What do YOU want from the AI?

[Kougar]

I'll preface by acknowledging the new 2.2 economy is far more intricate & complex than the typical 2-D econ of many strategy games including Supreme Commander. That being said... the Sorian AI mod was proof of what some investment by a single dev could really do with an AI. It didn't require cheats, omniscience, or exploits to wreak havoc, especially if left to its own devices for too long. It knew how to scout, how to fast-expand, and had the ability to decide when to tech up versus build wide in order to spam units. It could even try to decide whether to focus on land, air, or sea tech based on its starting location.

It featured multiple optimized build strats and tactics to employ, and would keep scouting and constantly securing map resources to ever increase the army and support bases it could field. It exploited the hell of of the multi-tasking capabilities of a computer back when dual-core was still common. It was programmed to deal with players turtling in their shield bubble bases which was incredible fun.

Ten years on strategy game AI doesn't even work on launch-day game versions, let alone employ optimized econ builds or any sort of variable tactics. A game with the economic complexities of Stellaris needs time to have its AI optimized far more than something like SupCom with its 2D economics. But it also needs variability to change things up, because as it is the AI can't do anything with "advanced start" disabled even with scaling cheats enabled and it is eminently predictable. I don't even build a navy anymore until an AI telegraphs its intentions by beginning to claim systems.

Speaking of tactics and strategies, Stellaris AI doesn't even target mega-structure systems or shipyards during war. Or it attacks planets when it doesn't have troops. The AI doesn't seem to have any plan whatsoever even in warfare and it really, really needs some. Dyson spheres and mattter decompressor systems should be the first thing to capture. (But even if it captures them, the awakened empire AI won't use them to build replacement ships.I gave it two in-game years and it never rebuilt its own fleet)

 

[Patrocious]

Another example of a very competent AI is the otherwise rather mediocre game "Pandora: First Contact". Iirc it's the only AI I ever lost to without handicapping myself. It usually gets criticized for its seemingly erratic diplomacy but in fact its very predictable. It just doesn't roleplay and pretends to rule an empire, it just aims to win a game of Pandora. This means out of seven starting factions there are probably 3 left by midgame...

While I actually don't like the no roleplay approach, it shows that the AI has an idea of who to attack, who to stay away of and when to backstab. Like so many decent AIs this one was scripted by an external modder but then implemented into the game by the original devs. Maybe Paradox could go this way to?

 

[OwlOfSpace]

I don't necessary want it to be super efficient but give me some challenge.

I think AI having some 'templates' would be great instead of trying to make it decide which is best decision in shortest term (like making a dozen Precinct House to fight crime atm instead of venturing to make more jobs), like ship weapon types, starbase modules, planet specification, etc.

They could even tie it with AI behavior depending on their Civic and relationships with other Empires. (EX Militaric AI uses ship templates that are high DPS, builds fortress worlds with lots of military presence, Pacifist AI upgrades starbase to be used defensively etc)

 

[AlanC9]

Maybe start with some of the more blatant bugs. I just won a war with an AI that had a fleet twice as strong as mine, because its main fleet simply sat at its capital for the entire war. Sometimes AI fleets simply never get any orders. I'd love to know what's going on there. Not a new problem; I've been seeing this since at least 2.0 if not before.

 

[Kougar]

Definitely agree. Basic but optimized templates for econ, warfare, or whatever the specific AI is supposed to specialize in are a must. The Sorian AI picked from various templates after it decided upon what it wanted to do (fast tech vs unit rush vs balanced). Relic deliberately programmed its CoH AI to use more optimized base build starts, with a more aggressive and 100% optimized techup strategy on the highest difficulty setting. Neither one needed cheats to have an advantage over a human player.

I'd almost wonder what OpenAI could do with Stellaris. Building an econ and a fleet is a lot more straightforward than Dota 2. If Paradox doesn't want to invest time in its AI then maybe they can hire OpenAI to teach one tuned for each type of empire ethics. Best of all they won't need cheats to be a formidable (or entertaining) opponents.

