(January 25th, 2014, 05:13)kyrub Wrote: 1) Deep concern: How AI creates colony ships out of nothing.This is just one classic example for how little attention was given to the AI programming (again). No time, no knowledge and no money to develop AI? No problem, setup simple cheats for AI. This is universally the approach of all complex TBS game AIs out there with the notable exception of C-Evo, which plays by same rules as human player (definition of cheat-free AI).
AI cheat was deliberate in MOO and it was somewhat balanced for user experience. I know many other examples of how AI cheats (or plays by different rules). I strongly advise not touching the AI cheats now, since AI is still very weak and the game is somewhat balanced. I never lost on impossible except when I also played by my own extra in-house rules. Let's focus on AI stupidity now and once we make AI strong enough to win on impossible against top players, then we discuss AI cheat and attempts to replace them with AI strength. They are not easy to fix and would create unwanted side effects, which will be additional work to balance. That being said, I have an idea how to fix this, but let's discuss current action items, not future items. Replacing one cheat with another is not attractive to me, but can save time for us, like it did for the original programmers.