what in the hell is wrong with the AI? 3.1.2 (Lem)

[FreeasaCrusader]

The AI HATES Admin buildings, destroys them in favor of Nothing, or Labs and or foundries

The AI DOES NOT build buildings that reduce crime or make the population happier

The AI Refuses to respect the Admin cap. if the admin ISN'T in the red by at least 30 or 40 over the cap, and the economy doesn't have some kind of negative attached to it screwing up the gains the AI isn't happy.

The AI regardless of government type, all acts the same. i observe and look at each of the empires and they're all basically doing the same thing, spamming labs and foundries, not an admin building in sight.

Okay this one isn't really an AI thing but,
Why do you start with 4 unemployed pops? when you didn't before, and the Pop growth speed seems to have been jack up. like i build two new districts to give those unemployed pops jobs, and once they're done...i have four more unemployed pops, i just can't keep up with the pop growth, so i build and build and now i'm out of space on the planet and now i have 5 unemployed pops wtf? this was not an issue before, like yeah eventually the pops would become unemployed but i'd have another planet for them to go to at that point. now it just seems like every time a new pop is made two pops appear. and god help you if you have any traits the INCREASE pop growth speed. Geeze man! this needs fixing something fierce, like wtf am i supposed to do with this?

 

[Ryika]

Okay this one isn't really an AI thing but,
Why do you start with 4 unemployed pops? when you didn't before, and the Pop growth speed seems to have been jack up. like i build two new districts to give those unemployed pops jobs, and once they're done...i have four more unemployed pops, i just can't keep up with the pop growth, so i build and build and now i'm out of space on the planet and now i have 5 unemployed pops wtf? this was not an issue before, like yeah eventually the pops would become unemployed but i'd have another planet for them to go to at that point. now it just seems like every time a new pop is made two pops appear. and god help you if you have any traits the INCREASE pop growth speed. Geeze man! this needs fixing something fierce, like wtf am i supposed to do with this?

Sounds like you're either playing with mods, or the Clone Soldier Origin while not handling your ancient clone vats properly. This certainly isn't standard behavior.

The AI is indeed pretty bad at managing its planets though.

 

[Zoomy]

The AI DOES NOT build buildings that reduce crime

Makes a nice change, now maybe criminal Megacorps will have a shot in singleplayer.

 

[MrFreake_PDX]

Why do you start with 4 unemployed pops?

There are no vanilla starts that start with unemployed pops, that I am aware of. Are you using mods?

The AI Refuses to respect the Admin cap. if the admin ISN'T in the red by at least 30 or 40 over the cap, and the economy doesn't have some kind of negative attached to it screwing up the gains the AI isn't happy.

Tbh, 30 or 40 over admin cap is fine. I'm pretty sure these things were relaxed for Lem, as the AI doesn't need to build a full-on Bureaucrat building when it is 1 over the admin cap, as the penalties aren't really impactful at that point. I think the AI also overbuilds its fleet cap a little now during wars.

The AI HATES Admin buildings, destroys them in favor of Nothing, or Labs and or foundries

I'm 60% sure that the AI does build holotheatres in vanilla. At least, I remember some talk about this.

I'm not a dev, but I know that AI is a complicated issue with many moving parts that we're continuing to iterate on. You also want to be cautious about using mods and judging the AI, as mods can often change the weights of buildings, jobs, etc. that the AI was not designed to handle, also if they wind up overwriting vanilla files they can lose improvements we make on the AI if the vanilla files don't get updated.

If you're not using mods, please do file a bug report. This kind of feedback from an unmodded playthrough is helpful to us!

 

[Dragatus]

The AI HATES Admin buildings, destroys them in favor of Nothing, or Labs and or foundries

The AI DOES NOT build buildings that reduce crime or make the population happier

The AI Refuses to respect the Admin cap. if the admin ISN'T in the red by at least 30 or 40 over the cap, and the economy doesn't have some kind of negative attached to it screwing up the gains the AI isn't happy.

The AI regardless of government type, all acts the same. i observe and look at each of the empires and they're all basically doing the same thing, spamming labs and foundries, not an admin building in sight.

Okay this one isn't really an AI thing but,
Why do you start with 4 unemployed pops? when you didn't before, and the Pop growth speed seems to have been jack up. like i build two new districts to give those unemployed pops jobs, and once they're done...i have four more unemployed pops, i just can't keep up with the pop growth, so i build and build and now i'm out of space on the planet and now i have 5 unemployed pops wtf? this was not an issue before, like yeah eventually the pops would become unemployed but i'd have another planet for them to go to at that point. now it just seems like every time a new pop is made two pops appear. and god help you if you have any traits the INCREASE pop growth speed. Geeze man! this needs fixing something fierce, like wtf am i supposed to do with this?

1. The AI is scripted to destroy upgraded admin buildings if it has a deficit of Rare Crystals and it can't pay the upkeep. It will not destroy the basic building though.

2. That is incorrect. I've seen the AI build several.

3. The AI is scripted to try to be no more than 10% over the admin cap.

I am curious though about the AI spamming labs. I haven't seen that in my observer games. What difficulty did you run the game at and did you use any mods that could influence the AI?