 

[Shadowstrike]

Perhaps a smaller point, but I'd like to see the AI use its construction ships more intelligently. It feels like the AI has a queue of priorities, and then sends the first available construction ship to deal with the top priority, regardless of where in the galaxy it is. It then spends years flying across their empire getting there, and then ping-ponging back to the other side again - essentially spending 90% of their time in transit. Now small nations don't have this issue, because they don't have that much space to begin with, but larger ones have a hell of a time recovering because of this (I've managed to snipe tons of valuable systems after the Khan or the Grey Tempest by doing this). What it really should do is learn to deploy one construction ship to each area, possibly with an extra few in reserve in the center, and send orders to the closest construction ship that doesn't have more than a few items queued up, then deploy additional construction ships to an area if there is a particular motivation to do so (i.e. expanding into empty space).

 

[Todie]

Good input guys!

Some reactions from stellaris-ai-modder perspective:

I'll preface by acknowledging the new 2.2 economy is far more intricate & complex than the typical 2-D econ of many strategy games [...]

[...]A game with the economic complexities of Stellaris needs time to have its AI optimized far more than something like SupCom with its 2D economics. But it also needs variability to change things up, because as it is the AI can't do anything with "advanced start" disabled even with scaling cheats enabled and it is eminently predictable. I don't even build a navy anymore until an AI telegraphs its intentions by beginning to claim systems.

Good points! There are a lot of variables at play in strllaris. It takes time and work to get somwhere goo with AI behaviour- and a good anount of creativity to personalize it alongside that.
.... but a lot more of the tools are in place after 2.2x

I don't necessary want it to be super efficient but give me some challenge.

I think AI having some 'templates' would be great instead of trying to make it decide which is best decision in shortest term [...]

They could even tie it with AI behavior depending on their Civic and relationships with other Empires. (EX Militaric AI uses ship templates that are high DPS, builds fortress worlds with lots of military presence, Pacifist AI upgrades starbase to be used defensively etc)

These are things we do in AI mods, by way of using layers of weighting circumstances/parameters in spending priorities as well as budgeting (now improved in 2.2, especially the latter)

There are ai-personality lables to work with for the template approach, but at this moment in time its kind of hard to decide to focus on differntiating - because there is so much to do with optimizing.

...Idk how much of this goes on in the deep AI ’modules’ beneath the weighting scripts, but the vanilla weighting-scripts themselves are mostly very onedimensional.

Maybe start with some of the more blatant bugs. I just won a war with an AI that had a fleet twice as strong as mine, because its main fleet simply sat at its capital for the entire war. Sometimes AI fleets simply never get any orders. I'd love to know what's going on there. Not a new problem; I've been seeing this since at least 2.0 if not before.

There may be bugs involved, but the core of this is a very simple oversight in the defines file; the AI has such cautious wartime fleet-priorities ; if its not confident in active action, it will just defend....

This is significantly improved by tweaking those weights (in ai mods)

(I suspect this is a leftover from early patches where losing space battles was do or die (or dont) )

Perhaps a smaller point, but I'd like to see the AI use its construction ships more intelligently. It feels like the AI has a queue of priorities, and then sends the first available construction ship to deal with the top priority, regardless of where in the galaxy it is. It then spends years flying across their empire getting there, and then ping-ponging back to the other side again - essentially spending 90% of their time in transit. Now small nations don't have this issue, because they don't have that much space to begin with, but larger ones have a hell of a time recovering because of this (I've managed to snipe tons of valuable systems after the Khan or the Grey Tempest by doing this). What it really should do is learn to deploy one construction ship to each area, possibly with an extra few in reserve in the center, and send orders to the closest construction ship that doesn't have more than a few items queued up, then deploy additional construction ships to an area if there is a particular motivation to do so (i.e. expanding into empty space).

Very true. Not something easily modded though. Unless sector ai can be used, again.

 

[OwlOfSpace]

Good input guys!

Some reactions from stellaris-ai-modder perspective:

These are things we do in AI mods, by way of using layers of weighting circumstances/parameters in spending priorities as well as budgeting (now improved in 2.2, especially the latter)

There are ai-personality lables to work with for the template approach, but at this moment in time its kind of hard to decide to focus on differntiating - because there is so much to do with optimizing.

