AI focuses too much on military unit production?

[lifehole]

I'm fairly new to SMAC(X), playing with Yitzi's patch. I've only ever played with the patch so I don't know the original, however I've been doing test games and the AI is always so slow, it seems to prioritize massive amounts of military to use up all of its support minerals than actually developing appropriate infrastructure and terraforming. There is a mod that improves the AI, but I don't want 'vicious AI' that is ridiculously powerful through cheats or anything. Also might be incompatible with Yitzi's patch.

I mean, I know I could just increase the difficulty to max, but I feel like all that would do is make them make more military units and cheat more to also get to the level I get. I don't even manually do formers or citizens, I'm very casual, but I still wreck the AI somehow.

[lifehole]

I switched to SMAC with Kyrub's 444, it's a much more balanced game.

[bvanevery]

Interesting to know your experience with other patches.  I haven't tried them yet.  I will say that even on Transcend, the AI can fixate on building way too many military units and leaving some of their cities "vapor locked", unable to do anything.  This is good for when you want to execute them.

[fuze2100]

the original was totally the same way, and yitzi isn't much different. the ai will not build a lot of buildings most of the time or a lot of formers either.. by the time you get jets or clean tech, the games over,
its like a rush before then for being safe. then press button you win, the rest of the game is just many hrs on how to win but you cannot lose.
Ill know if I'm going tgo win way before I get clean or jets. first 100 turns of game is were you should know

[bvanevery]

I agree with your assessment of the difficulty curve of SMAC/X.  I've often wanted a big bright red WIN button to press when it's obvious I have the advantage.  However, if the AI were smart enough to execute my WIN, it would also be smart enough to keep me from getting there in the first place!  The irony.

Maybe I will solve this problem in my own 4X TBS game someday.

I've also come to realize that Free Market is a lame / stupid choice in those first 100 turns.  If your intention is to win in a reasonable amount of wall clock time, rather than play an infinite amount of "tower defense" or sandbox the game.  When you deny yourself the ability to reasonably invade your nasty neighbor, you just let the AI pile up enormous numbers of cities and military units that you're going to have to clean out later.

I learned this the hard way playing the Believers, taking the unusual position of Democratic Free Market for a change.  I put way too much stock in those complaints about my Bureaucracy getting worse because I wasn't efficient enough.  Shoulda just invaded Yang next door when I had all the advantages.  He was sitting on The Monsoon Jungle and it was obvious that conquering Yang was the quick game winning strategy.  Instead I go Free Market "because of worries about efficiency" and then Yang and Deirdre spawn all this crap I'd have to clean up.  My position was still quite viable when I quit, but I was like, man, shoulda invaded 50..100 turns ago.  Less work that way.

[Yitzi]

I agree with your assessment of the difficulty curve of SMAC/X.  I've often wanted a big bright red WIN button to press when it's obvious I have the advantage.

Ironically, the one game that actually did this somewhat decently AFAIK (there are probably others) is Master of Orion...and the button in question was likely the inspiration for SMAC/X's own Diplomatic Victory.

[bvanevery]

Never did do MOO or MOO2.  I heard that MOO3 was a micromanagement disaster.

Diplomatic Victory, I've usually regarded as the "you don't have to conquer the whole map, just a lot of it" option.  Which isn't all that diplomatic really.  Conceivably, one could gain a diplomatic victory by out-colonizing and out-populating everyone else, without even firing a shot, but I don't remember ever playing a game that actually ended up like that.  Even when I tried to do it.  You'd have to get pretty far in the tech tree with either Cloning Vats or Sky Hydroponics Labs, I think, to get a population advantage over the AI's Transcendant spawning, I think.  As those are fairly late game, you're sure to be in a war before then.  I guess you could "take a base, make 'em stop fighting" whenever someone bugs you, but I'm just doubting that a non-violent Diplomatic Victory strategy is worth doing.  Rated in terms of the amount of time and work it takes to implement, as opposed to other options.

DV is also impossible with an alien faction still alive in the game.  As I generally play "7 random faction" games, this is often if not always a problem.

In other news I've concluded that Free Market is always a waste of real world time.  It allows the Transcendant AI to spawn, spawn, spawn while you sit around building your buildings, thinking you're making progress.  Really you're just taking a long time to spin your wheels as the AI gets more and more stuff.  Then, even though you will have a tech and infrastructure advantage, it will take a long time to clean up the mess the AI has made.  Better to just attack earlier.

