is the A.I any better?

[Rosebourne]

I see the game is on sale at green man gaming right now and I really really have been wanting to play it.


But I always heard the A.I was pants on head dumb. To the point that it brings down the entire experience.


I heard they hired a guy who was making an A.I mod for the game and i'm wondering if it has improved so you feel like the A.I is an actually threat?

[Nightmyre]

If you're a new player, the AI is more than good enough for you. If you're experienced, there are more than enough ways to make the AI a challenge.

Often, people complaining about the AI, are doing so on lower difficulties, and hoping the AI will play "properly", IE, letting them have a challenge without actually giving the AI a bonus. That's not realistic.

Currently the AI is about as good as it'll get - which is to say, pretty decent.

[galadon3]

It is way better then it was at the intoduction of the new economy, while you can make a planet you run more efficient, the planets I conquer now from the AI are functional (in 2.2 it was horrible, AI worlds had 80%+ crime next to no stability and where amenities starved).

You might still have to change a world a lot but that is to make it fit the needs of your economy not because its ♥♥♥♥.

What the AI doesnt do:
- properly specialize worlds (thats part of the "player can do it better" thing
-handle fleets in war really intelligent. But even there its way better then it was, they still sometimes manage to have smaller units suicide and they are easily baited by a smaller fleet you sacrifice to get them in the battle and jump in with the main-fleet when they are engaged, but so far I haven't seen it sacrifice clearly outmatched fleets against superior starbases or fleets anymore. (only sometimes loosing units that where on route somewhere and got intercepted, seems the AI checks for those pretty seldom)

What the auto-sector AI doesnt do:
- Build up ANY admin cap (ran a testgame without AI-empires and gave the Auto-sector control of the capital sector, built up to 8 worlds and let the AI run it), even when sprawl went to more then double the admin cap it didnt even UPGRADE the starting admin-building on my homeworld
- Build science buildings in the balanced setting (ran the test 100 years and it did nothing to build science buildings).

Still have to test the planetary automation, so maybe that is the solution for that problem, at the moment the sector-AI seems ok when you already have 1-3 solid sectors you run yourself and you conquer a new area you dont want to take care of.
Havent finished the testing, might still be that the AI runs in trouble late game but so far, I'd say you can turf such a sector to the AI and expect some profit in ressources from the sector.