Last night's game

from Stardock Forums
In on game last night the Altarians were taking the culture path to victory (I knew this also because I was in the debugger and knew which strategy they were going after but I digress ). I could see them building up culture star bases and slowly growing them outside their main territory. I could also see them going after the influence resources and building them up.

The Drengin also saw this and informed me that they believed the Altarians were going to soon declare war on me and then them. So I built up a strike force and attacked those key star bases. Within a couple turns their influence had dropped to far less than mine. And the Drengin and I were able to eventually beat them and win the game.

But that was something that was really fun, even as a developer, because I realized that there were many different strategy choices available to me than the usual "attack planets and invade, repeat." Which wouldn't have worked anyway since those star bases provided +8 attack to their forces.

New in beta 5 from an AI point of view:
The AI will contact you with spy information it has.
Lots of new random events.
AI star base building is much more intelligent.
Drengin, Altarians, and Arceans, and Yor have their own unique AI personalities (we're talking totally different code for each, not some variables being different and not copy/paste code stuff either).

It will be interesting to see how the Altarians in particular do because their new AI personality makes use of a new weighted strategy system we've developed. Might provide for strategies that are distinctly more human like.

Speaking of which, we'll be clearing the Metaverse scores soon so that we can start incorporating the data from top players into the AI. Additionally, the metaverse empires will be put up shortly. You'll be able to combine your scores with others to form an empire complete with a graphic map of the galaxy.
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
This sounds really good! There's little doubt in my mind that the strength of GalCiv lies in the interaction with the AI, which, more than any other game I've played, gives the feeling of being a human. I'm looking forward to seeing how this all develops.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Wow :D

It's going to be a toss-up on which a.i. to ally with. Can't wait to try the Altarians. Have a couple of questions, and a wish list.

1. Will some of that spy info include what the status is of the relationships between the different a.i.’s? I bring this up because one day i was looking thru the debug file and i saw that the yor had tried to blackmail the altarians but they were too poor so relations have deteriorated. It would be nice to know (thru espionage?) the a.i's status to each other. (Maybe the color coding scheme that we have on our diplomacy screens)

2. Will the a.i's now come asking for alliances, ships, etc. I don't mean the usual trade or blackmail. I haven’t had one yet ask me to join an alliance.

3. If a race is evil will there be a possibility that he will break the alliance with you and the same turn go to war (the galciv version of pearl harbor). Another reason to have sensor drones.

4. Will we be able to steal tech thru espionage? (have been unable to in 4z)

5. I’ve noticed that you’ve made it harder to get an a.i. to go to war against another . :-) Will the consequences of those actions deteriorate the relationships with the a.i’s (The altarians just found out you bribed the yor to get then so now they’re really pissed at me)



the computer is really slow tonight (all 3 rendering effects and rotos splines) and i’ve got to watch 3 films by tomorrow night (sound branch of the academy nominates feb 4) so I’ll finish this later. Hope this helps
Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
absolutely fantastic well done guys that sounds mindblowing. I am really excited now.

s :)
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
The new AIs sound like a real challenge. Is there any schedule yet?
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
The AI doesn't specifically ask for alliances yet but it does come to you and imply that you should give it ships and money and such.

Espionage and Destabilization are becoming much more powerful and subtle. There will be some blow back as well but mostly good things will happen if you do some espionage and very bad things can happen if you don't do any.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
You're evil. When are you going to check in some of that new code!!!
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Brad-

The AI doesn't specifically ask for alliances yet but it does come to you and imply that you should give it ships and money and such

Other than helping them to help you - such as in an alliance against a common foe, how does it 'help' you if you give a race some resources like this if they ask? What I mean is does it change their perception of you and therefore your relationship and how will this help - for example does it help in trade etc?
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
here here commander! - this is TOO much :sniff!:
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
It helps their relationship with you if you give them stuff.

Today's game I won because I had a "close" relationship with the Drengin but only a neutral one with the Arceans and Altarians.

So I kept handing over ships and money to the drengin to fight a war against them while using constructors to take over resources that the other players lost due to their war. Eventually I ended up with all the resources and the Drengin wiped out th eother two races. So I simply allied with them and won.

It took awhile to do and it was a close thing since the AI has a chance of figuring out what your'e doing and randomly attacking you (and this did happen in one of the games and I was defeated as a result) but it worked out pretty well here. Especially since I could build Overlords and give them to the Drengin who could proceed to use one overlord to wipe out a dozen Arcean Battle ships.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
I love the depths that we're getting into concerning the AI, its starting to get real fun!

It is also good to add more random events, perhaps more early and mid-game ones that could really put some twists and turns in the story of the game. It sounds like espionage will help with that.....

Anomalies are a great place to link to random events too. Like an anomaly that when you search it releases 4 overlord ships and 2 transport ships caught in time-stasis from an empire that existed 1000 years ago. You could have it go in several directions from that point: They help you, they help another empire, They attack everyone, They become a Minor/major race.

I can't wait to get started!