Author Topic: Advanced Negotiation  (Read 2880 times)

Offline Faulty Logic

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Advanced Negotiation
« on: May 15, 2013, 06:37:48 am »
I took a break from AI war while waiting for the intelligence upgrade, and the warp counter bugfix.
In the meantime, I tried Valley 2.

This should be fun:

100 planet X 1172876576 Impulse reaction emitters.
Ultra low caps (FS is slow, otherwise).
Schizo, comp-vis, 8 champions.
10/10 Entrenched Homeworlder/Spire Hammer

Marauders 4
Resistance 10
Rebellions 4
Trader
Dyson 4
Preservation Wardens 6
Roaming Enclaves 4
Civilian Leaders
Golems 4
Spirecraft 4
Fallen Spire 6* (I wonder if you synced these with the others/cpas)
Hybrids 4/4*
Advanced Hybrids 7*
Astro Trains 4/0*
(Avengers, too, not that they'll matter)

*keeps it interesting.


First order of business: name the Negotiators (because "champion n" is boring):

Faulty Logic
Aelita
Raven
River
Vin
Karen
Orwell
Buffy

===Operation Opening Blitz====
Second order of business: plan the early-game blitz:
I need to establish my central choke before the nemesis swarm starts calling, and free/terminate the civilian leaders.

And the RNG comes out swinging: the homeworlder has Enclave, Gravity, and Artillery (read, counter champion) guardians, and Zenith siege engines. The hammer has Starship Dissasembler guardians (which make raiding really hard) shield bearers (which take forever to kill) and infiltrators (which annoy the top hat off me). Also, two of my golems are regen, and there is only one titanite on the entire map.

But those are long-term concerns. I immediately unlock harvester IIIs, and conquer a planet. After the first set of waves, I conquer another, with 3 pysite and a xampite, for enough jump capability to raid most of the galaxy. I unlock military command II/III for defense/economy, then I assassinate 4 leaders, and have 5 free by the first hour. Most data centers are gone as well.

Negotiators were in the neighboring system constantly cleaning threat fallout (and deepstrikes really hurt at low caps). Even in frigate form, eight of these are quite an effective force, especially when they are all bunched together under a constant stream of projected shields.

By the second hour, I have the last leader free, and have raided the co-ps, leaving only the superterminal and my six leaders to affect AIP from here. AIP is 92.

Observations
Low caps feels different. Engine damage, tractoring, and tranlocation are all more effective.

Civilian leaders really make the early game stressful.

The new guardians are certainly making my life more difficult.

But not as much as threat finally learning to avoid wormholes.

The first cargo train construction project left its core starships and golem (black widow) on the AI HW in planetary roamer behaviour, instead of threat or threatfleet. Intentional?

State of Empire (p4 means I'll take, p6 : eventual level 2 spire city):
« Last Edit: May 16, 2013, 10:31:28 pm by Faulty Logic »
If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Advanced Negotiation
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2013, 09:09:13 am »
Spire Hammer
Ow.

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Fallen Spire 6* (I wonder if you synced these with the others/cpas)
I didn't sync those, seemed overly brutal.  We'll see :)

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Hybrids 4/4*
Advanced Hybrids 7*
Astro Trains 4/0*
OW.

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(...) Enclave, Gravity, and Artillery (...) Zenith siege engines (...) Dissasembler (...) shield bearers (...) infiltrators
Good grief.  The RNG must feel left out from the AI work.

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(and deepstrikes really hurt at low caps)
It should be adjusting the strength spawned by cap scale; does it look like it's just getting moar, or do you mean something else?

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Low caps feels different. Engine damage, tractoring, and tranlocation are all more effective.
Engine damage in theory should be the same because the engine health scales up for the things that have a lower cap now ... (checks code) ... actually, it doesn't seem to scale.  Hmm, should fix that when I get a chance.  Though I think to some extent it will still leave a difference due to less "engine overkill".

On tractoring and translocation that's true when the source of the tractor/translocation is a non-scaling type.  So tractor turrets are the same effectiveness because their cap scales too.

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The new guardians are certainly making my life more difficult.

But not as much as threat finally learning to avoid wormholes.
You're welcome!

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The first cargo train construction project left its core starships and golem (black widow) on the AI HW in planetary roamer behaviour, instead of threat or threatfleet. Intentional?
Not intentional, odd that it would do that, will have to take a look.  A golem on planetary roamer?  Hah.


