My Final Verdict (until the next patch, that is...)

[Voidhawk]

First off, I have to say that I'm a long time fan of Stars! and MOO2 (like most everyone else here probably), but have never played any of the previous SE games prior to this latest incarnation. It's generally lots of fun, but I feel like it's not totally complete in the AI department. I've been reading through the Posts here and have noticed that most people seem to think that many aspects of the AI need "tweaking". I agree, though most of the criticisms seem a little understated. Please forgive me if this sounds overly harsh, but IMO the AI is absolutely deplorable. That said, know that my intention is not to flame MM for a game that they obviously spent a lot of time and thought on. The tech/econ models are wonderful, the diplomacy system has lots of potential, and tactical combat is the best I've seen in a 4x game since MOO2. Not to mention the level of player customization that's possible. All in all, the first 10 hours of gametime on SEIV proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's an instant classic. However, I'm finding that the game's two major shortcomings combine to deal a potentially lethal blow to the game's longevity on my hard drive:

1.) Weak AI (I just watched the Praetorians fly 8 Battlecruisers straight into a black hole, and the list goes on...).
2.) Lack of more gratifying multiplayer features (PBEM just doesn't quite cut it these days with many players; TCP simul-turn with manual tac combat resolved at the end of each turn would be awesome).

Take away either one of these weaknesses, and you've got a near-perfect game. Add them both together and well... ouch.

I've read the great suggestions by everyone here on how to improve the challenge the AI presents (smaller quadrants, all AI vs. all Human, etc.). These are simple solutions and they tend to work the majority of the time, but I'm still left unsatisfied. I want huge galaxies, I want AI's who act like they should and attack the other AI's (as well as me!) without provocation. I want truly "bloodthirsty" AI's who wouldn't think twice about accepting an alliance with another empire, let alone offering one. I want to look at that Treaty Grid and see some red every once in a while! When I glass three Terran planets, I don't want them to still be AMIABLE towards me! When they glass one of mine, I don't want them to turn around and propose a trade alliance on the next turn! The AI just isn't very consistent at all, though one thing you can count on is that they'll want to be your pals until you get your score up to 500; and even the AI empires who decide to go to war end up throwing away the better part of their ships to minefields and suicide runs. I don't even use mines anymore, it's just not any fun.

Man, I really really REALLY want to love this game. It's so good in fact, that I'm sure I'll keep right on playing despite the hopeless AI. But I sure hope MM has some AI improvements in store for us. I hope too, that all of you guys making the excellent suggestions are e-mailing them to MM! I would offer my own constructive criticisms, but you guys have already covered everything I can think of. So you get nothing but useless rants out of me . Here's to hoping that this good game someday becomes great.

Is there an "official" thread somewhere on these Boards that MM checks regularly for player recommendations?

[Comar]

They do read this board. I do not know how often. I do know that most, if not all, of the beta testers read it and send things on to them also. MM has a great reputation for supporting their games, so look for the patches and time will tell.

[Richard]

I know Aaron has a TCP/IP setup planned in the future, and I actually think the AI is fairly good. Sometimes (like any AI) it does some stupid things but that is to be expected.

I would encourage you to drop Aaron a line at [email protected]. Be specific and send him specific save games to show your problems otherwise he cannot reproduce the problems.

Aaron offers his community stellar support, but in order to do that he cannot read every board.

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Sarge is coming...

Richard Arnesen
Director of Covert Ops
Shrapnel Games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com

[Trancejeremy]

Just how practical is 'live' multiplayer, though? In case you hadn't noticed, SEIV is an epic games. It takes a long, long long time to finish a game. Unless you don't have a life, how many people can spend the 40 hours (just a estimate) to fully play a game?

Live multiplayer works well for simple or short games like RTSes or FPSes, where is there no real depth, but complex ones are too long for live mp. IMHO anyway...

[Kodos]

Personally, I can live without Multi-player. (I just think games 4X games like SEIV are too big and long to work that route).

On the other hand, I also think the criticisms of the AI are spot on! The same behavior (or lack thereof) I commented on in the demo still seem to be in place with the full Version: Races that are described as Xenophobic or Psychotic and supposedly "never make treaties" (direct quote from race description), come begging for alliances a few turns after I encounter them. And they never seem to break them or get PO'd at my actions: When I took to blowing up one supposedly Violent race's ships via Intel Ops, all said race ever did in retaliation was send a strongly worded note!

I don't want a MOO2 clone (as some people around here seem to), but I would like to see some distinct personality traits instilled into the AI races. Or, at least, a little agression!

[Talenn]

From what I can tell, the 'personality type' of the AIs are immaterial. A 'Berserk Psychotic' acts no differently than a 'Serene Engineer'. This is because they share the same 'Angry file' and the same 'Politics file' as well as the same 'Speech' file.

The game data is set up so that each race can have its own files, but at present, they dont. They seem to all use the default...hence VERY flat personalities. I'm tweaking it for my data, but with no info on what the files MEAN, its trial and error. Its very time consuming.

Also, I can manage to get it to be hostile towards the players, but there seems to be way to instigate it to INITIATE attacks. I've seen it happen occasionally, but more often than not, it sits idly by and is squashed piecemeal.

I think the only things needed are:

1) to flesh out the files for each race, so that they are distinctive.

2) to make the AI in general (and ESPECIALLY the 'aggressive' types) more likely to pick fights with the other players.

