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Observations


rich12545

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After one ai vs ai game. Medium size map. Three players. 60% land. Large continents. No resources.

1. Early expansion is good.

2. The ai still makes too many transports.

3. The ai, other than transports, makes only battleships for sea units.

4. Proportion of land units produced to sea units is too high.

5. The ai sometimes stockpiles many land or air units in one place. There are cities with many aircraft just sitting there and cities with many land units just sitting there. Also non city areas with many land units just sitting there. This hampers expansion in the middle game on.

6. Sea based cities make too many land units.

7. Peace between nations in a non technology non resources game greatly detracts imo.

I think that adding an option for starting all cities at war with each other (and eliminating borders for this option) and tweaking production will be a huge improvement. Running this test is extremely interesting and I'll do more tomorrow. Thanks for adding this feature. I can see where it's just a few changes from becoming what I know is possible.

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After one ai vs ai game. Medium size map. Three players. 60% land. Large continents. No resources.

1. Early expansion is good.

2. The ai still makes too many transports.

3. The ai, other than transports, makes only battleships for sea units.

I'll try to setup an AI-vs-AI game with your settings to see if I can repeat what you're seeing. I tend to run AI games on smaller maps (like 1200x1200) - just because it's faster. But, here's what sea units the AI built in the game I ran the other day:

AIBuild-Apr17.png

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Ok, here's a summary for one ai side on turn 117. I can't figure out how to look at the other two sides or to copy/paste results. And it looks like they're at war with each other just recently.

IN 3 46

ART 4 49

TANK 5 36

FI 2 10

TB 5 19

BO 4 33

TR 2 4 4

DE 0 0

CR 0 2

BB 2 7

First, it looks like transports are about right.

Submarines aren't even in the list.

Way too few sea units being produced compared to land/air. I'm wondering if you have land percentage figured in your calculation for production. That would make sense but it so it's weighted too high imo. I'm going to try a lower land percentage and look at that.

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Ok, 50% land, medium islands. Much better results. So the problem seems to be with the 60% land setting.

IN 4 22

ART 5 21

TANK 1 20

FI 1 3

TB1 5

BO 1 10

TR 1 13

DE 4 4

SS 1 6

CR 4 2

BB 0 4

CA 3 2

I would do things a little differently, more FI and TB than BO. Fewer ART and more TANKs. On sea units, start with DE and SS and then go to BB, the ai seems to do this backwards. There seems to be a lot of TR for this stage of the game. But, all in all, not bad. It seems the game works much better with 50% land rather than 60%. Figures though, Empire is more a naval game than a land game. With the ai making CAs, having them work well is important. I know we've already discussed this. And, again, I think getting the ai to repair its units is important. So essentially we've been testing on different levels and imo that's why we've come up with different results. This ai vs ai thing is really cool. I'm going to play a game at 50% and islands. Looks like fun.

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My Observations

1) AI doesn't use air power very much and when it does, not very effectively.

2) AI doesn't build anti-aircraft units, at least not in my most recent 3 or 4 games.

3) Because of 1 and 2, my air power (and navy) decides the game every time.

4) I'm still having fun playing Empires of Steel.

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I've played about half a dozen games so far and have yet to see the AI make effective use of land based air power, not even close, though on one occasion an AI player did have about six tac bombers in one location. Before going to war with them I build up my fighters and the tac bombers were destroyed. I've never built or encountered aircraft carriers. The AI does definitely use all other forms of naval power.

My current game is an unusual one in that previously I've never been at war with more than one, possibly two AI at the same time. In this game all four AI declared war on me on or about the same turn. Perhaps if I had traded with some of them that could have been forestalled. Once the "expired turn 0" bug was fixed one AI did offer peace which I accepted. However, his attitude toward me was "hateful" and therefore the very next turn he declared war again. I did that about twice before deciding it wasn't worth accepting peace again. So this game has been challenging to say the least. I've had to fend off numerous invasions and the naval war has been ferocious with high losses all around. I'm slowing gaining control of seas with the aid of my tactical air power and strategic bombing campaign. One by one enemy islands are being conquered. Victory is not yet complete but the potential for defeat has passed I believe.

NOTE: While not certain, it appears you can fly over (recon) neutral AI players without provoking "border violations" or changing their attitude toward you. If true that probably ought to be addressed.

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