact that my fleet that can handle one, or even two, or hell, even four scourge stacks, is floating right above the planet.

 

[AlphaAsh]

...but tier 2, 3, 4 etc have no weights but other tier 1 buildings from other lines have weights, so when it goes back to that tile and it wants to build something on it, it chooses another tier 1 building instead of the next tier 2 upgrade...

I think this might be down to some confusion in the dev team as to whether upgrades need weighting or whether it's hard-coded behaviour. So @devteam Get that verified between you guys. Because these upgrades probably need weighting.

 

[xMer]

@Glavius is trying to improve weight system with mod. Started to develop it yesterday, but AI with even minimal changes he already done expand much faster.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=922445647
It would be great if devs share some insights how building/sector AI is working,

 

[nrader]

Yeah, there's only two choices. Play a super tiny/tall empire or take every core-worlds boost possible (except pacifist of course. dirty hippies) so you can actually expand at a somewhat decent pace. You absolutely cannot go expand to a 4th or 5th world with no core system bonuses and let the sector AI handle your new worlds. That's just asking to be sad, angry, and sad again.

There is third choice - dont use balanced sector focus and only use mineral or energy-oriented ones. With no respecting tiles. No redevelopment for new worlds, and turn on for some time for newly conquered ones, then turn it off again some time after. Other options always off, except maybe robots, sometimes.
That's what i do when i play vanilla, though now i'm just play with my own mod that made my sectors more or less okay with other options.

Oh, and if you have much energy - you can use core system over-limit for some time without harming yourself much.

 

[Carl_Bar]

The worst instance I have seen was when I was playing a robot ascended empire... My sectors somehow decided it was smart to increase my food income to +300 (from +50 when i first ascended). And no, they were not on balanced focus.

The AI probably can't recognise that your ascended, unless you where playing super tall +80 is an awful food surplus for an empire at that stage of the game.

There is third choice - dont use balanced sector focus and only use mineral or energy-oriented ones. With no respecting tiles. No redevelopment for new worlds, and turn on for some time for newly conquered ones, then turn it off again some time after. Other options always off, except maybe robots, sometimes.
That's what i do when i play vanilla, though now i'm just play with my own mod that made my sectors more or less okay with other options.

Oh, and if you have much energy - you can use core system over-limit for some time without harming yourself much.

Pretty much what i do.

 

[Vampiresoap]

It's ridiculous how some people still claim that there's nothing wrong with the AI or the sector mechanic in general! You know who I'm talking about ;P

 

[Mann42]

Thanks for taking the time to record these videos and point out the issues.

On some level, I can excuse not respecting tile resources, depending on the AI's plan for the planet (especially in the mid and late game when specialization is more common). It's definitely not optimal, and it would be nice if the AI was smarter about respecting tile resources, but it only has major impact in the early game.

What really stands out as a problem is the consistent redevelopment of the same building. There really needs to be a throttle/weight that prevents re-development until the planet is already full.

 

[Ilushia]

I laughed my head off watching some of the dumb AI moves.

Until I realized this is what my stupid sector governors are doing!

I don't know about anyone else, but my personal experience has been that Sectors are not -remotely- as stupid as this appears to be. I don't think I've ever found a sector in the process of replacing a building it built since 1.5 came out at least. Certainly not to the degree of building a building then immediately paving over it. It does frequently end up with more buildings than it has pops, and loves to dance pops between buildings constantly, and also is absolutely -awful- about managing its hunger early in colony development for some reason. But once it's got a steady supply of minerals to support it and your empire won't starve to death supporting the planets it's building it seems to do 'okay' at managing them. Not great, but a lot better than this appears to be.

 

[TheDeamon]

Last game I played co-op with a friend of mine, I had almost all my sectors on energy focus due to the cost of keeping the fleet out of dry-dock for wars... And I ended up at like +80 food due to sectors. In fact I started building over most of my core world food tiles because it was just so stupid how much food I had.

Baffling to me is... when your empire is at +80 food, why the frick are the sector governors building orbital food modules onto the space ports? You only do that when you have a food shortage -- not when you have a massive surplus. Yeesh.

Right now I am playing a game with more core due to government and ascension perks and I am at 12 core systems, and about 14 worlds. No sectors yet. I am loving it.

Eventually when some worlds are built out, I will hand them off, but not before then.

Yeah, that's pretty much become my game plan going forward, just need to work out some details. But it means initial development is happening as a core world, and when the world does get handed over to a sector manager, redevelopment is turned off. The killer is in the early game with the low sector world count, spending influence to add/remove systems from the sector AI in order to build them out properly is annoying, but workable.

 

[Shimohi]

This is offending.