AI indifferent towards R&D and tech

[_white_]

Hello

This issue generally affects the AI in all of my games, and is well illustrated by the save below (using RealWorld mod). The AI, regardless of CEO aggressiveness/tech fetish/expertise/cash/difficulty setting, seems to put next to no effort into R&D.

For example, Tata used to be my early game competitor in the Automobile market, but they were extremely easy to beat as while i put heavy effort into researching all vehicle components the AI never maintained more than 1-2 R&D centers, putting absolutely negligible research into their primary market as a whole, even when my products were clearly conquering their market due to tech difference. I also had the exact same experience every time I entered a new market, the AI never bothered to build a significant tech advantage and was completely ignorant when I started leaving them behind in tech. I don't expect all but the best CEOs to match my effort when I go heavily into R&D, but they all seem to be on the other end of the spectrum with a near-total ignorance towards tech.

Another example, Royal Labs, is my attempt to work around this issue by creating a massive R&D subsidiary company that would research and sell all sorts of tech to the AI, but it seems their lack of interest is not only towards R&D but tech level in general. Despite having 1600 in Electronic Components tech available for some meager price, the AI is more than content on producing their 30-100 default tech components and use them in their flasgship PC markets. Same applies to other techs this company has, there is absolutely no interest in them from the AI.

In a nutshell, I do see a tech trade happening every now and then and the AI does maintain a few R&D centers, but they pay little to no focus to tech in general.

https://filebin.net/eoo813movd9fvf32/WH ... t=uqg62roi

[chengtsai]

Agreed

[David]

Another example, Royal Labs, is my attempt to work around this issue by creating a massive R&D subsidiary company that would research and sell all sorts of tech to the AI, but it seems their lack of interest is not only towards R&D but tech level in general. Despite having 1600 in Electronic Components tech available for some meager price, the AI is more than content on producing their 30-100 default tech components and use them in their flasgship PC markets. Same applies to other techs this company has, there is absolutely no interest in them from the AI.

The AI behavior you described above has been fixed improved. Please download the latest patch v6.5.02 from http://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewto ... =10&t=7675

[_white_]

I can see them having some more R&D centers around, but I still feel a general lack of interest from the AI towards tech as factor of their product quality.

https://gofile.io/d/yVz428

If you look at the Desktop Computer market in this save you can see that the AI not only has the theoretical possibility of a major market advantage in the most competitive market in the game by buying my tech, they also have some fake competition I created to incentivize them into doing so, yet they ignore my tech and they all go ahead with whatever they have (not to mention contributing techs such as CPU, which they also mostly ignore). They may put some effort into acquiring superior tech, but its rare and the vast majority of those sales happen within the Computer product class and you almost never see them in other techs.

To me this seems much more like an issue where the AI is not able to properly factor tech into product quality, therefore they never see it as a means to an end, it's just "something to do". Even if they maintain more centers they don't see product tech as a tool to use the same way they see price, another factor into overall quality and market share. I have also never seen an AI challenge any established tech advantage, most of the time they will avoid entering markets where someone else is already present (the large number of products from the mod may explain this) but if they do they still won't care about the tech levels within that market.

[David]

My understanding is that the AI will need time to build more R&D centers and the code change in v6.5.02 may work better with a new game when the AI is given the opportunity to use the new algorithm from the beginning.

I would recommend that you either start a new game or run the game for 5 more years or so and see if they improve.

[_white_]

I have continued this x.01 save for another 10 years throughout 02 and 03 patch, and I'm still not seeing any interest from the AI towards product tech in general.

If you check the save you can see that I'm specifically researching a number of products that has some competition on the market, and I've also created Royal Abundance, a sub with the sole purpose of using my tech and generating some actual market pressure on the AI as an incentive to buy the tech from me. It does not seem to be working. Desktop Computers for example is always a very busy market in every game, there is also heavy competition in my save, and despite me having vastly superior tech that is also being used by another company (my sub) to take market share, the AI is is not interested in it at all. Same applies to CPU for example, and others products Royal Abundance is manufacturing. This once again leads me to believe the AI does not consider product tech as a means to an end on its own, ie. it does not understand that product tech translates into profit and/or market share the same way the price of an item does (as they can adjust prices very well), and therefore they never have any interest in acquiring tech (independently from R&D), as they see no reason to do so. Which, in turn, makes it seem like they are only doing R&D because "its just something to do" rather than for any strategic purpose, or if the AI is indeed able to make strategic R&D decisions, then tech acquisition is somehow missing from that equation.

