What do YOU want from the AI?

[Slynx]

realistic expectations?

1)it must be competitive. that means a player should be challenged by playing against it. even if it will be achieved through cheating like in other games (free armies\ships\buildings\resources from time to time. maybe some bonuses to yields and etc.). because right now without AI improving mods it's too dumb even on the highest difficulty...so by the mid game it possess no threat
2)even if AI is cheating it mustn't be that obvious. for example if you'll conquer it you mustn't find out that his empire was surviving only cuz AI was getting all those bonuses and free stuff. it should be at least working on a basic level on it's own
3)since it's hard to expect that ai will learn to play tactical, some counter-play to the player's actions would've been nice. like building the designs to counter player's fleet. or befriending someone to crush the common enemy...

 

[Amyntas]

My wants are pretty minor. I would be content if it would build actual fleets so the game is challenging. That's all. If it did that, the game might actually have some challenge to it.

Bonus points if it actually declares war.

 

[Spaceception]

Here's what I'd like to see from the Dev's - maybe in a dedicated update after the Quality of life patch (Not a DLC, just another update)

• AI's should have templates based on empire type/ethics, this will determine how they act over the course of the game. If they don't like building big fleets (Pacifists), this should be overridden in the event of a mid/end-game crisis until it's over.
• These templates should also affect diplomacy, and how they manage their empires. And they should have different behavior depending on whether they're at war or at peace. If they're at war, they should build up ships, energy, alloys when possible, and if they need it, anchorage's where possible. This could also affect research - where they focus on getting bigger ships, and better weapons. If they're at peace, they should focus on building up unity, and tech, and balancing an economy. Possibly rebalancing from a war even. Pacifist Isolationists could be tall, Hegemonic Imperialists could be wide, and so on. With various rules in between.
  
• They should update ship templates when possible so they have countered ships against the enemy (they should continue fighting instead of endlessly upgrading though). To prevent an upgrade spiral, it could be capped at 5 separate ship upgrades. FE/AE and Crisis ships are obviously exempt from upgrading fleet templates.
  
• Having separate fleets, and even ships for patrols vs. main fleets.
  
• I'm okay with them having a cheat sheet to manage their economy - as said earlier in the thread. And they don't need highly specialized worlds, at least a balanced economy that's capable of competing with the player. There could, however, be a rule that they have at least 1 refinery world so they can upgrade their buildings.
• Using the market. In all of my games, the AI has never, or seems to never use it. I see that's different for some of you, but they should be using it more.
• Lining up their fleets near a border, and building more troops before a war. Like players do.
• Depending on their position in the galaxy, they should be competitive with other empires. If they're close to you, they should focus on you, if they're close to a hostile empire, or the empire with the highest negative opinion, they should be competitive with them.
• AI's should seek mutually beneficial deals between themselves, and with you. Even if they don't like you (This could only happen if there's a fanatic purifier nearby, similar to how everyone suddenly becomes friends in a crisis). And especially if it helps them. Like Isolationists seeking defensive pacts and non-aggression pacts so they're left alone, or have help if they need it.
• On specialized planets however, the AI could prioritize colonizing planets with a high amount of base districts/max districts. Like they could prioritize a size 17 world with 12 generator districts over a potential rural world of the same size. They should still build as needed, but it could be possible for them to make Mining/Agri/Generator/Rural worlds at least.

I think that's all I have for ideas right now.

 

[ASPGolan]

My expectations from the AI are not that high (and they're generic to all Paradox game): it should be capable of playing the same game as we do at the very least, it shouldn't make glaring, obvious STRATEGIC mistakes (since these are still strategy games, hopefully). At the end of the day, I don't really want a truly harsh AI opponent, I just don't want one that breaks imersion.

At a minimum, the AI should be capable of:

• exploiting the most basic gameplay mechanics in a way that doesn't sabotage its chances;
• executing basic strategic plans to develop, grow, expand and to deal with hostile acts;
• reacting to players moves (and other AI opponents for that matter) without cheating;
• having enough initiative to keep the game interesting (star believable wars, form meaningful alliances).

In the specific case of Stellaris, the AI should be able to:

• properly manage planets, sectors, stations in order to keep a healthy economy (so that the AI doesn't need to cheat to keep up with the player);
• use the tools required to understand what's going on (through gameplay mechanics like exploration and others, not cheating);
• execute scenarios that allow it to expand its stellar empire at a rate similar to the player (using legit gameplay mechanics);
• form effective coalitions to preserve its interests and be able to defend against larger factions, potentially dangerous (to some degree);

 

[pmchem]

My expectations from the AI are not that high (and they're generic to all Paradox game): it should be capable of playing the same game as we do at the very least, it shouldn't make glaring, obvious STRATEGIC mistakes (since these are still strategy games, hopefully). At the end of the day, I don't really want a truly harsh AI opponent, I just don't want one that breaks imersion.

