Looks like AI and performance are in the shitters again

[Tim_Ward]

In other streams the AI does build up its planets. It probably won't be ideal; and I can see the AI having massive issues with balancing its economy and with the strategic resources (that are required for advanced tech). That stuff is problematic even for players with a lot of deficits and fluctuations. But it doesn't always just sit on empty planets

In one way, that is not good news.

Bugs which lead to total across the board failure tend to be easier to fix than those that only rare their head in certain circumstances. The former is usually just caused some silly mistake easily fixed (DEBUG_ALWAYS_FUCK_UP_ECONOMY set to true or something daft), whereas the latter can mean your entire approach needs a rethink and at the very least you're in for a few hours/days trying working through the code.

If every streamer is experiencing the same issue, the AI just doesn't build enough resources to develop planets/build fleets across the board then I think it will be fixed in the release. It may even have specific to that one build. If, on the other hand, the AI only fucks up its economy some of the time there's no way they're getting a fix for that out by Thursday. On the other hand, it will be less detrimental to play, depending on how frequently the bug appears

 

[I_am_Nemo]

In other streams the AI does build up its planets. It probably won't be ideal; and I can see the AI having massive issues with balancing its economy and with the strategic resources (that are required for advanced tech). That stuff is problematic even for players with a lot of deficits and fluctuations. But it doesn't always just sit on empty planets

To clarify, I don't think he was saying the AI didn't build anything ever/had empty planets. He was pointing out that it had full resources and wasn't spending them; i.e., it wasn't building anything currently.

From the screenshots I saw, it looked like if anything it was shortaging on alloys -- which explains the lack of fleet -- but was maxed with large surplus on everything else, which means it should have been reinvesting its minerals/energy in some way.

Edit: not so much short on alloys as that's the one thing it did not have maxed out; was still running a surplus, albeit a small one.

 

[Dedzone]

It is quite simple. If there are multiple sources citing the same or close to the same problems, then logic dictates that there is a problem. It would be HIGHLY irresponsible for Paradox to release a game where the main interaction area (AI empires), is broken to all hell. It would be pointless to play the game as a player, other than to just wipe the galaxy clean in short order and to gather all the little neat things that were added.

The RESPONSIBLE thing for Paradox to do, is to either get it fixed before release, or to postpone the release until such a HUGE part of the game, is actually fixed. They will piss of a whole lot more people if they release a broken piece of trash, than they will by postponing it to fix such an integral part of the game.

My $.02.

 

[Molikroth]

It is quite simple. If there are multiple sources citing the same or close to the same problems, then logic dictates that there is a problem. It would be HIGHLY irresponsible for Paradox to release a game where the main interaction area (AI empires), is broken to all hell. It would be pointless to play the game as a player, other than to just wipe the galaxy clean in short order and to gather all the little neat things that were added.

The RESPONSIBLE thing for Paradox to do, is to either get it fixed before release, or to postpone the release until such a HUGE part of the game, is actually fixed. They will piss of a whole lot more people if they release a broken piece of trash, than they will by postponing it to fix such an integral part of the game.

My $.02.

But we don't have multiple sources. We have exactly one Reddit post that has been removed since it broke the embargo, and we have a bunch of anecdotal evidence taken second hand from streams. I doubt the AI is going to work perfectly on the release one way or the other, but I also really doubt they're going to postpone a major DLC release. The amount of screaming that the forums would suddenly be full of would make this look like a minor blip.

 

[grandad1982]

It's always good to see a good old forum kerfuffle.

Run with it guys, run like the wind!

 

[EccentricJoe]

Unlike this thread on their own forum the reddit thread received two official statements



and
by Wiz.

Tbh thats enough for me to get over this thing. The devs handled it really well and as soon as i heard the release date was decembre i was prepared for a shitstorm. To be fair i do think decembre is early and they should have pushed it back but that was probably a descision that was made with the higher ups, but it does make sense people are freaking out since pdx and the games industry as a whole has a history of release buggy messes that hardly work *cough* total war rome 2 *cough*. But pdx is generally pretty good at fixing them in a timely manner

 

[Cat_Fuzz]

I suppose the benefit of an early December release is that there are a few weeks to create a few patches to make it playable for Xmas.