How's the AI feeling thus far?  You may not be noticing much difference (aside from the obvious wormhole-wait-point change), but I'm curious.
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Offline Faulty Logic

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Re: Advanced Negotiation
« Reply #2 on: May 17, 2013, 03:50:39 am »
Spire Hammer
Ow.
It gets better: due to a glitch (I think) it sends an extra extra spire ship with every wave. It's destroyers for now, but AIP is going to get pretty crazy, so I might have to deal with 2 cruisers per wave.

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Fallen Spire 6* (I wonder if you synced these with the others/cpas)
I didn't sync those, seemed overly brutal.  We'll see :)
But that's where the AI needs to sync the most.

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Hybrids 4/4*
Advanced Hybrids 7*
Astro Trains 4/0*
OW.
Didn't want it to get easy.

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(...) Enclave, Gravity, and Artillery (...) Zenith siege engines (...) Dissasembler (...) shield bearers (...) infiltrators
Good grief.  The RNG must feel left out from the AI work.
Yeah, these hurt quite a bit. They counter champions well, but 8 negotiators don't go quietly.

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(and deepstrikes really hurt at low caps)
It should be adjusting the strength spawned by cap scale; does it look like it's just getting moar, or do you mean something else?
I'm not sure. It feels like it's getting the same number of ships as at normal caps, though.

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On tractoring and translocation that's true when the source of the tractor/translocation is a non-scaling type.  So tractor turrets are the same effectiveness because their cap scales too.
And a certain golem...

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The first cargo train construction project left its core starships and golem (black widow) on the AI HW in planetary roamer behaviour, instead of threat or threatfleet. Intentional?
Not intentional, odd that it would do that, will have to take a look.  A golem on planetary roamer?  Hah.
Two golems, now.

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How's the AI feeling thus far?  You may not be noticing much difference (aside from the obvious wormhole-wait-point change), but I'm curious.
It got significantly harder. Threat is a lot trickier to hunt down, and seems more aggressive. There seem to be more guard posts than before, and there are certainly more, tougher guardians.
And there are oversized CPAs, as well.


===Operation Citadel Conquest====

The center world is where I will make my chokepoint. It amusingly already called Citadel.

My eight frigates neuter the SCL + second ZPG system between my territory and the center (will colonize at the hour mark, to get the maximum benefit), then pops the Citadel command station. They die. Next couple runs clear the threat fallout, then the system.

Citadel colonized. Unlock Warp Jammers, transfer turrets to the choke, installing a warp jammer so waves can only come to one place. Hour 3, intervening SCL conquered. AIP 99.

===Operation Consolidation====

Two nebulae: Gatlings (always first for me, for some reason), then the epsilon remnant.
Champions are level 19, with all five basic modules unlocked to mkIII.

I have the fledgling diplomatic fleet and two out of eight spire mod forts by the time a 1900-ship CPA declares. Exos are at 69%, but they decided to wait.

Most of the threat waits outside the choke, with ~300 attacking from a different direction. The Negotiators calmly explain their mistake.

I hunt the threatballs. It's a lot harder than it used to be, but I have eight destroyers to help out (or, just do it themselves). 8 destroyers will kill most systems in a couple runs.

Exo at 74%.

Over the next two hours, I colonize most of the upper right branch, and gate raid the four planets still under AI control, so that the looming exo has to come through Citadel (where my fixed defenses are) or the upper left hub (Cascade, where my entire fleet + allied enclaves) will be.

The fruits of these systems:
Black widow; now fully armed and operational.
Regen; sitting there unrepaired.
EngineerV, ZombardV, PlaneV, RaiderV Fabs.
2 captured human settlements.
4 SCLs.
FactIV.

My resources go into spire modular forts. My K goes into forcefield and turret unlocks.

I routinely hunt the nemeses and hybrids.

The nemeses are waiting only one system away. I think threatfleet ships are supposed to wait further out (the SF appear to be suffering from the same bug: they are also one system out, but this benefits the AI instead of me). The hybrids keep suiciding. The astro train construction projects keep leaving the golem and core starships at the AI Home.

===Operation Improved Negotiation====

The Exo hit before I thought it would. H/K III group and a couple minor groups against the choke, and two golem groups heading for home. Choke holds (focusing k entirely on defense and the eight mod forts help), and the other groups are repelled with no significant damage.

Back to the nebulae:
SP vs CA: absurdly easy with eight missile happy destroyers.
Mourners: Those scale a bit more than I thought they would. Close call.
Ravenous Shadow: shattered monocles! Four of the things, and no additional enclave time?
I barely survived.

I'm starting to get threat carriers from the planet adjacent to the sole remaining uncolonized SCL. These combined with threat nemeses, the SF camping the same planet, and superfortress on said planet make killing them frustrating.