 

[Dragatus]

Tbh, 30 or 40 over admin cap is fine. I'm pretty sure these things were relaxed for Lem, as the AI doesn't need to build a full-on Bureaucrat building when it is 1 over the admin cap, as the penalties aren't really impactful at that point. I think the AI also overbuilds its fleet cap a little now during wars.

How much is fine depends on context. In the early game it's fine to go way more than 10% over the limit, but late game less than 10% can already be punishing. The thing is that the penalty you get for being over the limit depends on the absolute value of how much you're past the limit instead of on the relative value.

In plainer English, being at 200 sprawl when you have 100 admin cap gives you the same penalty as being at 1100 sprawl when you have 1000 admin cap because in both cases you are 100 points over the cap.

But if the AI is going to use just one target value, I guess 10% over is decent-ish.

I'm 60% sure that the AI does build holotheatres in vanilla. At least, I remember some talk about this.

I ran multiple observer games and at least on Ensign difficuly I wasn't able to find a single AI planet with a Holo-Theater. Spiritualists did build Temples though.

 

[A2ch0n]

The AI DOES NOT build buildings that reduce crime or make the population happier

Makes a nice change, now maybe criminal Megacorps will have a shot in singleplayer.

My first run in Lem was a syndicate. And i guarantee(!) the AI do build precinct houses over and over. I abortet my run after midgame because it was impossible to keep a branch office as soon the judgement hall tech showed up in the respektive empires. Even with full 4 crim buildings it's impossible to counter a single judgement hall.
So, syndicates need still a buff... a huge one...

 

[Ryika]

But if the AI is going to use just one target value, I guess 10% over is decent-ish.

Funnily enough, the system is not limited to one target value.

In 3.0, we had...
empire_size = 1.25
...for the early game, and...
empire_size = 1.0
...for most of the game, and then...
empire_size = 1.5
...for the very late game where the AI essentially decides that it has enough technology and just goes heavy on alloys.

While not perfect, this system at least tried to get the AI to do what's sensible, largely ignore the admin cap early on and then make sure to never go over it, because it's SUPERinefficient due to the way it scales.

Then in 3.1 they've decided to merge the economic plans into one, ditch a lot of the nuances and go with a system that, on paper at least, looks much worse.
Now the AI just does the wrong thing at every stage of the game.

No idea why that decision was made.

 

[FreeasaCrusader]

Sounds like you're either playing with mods, or the Clone Soldier Origin while not handling your ancient clone vats properly. This certainly isn't standard behavior.

The AI is indeed pretty bad at managing its planets though.

Yeah i have a few mods, but these issues only appeared after the update. and all my mods are up to date. i haven't downloaded any new ones.

 

[FreeasaCrusader]

1. The AI is scripted to destroy upgraded admin buildings if it has a deficit of Rare Crystals and it can't pay the upkeep. It will not destroy the basic building though.

2. That is incorrect. I've seen the AI build several.

3. The AI is scripted to try to be no more than 10% over the admin cap.

I am curious though about the AI spamming labs. I haven't seen that in my observer games. What difficulty did you run the game at and did you use any mods that could influence the AI?

The AI does take out un upgraded admin building, when i set the empire to AI the FIRST thing they do is destroy any buildings that aren't labs or foundries or rare resource producing factories. then they begin to spam labs and foundries. I'll....TRY and play unmodded to see if anything is different.

 

[HFY]

Yeah i have a few mods, but these issues only appeared after the update. and all my mods are up to date. i haven't downloaded any new ones.

Some buildings changed meaning, or changed restriction (i.e. alloys foundry is 1 per planet) so your mods may be doing the same thing as before, but now that thing is wrong and you have unemployed pops.

 

[Scyobi_Empire]

For me, the AI has got better.

A DS took out 3 empires while in 3.0 a DS was taken out by any empire without player intervention.

Far too many Civilian Buildings though....

 

[blahmaster6k]

OP is complaining about the AI doing things that a player would do? AKA spam science labs and alloy buildings?

I hope this is sarcasm, because this is exactly what many people have wanted from the AI for years.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Yeah i have a few mods, but these issues only appeared after the update. and all my mods are up to date. i haven't downloaded any new ones.

Please ensure all your mods have been fully updated for 3.1 prior to logging any issues you encounter. There's been a lot of changes behinds the scenes that aren't immediately obvious when playing, but will cause issues with a wide variety of game systems if your mods are not updated (and tested for the latest version).

Disclaimer out of the way, I'll reply to the following assuming an unmodded, vanilla game.

The AI HATES Admin buildings, destroys them in favor of Nothing, or Labs and or foundries

The AI DOES NOT build buildings that reduce crime or make the population happier

The AI Refuses to respect the Admin cap. if the admin ISN'T in the red by at least 30 or 40 over the cap, and the economy doesn't have some kind of negative attached to it screwing up the gains the AI isn't happy.

The AI is allowed to exceed their admin cap by 10% before it focuses on providing more jobs that will increase the cap - after all it's a soft cap and exceeding it is behaviour we'd also expect from players from time to time.

