SMACX Thinker Mod

[Induktio]

The project has been on a hold ever since I finished v1.0, but maybe I should consider doing a comeback. After all, how many Rocky movies are out there?

> would be also good to have AI build more interceptors

I think there were some issues getting the AI to properly design interceptor prototypes, so maybe it is lacking because of that regard. Not sure how easily that could be altered.

> another thing - terraforming - sometimes AI just skips Centauri ecology tech and they are pathetic (Spartans...)

That issue shouldn't persist with most of the factions since the research priorities are altered by tech_balance. Probably Spartans are the only ones that consistently suffer from it. If just altering game rules would be preferred here, I would consider removing the tech requirement from former units. That would level the playing field significantly at the start.

> another issue is i see Morgan units removing 3-2-3 fungus tiles when they got Manifold Harmonics

If fungus tiles yield more than forests (ignoring tree farms), then the AI should always prefer fungus. So I'm not sure what is going on there because that shouldn't be happening. It should take Manifold Harmonics into account in the calculations.

[Tayta Malikai]

I would most certainly welcome an update to this great mod!

> I think there were some issues getting the AI to properly design interceptor prototypes, so maybe it is lacking because of that regard. Not sure how easily that could be altered.

Some counter-feedback: I saw the AI build a modest number of interceptors in my last singleplayer game. They would regularly fly up and shoot down my nerve gas penetrators after I bombed their bases. Combined with all the AAA units and Aerospace Complexes the AI built, it was actually a bit of a challenge to get enough penetrators through to nerve gas their bases down to zero.

Ironically, this actually served as a liability in some cases: when my jets attacked a base with another jet in it, the jet would be chosen to defend first, rather than AAA units or mindworms. This gave my attack much better odds and, when I won, would result in a nerve gassing.

Perhaps the AI should attempt to set AAA units (or ECM units, or even psi units, depending on circumstances?) as the designated defender? Since I expect most player attacks will be performed with jets or rovers, this will probably be a net help to the AI.

> If just altering game rules would be preferred here, I would consider removing the tech requirement from former units. That would level the playing field significantly at the start.

I'm personally in favour of this, but I feel that altering core game balance to make the AI work better gets into a murky area.

> I'm kinda surprised if they didn't build any boreholes. It's important to note here the AI doesn't do any cost-benefit calculations for most of the terrain improvement items, they just build them whenever they are available.

An update to this: I have since observed that the AI does in fact build some boreholes even at 0-2-6. So it could've just been random chance.

[lolada]

Sure, if you can improve the AI more I don't see why not and if you have time ofcourse. Formers and yield unlocking techs are game breakers - but i don't know if unlocking that would break the mods that use your AI and build on top of it.

Some more feedback:

I observed Morgans more later in that game and they did leave most of fungus untouched. So  i think its working correctly in the end. I don't know what they built in that tile.. too bad i didn't check. Removing fungus makes some sense to plant mine or borehole for example. They might have started removing the fungus before they switched to Green - since manifold harmonics don't work with 0 Planet rating. Anyway.. Morgan did later switch SE settings from positive planet rating, so they didn't get much use of it. Fungus is still good in the mod - those were 2-1-2 and 2-1-3 tiles without Manifold Harmonics activated (thats at planet  rating = 0).

- I can confirm that AI build interceptors and use them decently. It likely depends on AI.. Miriam and Yang spam strong units while Lal seems to protect his sea bases with scout rovers  . In general I think AI would benefit from more interceptors. They do seem to spam pentrators more and use them well on killing formers and crawlers.

- AI uses probes to great effect - Morgan ruined Zakharov in my last game with 0-10-2 neutronium probes and mind controlled three of his biggest bases, except HQ ofc. They also build enhanched probes that can go though hunter seeker when they have the tech.

- I never saw AI to build Trance units. This is real weakness - as player can ruin AI with native units, Morgan for example.. especially if PSI rules are tweaked. It would be really beneficial if -planet rating factions were supplemented by some trance defenders.

