Planned AI improvement in the next major version 11.0

[David]

The dev team plans to further improve the AI for the next major version 11.0.

One of the goals would be to improve the competitor AI when the game's AI Expansion Aggressive setting is set to VERY HIGH, for non-player-subsidiary AI competitors.

If you are an expert player who can consistently beat the AI at a very high difficulty level, and you are interested in participating in the closed beta test of V10.1 when it becomes ready, please send me a private message on this forum, or email me at info@enlight.com, with one of your save game files showcasing your gameplay competency. After evaluating your savegame, we may invite you to participate in the closed beta test for testing the improved AI. Thanks.

If your save game file is too large for attachment, you may check out this post about how to send me large files: https://www.enlight.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2473

[Stylesjl]

The dev team plans to further improve the AI for the next major version 10.1.

One of the goals would be to improve the competitor AI when the game's AI Aggressive setting is set to VERY HIGH, for non-player-subsidiary AI competitors.

If you are an expert player who can consistently beat the AI at a very high difficulty level, and you are interested in participating in the closed beta test of V10.1 when it becomes ready, please send me a private message on this forum, or email me at info@enlight.com, with one of your save game files showcasing your gameplay competency. After evaluating your savegame, we may invite you to participate in the closed beta test for testing the improved AI. Thanks.

If your save game file is too large for attachment, you may check out this post about how to send me large files: https://www.enlight.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2473

This sounds interesting. When you mention the AI Aggression setting, which one are you referring to?

- Competence of Local Competitors
- AI Expansion Aggressiveness
- AI Pricing Aggressiveness

From what I understand the Competence setting was what controlled the level of intelligence the AI exhibited when making business decisions while expansion aggressiveness makes them less conservative and more likely to take risks with their money (i.e build/research/etc stuff rather than sitting on cash). Pricing Aggressiveness would in contrast make them more likely to undercut competition by lowering prices (which increases the riskiness).

Also does non-player-subsidiary AI competitors mean improvements to the AI player for cases where those AIs are not Subsidiaries of the human player? I am not even sure if there is/was a difference in how subsidiaries behave when taken over by human players (other than those imposed by human intervention).

[cantdownloadit]

If AI's for none player subsidiaries are going to be made better than those for player subsidiaries, that seems to make subsidiaries less useful.

Also does this mean if I buy a controlling interest in an AI company the company AI suddenly will become worse ?

This seems a very odd change to me

[David]

This sounds interesting. When you mention the AI Aggression setting, which one are you referring to?

- Competence of Local Competitors
- AI Expansion Aggressiveness
- AI Pricing Aggressiveness

It would be the "AI Pricing Aggressiveness". I just updated the original post to clearly state "AI Pricing Aggressiveness"

Also does non-player-subsidiary AI competitors mean improvements to the AI player for cases where those AIs are not Subsidiaries of the human player?

Correct. That's the plan. But the dev team hasn't started working on the AI improvement yet. That's why they would like me to get feedback from the community on this planned AI improvement.

I am not even sure if there is/was a difference in how subsidiaries behave when taken over by human players (other than those imposed by human intervention).

Currently, there are no differences.

[David]

If AI's for none player subsidiaries are going to be made better than those for player subsidiaries, that seems to make subsidiaries less useful.

Also does this mean if I buy a controlling interest in an AI company the company AI suddenly will become worse ?

This seems a very odd change to me

The plan is to have an option for players to have a more challenging game if they wish. If both subsidiary AI and competitor AI are both improved, it probably will not make the game more challenging.

For players who do not see different AI behaviors before and after being controlled by the player, they are advised not to choose VERY HIGH for the AI Expansion Aggressive setting.

Please note that this is the plan they have right now. But the dev team hasn't started working on the AI improvement yet. That's why they would like me to get feedback from the community on this planned AI improvement.

Do you have any suggestions?

It seems to me that having two AI Expansion Aggressive settings, one for non-subsidiary AI and another for subsidiary AI may provide the kind of flexibility that different players would like to see for customizing the AI. Not sure what the dev team might think of this though as it may lead to too many options on the menu. What do you think?

Also, will a really smart subsidiary AI take out fun from the game, as you can just let the AI manage your firms, leaving you with not much else to do?

[cantdownloadit]

i dont have any issue with it as an optional setting, but how would this work with prices ?
presumably you would have to disable your AI subsidiary from monitoring/adjusting prices which is the main reason to have an AI in the first place, otherwise you would change prices and it would just change the prices back using its "skill".

If this is the case, then why would i be paying the AI a huge wage based on company profit if its effectively doing almost nothing ?

To me this just supports the option of being able to set up subsidiaries with myself as CEO - and the whole argument the player should be able to set up new companies if they go bust, just like the AI does.

(regarding the difficulty percentage, would be nice to have an option to remove this now due to the salary adjustment, given a game that used to be 160% difficulty is suddenly like 30%)

[David]

i dont have any issue with it as an optional setting, but how would this work with prices ?

I've asked the dev team. The plan is to only improve the AI's ability to expand by setting up retail stores and factories more effectively. Their abilities in changing prices will not be affected.

To be clear, the planned change won't weaken the existing AI for subsidiary companies in any way.