IMportant question on AI behavior

Flubber · September 18, 2003, 19:21

I believe the AI will not trade techs that have outstanding Special Projects attached-- at least that has been my experience. I also believe but have not tested that they will not trade you ANY techs if they have a tech you do not with a special project attached. They always seem to think you want the SP tech.

This has serious implications since the borg are pressuring for a cheap sale of doc flex since they can buy it elsewhere from the AI -- If my above premise is correct, we could check the AI's as best we can to see if the cycon can acquire doc flex given the techs each side has.

This has further implications in that we could attempt to be dastardly and trade/gift an SP tech we have ( that the cycon do not) to both AIs in order to trigger the refusal to trade behavior and force the Borg back to us. There is a huge downside to this in giving away a tech but if there were a lower level tech where this could be done ( ie doc loyalty ??), I would love to see the cycon consternation. They seem so smug in their bargaining position that I would love to tell them to go to the AI, secure in the knowledge that they would fail to make a trade.

I don't know if any of this is feasible as I have not examined the tech situation for some time. Secondly, I am not CERTAIN that my basic premise is accurate.

Could the operations folks confirm the base premise and whether it is feasible. I would love to get the benefits of a happier AI and pressuring the cycon all at once

I did not want to post this in the general help forum as the purpose of the question, coming from me, would be obvious and sure to tick the cycon off .

Hercules · September 19, 2003, 08:23

Something like this came up in our discussions with the Cycon at the time we were trying to persuade (probably failed) them we could buy Ind Base from Roze.
Of course we got it from PUT.

Our suggestion to them was that the AI denial mainly happened in SP games. We
(or rather I) was trying to conceal our contact with the PUT.

Back later

Googlie · September 19, 2003, 08:55

FlameFlash · September 19, 2003, 10:31

Quote:

Originally posted by Googlie
I mixed and matched the AI's attitude to the other factions so that there would be some pleasant and some nasty surprises for everyone

G.

Now there's a warm and fuzzy thought.

I like the sounds of it too, though.

Flubber · September 19, 2003, 10:38

Quote:

Originally posted by Hercules
Our suggestion to them was that the AI denial mainly happened in SP games. We
(or rather I) was trying to conceal our contact with the PUT.

Back later

I don't think it is possible to hide other contacts from a pactmate

FlameFlash · September 19, 2003, 10:40

True, but they still wouldn't know where the tech came from, however I rather frown on misleading a pactmate.

Flubber · September 19, 2003, 10:51

Googlie

I know attitude matters but is my base premise correct? Will an AI trade ANY tech to you if they have one you do not with an SP attached?

Flubber · September 19, 2003, 10:57

Quote:

Originally posted by FlameFlash
True, but they still wouldn't know where the tech came from, however I rather frown on misleading a pactmate.

My plan would not involve misleading ANYONE. If it were feasible, we could trade or gift a tech to both AI, reaping trade benefits or a better relationship with such AI. That such a trade might have the EFFECT of causing the AI not to trade Doc flex is a benefit to us.

Doing such a thing is not mileading or deceitful to anyone, its just acting in our own interest.

With the earlier trade, I would not have tried to mislead the cycon with respect to anything . .. I tell them the truth as I know it, merely refusing to answer or omitting information which is proprietary to our faction

FlameFlash · September 19, 2003, 14:45

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Flubber

My plan would not involve misleading ANYONE. [/quote

Also true.

Quote:

If it were feasible, we could trade or gift a tech to both AI, reaping trade benefits or a better relationship with such AI. That such a trade might have the EFFECT of causing the AI not to trade Doc flex is a benefit to us.

/me nods.

Quote:

Doing such a thing is not mileading or deceitful to anyone, its just acting in our own interest.

Right, though making them think we got it from an AI is... though again we still don't have the AI behavior pinned down as predictable.

Quote:

With the earlier trade, I would not have tried to mislead the cycon with respect to anything . .. I tell them the truth as I know it, merely refusing to answer or omitting information which is proprietary to our faction

Exactly!

johndmuller · September 19, 2003, 21:06

(a) I think that the AI generally offers to trade top down; in other words it seems to ask for your 'best' and offer its 'best' among the techs that are possible to trade. As to exactly how it calculates the 'best', I couldn't say, although it might be something like their order in the Tech List in Alph(x).txt, which is relatively arbitrary, or it might be something more or less enlightened. Whatever its actual scheme, it seems to come reasonably close to that model.

(b) The AI seems to refrain from offeriing you a tech with an SP outstanding.

Assuming that 'newer is better' and that the AI's offering priority in (a) generally follows the normal sequence of research, that will mean that the probable 'best' offerings will also be the ones least likely to have been available long enough to have their SP's done, it is pretty likely that if the 'best' tech that the AI has comes with an SP, it will probably be incomplete, at least until the AI gets left behind.

That is all a round about way of saying 'Maybe'. I am more confident that the AI won't trade you the 'best' (trade-with-you) tech if it has an incomplete SP than I am that it won't trade you anything at all if there are any incomplete SP's associated with any of the possibilities.

In other words, I think that the AI first determines what is its 'best' tech, then sees if that SP is complete, so that if the 'best' tech was without SP problems, it wouldn't bother checking its other techs - So under that theory, it could trade Doc:Flex, if that were the 'best' tech, whether or not there were outstanding SP's associated with some other tech it had to offer.

The fact that it can offer you a second tech as well may complicate this logic - or not - so I don't know what it would do if its 2nd best trade possibility had an SP problem, whether or not it would force a complete trade embargo or just offer you the primary trade tech.