- Same for planet factions - they should promote building more native units. I don't think they build them ?! I didn't play enough to notice maybe. In contrast its very beneficial to see for example Miriam building some empath rovers because she has trouble killing worms.

- Other than that AI seems very slow to build defenders in sea bases once they die. I'm seeing EMPTY sea bases build Tree farms.. they are near coast but there's no forests.. or there's like one.
AI should also try to build at least one strong defender per base.. something like 1-3+-1, no rovers or scouts. Sea bases certainly should have these. 

[Induktio]

There's one significant thing that needs to be decided though. Tnevolin has also been implementing lots of stuff in his The Will to Power fork. Back then we decided the project could be forked because my focus was mainly AI improvement instead of the more balanced game mechanics tnevolin has been doing. I also didn't have that much time to evaluate what new stuff could be incorporated in this mod.

I suppose we could still keep these versions separate because Thinker is mostly supposed to be a "vanilla" game mechanics experience, but I have a feeling some of the TWP changes could be imported here too. If there's going to be new releases of Thinker, I probably won't be doing huge changes. What are your thoughts on this?

[lolada]

I am too new in this to give advice ^^  i guess anything goes as long as other modders can easily change it if they wish. I can see appeal to mod the game with better AI to own needs. Vanilla AI is really sad.

I started an AAR game with WTP mode - gonna comment on both AI and WTP so if you have time there will be some feedback there also. I played quite a bit more, but need to to write it down all, edit pictures etc..

http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=21438.0

[Tayta Malikai]

Which changes in particular are you thinking of importing?

I do agree with the sentiment of keeping Thinker as a relatively vanilla experience; one of the things I like most about it is that it works as a base you can slap other changes on top of.
Granted, the change to the techcost formula is already a step in this direction, though in my opinion a positive one.

Relatedly, I've lately been playing with a mod that removes supply crawlers entirely from the game. I am pleased to report that the AI on Transcend remains a suitably tough opponent - their progression is slowed as much as the player's.

The AI remains enamoured with Planned economics, though they use both Police State and Fundamentalist politics to varying degrees. They seem to choose between the three values about equally.
The exception is my custom anti-PS "alien" faction, who always goes Green despite having no PLANET rating or SE compulsions in this regard. It's also the only one that chooses to go Democratic at any point.
I also just observed another faction that starts with +2 ECON choose Green. Presumably he didn't want to give that up (as I modded Planned to have -2 ECON instead).

I am wondering exactly what conditions would make an AI without relevant SE preferences switch to Democratic. By 2200, the AI has usually set up most of its bases* and should have a decent minerals income, so the -2 SUPPORT is less of a concern, while the +2 EFFIC helps to squeeze more income and prevent drones from all its sprawling. On the other hand, Fundy with +1 IND is very useful for war, and the AI has spent a lot of time at war in my recent games. More playtesting is required.

*I should probably qualify that this is on random Standard maps that tend to have a lot of ocean, so the AI tends to run out of space and stop by 2200. On a Huge map with less ocean, it can and does still have plenty of scope for expansion. So experience definitely varies.

There was a curious occurrence when one AI (an "alien" faction) loaded transports with troops and landed them on a then-unclaimed continent. Those troops then proceeded to wander around doing nothing useful, and they are still there after I landed my own colony pods to colonize the continent. It was the Monsoon Jungle too, so would've been valuable regardless. I'm not sure what can be done in this regard, but maybe it's possible to get the AI to queue up colony pods and transports together? My understanding of Thinker is that the AI plans turn-by-turn rather than committing to any long-term strategy, though...

EDIT: One feature from WTP that might be nice to import would be the changes made to unit reactors: specifically, the ability to disable the bonus hitpoints from better reactors. The alternative hurry formulas might be nice to have too.

Any of the modding hooks WTP added would also be very nice to have in base Thinker.

[dino]

There's one significant thing that needs to be decided though. Tnevolin has also been implementing lots of stuff in his The Will to Power fork. Back then we decided the project could be forked because my focus was mainly AI improvement instead of the more balanced game mechanics tnevolin has been doing. I also didn't have that much time to evaluate what new stuff could be incorporated in this mod.

