What are your gameplay settings against the AI?

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SpaceWolf
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What are your gameplay settings against the AI?

#1 Post by SpaceWolf »

I'm trying to find settings (galaxy shape, monsters, etc.) that make the game a bit more "balanced" against the AI, as I noticed that already at around turn 100 I tend to be far ahead of the other empires in production and research, which makes me wonder if I should keep playing or just restart, but then what?

So I'm curious to know what settings you guys are using?

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Oberlus
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Re: What are your gameplay settings against the AI?

#2 Post by Oberlus »

Change settings to what is less confortable for your play style. If you always use sparse galaxies, with many systems per empire, so you find enemies after colonizing many planets, try tightly packed ones: your usual research and build queues won't work. Or vice versa.

In general, AI perform better against humans at around 15-25 systems per player. Humans optimize better in varied situations, AI is more rigid and, e.g., won't rush pop and research boost techs as good as humans will when enemies are far, or will fall to the left neighbor when trying to conquer the right one in a packed galaxy.

However, once you know how to play in all settings, AI is always a puny enemy because certain flaws it has, like overusing defense focus (waste of planets), delaying certain key techs or overdoing army while neglecting expansion if perceiving a threat.

A thing I do is to monitor the graphs and restart before turn 30 or 50 if no AI is clearly surpassing me. If no AI doubles your PP+RP by turn 50 (possible whem you got a tough start), you know it won't be a hard game.

You can also use settings bad for your species (ancient galaxy for phototrophics, sparse galaxy with no natives for Egassem, packed galaxies for bad pilot/bad troops species, etc.), or do nothing for the first 10, 20... turns.

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LienRag
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Re: What are your gameplay settings against the AI?

#3 Post by LienRag »

An easy fix would be an option to have the AI ally against the player (even more if there's a slider to make them ally only on turn n, since not all players like to be rushed in their Empire's infancy)...

This would also be an easy way to set up difficulty, just add more AI players !

Right now adding AI Empires beyond a certain number doesn't really make the game more difficult, as they keep fighting each other even when the player has more power than all of them combined.

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Re: What are your gameplay settings against the AI?

#4 Post by Oberlus »

Certainly.

You can ally AIs by setting a multiplayer game with a single human player and doing some things, but I don't know the specifics.

Doing the proper changes on AI so that they themselves ally when convenient would be great, but AI department is utterly understaffed.

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Re: What are your gameplay settings against the AI?

#5 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 3:32 pm
Doing the proper changes on AI so that they themselves ally when convenient would be great, but AI department is utterly understaffed.
I know a little bit of Python but probably not enough to work on AI.
But while a full-fledged AI diplomatic system would need someone working on it, I believe that just a toggle "make/accept peace proposals to others AI at turn n and alliance proposal at turn p" should be quite easy ?

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Re: What are your gameplay settings against the AI?

#6 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:04 pm I know a little bit of Python but probably not enough to work on AI.
But while a full-fledged AI diplomatic system would need someone working on it, I believe that just a toggle "make/accept peace proposals to others AI at turn n and alliance proposal at turn p" should be quite easy ?
Go ahead, don't be shy, it should be done somewhere in here.

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SpaceWolf
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Re: What are your gameplay settings against the AI?

#7 Post by SpaceWolf »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:50 pm In general, AI perform better against humans at around 15-25 systems per player.
Yes, that's what I use, basically following what the game says in that setting's tooltip.
Oberlus wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:50 pm A thing I do is to monitor the graphs and restart before turn 30 or 50 if no AI is clearly surpassing me. If no AI doubles your PP+RP by turn 50 (possible whem you got a tough start), you know it won't be a hard game.
Good idea, to save time if nothing else.
Oberlus wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:50 pm You can also use settings bad for your species (ancient galaxy for phototrophics, sparse galaxy with no natives for Egassem, packed galaxies for bad pilot/bad troops species, etc.),
Interesting, I haven't thought about that.
By the way is there any galaxy shape that would be "easier" for the AI?
Oberlus wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:50 pm or do nothing for the first 10, 20... turns.
Well, well... That sounds like a quite "artificial" way to help the AI, but why not, I guess, if it helps... :)
LienRag wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 2:54 pm An easy fix would be an option to have the AI ally against the player
Now that could be fun, for sure!

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Re: What are your gameplay settings against the AI?

#8 Post by tabbydan »

A thing I do is to monitor the graphs and restart before turn 30 or 50 if no AI is clearly surpassing me. If no AI doubles your PP+RP by turn 50 (possible whem you got a tough start), you know it won't be a hard game.
I hope what I have to say is useful and not just noise.

I play against the AI all the time, and am perhaps a very poor player, but I notice that if I develop the technologies Adaptive Automation and Distributed Thought Computing, generally I end up kicking the AI's butt. After developing those two technologies (they are not the first on my tech queue) I notice that my production points and research points go rapidly up. I tend to be production-centric and devote few if any centers to research (so Distributed Thought Computing is essential as it improves research at production-focused planets). If those two techs did not deliver such big gains (or if the computer made sure to develop them) it would not favor the human opponent so much.