3) to have the AI engage in 'punitive' raids and raids bent on economic destruction. I'd like to see it seen fleets (not individual ships like I see now more often than not) in the opponent's backfield and laying waste to their colonies.

If the AI was simply forcing the players to REACT instead of act, its other flaws would be greatly diminshed or at least not as noticable. If anyone else has played SSI's Imperialism II, you know just how unpleasant the AIs can be. They dont cheat, but they do know how to kick you when you are down!

All in all, it just seems like it just needs some more time invested in the AI dept. Now that I think the 'mechanics' of the game are fairly stable, MM should be able to begin working on the 'flavor' a bit more. I hope so as its the only thing really missing from an otherwise great game.

If anyone is interested in experimenting with the AI, I'm more than willing to test.

Talenn

[Voidhawk]

I think you've got it nailed down, Talenn. I've been perusing the AI texts and what you say seems to be the case. I think perhaps a little too much emphasis was placed on the player's ability to customize the AI and not enough on basic hard-coded AI behavior. If you're able to do anything significant with it, let me know! I'd love to beta for you .

Richard: Thanks for the tip, I'll do just that. As far as the AI being pretty good, I'll admit that it does perform basic strategic tasks well enough. I also understand that AI algorithms for 4x games are probably some of the hardest to code convincingly. However, there are many fundamental features lacking. The destruction/takeover of an AI homeworld for example (instead of invoking a good measure of irrevocable AI hatred against the offending player), merely takes the current AI's diplomatic stance down a couple of notches. This is only one of the more glaring issues I've come across, but I'll save the rest for my e-mail .

Kodos: Sure, I could easily overlook the lack of multiplayer features... with a more challenging AI element. I'd vote for getting the AI up to snuff BEFORE working on the multiplayer anyday.

Trancejeremy: I have to strongly disagree. There are many popular turn-based games of "epic" proportions that have thrived via the Online gaming community. SSG's Warlords series and multiplayer Civilization/Civ2 Gold are two that pop into mind. Also, I have a 5-workstation LAN in my home and I would be (almost) ashamed to admit how many countless hours have been spent with friends playing "live" turn-based strat games . Allowing the host to save the game when everyone decides to call it a night and continue at a later time is an easy workaround for the lucky people who have "lives" to get back to. Myself, I'd be more than willing to spend an all-nighter or three on SEIV with some good human competition . I'm guessing I'm not the only one.

Reading through these Posts and learning of MM's awesome reputation for customer satisfaction, I'm confident they'll come through with some better AI. Turn-based gamers tend to be a patient lot, and I'm certainly no exception.

[Jubala]

quote:

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Originally posted by Voidhawk:
Myself, I'd be more than willing to spend an all-nighter or three on SEIV with some good human competition . I'm guessing I'm not the only one.

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You're damn right about that. You're not the only one. SEIV would be a perfect game to play over the dorm network at univ (a very big network with all dorms connected ) or back home with my friends on our LAN. Lugging around a bunch of computers and setting up a LAN at someones house for a weekend of gaming is not unheard of. Quite common actually.

[seldon99]

I agree with the original poster, this game has everything except the most important element: competition.

There is so much to like about this game it is a really pity that the AI is so inept.

My first real game (I played the demo once) I made maximum difficulty for the computer (I guess I could give the CP advantages) and proceeded to play. Now being very unfamiliar with the technologies, and the mechanics I made a lot of mistakes.

However, by turn 90 I had almost 3x the points of the nearest computer player. Every turn all of the computer wanted to be my ally. I never attack a CP and they never attacked me.

I was getting very bored and was curious about the new tech. So I proceeded to build research center and for the next 60 turns I just simply clicked on the next button. I didn't move a single ship, at the end of the period. I was still beating the computer players by a wide margin. There were plenty of undefended colonies for the computer to attack and at least one empire had the same environment I had. You'd think that the AI would prioritize attacking a Huge
world with good resources and the right atmosphere. I don't think a 10 small satellites would stop a determined attack!

[Mephisto]

quote:

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Originally posted by Tampa_Gamer:
One of the more interesting facts is that the AI_Research files for many races does not research a tremendous amount of items that human players would not do without. Perhaps this is b/c the existing AI hard code cannot handle some decisions??? Anyway, it would be helpful for everyone to compare notes on how/what they are specifically tweaking in the AI files even if it is just a readme.txt file posted.

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You are absolutely right. I have looked into the files too and have found "bugs" i could not believe.
Ever wondered why the AI does not use Quantum Reactors, more PDCs, ECM, ECCM and the like?
Well, its simple. The AI constructs a ship "down" a list, item for item, and at the end fills up left space with the first weapon choice. But the placement rates for weapons, shields and armor is so high that there isn't any space left for quantum reactors and the like. I have modified my files just a little bit and now the AI uses all the available systems.

Another BIG "bug" is the inability of the AI to research and build planet condition improvement plants like the atmosphere converter. The AI builds facilities till the planet is full. It does make upgrades, but it never tears something down. As the improvement facilities are only developed later in the game, the AI will not use them BECAUSE THE PLANET IS ALREADY FULL! The AI should look after its planets once on a while an scrap some buildings to build atmosphere. converters. When the AI is doing this it only has to check if the atmosphere is already the desired one so not to build a converter or to scrap the old one. The AI already does something very similar with system wide facilities like space ports.

Philipp