Adjustable changes to the combat are must have for me, he made them adjustable and vanilla by default:

1) Adjustable stack collateral damage.
2) Adjustable healing rate.
3) No reactor HP and adjustable reactor cost factor.
4) Adjustable tachyon filed/ perimeter defense bonus.
5) Weak artillery has a chance to make a damage.
6) Correct combat odds display.
7) Adjustable level of randomness in combat results.
8) Planet bonus on defense.

Other great stufff:
1) Borders of sea and coastall bases.
2) No mineral bonus for aquatic factions.

I'd also like from Ytzii's patch:
1) Condensers only increase rainniness of nearby tiles, no 50% nutrient bonus.
2) Pacifism drone rules.

> terraforming - sometimes AI just skips Centauri ecology tech and they are pathetic (Spartans...)
It's easily dealt with alphax.txt, just add 3 points to all ai research weights and no one will skip it ( or just make tech_balance=1 bonuses additive instead of multiplicative )

[lolada]

- No reactor HP is really nice change, they are otherwise gamebreaking, side with reactor can just stomp the oponnent. Making units cheaper with new reactors is elegant solution.

- Artillery change is great - vs WTP defensive bonuses especially - because its worth to have 2-3 arty units to soften the defenders, otherwise attacker loses a lot. Damage is fine if arty is not obsolete - advanced infantry artillery (smth like (6)-1-1 or (-1-1 is cheap and useful. Rovers are much more flexible but also more expensive.
One thing that I would like to see buffed is PSI artillery - it seems ineffective, at least its cheap.

- Healing rate change is 10/10.. it allows weaker units to gank up on strong defenders and helps AI a lot in attack. Player can use it as well so its not one-sided.

- Defensive bonus (territory +%50) is%  the most debatable.. but its the essence of the mod. I can see why some people might really not like it. But without it player can just stomp AI. Its a bit gamey bonus - but player got it as well. It would be interesting if bonus would scale farther from base.. for example a unit on right side of the border is 100% stronger than a tile away in enemy land.

- Combat randomness - i find that actually ok - its surprising a bit at first, but it gives the game replayability and invloves more tactics. Otherwise player can just stomp AI with 6-10 elite rovers (with some probe, defender suppoer) that are upgraded as new techs come out.
When there's real chance to 6-1-2 rover to die vs formers.. say former on forest thats 1.5 def, 2 in own land so ratio is 6:2... if rover is elite its 9:2.. 4.5:1 and with those round changes whatever is there... rover dying 15-20% of time increases risk drastically. Stomping everything with 95+% odds in vanilla just make me lose interest in game instantly.

[Induktio]

> I am wondering exactly what conditions would make an AI without relevant SE preferences switch to Democratic.

Did you mod the social models in any way from vanilla values? People need to always supply the modded values if asking "why does the AI choose X over Y?" Vanilla version of Democratic should be strong enough (but overpowered) for most AIs to prefer it most of the time.

> I also just observed another faction that starts with +2 ECON choose Green.

Having +2 ECON level or more is heavily preferred by the new social AI.

> My understanding of Thinker is that the AI plans turn-by-turn rather than committing to any long-term strategy

Yeah that is true. The issue is that any long term strategies would have to be stored with the save game or otherwise it would behave inconsistently with save game reloads. There is some possibility to save extra data with the save game but the space is constrained.

> specifically, the ability to disable the bonus hitpoints from better reactors.

That might be the biggest balancing change that could be done here. The patch only modifies combat calculation function to ignore reactor values, so it is really simple.

> The alternative hurry formulas might be nice to have too.

Maybe but I have no strong opinion on them yet.

> Any of the modding hooks WTP added would also be very nice to have in base Thinker.

And which ones would they be?

