[Deprecated] Considering the removal of AI Progress.

[Tridus]

The one comment I'll make is that it currently feels like the AI has a real blind spot to being neutered; I can go through the galaxy and basically wipe out every guard post and Sentinel, taking only enough systems to avoid Deepstriking, and the AI will barely notice.

I've wondered if it might be better to have Guard Posts trigger 1 AIP each on destruction, and reduce the AIP for Warp Gates to 3 and CSs to 5.  That would keep the AIP cost of the system roughly the same, but would make neutering less effective.

And, following that idea, I felt that the AI floor concept, and basically "AI progress reduction" as a whole should have been destroyed. That was a huge blindspot in the AI too.

AI Progress Reduction gives the player some high priority targets and interesting things to do, though. Some of the ways of doing it could use some tweaking, but deepstriking to get the last Co-Processor is a useful objective to have in the game.

[retropunch]

Going forward, I'd like to see the AI more reactive, but the whole point of why AI War is so fun for me is that the AI feels like this gargantuan, unstoppable, heartless machine (indicated by the number forever going upwards). This is something that only AI War really manages to pull off and I believe that we'd risk losing that by making it more nuanced and 'human'.

I second Orelius' views on the permanent gains for permanent AIP and a sort of temporary meter which might cause the AI to lash out or take very specific retaliations.

[Smithgift]

I'm... actually ok with this. Perhaps have an aggregate "AI Progress" from the various subscores that gives you an at-a-glance general idea of how dangerous the AI is (with the actual subscores on a tooltip over it).

I actually read this as subcores.

Which seems like it would be a potential basis for a split AIP system. There's the Logistics AI subcore, which gets annoyed if you blow up warp gates, the Security Subcore which is angered by hacking, the Core subcore which ignores you until you start attacking core planets...

[chemical_art]

-Keep AI Progress in some form, but make it constant and only based on permanent gains (destroying AI stations, colonizing, destroying critical AI structures and posts, perhaps even doing certain kinds of research)
-Make a 'temporary added AI progress' system for certain disposable and temporary resources like warheads.  Instead of making lightning warhead a '+1 AI progress when killed or destroyed', instead make it '+10 AI Progress for one hour when killed or destroyed', or something along those lines.  Then, with repeated use, this penalty gets harsher, perhaps adding more temporary progress or increasing the duration when.  This encourages use of these resources when you're in a pinch, but it doesn't make you wince because you'll have to pay for it the rest of the entire game.

I am a fan of this concept. The idea of many of the short term ideas causing permanent AIP hit causes a hoarding effect so I do not feel like they are enjoyed as much as I could. The idea of temporary AIP sounds great. Nukes won't be thrown around willy nilly. After all the AI losing a world to it is still permanent, and tossing it on a player world is not good either.

[Toranth]

As long as the idea of "You must avoid attracting the AI's attention, or it will crush you like the bug you are" is maintained, I'm not too picky about the exact mechanism used.  AIP is a very easy to understand, plan for, and manipulate / abuse, during gameplay.  If it becomes several different numbers, or something more vague like 'stages' or 'colors', again, not a real difference in my mind.

I wonder if a 'local AIP' / 'local AI annoyance level' might be useful?  Keep running your fleet through a single system, don't be surprised if the AI eventually puts out the RAID for you.

[PokerChen]

Keep running your fleet through a single system, don't be surprised if the AI eventually puts out the RAID for you.

AI War: Wild West.

[Cyborg]

2.h. Replacement of AI progress
I'm on board. I think your reasoning is sound. You're not talking about removing consequences, or fun AI reactions to how we play, so I don't think we should be worried. I think this sounds like we could get more intelligent, nuanced AI.

[Dominus Arbitrationis]

I think it would make for much more interesting gameplay, but make sure that you have a solid plan that will be fun in mind. Otherwise... Well, SBR is the result. It just lacks that something special.

[Misery]

Okay, it's absolutely possible I'm missing something, or it's just the fact that I haven't been awake long and haven't had my caffeine, but one thing that kinda bothers me with temporary AI progress is, well, wouldn't it encourage the player to just sit there?  Waiting for that bit to go away before making another move?  That's something I've always noticed in gaming:  Give players ANY system that causes something to recharge/regenerate over time (which is basically what this is, they're waiting for "safety" to go back up), and they WILL abuse the hell out of it, and then whine that the game in question is slow/boring.  That they don't HAVE to use it that way never occurs to them, because doing it that way is the easier way out.

[Draco18s]

Yes, but in the case of the player "sitting there" the AI is making moves.

Remember, temporary boosts to the AI are not neccessarily time based.  Think about golems: activating one increases "AIP" but that boost would last...until the golem dies.

