BORG AI lacking punch

[Unknown_Enemy]

I have been making a few tests with 4 players,
RAGE TDM AI
Xi'Chung TDM AI
BORG (Borg Variant 1.78b)

another race played as me.

setting was difficulty high, bonus medium on a large AI friendly map (Fyron's quadrant) with no intel.

Out of 3 games, the BORGS were always annihilated by the other AI early on, while I was remaining neutral.
I even tryed to help them by giving them some techs, but it did not help them enought.

I would really like them as enemies, but at the moment they cannot compare to other TDM AI.

[ November 10, 2002, 15:40: Message edited by: Unknown_Enemy ]

[Urendi Maleldil]

That's my problem with the Borg. They don't scare me.

[God Emperor]

@Unknown Enemy
Am rather surprised at your experience. The Borg are normally in the top 5 AI in my games (which consist entirely of mod-pack AI).
Do you have any specific observations of why they performed badly? What was their rate of expansion like? (In my games they expanded very rapidly but as their preference is for "No Atmosphere" some planet configurations can hold them back - eg deletion of moons hurts them).
Also, did you use the EMP file included with the mod?
Regards,

GE

[Unknown_Enemy]

Am rather surprised at your experience. The Borg are normally in the top 5 AI in my games (which consist entirely of mod-pack AI).
Do you have any specific observations of why they performed badly?

So I am. With the tech they have, they should be murderous.
I took the emp 5000 file and adapted it, lowering ground combat/Intel/Political savy to enhance other competences.
What I saw is a mass of cruiser/battle cruiser mounting weapons/shields/armor and a colony tech (!!) getting slaughtered by the Rage's warship. Putting a colony tech o such warship is quite a waste, I think it has been their downfall. Their cost to colonize was huge, and their warship just diseapeared when they claimed a planet. Plus, launching such a colony ship to get a single moon it not economy sensitive....

Even if the rage AI had the same colonization problem, versus the well thought Rage warship, the borg were no match ( ). Maybe they could get specialized warship, and specialized colonization ships.

No pun intended, I like the race and just try to help getting it better.



I forget to write : expansion rate was good, but they wasted time colonising moons with their very heavy ships. The rage should have had the same problems, but certainly their colony ships were easily produced.

[ November 11, 2002, 02:36: Message edited by: Unknown_Enemy ]

[God Emperor]

@Unknown_Enemy,
Thanks for the reply.
The "waste" of resources isnt usually a problem as long as the AI has been given at least a medium bonus - normally their storage is full and excess resources are simply lost (hence I saw no problems with making heavily armed colony ships). I havent quite worked out how to force the AI to spend all of it resources rather than losing an excess every turn.

Your observation about the combat is interesting however. On a one on one basis, the Borg ships (and any of my AI for that matter) are usually outmatched by other AI as I have designed the ships to be "jack of all trades" so that they have the components to deal with all situations. In fleets however I have observed my AI's ships perform quite well. Can you tell me what weapons the Borg ships were armed with? The Borg usually build a lot of missile armed ships early on before switching to PPB's and later Borg Null Space Projectors.
I have made the Borg Technology reasonably expensive to research in an attempt to maintain some sort of play balance but they do have a fair bit of stuff to research early on so they are not particulalry powerful early on (their only advantages early on are their regenerative armour, ability to board and their small repair bays). Weapons wise, they are no better than anyone else until mid game when they get their Borg Null Space Projectors (BNSP's). An option I had considered was to eliminate their use of PPB's and advance BNSP's on the Borg tech tree. I welcome your thoughts.

Regards,
GE

[Suicide Junkie]

The problem is certainly not in the maintenance costs. The problem is the long build times.

You want the AI to pump out tons of cheap colonizers, instead of tying up a valuable spaceyard for many turns just to have the finished ship dismantle to make a colony.

[God Emperor]

PS:

Because of the way the tech tree is structured, Borg Cruisers and Battlecruisers should be PPB armed (and therefore pretty nasty). One thing I have thought of relates to battle orders. Most of their ships have orders to engage at Maximum Weapons Range (to improve the function of missiles and point defence). When fighting enemies who have an advantage in ECM/Combat Sensor tech and who have short range combat orders, however, this can lead to them performing poorly in combat due to them having quite low Too Hit percentages. To try and offset this I have made Combat Sensors a research priority for them however.

[God Emperor]

@Suicide Junkie
The Borg and my other AI's never seem to fully utilise their shipyards (I have designed their construction queue to ensure that they build lots of em) so shipyards are not the constraint. The constraint is that the AI will not spend enough of their resources - do you know what sets this parameter? (apart from the Construction.txt files). If it is just the Construction.txt files, then I presume all I have to do is raise the Planet per Item values higher.

[Rexxx]

Maybe Oleg's proposal could help:
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...=007152#000004

Haven't tried it yet (because it "kills" the no bonus games) but it sounds quite interesting.

[Unknown_Enemy]

The problem is certainly not in the maintenance costs. The problem is the long build times.

You want the AI to pump out tons of cheap colonizers, instead of tying up a valuable spaceyard for many turns just to have the finished ship dismantle to make a colony.

Indeed.
The borg need a cheap coloniser build very quickly. Thus the 300t needed for a colonization tech on their other ships can be used for weapon/armor/shields. As it is on Rage's ships.

Your remarks on the borg's weapons were acurate, but it's just that the Rage were bearing more wepons/armor/shield per ships.

When the Rage start using warship to colonize, they use...light cruisers.