Questions on Strategy Game AI and Balance

[scrapser 11]

I've experimented a little with the strategy version of the game and wonder if anyone here has some idea of how the AI carrier expands its own network of islands. I tried a game with everything set to the minimum on both sides to start. I figured I would end up with a game similar to the original where both sides start at opposite ends of the island chain with one island each and gradually build up their production and resource rates while capturing neutral islands. This eventually leads to both sides being able to construct the more effective weaponry and armor as well as other high ticket items. At some point both sides clash in the middle and then the real combat begins. During all of this there is pressure to make smart judgments and be effective and efficient.

But...in this game while I set up 5 neutral islands as a mix of resource and production, the enemy carrier created a string of resource islands only...9 in all...that lead straight to me. It attacked my closest island and when I got there I had just enough time to launch a Manta and fly over the island while it was being attacked. To my surprise, the enemy had 4 heavy (armor and weapons) Mantas and 3 heavy Walruses deployed on the island. Shortly thereafter, the island was taken while I was still flying overhead in my Manta.

The pods for establishing neutral islands all cost the same and take the same amount of time to construct. The heavy armor is expensive and also takes longer to construct. So how did the enemy carrier manage to build nearly twice as many pods plus all the heavy equipment in the time it took me to only construct pods and establish 5 islands? This doesn't factor in constructing fuel pods and the time it takes to traverse all the distance (both of us). Something seems amiss.

Another question...in the original game, the defense islands contribute 1/8 the ability to produce resources to the overall pot. Is this still true? Also, islands that get cut off from the network begin stockpiling resources up to a certain amount which gets transferred to the stockpile island once reconnected to the network. Is this still true? It doesn't look like it.

I'm just trying to get a sense of how the strategy game works so I don't spend hours wasting my time on false assumptions.

Thanks

[RichardCranium 1]

I've experimented a little with the strategy version of the game and wonder if anyone here has some idea of how the AI carrier expands its own network of islands. I tried a game with everything set to the minimum on both sides to start. I figured I would end up with a game similar to the original where both sides start at opposite ends of the island chain with one island each and gradually build up their production and resource rates while capturing neutral islands. This eventually leads to both sides being able to construct the more effective weaponry and armor as well as other high ticket items. At some point both sides clash in the middle and then the real combat begins. During all of this there is pressure to make smart judgments and be effective and efficient.

But...in this game while I set up 5 neutral islands as a mix of resource and production, the enemy carrier created a string of resource islands only...9 in all...that lead straight to me. It attacked my closest island and when I got there I had just enough time to launch a Manta and fly over the island while it was being attacked. To my surprise, the enemy had 4 heavy (armor and weapons) Mantas and 3 heavy Walruses deployed on the island. Shortly thereafter, the island was taken while I was still flying overhead in my Manta.

The pods for establishing neutral islands all cost the same and take the same amount of time to construct. The heavy armor is expensive and also takes longer to construct. So how did the enemy carrier manage to build nearly twice as many pods plus all the heavy equipment in the time it took me to only construct pods and establish 5 islands? This doesn't factor in constructing fuel pods and the time it takes to traverse all the distance (both of us). Something seems amiss.

Another question...in the original game, the defense islands contribute 1/8 the ability to produce resources to the overall pot. Is this still true? Also, islands that get cut off from the network begin stockpiling resources up to a certain amount which gets transferred to the stockpile island once reconnected to the network. Is this still true? It doesn't look like it.

I'm just trying to get a sense of how the strategy game works so I don't spend hours wasting my time on false assumptions.

Thanks

From what I've seen, the enemy has two strategies:

1. Make a beeline towards your stockpile island, taking whatever islands that are near the straight line path. Those islands may not make a connected network.
   
2. Occupy all empty islands first before attempting to take your stockpile island. After all empty islands belong to someone, it may attempt to extend its network towards your stockpile to get a friendly island within a certain range of it.
   

I'm not certain of the algorithm in option #2; option #1 happens a lot.

From a game play perspective, once you've had enough time to build two torpedoes, there's no way the enemy carrier can survive after you find it. (Good thing that it doesn't appear to create and use torpedoes itself.) With that in mind, it makes sense for the enemy carrier to find you before you can build them. That's why I seem to see option #1 happen more often than option #2.

As for the enemy carrier being able to get more done during a given time period, it needs some advantage to make up for your ability to be more flexible that it is. I haven't lost too many strategy games; the only ones that I have were when I got too close to the enemy carrier too early in the game. Even then, I had to do something stupid in the close range gunfight to lose.

Oh yes, as far as I can tell, defense islands contribute no resources or production to your network. They just provide defense upgrades to adjacent islands.

