Why is the AI still so bad at managing planets?

[POOTISMAN]

Stellaris was released 7 years ago, but the AI for managing planets still looks like it’s in an alpha state.

When ironman mode is disabled, you can use the "play ##" command to take a look at the AI’s planets ... They are terrible! The AI has tons of resources and unemployed pops on most planets, but they don’t upgrade their buildings. They also have many undeveloped planets with only the capital and one building.

How hard is it to write a script that, for example, upgrades a building if there are enough resources and unemployed pops?

[Immortalis]

Well, for one, upgrading building or reaching full employement on every single planet is not necessarily the best strategy. Having unemployed pops increases the chance of them migrating to worlds where jobs are available, thus allowing you to grow pops faster (since they grow on several different planets at once) and then consolidate on a single planet, increasing the overall output.

Then again there's the argument that the AI is supposed to be inefficient: if every AI played in the most efficient way possible, we'd end up having a dozen different empires that are really different in name only since everything would be perfectly identical (as that's the most efficient way to play).

[pete3great]

Originally posted by Immortalis:

Then again there's the argument that the AI is supposed to be inefficient: if every AI played in the most efficient way possible, we'd end up having a dozen different empires that are really different in name only since everything would be perfectly identical (as that's the most efficient way to play).

The planetary AI and the AI running the empires are two different things. And anyway, the empire AI is super-efficient in some ways (it sends out diplomatic messages faster than any human is capable of, which is why they tend to end up with huge numbers of vassal states), and doesn't need to be efficient in other ways (massive resource bonuses, depending on the difficulty setting).

[POOTISMAN]

Originally posted by Immortalis:

Having unemployed pops increases the chance of them migrating to worlds where jobs are available, thus allowing you to grow pops faster

That might be a good strategy for early game when your resources are low, but im in mid game. The AI has 100k energy and 50k alloy in the bank. They can afford to move their pops around as much as they like. They should for example upgrade their science labs and move all their unemployed pops to them to increase research output. Or instead of leaving half of their planets undeveloped, they could fill them with strongholds (= fleet capacity), so that they can make use of their huge alloy income.


Also, for some reason, the AI loves commercial zones, which create the most inefficient job in the game, the clerk.

[Bumc]

Keep in mind that AI in Stellaris is a narrative generator rather than computer-controlled players that try to win the game like a human would.

The difficulty settings are there to provide different environments, but there is not much point making AI act "smart", especially on planet-building level.
As long as their ineffectiveness is compensated by the resource bonuses to achieve planned game difficulty all is going according to the plan...

I don't like this paradigm either, but in strategy games players often are fine with AI getting bonus free stuff, but not with it actually playing well.

[POOTISMAN]

Originally posted by Bumc:

The difficulty settings are there to provide different environments, but there is not much point making AI act "smart", especially on planet-building level.
As long as their ineffectiveness is compensated by the resource bonuses to achieve planned game difficulty all is going according to the plan...

The problem is that the AI isn't doing much with the resource bonuses. They are sitting on 100k energy and 50k alloys and build commercial zones (or nothing) while getting steam rolled by genocidal empires.

Anyway, i have started managing the AI empire's planets as well. Correcting the biggest mistakes, so that i dont end up in a dead boring end game again with nothing to do except waiting for the crisis.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Barnacell:

Also, for some reason, the AI loves commercial zones, which create the most inefficient job in the game, the clerk.

They helping to fight unemployement problem (actually most efficient way - most jobs per 1 slot).

Take in mind that AI trying to create somewhat balanced planets because it isn't capable to plan in advance + such distributed economy is more prone to sudden failures and make a better enemy from AI (it actually could manage a few hits). While human player rely on two ecumenopolis for alloys&CG will be much efficient - sudden loss of them will doom his empire.

Originally posted by Barnacell:

while getting steam rolled by genocidal empires.

It's like it should be - a single empire should lose to ~equal genocidal one. They need to grow bigger then them or rely on defense pacts / Feds.

Dunno, on A/GA runs all AI genocidal empires are doomed. Some are lucky and grow up pretty big but then wiped by Feds.

[bri]

The game might be seven years old but planetary management has been completely ripped apart and half-a$$ put back together in the last 3-4 years while also making radical changes and additions to other parts of the game. Since there isn't any sort of dedicated ai team available to completely revamp the ai it's not really surprising that the ai quality isn't so good.

[GoldenTalon]

Originally posted by pete3great:

Originally posted by Immortalis:

Then again there's the argument that the AI is supposed to be inefficient: if every AI played in the most efficient way possible, we'd end up having a dozen different empires that are really different in name only since everything would be perfectly identical (as that's the most efficient way to play).

The planetary AI and the AI running the empires are two different things. And anyway, the empire AI is super-efficient in some ways (it sends out diplomatic messages faster than any human is capable of, which is why they tend to end up with huge numbers of vassal states), and doesn't need to be efficient in other ways (massive resource bonuses, depending on the difficulty setting).

Bonuses are just cheats for a bad AI.