Some bizarre AI behavior... at least to me

[arothuris]

Haven't played the game for a long while (last time I played, planet buildings were still on tiles), just got back into it recently, and saw some really strange and probably bizarre behavior from the AI...

A declared war on B with his federation buddy C. Shortly after that, A's neighbor D thought he should join the fun and declared on A. Their geographical position on the map are something like this:

C
A D
B

A's the only one linking to all of them. All the others need to go through A to get to each other.

One of A's fleets was actually going to counter D, and has arrived the system next to the one D's invading, until some more of D's reinforcement arrived, and total fleet power became higher than A. A then waited, until another of his fleet and his friend C's fleet arrived the same system.

Strange thing happened here... A tried to sent his fleet towards the invaded system, but C's fleet was going straight downward towards B, and for a few sec, A's fleet was going back and forth, trying to follow C and to go defend his invaded system. Then A gives in, let his fleets follow C towards B's systems, and from then on, both A and C acted like D's not there, even over half of his systems were taken, including his homeworld.

The defensive war was lost eventually, although from what I see, A and C have enough fleet power combined to fend off D. They just totally ignored D, even when A's homeworld was under sieged. I mean, wtf?

Another thing seems strange to me is, AI seems to always run away from enemy fleet when fleet power is weaker, even just marginally. Last time I played, I remember they liked to engage alot more ( yeah its quite a few years back already). Thing is, shouldn't the AI tried to delay the enemy fleets at choke points even the odds are slim? And shouldn't they be engaging when their capital, their homeworld, is under threat, even when they only have a small fleet around? All I see is, now they just run and run and run... They just won't fight unless they are cornered. Is this normal behavior for the AI now? If so, I really dun see the point of the change to hyperlink only and choke points, at least not for a single player game, as AI just won't use choke points with only a smaller fleet in the vicinity.

 

[Bezborg]

This is why I miss warp drive and wormhole generators so much.

Takes time to charge the drive, and once on course - it cannot be changed.

Provided a window of opportunity to engage, and a layer of strategy in my opinion. Not to mention the beauty of interesting sci fi concepts in a sci fi game.

The only reason why we lost all that is so we can have choke points and starbase tactics. They called it "Galactic landscape".

Was it worth it? Starbases and the odd pulsar or black hole are such a great element of the game to lose all that modes of movement, and everything else that came with it? I don't think so, and I never thought so. Oh well.

 

[hart30]

The ai only counts its own fleetpower into the calculations. It is no able to count its allies power into it and they usually also arent that great in teaming. So when D invaded both ai avoided its bigger fleet and went after softer targets. I totally agree that it the always running behavior isnt that great.
Whats even worse is that the ai tends to attack in one big stack but spreads its fleets later. So all u have to do is park ur smaller fleet further away and wait for the fleets to spread. After that u can take out the individual weaker fleets one after another. If the ai sptead its fleets once it never unites them again to counter the sudden threat ur fleet poses. Quite the opposite - once u shot down enough fleets, some of them tend to become braindead and sit idle in some systems (probably reinforcements, which became unable to reinforce).

 

[Bezborg]

The ai only counts its own fleetpower into the calculations. It is no able to count its allies power into it and they usually also arent that great in teaming. So when D invaded both ai avoided its bigger fleet and went after softer targets. I totally agree that it the always running behavior isnt that great.
Whats even worse is that the ai tends to attack in one big stack but spreads its fleets later. So all u have to do is park ur smaller fleet further away and wait for the fleets to spread. After that u can take out the individual weaker fleets one after another. If the ai sptead its fleets once it never unites them again to counter the sudden threat ur fleet poses. Quite the opposite - once u shot down enough fleets, some of them tend to become braindead and sit idle in some systems (probably reinforcements, which became unable to reinforce).

This is sad to read

 

[arothuris]

This is why I miss warp drive and wormhole generators so much.

Takes time to charge the drive, and once on course - it cannot be changed.

Provided a window of opportunity to engage, and a layer of strategy in my opinion. Not to mention the beauty of interesting sci fi concepts in a sci fi game.

The only reason why we lost all that is so we can have choke points and starbase tactics. They called it "Galactic landscape".

Was it worth it? Starbases and the odd pulsar or black hole are such a great elements of the game to lose all that modes of movement, and everything else that came with it? I don't think so, and I never thought so. Oh well.

Yeah, there are actually tons of scenario with warp and a lot more strategic choices than defend the choke point with hyperlink only. You would actually do something like lure the enemy out and make a surprise landing to take a highly valuable planet, which may tip the balance of the war. You could probably do that with hyperlink too, but it's very much depending on the so called "galactic landscape", and not as swift. Stellaris is still fun, but now it limits alot of imagination and creativity than the game once was.

Btw, it's kinda strange that every star port is located in the middle of the star system above the star... It's arguably reasonable if the colonized planet is close to the middle of the system, but what if it's on the outer edge? Wouldn't it be a hell lot more convenient if it's above the planet itself? Yeah I know there are gameplay reasons for it, but still...

I dun know if anyone played Distant Worlds here. That game actually have alotta creativity and imaginations in these regards. Like 2 empires would share the same system, as they both have planets in that system, either through conquest, or coincidentally colonizing at the same time. You know, I really dun get why I have to either give up my system or annex when some primitives reach space age. Can't we have a third option? Like, go fxxking build ur own space port...

The ai only counts its own fleetpower into the calculations. It is no able to count its allies power into it and they usually also arent that great in teaming. So when D invaded both ai avoided its bigger fleet and went after softer targets. I totally agree that it the always running behavior isnt that great.
Whats even worse is that the ai tends to attack in one big stack but spreads its fleets later. So all u have to do is park ur smaller fleet further away and wait for the fleets to spread. After that u can take out the individual weaker fleets one after another. If the ai sptead its fleets once it never unites them again to counter the sudden threat ur fleet poses. Quite the opposite - once u shot down enough fleets, some of them tend to become braindead and sit idle in some systems (probably reinforcements, which became unable to reinforce).

Actually, I did see A tried to get to D when reinforcements arrived. But C just went straight down on another path towards B, and pulled A with him. I saw A's fleet going back and forth for a few sec, between the jump point towards D and C's fleet.
And yeah, I do hope to see AI engaging more. There are situations one must fight. At the very least, when their homeworld is attacked. Now all AI looked like a wuss when they just run no matter what.

 

[hart30]

I made a suggestion to give control over all allied empires fleets during war to a singl war ai instead of having several war ai doing their own thing, unable to properly work together. This would improve federations and defensive pact wars significantly, because a single war ai would be able to calculate combined fleet strength.