AI Type Brainstorming thread

[Orelius]

I'm intending this thread to be a place for discussion of AI type ideas and to see how they might work, function, etc. 

So, I've had some thoughts about possible AI types, but I haven't seen much discussion at all, really.  So, here is a list (most I copypasted from my mantis submission)


Wormhole Camper AI:
This type of AI concentrates most of its forces around wormholes and the areas between their command ship and the wormholes. Planets are heavily defended, guard posts are all between the wormholes and the command station. Guard ships lurk around the wormholes.
There would be two types of wormhole campers, one being an easy AI type, and the other being a medium(or maybe hard) AI type. The medium AI type would make all of the AI ships immune to area damage (to make it impossible to wipe out ships with warheads or generally, area damage).

Watchful AI:
Medium AI type. Similar to how the turtle AI's used to function, this AI would have a ridiculously high number of AI eyes, on perhaps 80% of their planets. They send normal waves and have moderate defenses.

Resource Denier AI:
Hard(?) AI type. Sends waves of fast raider ships (preferably immune to tractor beams or maybe gravity turrets, too) to hit resource nodes specifically to cripple your economy (might overlap with some minor factions, though).

Unsharing AI:
Medium AI type. All ships immune to tractor beams and reclamation.

False Advertising AI / Secretive AI
The False Advertising that can only be selected randomly and without revealing the AI types (It's no fun if you know that it's deceiving you)
This AI is more or less a moderately stronger vanilla AI, but it selects the traits of particularly nasty AI types like the mad bomber and acts accordingly.  Wave sizes and ship counts are messed with on a regular basis, making them a very unreliable source of information.

Alternatively, there can be an AI (secretive) that flat-out denies the player information that all of us AI War players hold dear like ship counts and planet defenses, making them appear as "" no matter what, even with scout intel.  You are given absolutely no information whatsoever and are pretty much left in the dark, literally.  I'm not sure if this AI is too original, as I think that a situation like this can be duplicated by messing with fog of war and selecting some AI types.vv

Generally, I'd like to see some AI types that screw with the player's ability to gauge the AI's strength.


So... Brainstorm!

[superking]

Gaurdmaster

waves & reinforcement consist entirely of gaurdians.

Deep Striker

All waves arrive inside carriers.

Stalker

Uses Cross-Planet-Waves regardless of settings, and requires a higher than normal ratio of superiority before freed ships invade player systems- this leads to large threat buildups of ships waiting outside your borders.

Grand Strategist

AI has no warpgates, but a high wave size modifier. All AI waves spawn at the AI Homeworld's Exo-galactic Wormhole, meaning they must filter through the galaxy to arrive at player systems.
This allows the AI to decide freely where they are sent and where they attack. (this would work well with player controlled AI in the event of a future expansion...)

[Cyborg]

I would disable most of those AI types.  

Want to know a fun AI? hybrids! The biggest and best reason for the CoN expansion, these devils always have me watching to see what they're up to. I would want any AI to be plotting, scheming, and moving about the map as that is very engaging. Frankly, just updating the AI in general to assess and react to player behavior across the board would be an upgrade.

Some of the AI types you mentioned (and no doubt we have some of them in the game) just feel like handicapping the player by adding or subtracting some key element; your eye AI is one example of that kind of thing. It's all well and good, but it really just encourages rote practice of a certain kind of puzzle rather than making me "match wits." I don't object, I just wouldn't partake.

[superking]

I would lover de grand strategist

[Vinraith]

I would lover de grand strategist

It's pretty much identical to this AI option:

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=1858

which I've always thought was a great idea. I think I'd rather have it as a setup option, rather than an AI type, though.

[Frozen Critical]

'Kay

Cheater AI

Cheats, yeah, cheats to get huge armies

Oh, wait, that's way too stumped and random, so :

Aware

Knows about the human rebellion, all planets are always alerted and AI progress is twice as fast, and attacks happen even at the start of the game

Invulnerable

Planets are insanely defended, making each planet a massive powerful blockade that only the strongest offensives can break through, doesn't send waves

Mimic

Counters your every move, got fighters? Eat frigate missiles, oh, what's it? Starships? Here's some anti-starships, good thing they don't copy strategies(or is it?)

[BobTheJanitor]

Ouch. I think the idea is to provide an interesting challenge, not an AI that will utterly crush you.

[Echo35]

'Kay

Cheater AI

Cheats, yeah, cheats to get huge armies

That already happens. You think the AI actually MAKES any of that stuff?

Aware

Knows about the human rebellion, all planets are always alerted and AI progress is twice as fast, and attacks happen even at the start of the game

You can manually make it increase faster, and all planets on alert would make it easier since the AI gets limited reinforcements, and they would almost never be placed in a system that was actually threatening to you.

Invulnerable

Planets are insanely defended, making each planet a massive powerful blockade that only the strongest offensives can break through, doesn't send waves

There's a few AI already that do that, and some even send such impenetrable defenses after you, like the Beachhead.

Mimic

Counters your every move, got fighters? Eat frigate missiles, oh, what's it? Starships? Here's some anti-starships, good thing they don't copy strategies(or is it?)

