Just me or is the AI really bad at getting unity?

[Syr]

So here I am, a mostly friendly hivemind that spans from one side of the galaxy to the other and has wrapped 3/4ths of the way around the core with by far the most stars and territory... And somehow not a single AI is anywhere near me in terms of unity. I've completed all but harmony, and already done the biological ascension path and am on my way to unlocking megastructures w/ the last 2 slots (I'm only held back by not having the megastructures tech) and yet.... even the small constrained AIs that should be trying to play tall just.. aren't. Many of them barely have any unity production buildings at all.

Using the console to investigate, I discovered that most of them are only on their 3rd or 4th unity tree, one managed to get to the 5th, and one is still on its second tree, despite being an original empire from the start of the game (granted, it got kicked down to a single planet of one of its slave species, and doesnt even have a single pop of its own species anymore). The AI also seems to have a thing for building massive amounts of food that it doesnt need... (ie, its planets are completely full, yet its running a huge surplus, when it could be using those tiles for other stuff, like unity

 

[SolarGuy]

Hive minds have rather large bonuses to unity "production", so that might explain why you're ahead. The leader has a bonus, the government form has a bonus, I think even the Hive Mind pop trait has one.

 

[Meathim]

Unity is kinda hard to get if you don't focus on it. I first started with the premade Human Democratic Whatevers and my unity production was abysmal and kinda hard to rush. It feels a bit unbalanced TBH. The Ascension perks are powerful so you want.

 

[Carl_Bar]

Yeah i'm running a fanatic spiritualist and they have utterly crazy unity, completed all trees after a little more than 190 years, but without the temples i'd have had like half the income at the end, and even less than that early on, i'd probably not be done for 500 years with normal unity gen options.

 

[Zealuu]

Getting the techs for extra unity buildings early has a huge long-term impact (at least If you're stringent with always building them on new worlds), as does getting Tradition perks that increase unity production. Was a bit surprised to see Spiritualists get a free unity-producing building in the form of temples. Did they need that? Spiritualist still seems like the best ethics pick for min-maxing.

 

[krios41]

Unity is kinda hard to get if you don't focus on it.

I disagree, with 6 planets i managed to get 200 Unity a month. i didn't even try for that

 

[-Marauder-]

"Just me or is the Ai really bad", stopped reading there because you were most likely right about whatever you are saying. Seriously I love the game to pieces but the Ai is pretty bad.

 

[Syr]

Hive minds have rather large bonuses to unity "production", so that might explain why you're ahead. The leader has a bonus, the government form has a bonus, I think even the Hive Mind pop trait has one.

Thats to make up for the hivemind's 'jack of all trades' situation - they have to be ok at it, but they will never outstrip a properly specced out empire (of which several I had set to force-spawn, so some of the ones there had better unity setups than I went into the game with) ... well as long as said specced out empire actually goes for unity, which.. the AI didnt do. I managed to get as much unity as I did by always going 'frontier clinic -> unity buildings -> upgrade colonyship -> unity buildings' as my colony build order. I rushed expansion as my first tree, then nabbed prosperity & diplomacy (to make up for the hivemind diplomacy maluses & that tasty unity bonus from federation members), and then started raking in lots of unity from my federation - which my federation members should also be able to make lots of unity from... except they dont, because they dont even have most of the unity producing buildings even *built* in the first place.
I'm 160 years in, due to complete all my trees before the unity-built fanatical spiritalist empire in this thread (I just have 3 perk unlocks left, and I'm currently getting 1 perk every 5 years), have half the stars in my direct borders, more colonized worlds than the rest of my federation combined - and not a single AI, all of which are much smaller and should be playing much taller, is anywhere close to finishing. This is exactly the scenario that they are supposed to be rocketing ahead in unity vs. me, not falling hilariously far behind.

Unity is kinda hard to get if you don't focus on it. I first started with the premade Human Democratic Whatevers and my unity production was abysmal and kinda hard to rush. It feels a bit unbalanced TBH. The Ascension perks are powerful so you want.

I think the AI undervalues how important those perks are... And yeah, I think it should be easier for tall empires to inadvertantly go for, while wide ones have to be intentionally trying and sacrificing lots of tiles & resources to go for it. Like maybe a natural (non-tech, non-perk, everyone has it) unity bonus that is based on the % of fully populated worlds you have vs. total worlds you own.

"Just me or is the Ai really bad", stopped reading there because you were most likely right about whatever you are saying. Seriously I love the game to pieces but the Ai is pretty bad.

Sadly.. this is true - It does get better every patch, but the AI does some really dumb things. In 1.5 alone there was: superfluous food buildings, and not sending a well-built 51k fleet vs the unbidden (the AI sent only 30k of battleships, won against an unbidden fleet, but lost 20k of the battleships.... After losing 5 planets while just derping around.)
On the other hand, I saw an AI send an evasion torp-boat corvette swarm against my fed members who were using battleship globs, and completely wreck them. My tech was super bad at the time (because I was so heavily invested in expanding) so I still had my corvette-killer corvette swarm.