If, in an unmodded game, the AI is not dealing with crime or happiness - please file a bug report with the save attached and it'll be forwarded to our AI strike team.

Why do you start with 4 unemployed pops? when you didn't before, and the Pop growth speed seems to have been jack up. like i build two new districts to give those unemployed pops jobs, and once they're done...i have four more unemployed pops, i just can't keep up with the pop growth, so i build and build and now i'm out of space on the planet and now i have 5 unemployed pops wtf? this was not an issue before, like yeah eventually the pops would become unemployed but i'd have another planet for them to go to at that point. now it just seems like every time a new pop is made two pops appear. and god help you if you have any traits the INCREASE pop growth speed. Geeze man! this needs fixing something fierce, like wtf am i supposed to do with this?

Under no circumstances should you start with any pops unemployed, if in an unmodded game you are - please file a bug report with the save attached and it'll be looked at.

The AI does take out un upgraded admin building, when i set the empire to AI the FIRST thing they do is destroy any buildings that aren't labs or foundries or rare resource producing factories. then they begin to spam labs and foundries. I'll....TRY and play unmodded to see if anything is different.

I've never seen the AI destroying buildings in all my AI testing - if you're able to reproduce this please let me know how and under which circumstances that AI behaved like this.

Funnily enough, the system is not limited to one target value.

In 3.0, we had...
empire_size = 1.25
...for the early game, and...
empire_size = 1.0
...for most of the game, and then...
empire_size = 1.5
...for the very late game where the AI essentially decides that it has enough technology and just goes heavy on alloys.

While not perfect, this system at least tried to get the AI to do what's sensible, largely ignore the admin cap early on and then make sure to never go over it, because it's SUPERinefficient due to the way it scales.

Then in 3.1 they've decided to merge the economic plans into one, ditch a lot of the nuances and go with a system that, on paper at least, looks much worse.
Now the AI just does the wrong thing at every stage of the game.

No idea why that decision was made.

The reasoning for changing the economic plans for the AI was previously it used a system depending on the galaxy date to decide what to focus on, which didn't work how we wanted and ended up with several edge cases where it was functionally worse off. We've instead moved to a system where the AI's priorities depend on their current resource income (which has the nice side effect of higher difficulty setting AIs can snowball faster).

 

[Nevars]

We've instead moved to a system where the AI's priorities depend on their current resource income

Then could we have system that change target value depending on amount of sprawl the empire has instead of being static throughout the game.

Because it seem like people claimed that the higher the sprawl is the smaller that it should be exceed admin cap.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Then could we have system that change target value depending on amount of sprawl the empire has instead of being static throughout the game.

Because it seem like people claimed that the higher the sprawl is the smaller that it should be exceed admin cap.

Yeah, that's something we're considering, but didn't have the time for 3.1

 

[Ryika]

The reasoning for changing the economic plans for the AI was previously it used a system depending on the galaxy date to decide what to focus on, which didn't work how we wanted and ended up with several edge cases where it was functionally worse off. We've instead moved to a system where the AI's priorities depend on their current resource income (which has the nice side effect of higher difficulty setting AIs can snowball faster).

That explains the why then, thank you for the explanation.

I think the way the admin cap is implemented is still very bad though, because being 10% over cap in the later half of the game is an immense waste of research, and early on, it's arguably too strict. If possible, I would argue that the admin cap setting should be implemented into the sub plans, similar to how different values were implemented into the different plans in 3.0.

 

[Jaxck]

Funnily enough, the system is not limited to one target value.

In 3.0, we had...
empire_size = 1.25
...for the early game, and...
empire_size = 1.0
...for most of the game, and then...
empire_size = 1.5
...for the very late game where the AI essentially decides that it has enough technology and just goes heavy on alloys.

While not perfect, this system at least tried to get the AI to do what's sensible, largely ignore the admin cap early on and then make sure to never go over it, because it's SUPERinefficient due to the way it scales.

Then in 3.1 they've decided to merge the economic plans into one, ditch a lot of the nuances and go with a system that, on paper at least, looks much worse.
Now the AI just does the wrong thing at every stage of the game.

No idea why that decision was made.

Probably because Paradox is assuming players will use Starnet/Startech instead. That's what a lot of streamers & discord groups do for their actual games. I for one see no point in ever loading a vanilla game because of how many issues there are in 3.0.

 

[Saviour of Galaxy]

Ok, so now I ask about something different. Is only me or the Unbidden are the only ones who show up if you have random crisis set up? This is 6 time in a raw I have Unbidden as crisis faction, and I do have random set. I hate it because I always considered Unbidden the least exciting crisis, a chore to deal with and the most annoying of all crisises.

 

[HFY]

Ok, so now I ask about something different. Is only me or the Unbidden are the only ones who show up if you have random crisis set up? This is 6 time in a raw I have Unbidden as crisis faction, and I do have random set. I hate it because I always considered Unbidden the least exciting crisis, a chore to deal with and the most annoying of all crisises.

Do you always research Jump Drives?