Ok, something is seriously wrong with that planet. In addition to the SF/threatfleet camping (despite it being adjacent to my territory), most of the astro trains in the galaxy are just sitting there, including a tachyon train. This makes ramming the superfort very difficult.

I did do it, though, with spire shadow cruisers protecting the rams en route. Then, I made a few runs with 8 insanity-mkIV equipped cruisers. That taught 'em.

The AI apparently didn't like me killing the SF threatfleet, because it declared a 2900-ship CPA.
Gametime 5:50, AIP 144, k 4500, champ level 34.
Unlocks:

Military station III.
Harvesters III.
Engineers II.
Warp Jammers.

Riots II.
HBS II.

FFs III.
HFFs II.
Miniforts.

Laser turret II
Missile turret III
HBC IV
Grav I

Observations/Bugs
I mentioned some of these in the text, but for easy reference I'll put them here, too.

Playing with 8 champs is fun.

Raid eyes appear to count modules as human ships.

You really should have the botnet-style reclamators scale with caps...
And nerf the mod fort insanity inducers...
Because I will have the equivalent of almost 32 normal cap botnet golems on Citadel by endgame.

Something is up with Lethality (the planet). It's returned to normal by the SoE save, but for a while:
Astro trains would not leave, and
SF and threatfleet would camp there despite it being adjacent to one of my planets.
WhatisWrongWithThisPlanet.sav has it at the height of weird (also shows the raid eye erroneously get upset).

Spire hammer has two ships added per wave.

Carrier changes are very nice.

Hybrids keep suiciding (attached a save over in the current beta thread (6.029)).

Golems and core starships from astro constrution remain on the AI homeworld.

(minor) Upon load, threat waiting the proper distance from a wormhole will "tag" its wormhole, then return to its original position.


State of Empire:
« Last Edit: May 17, 2013, 04:07:00 am by Faulty Logic »
If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

Offline TechSY730

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Re: Advanced Negotiation
« Reply #3 on: May 17, 2013, 10:49:02 am »
For what it is worth, I am still seeing a few, normal threat ships entering when they shouldn't as well. However, it is a lot less frequent than it used to be, which is an improvement to be sure.

Anyways, I'm impressed that even with all the changing up the "guts" of the AI, very few bugs seem to be introduced. Good job Kieth. :)

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Advanced Negotiation
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2013, 12:55:07 pm »
It gets better: due to a glitch (I think) it sends an extra extra spire ship with every wave.
Interesting.  I forget if it's supposed to do that on diff 10 or not.  Do you have a wave log for a hammer wave?

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But [FS is] where the AI needs to sync the most.
If you say so ;)

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I'm not sure. It feels like it's getting the same number of ships as at normal caps, though.
Just checked the code, and on diff 10 it should be triggering every 20 seconds, and every trigger it should be getting (for each deepstruck planet) 100*(tech level) strength of ships.  Strength factors in cap scale so that should take care of it.  So on high caps against a tech-level-2 AI it could be 100 mkII fighters.  On ultra-low it would be 12 or 13 mkII fighters.

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It got significantly harder. Threat is a lot trickier to hunt down, and seems more aggressive.
Good to know a week's work has some visible manifestation ;)

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There seem to be more guard posts than before
Shouldn't be, but now that it's not dumping 3+ counterattack posts on a bunch of planets you will see more that actually hurt you when they shoot you.

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and there are certainly more, tougher guardians.
Yea, they're a nasty bunch.  Should be fewer in the initial seed than before, and a lower overall cap due to WHGPs not getting them anymore.  But alerting a planet will tend to bring it up to guardian cap pretty fast particularly on diff 10.

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And there are oversized CPAs, as well.
Right, already fixed the champ factor there, but not in time for this game.  Such a shame ;)  Though it looks like all it will do is maybe make this a little less of a walkover due to the insanity inducers and such.

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Exos are at 69%, but they decided to wait.
This is before hour 5, right?  They don't sync before that.  But the % was high enough (>= 60).

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Ravenous Shadow: shattered monocles! Four of the things, and no additional enclave time?
Did you see the nebula clouds in the shape of "Cinth Was Here?".

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Ok, something is seriously wrong with that planet.
Interestingly it seems that at least 3 bugs (SF camping too close, TF camping too close, Trains camping at all) were conspiring in to produce what was effectively a relatively smart deployment by the AI.  Not much else could even have slowed you down.

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The AI apparently didn't like me killing the SF threatfleet, because it declared a 2900-ship CPA.
More zombies for the horde, I suppose.  Ever consider a career in Overlordery?

