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GalCiv3 Forums
AI's not expanding. Just checked with FOW. Turn 14, average of only 5 colonies per AI on Suicidal. The second place Terran is massing constructors instead of colony ships.
Some of the AI have 5 colonies by turn 25.
Going to try it with the standard races.
Tested it with standard races:
Average of 10 colonies after 30 turns. Is that what you got?
Soaked it on Suicidal.
Yeah, the AI definitely isn't working on suicidal.
Looked at an old save with the previous version on 1.03 and the largest AI was on 35 colonies by turn 23. Average was 20+ colonies by then.
If it has more than 2 colonies, the AI is working 
I've shifted it's build priorities slightly so it doesn't spam colonies quite so desperately, it actually ensures it has high approval, likes to grab growth buildings early and generally tries to build up it's wealth a bit more - this is to prevent the AI going into bankruptcy cycles. These probably will make it less expansionist on Godlike, since it's building stuff that it doesn't really need with the handicaps it receives at that level, but tbh I don't really care - I'm don't want an AI that's reliant on handicaps, I want it to be able to play a decent match on a level playing field. That means the scripts are tested on Normal, not on higher difficulties - and there's no way of recognizing difficulty in the scripts.
The simple fact is, the maintenance and approval changes means colony spam isn't the best option in IAB anymore, and the un-bonused AI was crippling itself later on by taking too many low-grade colonies before it could afford them. Now that it doesn't do that, it starts off a bit slower, but is in a much better position later on - I'm seeing expansionist AI's on 40+ colonies by turn 40 on a Godlike spiral soak, with the average number of colonies at around 25-30. I've got no problem with those kind of numbers.
I do see a lot of early constructor spam on Godlike, though - and I'm seeing the AI expanding it's star bases, which it didn't do very much in 1.03.
EDIT: Also, I'm more likely to see stuff like this if you put it in the actual feedback thread for the mod, which I'm subscribed to, rather than spamming the main forum. SD aren't going to care about supporting a mod, so starting new threads about it is really just making it harder for me to see your feedback.
Turn 73: The biggest AI has 123 colonies, with the second on 93 and third on about 80. Most serious players have 60+; even the weak empires have around 25.
This is pretty much where I'd like the AI to be around 75 turns in, tbh. I'm not seeing any evidence that the AI isn't working. Maybe try verifying the game files? I've been needing to do that an awful lot since 1.1.
Ok.
Um, grabbing colonies is still a good thing in the early game. The AI should still be encouraged to expand fast. In the previous game with your earlier patch some of the AI was on 120+ colonies by turn 40+.
Of course if they're expanding slowly this means I don't have to expand as fast either....
Editing the AI and giving all of them "fast."
They're still grabbing colonies. The difference is, now they can generally afford to have them without spending the following 50 turns bankrupt and waiting for their population to grow big enough to pay for it.
The various changes have made multiple strategies viable - not just colony spam. I'm hoping to make a variety of AIs which actually take advantage of those different approaches now; and it seems fairly successful; I've seen empires with about 30 planets doing better than empires with 100+ already now. I may start tweaking the tech weights now; I'm pretty happy with how the general mechanics are working and the wide v tall balance.
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