The AI currently also shoots itself in the foot in several regards: 1) it does not put enough of a premium on exploiting ruins or monster nests as it should 2) it has a tendency to pool its military assets in arbitrary systems (not even the capital) and then leave them there as you attack it. It could take those large pooled assets and attack (annihilating smaller fleets), or at least put up some defense against attacks.

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Re: What are your gameplay settings against the AI?

#9 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:44 pm
LienRag wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:04 pm I know a little bit of Python but probably not enough to work on AI.
But while a full-fledged AI diplomatic system would need someone working on it, I believe that just a toggle "make/accept peace proposals to others AI at turn n and alliance proposal at turn p" should be quite easy ?
Go ahead, don't be shy, it should be done somewhere in here.
From a quick parsing of the thousands of lines you presented, in DiplomaticCorp.py there is an object "Handle diplomatic status update" (or it's a function under the object DiplomaticCorp, I have very limited knowledge of OOP).
I guess in the character.character_module.py among the traits there could be something that establish that the Empire is an AI, and is publicly callable from other AIs.
Then on Maniacal, each AI could send a peace proposal randomly to other AIs (p=0.01*N-1 with N the turn number) that other AI would automatically accept.

Grummel, can you do that ? I'll break more things than I would be able to fix if I do it myself...

Once it's done, we may (if Grummel is willing to implement them) devise more elaborate rules (like offering peace only to Empires the AI has never actually fought, or whatever).

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Re: What are your gameplay settings against the AI?

#10 Post by Daybreak »

LienRag wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 2:54 pm An easy fix would be an option to have the AI ally against the player (even more if there's a slider to make them ally only on turn n, since not all players like to be rushed in their Empire's infancy)...

This would also be an easy way to set up difficulty, just add more AI players !

Right now adding AI Empires beyond a certain number doesn't really make the game more difficult, as they keep fighting each other even when the player has more power than all of them combined.
And
Oberlus wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 3:32 pm Certainly.

You can ally AIs by setting a multiplayer game with a single human player and doing some things, but I don't know the specifics.

Doing the proper changes on AI so that they themselves ally when convenient would be great, but AI department is utterly understaffed.
Thinksome did it here https://www.freeorion.org/forum/viewtop ... 42#p111395

There was some talk of allowing it to be set up at the beginning of a game, howerever I dont think anyone did a push/feature request.

Anyway, if you can understand how he did it, then you could set it up yourself

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Re: What are your gameplay settings against the AI?

#11 Post by Grummel7 »

LienRag wrote: Tue Aug 02, 2022 5:39 pm From a quick parsing of the thousands of lines you presented, in DiplomaticCorp.py there is an object "Handle diplomatic status update" (or it's a function under the object DiplomaticCorp, I have very limited knowledge of OOP).
I guess in the character.character_module.py among the traits there could be something that establish that the Empire is an AI, and is publicly callable from other AIs.
Then on Maniacal, each AI could send a peace proposal randomly to other AIs (p=0.01*N-1 with N the turn number) that other AI would automatically accept.

Grummel, can you do that ? I'll break more things than I would be able to fix if I do it myself...

Once it's done, we may (if Grummel is willing to implement them) devise more elaborate rules (like offering peace only to Empires the AI has never actually fought, or whatever).
Since you keep asking for it... here it is.

I will never make this the default, its an extra option, that is currently configure via the AI config file. Perhaps, if you like it very much, we can make it a game config.

The option is:

Code: Select all

[main]
gang_up_turn=50
This will make all AIs form an Alliance in turn 50. Note that while being in the AI config, you can also set the value to the current turn of an existing game, then reload the game and make them all allies.

Also note that the game has a default AI config file (~/.config/freeorion/AI/default/config.ini on Linux).

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Re: What are your gameplay settings against the AI?

#12 Post by Daybreak »

Where would I go, and what would I change to achieve the same think ing Windows?

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Re: What are your gameplay settings against the AI?

#13 Post by Grummel7 »

After a bit of testing: Actually, without further modifications, it seems to work only when they ally in turn 1, but in later turns they run into exceptions, I guess because their military plans are suddenly no longer valid.

Edit: Actually it needed only a very minor change to fix ganging up in later turns.

To find the AI config file on Windows: Options -> Directories should show you where the log files are in your installation.

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LienRag
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Re: What are your gameplay settings against the AI?

#14 Post by LienRag »

Thank you very much, that is definitely very useful to anyone that plays against AIs.
But to tell the truth, I have no idea on what file I should add these two lines of code ? Just in AI/default/config.ini ?
Also, does were I put them matter (is at the end of the file good) ?

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Re: What are your gameplay settings against the AI?

#15 Post by Daybreak »

Same/similar problem in windows

Only file I could find, that seems relevant is ai_debug_config.ini

under ~ \FreeOrion\default\python\AI

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