I also know that the AI does have the ability to send me offers, as throughout this save I've received a single offer from one of them, which got promptly rejected by the AI as I foolishly attempted to negotiate on the price. But it seems they are able to send offers, they just don't care to do so.

https://filebin.net/rcnolc86in3oeqz2/WHIT_009.SAV

EDIT: Another (unrelated) curiosity you can see in the save is a seemingly dead AI, IBM. I've noticed that retail focused AIs often either perpetually stagnate on 10-15 retail stores, or switch to diversified as soon as possible. IBM seems like a dead AI here

[David]

EDIT: Another (unrelated) curiosity you can see in the save is a seemingly dead AI, IBM. I've noticed that retail focused AIs often either perpetually stagnate on 10-15 retail stores, or switch to diversified as soon as possible. IBM seems like a dead AI here

It is deliberately set up that way to have a spectrum of AI aggressiveness levels for more varied and interesting gameplay. Instead of having all AI relentlessly pursuing growth. Conservative AI may be content with just operating retail stores if they do not see good enough opportunities for expansion through their conservative lens.

If you check the save you can see that I'm specifically researching a number of products that has some competition on the market, and I've also created Royal Abundance, a sub with the sole purpose of using my tech and generating some actual market pressure on the AI as an incentive to buy the tech from me. It does not seem to be working. Desktop Computers for example is always a very busy market in every game, there is also heavy competition in my save, and despite me having vastly superior tech that is also being used by another company (my sub) to take market share, the AI is is not interested in it at all. Same applies to CPU for example, and others products Royal Abundance is manufacturing. This once again leads me to believe the AI does not consider product tech as a means to an end on its own, ie. it does not understand that product tech translates into profit and/or market share the same way the price of an item does (as they can adjust prices very well), and therefore they never have any interest in acquiring tech (independently from R&D), as they see no reason to do so. Which, in turn, makes it seem like they are only doing R&D because "its just something to do" rather than for any strategic purpose, or if the AI is indeed able to make strategic R&D decisions, then tech acquisition is somehow missing from that equation.

This will require new AI code to handle it as the AI is not actively seeking out tech acquisition opportunities from human players currently. To convince the dev team to invest time into implementing this, I would recommend that you set up a poll to see if there is a strong enough interest from the community in setting tech companies primarily aiming at selling tech to AI companies, as a gameplay strategy. (If few players are interested in pursuing this strategy, the dev team had better spend time and resources on other features with better demand from the community.)

[_white_]

Thank you David.

This means the AI is still actively (well, relatively actively) pursuing tech acquisitions from other AI companies, including my own subs, correct? If I create a tech sub instead of doing R&D myself I can see some interest from the AI, but its mainly in one product class alone. This makes me believe the AI is capable of trading tech between themselves, its just some values are a bit off (how potential profit is weighed, how the AI evaluates tech acquisition benefit vs. cost and available funds, any number of those small variables) so most products never generate that interest. What I am aiming to do is figure out what makes the AI interested in this product class and see if through some clever foolery I can make them interested in other products to a similar extent. My goal is not necessarily to play a tech company, but to provide a 'tech supermarket' to the AI as my own little balancing mechanism, as they are far too easy to roll over with tech at the moment.

Feel free to tell me if this is a stretch, but can we have some more info on the current AI decision making process when it comes to tech acquisitions? If a tech costs 60m, and the AI has 150m available, is that considered 'expensive'? What if potential profit is factored in? Is their R&D strategy influenced by their current or historic market share in a given product? I am aware there are infinite more layers one could add to these questions, what I am looking for is just a simple summary on what factors the AI will consider before it buys a tech.