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Playing with 8 champs is fun.
Glad to hear it :)  Sounds like there's challenge in this scenario, but not of the actual-loss-probable sort, so having something that makes it still fun is good.

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Raid eyes appear to count modules as human ships.
All modules or just modules on human ships?

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You really should have the botnet-style reclamators scale with caps...
And nerf the mod fort insanity inducers...
Because I will have the equivalent of almost 32 normal cap botnet golems on Citadel by endgame.
Yea you might have a point there.

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Something is up with Lethality (the planet).
Will take a look at the TF/SF/Trains thing, and the train-construction-on-HW stuff, etc.
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Offline Dichotomy

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Re: Advanced Negotiation
« Reply #5 on: May 17, 2013, 05:55:55 pm »
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First order of business: name the Negotiators (because "champion n" is boring):
Let's see if I can get the characters:

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Aelita
Oh. Her.
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Raven
Wears blue, half-demon?
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River
Can kill you with her brain?
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Vin
Mistborn.
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Karen
Drawing a blank.
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Orwell
Glau again!
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Buffy
Vampire claws were that annoying?

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*Keeps it interesting.
So the AI doesn't instantly surrender, more like.

This seems to be going well, though I wouldn't expect problems until late fallen spire, given the setup.
You are all insane. In. Sane. No argument.

Offline Faulty Logic

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Re: Advanced Negotiation
« Reply #6 on: May 19, 2013, 06:58:59 pm »
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This is before hour 5, right?  They don't sync before that.  But the % was high enough (>= 60).
Forgot about that criterion. Yeah, before hour 5.

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Did you see the nebula clouds in the shape of "Cinth Was Here?".
I suspected his influence.

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More zombies for the horde, I suppose.  Ever consider a career in Overlordery?
Yes I have. Yeah, I do have a cast-iron "no fleetships allowed" sign.

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All modules or just modules on human ships?
I don't know.

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Aelita
Oh. Her.
Who better to fight malevolent programs?
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Raven
Wears blue, half-demon?
Correct.
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River
Can kill you with her brain?
Probably not (directly), but that's who I was thinking of.
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Vin
Mistborn.
Atium would be particularly useful.
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Karen
Drawing a blank.
Karen S'jet, fleet command, from Homeworld
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Orwell
Glau again!
Right.
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Buffy
Vampire claws were that annoying?
They killed one command station too many!
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This seems to be going well, though I wouldn't expect problems until late fallen spire, given the setup.
I think I underestimated the power of the x8 diplomatic fleet. It's about on par with a late-game FS fleet. And the insanity inducers are, well, insane on ultra-low caps. I did set it to 6, and had intended to win the FS way, though.

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Do you have a wave log for a hammer wave?
From the waves-main log:
Code: [Select]
5/17/2013 5:15:52 PM (6.029)
-----------------------------------
Performing first CheckWave with size factor of 2.95 on wave at Game Time: 7:18:57

CheckWave: populating count of SpireStealthBattleshipII with base magnitude of 167
numberUnits = kv.Value * this.WaveSize : 492.15
after applying the ship-type-specific cap multiplier (which includes the unit-cap-scale multiplier), numberUnits : 12.74
after applying UsefulnessInAIWaveMultiplier if any, numberUnits : 12.74
after applying Mark-based multiplier if any, numberUnits : 11.46
after applying difficulty-based multiplier (if <= 3 then 1, <= 4 : 1.5, <= 5 : 1.75, <= 6 : 2, <= 7 : 2.25, <= 9 : 2.5, <= 9.3 : 2.9, <= 9.6 : 3.3, <= 9.8 : 4, 10 : 5), numberUnits : 57.31
after applying at-least-one rule, numberUnits : 57.31
numberUnitsInt = numberUnits.IntValue : 57

CheckWave: populating count of InfiltratorII with base magnitude of 165
numberUnits = kv.Value * this.WaveSize : 486.26
after applying the ship-type-specific cap multiplier (which includes the unit-cap-scale multiplier), numberUnits : 101.26
after applying UsefulnessInAIWaveMultiplier if any, numberUnits : 101.26
after applying Mark-based multiplier if any, numberUnits : 91.13
after applying difficulty-based multiplier (if <= 3 then 1, <= 4 : 1.5, <= 5 : 1.75, <= 6 : 2, <= 7 : 2.25, <= 9 : 2.5, <= 9.3 : 2.9, <= 9.6 : 3.3, <= 9.8 : 4, 10 : 5), numberUnits : 455.64
after applying at-least-one rule, numberUnits : 455.64
numberUnitsInt = numberUnits.IntValue : 455