[scrapser 11]

Thanks for that info. So far I have managed to get a fairly good toehold on enough islands mixed with defense that the enemy carrier and I have reached an impasse. He tries to attack my islands that are either very strong or deadly and gives up almost immediately. I don't even have to come to the rescue. On the other hand, if I attack what appears to be his critical island adjacent to mine...he always arrives about halfway through my defeating it and attacks my carrier. One of us is going to have to make a mistake it seems. The entire island chain appears to be connected in the form of a C shape. I've got the bottom and bottom right area and he has the left side. The top area is still all neutral. My production and income is not very high so there's a lot of waiting. Neither of us can take any islands to shift the balance either way.

[Appogee 1]

I just sever his supply line and starve him of resources, then it's merely a matter of time til I either take all the islands, or defeat him in a carrier battle.

The enemy carrier AI needs a lot of work. I have to wound him and then let him live in order to make the game long enough to be enjoyable.

[scrapser 11]

Well I got through and completed my first strategy game. It was fun and all. I do hope the dev team is reviewing the AI for the enemy carrier to help break up patterns. I would say capturing the islands is the meat of the game over strategy in dominating the dead zone. There's a point where you know you're over the hump which I guess is unavoidable. One would think if they can program a computer to play chess they should be able to make the AI a bit more of a challenge...maybe make the difficulty selectable at the start along with the other factors you can choose.

[wraith2021 1]

This is one thing people are pushing for along with improved player AI. A scalable difficulty for the enemy carrier would make sense.

[scrapser 11]

I forgot to mention something I experienced late in the strategy game. I was in the initial stage of taking one of the few remaining neutral islands. This one had a bay in the middle which I was traversing in a Walrus. Somewhere in the middle of the bay I spotted a submersible that looked just like the barque. But this one deployed 4 enemy Walruses that immediately began chasing me on my way to the Command Center. The weird part was they were all invisible and only appeared as yellow squares when in range of my weapons and as the familiar icons on my radar map on the HUD. If I left the Walrus to complete the trip in auto mode, it would begin attacking the enemy units (they did not return fire). Another island had something similar except no submersible and additionally 4 enemy Mantas...also invisible like the Walruses. The enemy carrier was not within range to trigger the proximity alert. It would be nice to know what is supposed to be happening here or if it is a bug of some sort.

[harbinger 1]

That sounds weird but fun!

The only thing close to that I have experienced was a destroyed gun turret that refused to die and kept on firing at my hacking walrus. Only thing that fixed it was reloading game. I can't recall which island it was - this took place some time ago, perhaps in Beta.

I've found abandoned enemy units on islands that were never even under attack - they are completely unresponsive and don't appear on the map - but they do (or did) appear on your radar. At first I though it was maybe a texturing issue, freindly island walruses with the wrong skin, but it's definitely not that.

I'm hoping this title can somehow be resurrected, could be an absolute gem with a little more work - but at the moment it's simply not a finished product. The Steam copy I gifted to a freind has never even been started - his reasoning was "I'm not a beta tester", and I can see his point.

[scrapser 11]

I wish to add some more comments now that I've played a few more strategy games. I'm really hoping BIS is looking into improving the enemy carrier AI. I've noticed the carrier's behavior seems to be driven somewhat by the parameters you start the game with...or at least that's how it appears. For example, if you start with everything at minimum, the carrier builds resource islands only. If you increase the rates to normal, the carrier builds a mix of factory and resource islands with a leaning towards resource and maybe one or two defense islands. So to me, this seems to be how the AI is driven.

I've also noticed the carrier will build a beeline of islands towards my islands, attack a few, then go park near one of its own islands and wait. It will also bypass my defense islands and go after resource or factory islands.

For myself, I try to break the enemy's chain of islands so it never has more than a half dozen producing for the stockpile. And that's another thing...sometimes the enemy's stockpile island is marked by more often you don't see any indication of where it is. I've been assuming it might be constantly shifting it around so it never really gets built completely after the beginning.

There's a lot to figure out on just how the logic works with the AI. I don't want to know so I can beat it on that basis but I would like to know if there's going to be something improved so the AI reacts to what you do more effectively. The way the defense islands add strength to non-defense islands is interesting...it makes the carrier take more time to defeat an island which buys you time to do what you are planning or simply need to do. Each time I start a game i'm nervous about falling behind but so far it seems I can never really get myself in trouble. The parameter settings seem to have more of an impact on how fast you can get through the islands more than how hard the carrier becomes to defeat. I hope BIS is reading these posts to get a sense of what's happening with their game. Perhaps they can adjust the AI to react more "intelligently" to what players attempt to make it more challenging. I really like what they accomplished so far and hope the game continues to mature.