 

[AlphaAsh]

They will piss of a whole lot more people if they release a broken piece of trash, than they will by postponing it to fix such an integral part of the game.

If only that were true. It just isn't.

I could drop a thread bomb and bring up that the more popular modders could have helped a lot more positively with the current shit-show than Tubbers (again), but I'd just be repeating myself and wasting my breath... oh wait, sorry I did. I'll step back from the keyboard.

 

[The_Meme_Man]

If only that were true. It just isn't.

I can guarentee that probably most of the community rarely notices when the AI is broken anyway.

 

[Foefaller]

I can guarentee that probably most of the community rarely notices when the AI is broken anyway.

Remember that time, I think it was with Utopia, that the AI lost all ability to declare war? Just sat there building fleets and slowly drift to pacifist?

Was about 150-ish years into my first real game before I started getting suspicious; I was playing aggressive and quickly outgrew my neighbors, so the fact noone was declaring war on me wasn't wierd... but then all the pacifist drift messages started to show up...

Even then though, it wasn't until I saw the forum posts that the lightbulb went off.

 

[Less2]

Maybe preview builds have game_journalist_difficulty = 1

 

[wingren013]

Drew’s game was interesting because like the reddit post for the first few hundred years most empires only had 1-2k in fleet power. However there were a few wars and the combatants ramped up, some of them to multiple tens of thousands of fleet power. It makes me wonder if the AI is prioritising expanding its economy rather than its fleet now and will only build larger fleets when it is threatened.

Video here for those interested

This would ne my guess. The AI is probably caught in a prioritization trap where it decides the best course of action is to stockpile resources to build up a fleet but isn't willing to spend alloys on the fleet because of it's previous directive. I have a feeling you will also find that the AI has a really low fleetcap because it isn't building fortresses.

Now that being said if the AI is in the described state on release...yeah that's unacceptable. There is a difference between "The new features have introduced bugs and have some issues when they intersect with other features" and "the new feature renders previous features nonfunctional" the second is the sort of thing that prompts public apologies.

 

[Ex Mudder]

From what I have seen in all the Let's Plays when people try to place branch offices in other civs, the homeworlds of other species always have around 11 trade value, which is the base trade value of your homeworld on game start (see energy production on day 1). It jumps to +45 shortly thereafter, presumably from pop jobs that produce trade value.

I also saw that the game removesf clerks first when you have more jobs than pops.

I would speculate that the AI is overbuilding itself into ruin, as every lost clerk job reduces amenities and trade value, and thus happiness, stability and energy. The impact is especially severe once amenities go negative, which also leads to crime spiralling out of control. Eventually the AI collapses. This also explains some other things seen, like moving around governors that reduce crime.

Best way I can think of to check this is to check gestalt empires, which do not have clerks, trade value, or amenities, afaik, and see if they are collapsing or going strong.

 

[Molikroth]

I also saw that the game sucks off clerks first when you have more jobs than pops.

I have to say, it took me a moment to read this and realize when you were saying, my immature sense of humor wasn't helping either.

That said, the Reddit post stated that the AI was maxed out on resources, so I don't think it's killing itself out of lack of resources or high crime. Though I could be 100% wrong since I don't have any data to back up that assertion either.

 

[Ex Mudder]

I have to say, it took me a moment to read this and realize when you were saying, my immature sense of humor wasn't helping either.

That said, the Reddit post stated that the AI was maxed out on resources, so I don't think it's killing itself out of lack of resources or high crime. Though I could be 100% wrong since I don't have any data to back up that assertion either.

Fixed.

That's exactly my point, the AI fills up the planet with districts and buildings at the expense of clerks, so resource production is high, but stability is low and the game does not know how to escape such a death spiral. I've seen streamers struggle with having too many jobs and not enough Pops, and not noticing or responding to the automatic removal of clerks every time there are more jobs than pops (ie, they build another district or building they do not have the pops to fill). This slowly erodes what they get from trade as well. There is not even in alert for when you have removed so many clerks that amenities goes negative, tanking stability and production on your planets. This is made worse for players by the nagging "you can build another building idiot!!!" icon on the outliner.

