Any Tips for AI in MP?

[Calico]

A few friends of mine and me play MP Games with the Public Release and really enjoy the "Star Wars" Feel of the mod. But we have a tendency to not play against each other most of the time. But playing against AI has so far been really frustrating.

 

In Solo Games the AI seems mostly to work, within their built in limitations. But when playing MP, some AIs seem to utterly stop working, sometimes from the start of the game. I'm not a modder, obviously, but judging from the statistics in the endgame screen 2 out of 3 AIs in our last session (3 AIs, CIS and a Team of New Republic and Rebel Alliance) never even started to build up. CIS did some minor research and a tiny bit of fighting, New Republic didnt even built it's free capital. The third AI worked like a normal AI should, counquering a few planets and even building a Super-Capital.

 

The question is: Do you have any Tips for AIs in MP Games? Are there some Factions that work "better" or maybe some Maps which are less likely to "crash" a AI from the start of the match? Any presets for the AI that work well or bad? Is the "hard" AI less likely to crash?

 

In case any of the modders reads this: Thank you very much for the mod, really enjoying it!

[Lavo]

Use the Extra Planets random maps when using the AI. Those maps are designed such that the AI has enough logistic slots to not choke on itself and die. Additionally, use Hard or Unfair difficulty; anything less and the AI is useless, due to how SoGE is, anything higher and the AI breaks the mod. I can tell you that a Hard AI on one of the Extra Planets maps will give you a really hard time unless you roll them early game.

 

The Vong is actually the best AI race, due to how their ships work. Though they're unusable until the patch I'll be posting up today.

[Calico]

Thx for the answer, we'll try hard AIs next game.

 

But i have to wonder, in the few solo games i played the "normal" difficulty AI didn't seem to have to many problems. Sure they have been lacking i a lot of fields, but they still managed to put up at least a bit of fighting and, given enough Time expaded quite well. During MP however they seem to have a lot more problems, sometimes chrashing very very early in the game. Sometimes you play for almost 2 hours to find a AI sitting on his Home Planet with zero Fleet and no defense (like in the game mentioned above). And it wasn't for the lack of Planets, with a couple of lightly defended Terrans next door.

 

Ah, the mysterious SINS AI

 

edit: New Game. Hard AI (x4, 2 Teams), Quick Start, Medium Large Map, so far so good. One AI stuck behind a Industrial Planet, but eventually he managed to break free. One AI dead within an hour, but i guess it got rushed early be another AI. Both other AIs very much alive and fighting. So yeah, all good with Hards.

[Lavo]

Yeah, Normal AIs are hit and miss. If they have a decent very early start, they do well. If not, they suck balls as they don't have enough income to make up for the fact that they cannot manage funds like humans do. It doesn't help either that 1.52 made normal AIs even easier than 1.1.