...Idk how much of this goes on in the deep AI ’modules’ beneath the weighting scripts, but the vanilla weighting-scripts themselves are mostly very onedimensional.

Great to hear my idea is already being worked on by someone who knows how to make mods!

May I have link to your mod?

 

[Todie]

Great to hear my idea is already being worked on by someone who knows how to make mods!

May I have link to your mod?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1371727481

 

[monkeypunch87]

I don't need to see every AI-empire trying to seek victory, I would like to see more roleplaying behaviour in my playthroughs. There is not enough difference and specialisation between every one of them for my taste.

 

[Spacemadnesss]

There is a lot of stuff to be done to make the AI functional so my contribution to this thread is very low priority stuff.

I'd like the AI to have a deeper personality and empires to be affected in a meaningful way due to outside forces/events. It shouldn't be insulting me when their empire lost two wars they started. I'd like the AI (and the player, based on ethics/civics) to suffer serious internal problems (civil unrest, faction warring) when their civilization is failing to live up to its promise/ideals.

When a warlike imperialist lizard god king fails to bring the pacifist farmer slugs to heel twice in a row I feel there should be some consequences. Unrest should go up on ALL planets if a war is lost for ANY reason but civilizations that specialize in war (militarists, devouring swarm) should especially suffer for this. A people losing their sons and daughters in fruitless wars over and over again shouldn't just cause -10% unhappyness for X years after the latest failed campaign, it should bring a terrible cost culminating in revolution if it isn't forestalled (at the cost of serious resources).

A fanatic materialist technocracy being overshadowed by those self same farmer slugs on their border? They shouldn't just lose 30% happyness on one faction, the effects should be much more impactful.

 

[Silens]

First and foremost the AI should stop its blatant cheating. I understand that it needs some form of help, as it can't manage the economy like a human can. Still, it is kind of frustrating. The AI isn't using it just to keep up and to be a challenge (that I wouldn't mind so much), but to surpass me in economy and fleet power.

In my current game I'm just 45 years in, but my rival is Superior to me. How? Well, here are his market deals: he bought 29200 minerals, 27000 food, 12950 alloys and 13850 consumer good - all for free. No wonder he can afford 8 starbases and nearly 70 corvettes. With just one planet.

Why should I play by the rules when all of my opponents don't? Should I start cheating too, just to keep up?

So I can only voice my wish for a better (that means fair) AI. It doesn't need to be perfect, but at least it shouldn't violate the rules of the game.

 

[Todie]

Good points about war consequenes, ethics and factions.

I dont think those things are all that far off honestly @Spacemadnesss . I think a key reason for not fleshing out & increasing war-loss penalties has been the proclivity for AI empires to spontanously implode to starvation and energy shortages that they couldnt efficiently stave off with only constrained bilateral trades - those are much less of an issue now because of the new market mechanics.

IIRC , its not all that complicated to mod in additional / scaling faction issues / additional war consequences that resemblele humiliation-loss (but of various varieties ; extra for pacifists for declined peace treaties for example, and reduction or part reversal of usual ethics bonuses, like less extra influence from factions for egalitarians...

This is the sort of thing i want to get to , pretty soon. but as you point out, other things come first; need to make the AI economic priorities and budgeting more flexible and dynamic first, else penalties will just cement their passivity.

 

[Todie]

@Silens thats the first i hear of AI market-cheats. What difficulty are you playing at and how did youget data on those trades?

If no cheats is your priority for now, play on ensign difficulty with an AI mod.

 

[JangoBunBun]

1- I want the problem with stuck fleets and stuck armies ships fixed, no more endless bombardment while AI armies are stuck far away or AI dont even try rebuild armies lost in war.
2- I want that AI become capable of manage the economy of their empire, in current version they are clearly incompetent in this aspect.
3- I want that AI become capable of use all game features, for example, when campaings (energy edicts) was introduced AIs never used campaigns, I dont known if in currently version AIs learned how use campaigns, but I think that every feature implemented in game shoud mean that AI was coded to use that feature, otherwise the player power creep will be inevitable in long term.
4- More depth for AI personalities, even if it mean that AIs choose non-optimal decisions based in their personalities.
5- A toogle for disable fallen empire decadence, independent of difficulty level.