> Adjustable changes to the combat are must have for me, he made them adjustable and vanilla by default

I think disabling extra reactor HP would be the most important, because more advanced reactors would still be cheaper. In the original game, giving them both the cost/strength advantages was seriously a weird design choice.

Adjustable stack collateral damage would help the AI because it doesn't plan around those situations that well. About similar importance would be territory defend bonus and healing rate mods.

About those other modifications I'm not so sure, I really tend to keep a conservative approach when it comes to adding new features instead of just AI improvement. There's so much stuff to go through in TWP now but I don't think I can merge everything in this mod when the original design goals weren't like that.

[dino]

> About those other modifications I'm not so sure

Lower Healing speed is a must too, since even if AI spreads its assault over several turns it's still effective.
It also makes it much more difficult to steamroll with lightning speed through the enemy territory, since you have to take a few turns breaks to repair your assault force.

[EmpathCrawler]

I too enjoy the vanilla experience with Thinker augmenting it. So much so that I actually use the SMAC in SMAX mod included! I like that everything is toggleable and hope adding additional features would stay optional.

[Tayta Malikai]

> Did you mod the social models in any way from vanilla values? People need to always supply the modded values if asking "why does the AI choose X over Y?"

Yeah, I've since realized that giving feedback when I have mods on top of mods is probably not the most useful :V
It seems based on your replies that the social AI is in fact working as intended. Obviously, changing the balance of the various SE models will change how much the AI weights each of them. I was mostly just curious about the behaviour I saw.

I'm playing another PBEM game with vanilla factions now, though, so that might be more useful.

> And which ones would they be?

dino pretty much listed them all already, but I'd personally prioritize these ones:

- Adjustable Perimeter Defense and Tachyon Field bonuses.
- Adjustable repair rates.
- Changes to borders created by coastal and sea bases.
- Disabling free techs granted to alien factions.

If there was absolutely only one thing I could request to port from WTP, though, it would by far be the changes to unit reactors. Anything else would be a nice-to-have.

[Induktio]

> I like that everything is toggleable and hope adding additional features would stay optional.

Thanks for feedback. Possible alterations on the game rules should stay optional and I would not like to diverge on that design goal here.

Recently I've been toying with the idea of giving the AI some sense of long term planning. As it stands currently, Thinker just recalculates choices each turn and some elements of it are fairly static. Long term planning implies some changes to the save game format to store more data, but luckily there's many unused portions in the structures.

One way to tackle this would be to adapt Thinker's unit production more to the situation/opponent. I've been doing some testing with a feature that tracks how well each unit type does in combat and then selects more of those one with better values for production. In theory this could skew the AI to produce PSI units instead of the normal ones if they perform poorly against some opponent. Based on current trials it looks like some kind of an improvement, but there's lots of randomness in these A/B tests.

[dino]

> I've been doing some testing with a feature that tracks how well each unit type does in combat and then selects more of those one with better values for production.
> In theory this could skew the AI to produce PSI units instead of the normal ones if they perform poorly against some opponent.

By the time this solution would poke AI to produce good units, it'd be probably too late to produce them, since it'd require a large scale conflict first to net reliable results.

Better, determine 3 factions that are biggest potential threat ( score them by their military power, diplo status, mood, distance ).
Calculate statistics on amount of native, air, or artillery units they have, and produce more AAA/interceptor, trance/empath/native, artillery units to create a counter.
If some  threatening factions have tech advantage, produce more native, or psi units.

[Induktio]

That combat statistics feature would work best on bigger maps for sure, otherwise there isn't enough time to react. I'm not really sure if it's even necessary to implement though and I'm really trying to avoid any changes to the save game format unless it's necessary.

The logic for selecting whether to use PSI units might need some improving. At least I made a small update to the unit planner to emphasize trance/interceptor units more. Previously those unit types were mostly lacking from the AI. Trance/comm jammer ability can also be paired with AAA ability in the later phase of the game for some tough defense.

For completeness sake I've been also reversing the rest of Faction struct variables. It kinda bugs me to no end that it has so many gaps in the definitions, but it's maybe the most complex struct in the binary.