Explanation of AI State??

[Grand Deceiver]

Can someone give me a hand in understanding what the different AI States do and mean?

AI State:
Exploration, Infrastructure, Prepare for Attack, Attack,
Secure Holdings After Attack, Incursion, Prepare for Defense,
Defend (Short Term), Defend (Long Term), Not Connected

Looking through the files I see that they are used in the following files:

Default_AI_Planet_Types
Default_AI_Research
Default_AI_Construction_Facilities
Default_AI_Research
Default_AI_Construction_Vehicles

[Baron Munchausen]

Most of the AI is hard coded. It will assess what is happening and go into a particular 'state' according to its decision criteria. The names of the possible states are what you have posted. It's not too difficult to figure out what they mean. Exploration and Infrastructure are used when no enemies are present. Prepare to attack and attack are used when an enemy is judged to be in the AI's claimed territory and it finds itself strong enough to attack. Secure holdings after Incursion I'm not sure about -- it might be after the AI attacks, it might be after the AI has been attacked. The defend options are easy enough. I've never seen Defend (Long Term) actually used by the AI, though. Not Connected is for when the AI realizes it's cut off from the rest of the map (no warp points).

Theoretically, you could use all those various state names to make the AI behave differently according to it's 'state' when selecting colony types, researching, building ships, etc. In practice the only place where this is useful is in ship/unit construction.

Think about it. If the AI were told to research weapons only when in one of the 'threatened' states -- presumably to speed 'infrastucture' research like resource extraction technologies -- it would be a sitting duck for the first enemy that came along after an extended pause in weapons research. Which would probably be the first contact with a major rival. It would be far behind an empire that researched weapons without pause and just be ripe for the picking of those infrastructure techs. And of course it doesn't make any sense at all to have it reversed, researching weapons only when not threatened.

The same goes for selecting colony types. The AI is already very bad at balancing its resources. It would be foolish to tell it to not build military installations or not build 'Intelligence' colonies when not at war. And you can't tell it to not develop resource planets when at war, because available resources can make all the difference in a war. There is no mechanism to re-assign colony types, either. It would be stuck, again, with lots of juicy undefended but developed stuff easily taken. You must tell it to develop its holdings in the same way at all times.

The only place where using different AI states is actually worthwhile is in *_AI_Construction_Vehicles.txt where you can tell it to build different types of ships or units when exploring, defending, or attacking. The 'scripting' is just too crude to be useful in the other files.

[ June 04, 2003, 01:50: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Grand Deceiver]

Baron,

Thanks, you actually answered my question rather well...I am hoping to make a foray into making my own mod. NowI know how NOT to limit the AI any more than it is.

[cybersol]

Does anyone know what specifically causes the AI to switch from exploration to infrastructure?

And how is incursion different from attack?

[oleg]

JLC posted a good explanation about AI states some time ago, but I can not find his post
May be if he reads this, he will post it again.

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by cybersol:
Does anyone know what specifically causes the AI to switch from exploration to infrastructure?

And how is incursion different from attack?

Exactly why it switches states is not very clear.

Incursion seems to mean 'attacked by someone else' while Attack means 'attack someone else'. So, I think the 'secure holdings after incursion state' is repair of your empire after it's been attacked. A useful state. But it might also be triggered after you've conquered a new system. The AI 'advances' by claiming a system and then attacking the 'foreign' presence there, remember.

[cybersol]

Originally posted by oleg:
JLC posted a good explanation about AI states some time ago, but I can not find his post

May be if he reads this, he will post it again.

You mean JLS, right? Hopefully he will post here, but if not I will ask in the AIC thread.

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Exactly why it switches states is not very clear.

Incursion seems to mean 'attacked by someone else' while Attack means 'attack someone else'. So, I think the 'secure holdings after incursion state' is repair of your empire after it's been attacked. A useful state. But it might also be triggered after you've conquered a new system. The AI 'advances' by claiming a system and then attacking the 'foreign' presence there, remember.

So at some point your race switches from exploration to infrastructure without ever encountering another race? Does infrastructure ever occur after first contact?

Also, I see an "Incursion" state, but not a "secure holdings after incursion". If incursion is when someone else attacks, then the question becomes how is it different from defend (short term)?

[ June 05, 2003, 06:26: Message edited by: cybersol ]

[Baron Munchausen]

Well, I've seen 'Secure Holdings After Attack' and 'Incursion' used together so much that I've run them together in my mind. I guess they are seperate states but it's hard to know which is which. One is probably the 'victim' state and one the 'aggressor' state. So it's probably smart to keep them together like they are currently used.

[ June 04, 2003, 21:57: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[cybersol]

Thanks for all your help Baron. The reason I keep wondering is that not many of the different AI authors seem to use the same groupings in construction_vehicles. It would seem that if the states where really well understood the groupings would be more consistent. For example,

Rollo: Exploration, Infrastructure, Defend (Short Term) are all together or Exploration is separate and just Infrastructure and Defend (Short Term) are together.

MB: Exploration and Infrastructure are each alone and everything that says defense is together.

Atraikius: Exploration is alone, Infrastructure is grouped with the Prepare and Secure states, and Defense (short term) is with Defense (long term) and Incursion.

Others, such as Mephisto have everything together except Exploration and Not Connected.

It seems that if everyone had an equal understanding, then the categories would be more consistent. Some would provide more detail and flesh out more different categories, but when grouping they would group the same way.

[Mephisto]

There was once a chat with Aaron about all this but unfortunately the thread has gone in the Last month or so.
Exploration is the state until the AI meets another race. Then it will nearly never return to it IIRC (it will return to it for example if you cut all warp points between the AI and all other races).
In the end it is very hard to predict to what state the AI will switch. Because of this I put all the build queues in only 3 categories.
One is �Not connected� and it is obvious that you need to build and research in quite a different way when you are locked in one system.
The �exploration� phase is important because it will be the first state the AI is in. Don�t overload this state with build orders as it can strip the AI off all resources due to maintenance and no building will be finished.
I put all the rest in one state because the AI has no real concept of attack and defense. So it is of no use if you build more defense units or attack units, the AI will need both. It was planned that the AI would build up for an attack but as it seems it never really worked.