AI a bit too passive/uncoordinated?

[Wayston]

In my initial games with standard settings the diplomatic AI of competing empires was pretty passive (really never did declare war by itself) so I set the AI to more agressive and true enough enemy empires do declare war more often on their own accord. So that part of the diplomatic AI seems good. A problem is though that it can be pretty suicidal in that it doesn't mind ending up with multifront wars even though there's no reason for those.

But the strategic AI seems to be non existent. The AI has a very hard time deciding when to declare war depending on the situation at hand (it does take into account that it doesn't like you, but it doesn't look at the overall situation). For example in one game the Dayut (sp??) empire was more than twice my size at one point and we bordered eachother. It hated me. It should have declared war on me sooner or later, eg while I was in a war with another neighbour who was only slightly larger then me. Double teaming me would have torn me to shreds (well if one ignores my last beef with the AI). It would have been the sensible thing to do but it never happened.

The tactical AI is also lacking. I almost never see concerted fleet actions from the AI (it's mostly small unit combat, and even that is often not very determined). And when they're happening they rarely amount to a successful planetary invasion. Basically pirates are a bigger threat than fleets from enemy empires. The AI should be able to identify key weaknesses in your empire and act on them.

Now I don't want so sound too critical because overall the game is pretty neat, but any chances of seeing some improvement in this regard?

[Krelos]

It's true, the only way to be defeated by the AI is to let it, or maybe help.
Unless you go full auto, which just makes you another AI.
I can easily defend my empire from any number of foes and defeat them all with a single 15 ship fleet. The only difficulty is getting enough troops to conquer their colonies.

I really hope this gets improved as it is probably the games most lacking point right now.

[JonathanStrange]

I'd be surprised but pleased if anything beyond making the AI more aggressively suicidal. I say mainly out of experience with many other 4x games where the AI's are sadly lacking in basic strategy - though they can appear to fake it quite well if you give them enough bonuses. It's not a slam against DW; AI's are still nowhere near are as interesting as human players yet.

It does seem odd that an aggressive empire doesn't take into account an enemy's being involved in a war already as an opportunity. Although there may have been other factors involved that aren't being considered; whether the AI itself was at war, whether it had armed itself for a war, its economic state, etc. Still, I would think attacking an enemy's who's already fighting someone would be attractive.

[lostsm]

ORIGINAL: JonathanStrange

I'd be surprised but pleased if anything beyond making the AI more aggressively suicidal. I say mainly out of experience with many other 4x games where the AI's are sadly lacking in basic strategy - though they can appear to fake it quite well if you give them enough bonuses. It's not a slam against DW; AI's are still nowhere near are as interesting as human players yet.

It does seem odd that an aggressive empire doesn't take into account an enemy's being involved in a war already as an opportunity. Although there may have been other factors involved that aren't being considered; whether the AI itself was at war, whether it had armed itself for a war, its economic state, etc. Still, I would think attacking an enemy's who's already fighting someone would be attractive.

come on the truth is the AI here is completely lacking. it follows very basic rules and will not stray away from this. there is absolutely no challenge in SP, and it doesnt even take you a long time to realize this.

DW is awesome in it's scope, don't get me wrong here, but there is no fight, no hardship: NOTHING

of course i've yet to start a game where I cripple myself completely, but is that how we're to find a challenge? kill the fun 100% only to find joy after a gruelsome few hours.

point is, ya, the AI is very dumb

[Sliverine]

AIs arent easy to code. The programmer has to actually sit down and think up (aside from coding) of all possible situations and actions to implement. If he missed out just one avenue it could potentially create a loophole/exploit/bug. I think the AI for this game is pretty much one of the better ones ive seen so far, tho this does not mean its perfect yet. Theres still alot of work but hey, great job on the AI devs!

One of the reasons why the AI seems so lacking is because the scope of AI control is pretty huge and thus, coding such an extensive AI is pretty much a huge undertaking. Coding fleet AI to intelligently attack, defend and retreat based on circumstances is ALONE a pretty tough job. Implementing an AI to take care of everything across the board from mining to resource management & transportation to optimized colonizing all the way down to helping you tie your shoelaces is, needless to say, pretty much what this game is about. i.e. Its all about the AI!

[Impact1986]

i would like to modify the ai by myself but in its current state distant worlds is unmoddable.

[Fishman]

The AI's lack of direction and purpose does seem to be one of its major flaws. Units under AI control, for instance, frequently seem to wander about aimlessly, patrolling distant planets for no apparent reason, instead of intercepting intruders and shooting them down, as if the mission AI consists of picking a random mission and target out of a list. It seems to lack a clear strategic agenda and diplomatically, expends most of its energies in passive-aggressive displays of irrationally motivated pique, with its rules for behavior apparently disconnected from anything that represents a clear objective or position, or even comprehensibility.

[Malevolence]

It would be fine if we convince the good folks at CodeForce to add some strategic/operational agent behaviors that both the player and AI can use -- patrol system, patrol sector, seize system, seize sector, etc.

I would use the automation myself if I could give strategic/operational level orders. Explore Sector is the only operational level order we can give at the moment -- and only to an exploration ship.

[Fishman]

ORIGINAL: Malevolence

I would use the automation myself if I could give strategic/operational level orders. Explore Sector is the only operational level order we can give at the moment -- and only to an exploration ship.

And it doesn't work, since the ship has a short attention span and forgets that it was supposed to be doing that the moment anything shiny distracts it. This is why orders like this really need to be maintained at an empire level: I want the sector explored. I don't care which scout does it.