Enemy units wait to die

[azpops]

A faction has declared war on me. They are on a different continent and have begun massing a large army to send against me. All the units are on transports waiting to cross the ocean. I have a ship there and have begun killing them. The simply stay afloat, even next to my ship, until I kill them. They make no effort to leave the ocean or move away from my ship. I like being able to kill them before they can cross the ocean to get to me, but it isn't realistic to think an army would simply wait until I kill it. They even had one of their battlecraft 2 hexes from me and it simply sailed away rather than kill me (it was bigger and stronger than I am). I have attached a save file for your review.

[void]

That their transporters end up next to your ships should not happen, nor that their battleship drives off. You accidently forgot to attach the savegame.

[azpops]

OK. I've tried everything I can think of to try and upload the save file and I can't get it into this post. I go to "Upload Attachment", browse for the file, then click on "Add the file" and nothing happens. I've tried to copy and past into the post. No joy. Suggestions?

[void]

You'll have to compress that save to zip or rar, since the forums don't support the PandoraSave extension.

[azpops]

OK. How's this. I think I got it to work. Thanks.

[void]

Thanks azpops, I'll look into it.

[azpops]

Something else you might want to look into. It is now later in the same game I sent you the save file. Not sure if it is intended for formers to become kamikaze, but after I take a city from Lady Vermillion, she continues to send formers into the adjoining hexes that I now own to continue to work on them. I've killed at least ten formers now all attempting to upgrade hexes in a city that I now own.

[void]

The reason she wasn't attacking your barracuda was that you had a photon cannon and gauss armor equiped, which effectively gives you 11 to 13.5 power against pretty much anything she had in the area (her dreadnought was equipped with a flak), giving you far superior force. However, transporters behaving silly was a bug which will be fixed with the next update.

Any chance you could upload the save with the rambo formers as well?

[azpops]

Here's the file just after I captured the city and the formers began to move into the city area. The city is Sadatoni at hex [36,31].

[whaleberg]

The reason she wasn't attacking your barracuda was that you had a photon cannon and gauss armor equiped, which effectively gives you 11 to 13.5 power

This is straying a little bit from the immediate topic, but does the AI take comparative tech level into account when considering war? My experience is that it declares war against vastly technically superior forces and then can't decide to do anything.

In general, would there be a way to show us what the AI is thinking? In Civ IV and V it shows you the numbers it's using to decide. That way it feels much less arbitrary. Jon Shafer talks about his mistakes in trying to make Civ V AI's behave in inscrutable ways in a good article he wrote about his design mistakes on the project. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jon ... sts/404789 Some visible numbers about why a faction likes, or dislikes you, why it fears you, why it thinks it can win a war with you, etc. Would be good.

[azpops]

does the AI take comparative tech level into account when considering war? My experience is that it declares war against vastly technically superior forces and then can't decide to do anything.

I have noticed the same problem. Three times now factions have declared war on me and I find myself with vastly superior units than the factions. In one case, a faction declared war on me, I quickly captured 5 of its cities, it sued for peace, and the very next turn attacked me again and I finished off the faction in about 10 more turns. There doesn't seem to be much logic as to why a faction declares war. The third faction declared war on me as soon as I met it. No questions, no attempt for treaties, just basically "we hate you, we are declaring war on you."

[whaleberg]

It would even help if they just told you their reasoning when they declared war. If the reason is that there is a built in dislike for factions that increase as they get closer to winning, then it should say that.

"You are to close to dominating the planet, and I would rather sacrifice my own cities than see YOU in control."

[void]

Here's the file just after I captured the city and the formers began to move into the city area. The city is Sadatoni at hex [36,31].

Thanks!

This is straying a little bit from the immediate topic, but does the AI take comparative tech level into account when considering war? My experience is that it declares war against vastly technically superior forces and then can't decide to do anything.

In general, would there be a way to show us what the AI is thinking? In Civ IV and V it shows you the numbers it's using to decide. That way it feels much less arbitrary. Jon Shafer talks about his mistakes in trying to make Civ V AI's behave in inscrutable ways in a good article he wrote about his design mistakes on the project. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jon ... sts/404789 Some visible numbers about why a faction likes, or dislikes you, why it fears you, why it thinks it can win a war with you, etc. Would be good.

Ya I already read the article and it was a very good read indeed. I really appreciated his opinion on the smaller vs. larger empires part, which totally broke Civ 5 for me (and we want to do different in Pandora as you already know).

However, I do not agree with this statement:

"But humans are ambiguous, moody and sometimes just plain crazy. This can be interesting when you're dealing with actual, real humans, but I learned the important lesson that when you're simulating one with a computer there's no way to make this fun. Any attempt to do so just turns into random, unproductive noise."

Diplomacy in Alpha Centauri was awesome, or at least heads and shoulders above any of the Civ games -- because the faction leaders had individual personalities and talked cool stuff. You might have realized it already, but for Pandora we try to aim for roleplaying diplomacy without giving any numbers. Over the course of the beta we'll add more and more talk and options to really flesh the system out. Endless Space had such a strict by the numbers and show-everything system, and for me it was plain boring and awful.

When declaring war, the AI currently looks at your military's force total power, which will be higher with better technologies.

It would even help if they just told you their reasoning when they declared war. If the reason is that there is a built in dislike for factions that increase as they get closer to winning, then it should say that.

"You are to close to dominating the planet, and I would rather sacrifice my own cities than see YOU in control."

That's exactly the way to go and what I'll add next.

[whaleberg]

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Diplomacy in Alpha Centauri was awesome, or at least heads and shoulders above any of the Civ games -- because the faction leaders had individual personalities and talked cool stuff. You might have realized it already, but for Pandora we try to aim for roleplaying diplomacy without giving any numbers. Over the course of the beta we'll add more and more talk and options to really flesh the system out. Endless Space had such a strict by the numbers and show-everything system, and for me it was plain boring and awful.

I did like the faction personalities in alpha centauri a lot. It made sure that you knew why things were happening though, and the factions played the way that their leaders were designed. In Pandora, it isn't clear yet what the faction personalities are, they're juts a collection of bonuses, which currently seem a little haphazardly assigned. I would advise showing us the numbers in the beta, so we can at least understand what is happening and and figure out where the AI thinking needs changes. It's currently a a black box of randomness.

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When declaring war, the AI currently looks at your military's force total power, which will be higher with better technologies.

You should definitely add a signal relative tech levels too. I know that I'm keeping a skeleton force on the ground, to save money, and the instantly deploying dramatically larger forces by buying them with my cash on hand. I'm also stockpiling minerals and then re configuring to spend them all rapidly when I need to. Adding a calculation for relative power purchasable per dollar and per mineral would help a lot for the AI. That way it could look at our cash reserves, our resource output / stores and be able to make smarter decisions that way.