CheckWave: populating count of SpireDestroyer with base magnitude of 6
skipping most calc step due to starship type
after applying at-least-one rule, numberUnits : 6
numberUnitsInt = numberUnits.IntValue : 6

CheckWave: populating count of DreadnoughtII with base magnitude of 1
skipping most calc step due to starship type
after applying at-least-one rule, numberUnits : 1
numberUnitsInt = numberUnits.IntValue : 1

CheckWave: populating count of SpireStarshipI with base magnitude of 2
skipping most calc step due to starship type
after applying at-least-one rule, numberUnits : 2
numberUnitsInt = numberUnits.IntValue : 2

CheckWave: populating count of SpireStealthBattleshipIII with base magnitude of 118
numberUnits = kv.Value * this.WaveSize : 347.75
after applying the ship-type-specific cap multiplier (which includes the unit-cap-scale multiplier), numberUnits : 9
after applying UsefulnessInAIWaveMultiplier if any, numberUnits : 9
after applying Mark-based multiplier if any, numberUnits : 6.3
after applying difficulty-based multiplier (if <= 3 then 1, <= 4 : 1.5, <= 5 : 1.75, <= 6 : 2, <= 7 : 2.25, <= 9 : 2.5, <= 9.3 : 2.9, <= 9.6 : 3.3, <= 9.8 : 4, 10 : 5), numberUnits : 31.49
after applying at-least-one rule, numberUnits : 31.49
numberUnitsInt = numberUnits.IntValue : 31

CheckWave: populating count of InfiltratorIII with base magnitude of 116
numberUnits = kv.Value * this.WaveSize : 341.85
after applying the ship-type-specific cap multiplier (which includes the unit-cap-scale multiplier), numberUnits : 71.19
after applying UsefulnessInAIWaveMultiplier if any, numberUnits : 71.19
after applying Mark-based multiplier if any, numberUnits : 49.83
after applying difficulty-based multiplier (if <= 3 then 1, <= 4 : 1.5, <= 5 : 1.75, <= 6 : 2, <= 7 : 2.25, <= 9 : 2.5, <= 9.3 : 2.9, <= 9.6 : 3.3, <= 9.8 : 4, 10 : 5), numberUnits : 249.15
after applying at-least-one rule, numberUnits : 249.15
numberUnitsInt = numberUnits.IntValue : 249

Wave total ships: 801
TypesForDirectAdd count by type:
SpireStealthBattleshipII => 57
InfiltratorII => 193
TypesForCarrierAdd count by type:
InfiltratorII => 262
SpireDestroyer => 6
DreadnoughtII => 1
SpireStarshipI => 2
SpireStealthBattleshipIII => 31
InfiltratorIII => 249
totalStrengthRepresented = 19446.44

===Operation Out the Window====

This game started to lag from the huge number of zombies/champ minions, and I have new stuff to test, so I abandoned the fallen spire plan. I conquered all the AI planets behind my choke, dumping the k into defense (fortsIII, HFFIII, all turrets but counters/tractors) and still had 22,500 left over. Quickly conquered the remaining CSGs, then smashed the AI HWs with the Diplomatic Fleet. Victory at 10 hours.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2013, 07:00:46 pm by Faulty Logic »
If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Advanced Negotiation
« Reply #7 on: May 19, 2013, 09:40:11 pm »
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Do you have a wave log for a hammer wave?
From the waves-main log:
Ah yes. 6 Destroyers.  Sounds uncomfortable.  The actual calculation for  how many of those would be in an entry with the string "AddAITypeSpecificUnitsToWave".  Suffice it to say, the difficulty level has it out for you.

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===Operation Out the Window====
Nothing like a good operational defenestration.

8-champ is clearly overpowered ;)  At the same time, so is 16-HW.  The new thing here was mixing levels of power (including mod forts and such) normally reserved for many-HW games into a single-HW one.

And of course, Insanity Inducers... inducing insanity.
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Offline Faulty Logic

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Re: Advanced Negotiation
« Reply #8 on: May 20, 2013, 09:05:06 pm »
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8-champ is clearly overpowered  ;)
Indeed. I wish there were more options regarding the champions, their rewards, and the response. Like:
Champion Easy: you get a champion, no response.
Champion Moderate: old way of counterbalancing (offensive increase, HW nemeses).
Champion Hard (number): Nemesis response, with 4 being the default (so champ-hard-4 is what is currently happening with them).

Champion Lone Wolf: Boolean modifier to any of the above: just adds a champion, no nebula reward increase.

Nebula Difficulty: 1-10, 4 as default.
If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

 

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