Even in the case of "lasts 15 minutes" it's not like the AI is doing nothing during those 15 minutes: its building up its fleet, it's attacking the player, it's defending its homeworlds.  Just because the activity dies down after a few minutes doesn't mean that there was no penalty.

[Orelius]

Okay, it's absolutely possible I'm missing something, or it's just the fact that I haven't been awake long and haven't had my caffeine, but one thing that kinda bothers me with temporary AI progress is, well, wouldn't it encourage the player to just sit there?  Waiting for that bit to go away before making another move?  That's something I've always noticed in gaming:  Give players ANY system that causes something to recharge/regenerate over time (which is basically what this is, they're waiting for "safety" to go back up), and they WILL abuse the hell out of it, and then whine that the game in question is slow/boring.  That they don't HAVE to use it that way never occurs to them, because doing it that way is the easier way out.

That's true.  In that case, it's probably a better idea to just do away with AI progress entirely and have two new mechanics - the AI wariness of your empire size and the AI temporary progress based on your actions.  I was thinking more along the lines of retaliation waves or reinforcements in response to things like warheads, similar to mechanics like hacking response.  Starting off small but getting increasingly uncontrollable as you use it more.  It's essentially exactly what AI progress is, just kind of distilled into a concrete form.  So if you use a lightning warhead, you might get something like 'AI 1 has constructed a MK1 Fortified Guard Post on Murdoch in response to your warhead use'.

In that sense, using temporary resources is like taking a loan with heavy interest - you get out of trouble today to get your finances in order but have to deal with something bigger later.

[Sestren]

I was thinking more along the lines of retaliation waves or reinforcements in response to things like warheads, similar to mechanics like hacking response.  Starting off small but getting increasingly uncontrollable as you use it more.  It's essentially exactly what AI progress is, just kind of distilled into a concrete form.  So if you use a lightning warhead, you might get something like 'AI 1 has constructed a MK1 Fortified Guard Post on Murdoch in response to your warhead use'.

In that sense, using temporary resources is like taking a loan with heavy interest - you get out of trouble today to get your finances in order but have to deal with something bigger later.

Running with the idea of having the AI react to your short term moves in such a manner, it could be interesting if the sorts of responses selected are intended to counter the specific behavior causing them. Use a lot of warheads? The AI starts buying more warhead interceptors and favoring aoe immune ship types when possible. Stuff like that.

I think this has two upsides and one downside.
Pro: It keeps the player from becoming too reliant on a single strategy because overuse of that strategy leads to it becoming less effective as the game goes on.
Pro: It becomes possible to 'mislead' the AI by making particular choices early that leave it less prepared for your late game plans, potentially adding some long term strategy.
Con: The AI in AIWar1 (as far as I am aware) is effectively memoryless, only considering the current state. For the AI to react to your past actions, it has to remember your past actions to some degree. I don't know if that's advisable from a technical standpoint (savegame sizes, etc.). With all the performance improvements it might not be such a big deal now? But I don't know.

[Pumpkin]

I'm afraid my suggestion on a separated post got lost in the flow. Here is a bit of advertising, if you don't mind.
Organic Design (No AIP, no HaP, no magic moving)

[Tridus]

Okay, it's absolutely possible I'm missing something, or it's just the fact that I haven't been awake long and haven't had my caffeine, but one thing that kinda bothers me with temporary AI progress is, well, wouldn't it encourage the player to just sit there?  Waiting for that bit to go away before making another move?  That's something I've always noticed in gaming:  Give players ANY system that causes something to recharge/regenerate over time (which is basically what this is, they're waiting for "safety" to go back up), and they WILL abuse the hell out of it, and then whine that the game in question is slow/boring.  That they don't HAVE to use it that way never occurs to them, because doing it that way is the easier way out.

If the game design encourages players to do something, Devs don't get to complain when players do that thing. Even if that thing is not fun. Thats why WoW moved away from huge cool down abilities and using 5 flasks at once: players will do it once the game gets hard, to get every edge they can. Players will turn sit around waiting for their cool downs instead of playing, and complain that it's not fun, because making the raid even harder on themselves is foolish.

The absolute last thing AIW2 should do is add things that encourage waiting for the effect to go away. We do not need more Netflix time.

[PokerChen]

It might be easier to imagine the player's aggravating actions as delivering viruses to the AI, who possesses an immune system. Each time the player tries something, the AI will devote more resources to a hard counter or a permanent counter, neither of which will go away just by waiting.

The simplest analogy is the following: you send some numbers to the AI, it reinforces with fighters. Those fighters don't disappear. If you destroy those fighters with frigates, the AI reinforces with more bombers of its own. Etc. This would normally be a vicious cycle, but since the AI has more resources than you, it can be tuned to force players to invent new counters eventually.