I can only imagine this wrecking computer players if its response to "low stability reducing production" is "build more Districts / Buildings!."

This also has the effect of making making megacorp branch offices pointless, as AI Homeworlds end up with 11 trade vale (3.3 to a megacorp) instead of 45 (15 energy for a branch office).

 

[wingren013]

Fixed.

That's exactly my point, the AI fills up the planet with districts and buildings at the expense of clerks, so resource production is high, but stability is low and the game does not know how to escape such a death spiral. I've seen streamers struggle with having too many jobs and not enough Pops, and not noticing or responding to the automatic removal of clerks every time there are more jobs than pops (ie, they build another district or building they do not have the pops to fill). This slowly erodes what they get from trade as well. There is not even in alert for when you have removed so many clerks that amenities goes negative, tanking stability and production on your planets. This is made worse for players by the nagging "you can build another building idiot!!!" icon on the outliner.

I can only imagine this wrecking computer players if its response to "low stability reducing production" is "build more Districts / Buildings!."

This also has the effect of making making megacorp branch offices pointless, as AI Homeworlds end up with 11 trade vale (3.3 to a megacorp) instead of 45 (15 energy for a branch office).

The priority should probably be

Food
Amenities while under zero amenities
Everything else
Amenities while over zero amenities.

 

[Shadeseraph]

Quick observation: I'm not closely following the streams, but it seems that in the one I've checked where the player was in observer mode the whole game, the AI was still able to fight back and win against the crisis (prethoryn), which seems extremely unlikely if the AI is really unable to build a working fleet, even with help from the Sentinels.

Strength-wise, the prethoryn was at roughly 500K overall force while the biggest empires were at 20-30K by the time of their appearance. Incidentally, this seems to be roughly in line with my experiences with 2.0 on commodore difficulty.

 

[stumason]

Not overly bothered by this - I am sure this is a case of someone crying wolf over something they don't understand. I've watched plenty of "lets plays" by muppets who clearly can't play the game and have attributed things to "bugs" when in actual fact they're just clueless or playing badly.

I am almost certain that a bug of this scale would have been noticed and in actual fact, it is simply someone misunderstanding what is happening, as others have alluded to in the thread.

I am sure there will be bugs - it's a PDS game after all! - but I am also sure there won't be anything making it "unplayable". Although I am sure there will be plenty of whining from people saying exactly that over many minor things.

 

[Calvax]

In Aspec's current megacorp series there definitely seems to be something going wrong with the AI when it comes to war. In part 5 below at 26:42 a neighbouring empire to the west declares war, they bring along their federation ally who borders Aspec from the south. The western AI attacks with a fleet stronger than Aspec's currently and manages to take a couple of stations, he quickly brings a fleet and after a while manages to drive them out.

There's a little bit more back and forth with the western neighbour over the rest of part 5 and all of part 6 (basically an hour of gameplay) and they do upgrade many of their nearby stations for defence, but they aren't a serious threat. The AI doesn't repair its armour and the fleet it attacks with is equal to one of Aspec's but can't do anything against it and an upgraded starbase. The worse AI problem is the southern empire. Across the entire hour not only does it not attack Aspec never sees a single ship of theirs. Eventually he sends his second fleet in and takes over 3 systems and a planet. There is no resistance and he quickly brings his fleet back to his territory. Again no southern empire fleet appears and ever attempts to take its systems back.

So out of the two one empire seems to not be building enough ships and generally being bad at attacking systems. The other either hasn't build any ships or has and isn't using them.

 

[Aepdneds]

A low fleet level could be just a cycle problem. If the AI is not aggressive it does not make sense to pay maintenance for a fleet which is outnumbering all its neighbours. Being on the same level is enough as long as you have the capacities to increase the fleet if necessary. We had threads in this forum discussing if it is smart to delete the initial 3 corvettes to save the maintenance. It could be smart of the AI to not waste resources on maintenance for an unnecessarily large fleet. If there is no aggressive empire in the galaxy this is resulting in low fleet numbers for everyone.