I agree on all points, but I want to add that I want the AI to be able to prioritize tech both in accordance with their personality and their current situation. I want materialist empires to more readily pursue robots and synths, while fanatic spiritualists will all but ignore them. If they're behind on their military they should try to rectify that, unless they're a pacifist.

 

[Something_89]

In my current playthrough my neighbouring military junta lost a war against my federation, in the peace settlement my empire got two thirds of their systems (in the form of a vassal which I later integrated), including almost all of their planets and starbases (which were managed so badly I understood why they lost), they were left only with their Capitol, and a couple of scattered outposts I didn't bother to take during the war. Being a Crusader Kings 2 player, I fully expected their remaining systems to quickly get consumed by the surrounding empires, most of which hated them, but they just sat watching. In CK2 pretty much every existential threat is accompanied by claims and rebellions appearing from all directions. So maybe this is something that could be looked at, AI could be more opportunistic.

 

[Silens]

@Silens thats the first i hear of AI market-cheats. What difficulty are you playing at and how did youget data on those trades?

If no cheats is your priority for now, play on ensign difficulty with an AI mod.

I was testing a new race and wanted a nice, quick and unexcited game, so I played on Captain. But what I got was a nasty rival that surpassed me in everything but tech. So I looked him up by jumping into him via console, where I could see his market data.

It's not new that the AI uses the market free of costs, but the extent is rather painful. Now I can manage to hold him off, but it makes things harder than they should be.

As I said, my problem is not that the AI cheats to keep up, but that it does more than just that. Therefore the goal should be to make the AI capable of playing the game without it breaking any rules. That's my answer to the question "What do YOU want from the AI?".

 

[EvilTom]

I would just want it to be able to do the economy first. This can be based around templates or models, which are in turn based around the civics or ethics. I'm sure these weightings were part of the game once.

The research and military would rise as a consequence of a better managed economy, but you could further improve this on a later date... but deffo manage the economy better first!

 

[SirL]

First and foremost the AI should stop its blatant cheating. I understand that it needs some form of help, as it can't manage the economy like a human can. Still, it is kind of frustrating. The AI isn't using it just to keep up and to be a challenge (that I wouldn't mind so much), but to surpass me in economy and fleet power.

In my current game I'm just 45 years in, but my rival is Superior to me. How? Well, here are his market deals: he bought 29200 minerals, 27000 food, 12950 alloys and 13850 consumer good - all for free. No wonder he can afford 8 starbases and nearly 70 corvettes. With just one planet.

Why should I play by the rules when all of my opponents don't? Should I start cheating too, just to keep up?

So I can only voice my wish for a better (that means fair) AI. It doesn't need to be perfect, but at least it shouldn't violate the rules of the game.

This! Playing at lower difficulty is not fun, because ai doesn't cheat as much it seems (still cheats though), on higher difficulties it's just too much. Having hundreds of corvettes with 2 planets, 10 years into the game, are you kidding me? And he just stays with 2/3 of his fleet in his home system for the entirety of the war... I want a fair competitive AI until commodore, then it can cheat all it wants, just mention it on difficulty settings. Also there are no AI personalities. Had a devouring overwhelming swarm from start, was overwhelming for 100 years and never declared on me, while I got my big fleet of 3 starting corvettes.
At this point I just want it to do something. Not just sit around

 

[Fireflycat]

To program the AI to provide a decent challenge and actually use all areas of the game.
Some people may scoff at that phrase but I'm not saying make it smarter than a human or be impossible to defeat. This is well within the realm of possibility.
It just bugs me when people defend a bad AI saying it can't be made better.

When MegaCorp was released the AI couldn't even move it's fleets during war. Somehow this was broken and not fixed. THat shows you how bad it is currently. also max fleet power it would have was 4k.

I know the Glanuis mod Author made a pretty good AI. In order to teach it to use the economy he had to use (i think) a serious of pop up events to the AI.
The AI actually uses fleets, does a well job at managing an economy and can effectively build multiple 22k size fleets. This mod was able to make a better AI than the developers and fix it in less the time. Surely it can't be that hard to have the developers work on it if some modder boi can do it.
And this is on captain difficulty..