At a minimum, the AI should be capable of:

• exploiting the most basic gameplay mechanics in a way that doesn't sabotage its chances;
• executing basic strategic plans to develop, grow, expand and to deal with hostile acts;
• reacting to players moves (and other AI opponents for that matter) without cheating;
• having enough initiative to keep the game interesting (star believable wars, form meaningful alliances).

In the specific case of Stellaris, the AI should be able to:

• properly manage planets, sectors, stations in order to keep a healthy economy (so that the AI doesn't need to cheat to keep up with the player);
• use the tools required to understand what's going on (through gameplay mechanics like exploration and others, not cheating);
• execute scenarios that allow it to expand its stellar empire at a rate similar to the player (using legit gameplay mechanics);
• form effective coalitions to preserve its interests and be able to defend against larger factions, potentially dangerous (to some degree);

Basic, simple expectations yet they seem light-years away from 2.2.2.

 

[Star Foth]

Sustainability and something you can conquer without having to raze or go to extreme measures to fix.
I just want to be able to come out of a war with more than I went in with if I win, not -300 deficits in every category and planets filled with unstaffed commercial districts and an inordinate amount of starving clerks that live in abject poverty.

 

[Nakkivene]

It would be a start if it would stop building resource silos on planets right from the get-go and if it would ever upgrade it's buildings and ships.

 

[Slynx]

It would be a start if it would stop building resource silos on planets right from the get-go and if it would ever upgrade it's buildings and ships.

while not effective resource silos provide more resource cap and clerks. which are awesome for energy\cg (though I've never seen AI build silos in my games)
as for upgraded buildings - they are not needed. and may be harmful if you have no source of rare resources.

 

[nuyu]

Funny AI, Revenge AI, Emo AI, Stressed AI, Macho AI.
Attitudes that based on their ethic and traits.

 

[Delta_Force]

I think most people already said this so I am going to make it "quick".

I want the AI to be competent at playing the game, it should not fail thr very basics such as management of their economy, fleet positioning and movement or target prioritization, furthermore it should be able to create their own ship designs to counter their main foes, just as the human player does.
What I would also like to see: different difficulty settings. Right now they simply provide artificial / cheated values for the AI, I really don't like that because it does not fix it's problems, it's more of a bandaid type of fix. In early ge the AI simply steamrolls you because they got better numbers without doing anything for it, later on they become the same push-over that they are on lower difficulties. I am not exactly suee what could be changed but maybe with each difficulty step the AI could become more intelligent in their actions or something like that.
Programming an AI is probably really hard and time consuming but can make the difference between a good and a bad game so I hope the Devs are going to dedicate their time from now on to fixes for the AI since with that (and the performance) fixed Stellaris is probably one of the best strategy games I ever played.

 

[sortulv]

- Maintaining a working economy.
- Some planning - like start planning for war, and moving the fleet to the border before declaring.
- Differenciating between militaristic (lots of starships) and pacifist, few starships.

 

[gareaap]

my major problem is their priorities.

1. In my last game on the latest hotfix my allies had army fleets of 7k in a period where the planets they where taking had at most 400 for capital planets, but most random planets didn't have more then 200 defence (The only thing that can justify this is the planets of the FE/AE that can get up to around 5k defence army) while their actual fleets where weaker then 7k.
2. I don't know if this is AI but i guess it is a part of it but in my last 4 games i got the prethoryn scourge 3 times. (Unbidden once but that spawned literally in the system next to my capital so that got wiped out in less then 3 months so can't talk about that really)The prethoryn scourge is next to useless and i think that mostly has to do with bad build/army/fleet movements. They push their vanguard on the frontline even after the main body arrives while keeping the large fresh new stacks at the back in systems that can never be reached without beating it completely. This ends the event the same everytime i can easily beat the aggresive small stacks and then just reinforce my position to go for the kill by killing the big fleets one by one without suffering big loses (This is when i dont get help by a AE that just dumps its fleets into the scourge and ends up killing itself).
3. AE empires dont rebuild fleets(and if they do i don't notice it) this comes back to point 2 but it goes deeper(atleast in my games) they can either kill themselves on the end game crisis where you just come in after they kill themselves on that or you can zerg rush them with your stack while you keep rebuilding and the AI doesnt
4. Why am i seeing dozens of empty habitats in AI empires while their fleet isnt growing couldn't those alloys be better used for fleet power? Why are they building them in the first place if they are not going to colonize them. I could see the value if they literally have 12 habitats filled up with pops but they dont even colonize them they just waste the alloys.
5. More alloy waste: Endless gateways spam in AE territory. Why do AE decide its more important to have a gateway in every system instead of growing their size or their fleets?

In short my problem with the AI is their priorities. I understand that the AI will (hopefully) never be smarter then me what i dont understand that these obvious things aren't seen and fixed. I think a big part of the weakness of the AI is their economy.

If they didn't stream their devclashes i would almost say the devs don't play their own game but i they do so I know that's not the problem. It does make me wonder how much they play singleplayer though because the 5 points i name are just things i clearly remember on top of my head and i'm pretty sure i could find more if i wrote them down while playing the game.

English isn't my first language if you have questions do please ask me