Anyway, 'Maybe'; I don't have a feel for this issue and my theory does not happen to rule it out (like it would if the AI had an SP laden tech 'better' than Doc:Flex that would scotch the deal under either theory.

An interesting bit of evidence would be whether Roze had any SP laden techs when she sold us IndEcon - any info on that anyone?

---------------------------------------------

Quote:

Originally posted by Flubber
...
With the earlier trade, I would not have tried to mislead the cycon with respect to anything . .. I tell them the truth as I know it, merely refusing to answer or omitting information which is proprietary to our faction

Seems to me Cap'n F, that you were the one who told the Borg (or wanted to, I don't recall exactly) that we were researching something that we weren't at the very beginning of your Ambas'dorship, so please don't pull any of this 'I tell them the truth' BS here in the Cap'n's Council (especially as telling the truth is anything but high on the Pirates Code of Ethics - I think it is somewhere down there with 'I pour out my matie's bottle when they've had enough, no matter what they think').

Googlie · September 20, 2003, 06:44

Quote:

Originally posted by Flubber
I know attitude matters but is my base premise correct? Will an AI trade ANY tech to you if they have one you do not with an SP attached?

F:

I believe that you are right - the AI will never trade a tech if they are building the SP associated with that tech (even to pactmates the "I would not wish you to get the ..........." message comes up)

If it is a tech that will lead to an SP, but they are not building it, then I think they will trade it.

And I believe JdM is right to, it's always a best-for-best offer when they make it to you - I'm not sure when you initiate the trade that this always happens - they will reply wanting your best but may accept a lesser one

G.

Hercules · September 20, 2003, 08:47

Quote:

An interesting bit of evidence would be whether Roze had any SP laden techs when she sold us IndEcon - any
info on that anyone?

I went back to turn 2127.
They originally wanted Doc: Flex (our best) for their Ind Econ (their best). I refused but continued the discussion re research and to name their price.

They sold Ind Econ for 100ecs. At the time they were building 'The Merchant Exchange'.

So they will trade if the tech doesn't have a SP associated..

FlameFlash · September 20, 2003, 12:18

Very good to know.

All of it.

Flubber · September 21, 2003, 13:33

Quote:

Originally posted by johndmuller

Seems to me Cap'n F, that you were the one who told the Borg (or wanted to, I don't recall exactly) that we were researching something that we weren't at the very beginning of your Ambas'dorship, so please don't pull any of this 'I tell them the truth' BS here in the Cap'n's Council (especially as telling the truth is anything but high on the Pirates Code of Ethics - I think it is somewhere down there with 'I pour out my matie's bottle when they've had enough, no matter what they think').

it was a minor matter but ye be right. I 'av bin tryin' to play it straight wit em ever since.

Googlie · October 15, 2003, 10:08

I guess you've all heard of the Rover Rush, well here's a new AI Tactic you can observe from your believer infiltration screens:

The Colony Pod Rush

That's right. Hordes of fanatic colonists running into your laser (and soon to be impact, maybe?) muzzles shouting "you wretched unbelievers" and deafening your defenders with their banging of pots and pans, etc

(I guess you get what you program. I thought I had a way of creating a strong AI builder faction - see the F4 screen, Believer icon and every base but the first 2 is set to Build - ally that with my AI strategy tweak to "build lotsa colony pods" and you get unexpected results.

Miriam is 2nd in pop (with 30) to the Hive's 37, but would be first at 45 if she didn't have those 15 colony pods all milling around getting in the way of her terraformers and troops on exercises.

Ah well. At least she is building some facilities as intended

G.

johndmuller · October 15, 2003, 15:19

I think I tried the 'build lotsa missiles' once in a game I CMN'd after being inspired by one of yours where Yang was pretty effective at terrorizing the neighborhood with missiles - I figured that setting was probably behind those missiles; is that view of Miriams F7 screen the kind of thing it does with missiles too? If so, and if Yang were building so many missiles that he stagnated his economy, it would be a pretty good defense, cause invading him would be doubly bad for you, first you'd get clobbered by all those missile, and at the same time you'd be helping his economy by freeing up all that support. Of course, you might have just given him a big stockpile of independent missiles - its too bad there isn't a faction parameter that gives them a free unit in every base (just the one free unit at the beginning) - a free Battle Ogre in every base would be a pretty nice way to beef up an AI faction, especially if you could get them to stay at home as defenders/cops.

Googlie · October 15, 2003, 16:06

The best I've been able to do has been to give an AI faction, say, SotHB, AMA and sentient resonance, predesign a slew of 8-res AAA trance sentinels and put them across its territory in what I consider to be the most likely base sites, then remove those techs from its tech-list.

Set those units to lurk for a century (you have to tinker with the "years to lurk" command, inserting numbers such as 537 or 339 to get it anywhere near 100 years - don't know why) and mark them as objectives (so the AI won't move them), then give the first few starting colony pods orders to go to some of those locations. Of course you can't control where the AI will build, but I've found that maybe the first three or four bases get built over those scouts (and put sensors there too) thus giving those early - and likely to be most important - bases a really strong defense.

After those first, closeby ones it's generally hit-and-miss whether further bases get placed over the units (but they are usually adjacent enough to be effective.

And as they are lurkers and objectives the AI doesn't seem to reverse engineer from them either, which is useful.

(a bug also lets you put a bunker with the sensor and the AI will still sometimes build over the bunker, thus giving another defensive bonus)

G.