[Yitzi]

Never did do MOO or MOO2.

I've just done MOO, but it is extremely well done.  The one big weakness is that so much depends on starting position and who your neighbors are.  (It also has a much weaker story than SMAC/X, but most 4X's do.)

Diplomatic Victory, I've usually regarded as the "you don't have to conquer the whole map, just a lot of it" option.  Which isn't all that diplomatic really.

That's pretty much what it's for.

DV is also impossible with an alien faction still alive in the game.  As I generally play "7 random faction" games, this is often if not always a problem.

Yeah, that's a later change from the original plan.

In other news I've concluded that Free Market is always a waste of real world time.  It allows the Transcendant AI to spawn, spawn, spawn while you sit around building your buildings, thinking you're making progress.  Really you're just taking a long time to spin your wheels as the AI gets more and more stuff.  Then, even though you will have a tech and infrastructure advantage, it will take a long time to clean up the mess the AI has made.  Better to just attack earlier.

Depends what sort of game you want to play.

[bvanevery]

Depends what sort of game you want to play.

If you want to sandbox forever,  Free Market is fine.  If you want to actually win the game without hours and hours of tedious mouse clicking chores, Free Market is a really bad idea.  It might be ok in a very late game when you're so super-powerful that it really doesn't matter what SE you choose, you will inevitably win.  But if you got that far in the game, you could have won already by some more expedient means.  For instance, marines work, speeders with bigger guns on them than what others got work, needlejets escorting ground troops work, copters work.

[PvtHudson]

Sadly, my own impression also suggests that the AI can provide challenge only about until you reach Fusion Power. However, if it has ability to put its heaps of units to good use against you before that... you'll have interesting turns. And even well after that, a couple of times AIs had (un)pleasantly surprised me with attempts at Economic Victory. First time, I had to hastily prototype Planet Buster while rushing submarine to get it within launching distance of Morgan Headquarters. Second, I had to accept being part of Deidre's allied victory. Anyway, I suppose we love SMAC not for its lategame.

To Yitzi: Congratulations with communion to one of best strategies ever made! Better late than never. Did you tried the 1st MoO? If so, I highly recommend MoO 2: Battle at Antares.

[bvanevery]

I'm finding the challenge curve doesn't exist after a certain point, even on Tiny maps.   I'm playing the Usurpers, always have Caretakers in the game, and 5 random factions.  Yes, securing my survival required some thought / work.  Caretakers can be quite menacing when they start pretty near you (as happens on Tiny maps) with the Monsoon Jungle.  Once that initial pressure is survived though, one reaches a point of offensive expansion.  The Caretakers collapse.  Some pissant factions sharing your continent bother you, you wipe them out or thrall them.

Some other factions may occupy the rest of the map, like the Pirates and the Gaians, because the latter got booted off the main continent at the beginning.  Wasn't my fault, We Swear!  Can't protect her sorry ass forever, when she doesn't even place her initial 2 colonies for a long time.  Yeah, uh, I did hold her up for awhile, I'm kind like that.  Anyways now there is no possible way those 2 factions will be able to oppose me, it's just a matter of sailing to every settlement to clean it all up.  I'm just starting the Gas Chaos Penetrator era.  I'd have to try to lose, or just quit because it's boring.

Think I'll just quit because it's boring.  Try another game and see if I can come up with a faster strategy.  Something more appropriate to the Tiny map I know I'll be on.  I don't think I spread quite enough at the beginning, and I started The Command Nexus a bit too early.  Too much time building network nodes and biology labs later on, the game isn't gonna go on that long.

In a new game, I was surprised to realize that forcing the surrender / enthralling one of your immediate neighbors on a Tiny map, can be a bad idea.  They can block up your colonial expansion.  Particularly if there's yet another faction on the continent.  Probably better to just plow through everyone on the continent immediately.  If it's a small continent.  Anyways, having lebensraum at the beginning of the game is a priority.  I do play with factions being allowed to restart when they're killed early.  I've learned the hard way not to kill the Caretakers too early.  You want them to stay dead!  Not just be given a new, quality starting position halfway around the world.