The point of having set mono-type waves is to be defensible, but you can make hidden, cross planet, randomized waves if you want behavior like that.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Necromancer
All waves consist of unreclaimable unreasoning Zombies.  Has some Botnet Golems and higher than usual numbers of Zombie Guardians.  Attack waves are often accompanied by Zombie Guardians. 

Missile Command
Always starts with Zenith Autobombs and Spire Minirams.  Unique Structures: Core Warhead Interceptors, Missile Silos. Missile Silos act similar to raid engines, except they launch lightning warheads when alerted. 

Crowd Control
Always starts with Grenade Launchers.  Attack waves are usually accompanied by Riot Starships. 

Spiremaster
Combines the Spireling, Spire Hammer and Craft Spire AIs.

Juggernaut
All waves spawn using Exo-Galactic logic, tending to have strong lead ships. 

Ultra Golemite
As Golemite, but the golems are full strength.

Ultra Starfleet Commander
The return of super starship spam!

Deadly Duplicator
Vanilla, but every wave is duplicated. Weak defenses. The second wave can attack different planets than the first wave. Theoretically challenging because - i.e. - being attacked by 2 bomber waves in 2 different locations is difficult to counter.
Swordmaster
Starts with all melee fleet ships.  Can get Spirecraft Rams as starship choices for waves.

[Cyborg]

Can we move away from gimmicky AI? When we talk about artificial intelligence, shouldn't we be talking about intelligent gameplay mechanics? For the most part, these sound like plots that you turn on and off. Mass eyes, mass silos...well what about mass ion cannons, 3x faction effects, etc(I don't support these)? You could say that about everything in the game.

Wouldn't having 30 of any one structure get redundant and boring after a while?

I would like to hear some ideas about actual emergent mechanics and intelligent AI.

[Volatar]

Can we move away from gimmicky AI? When we talk about artificial intelligence, shouldn't we be talking about intelligent gameplay mechanics? For the most part, these sound like plots that you turn on and off. Mass eyes, mass silos...well what about mass ion cannons, 3x faction effects, etc(I don't support these)? You could say that about everything in the game.

Wouldn't having 30 of any one structure get redundant and boring after a while?

I would like to hear some ideas about actual emergent mechanics and intelligent AI.

Thats not the point of this thread. This thread is for AI Types.

[Cyborg]

Thats not the point of this thread. This thread is for AI Types.

AI types don't have AI behavior, they just have enemy structure overload? Okay let me give you a brief, non-fleshed out example of a behavior that is dynamic:

Castle builder AI

AI attempts dynamic fortification, actively building on likely player battlefronts and towards player behavior. For example, if a player is moving towards some node cluster, maybe it attempts to build towards the highest value planet that the player may want to target.

[Volatar]

Thats not the point of this thread. This thread is for AI Types.

AI types don't have AI behavior, they just have enemy structure overload? Okay let me give you a brief, non-fleshed out example of a behavior that is dynamic:

Castle builder AI

AI attempts dynamic fortification, actively building on likely player battlefronts and towards player behavior. For example, if a player is moving towards some node cluster, maybe it attempts to build towards the highest value planet that the player may want to target.

Pretty much any behavior like that would be best put into the AI in general to make it smarter, rather than sticking it into a specific AI type that many players will never encounter.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

That's what advanced defensive hybrids are supposed to do but theyre broken or something.   

[Cyborg]

Pretty much any behavior like that would be best put into the AI in general to make it smarter, rather than sticking it into a specific AI type that many players will never encounter.

Because I gave one example? I could easily give another 10 for dynamic behaviors that would apply to different AI. You are missing the point. AI is artificial intelligence. Gimmicky things like spamming a certain structure has nothing to do with artificial intelligence. Looking at existing AI types, we have one that likes to use tractor beams to steal units. That's kind of funny and entertaining, and it occurs (from the player perspective) dynamically. It's a behavior. Please contrast that with dropping down  counterattack guard posts everywhere, Eyes, and so on.

Another example:

Kamikaze AI
-----
AI that likes to suicide units, particularly into low HP targets. AI creates suicide fleets that go on bombing runs.

Mass AI
------------------------
AI tends to build up a bigger firepower differential in normal. Note to the player: this can lead to more frequent carriers and barracks without attention.

Faction Panderer AI
------------------
AI seeks out marauders, enclaves and more to do synchronized strikes.



There are three different behaviors that could be applied to an AI, distinct and separate and therefore applicable to an AI personality.

I want to add one more piece, there are other games that have AI types. Chessmaster for example. In that game, you can choose what the AI values most, the types of games that it tries to engage in (open, closed, aggressive, technical, etc.), depth of moves, and so on. That game doesn't allow for spamming rooks or queens; they are personalities.

Maybe it would be easier if we clarify whether an AI type is a personality or seeding structures. The way I see it, the latter can only exist in the context of the former if you are going to call it an AI type. For example, putting down Eyes everywhere doesn't make a whole lot of sense without an AI(please read as artificial intelligence) to exploit it.