I have found the AI is either overly or underlie aggressive. In a previous game the Horatio basically let me burn and pillage my way to an expansion victory just because we had good trade relations and they never made contact with any other race. Then in the game I'm currently playing the Cravers threw all off their fleets at me and are now being wiped out by pirates.

This forum could use an ignore button.

There are a few... Concerning things.

Such as diplomacy, the feel of sameness between races, combat, and general balancing.

But the dev team has been awful quiet, hopefully this means they are working on these issues, and will have the balls to postpone general release (to me August is not very far away)



Plus we have no idea what patche and fixes are on the way. It's entirely possible the spit and polish is being done as we speak

So enough of the way too heated discussion. Pointing out flaws again and again is fine, but let's be civil, eh?

Currently almost done with my first game on ES, can say I'm enjoying it. I'm not going to comment on the senseless arguing that's been going on, but I'd like to get back on the original topic.



Yes the diplomatic tree is very much useless besides being able to acquire much needed happiness buildings. I'm playing as the Hissho and while I realize they aren't much for silly politics anyways, I'm dominating quite easily. While the other races started off much quicker than I did and I had the lowest score for the first 30 turns, that quickly changed when the Cravers got angry at me, so I got angry also. I killed them off no problem, and then have proceeded to slash my way through the other races. So even from my limited experience, I was not expecting to win my first game (playing on normal) so easily.

Funny how this thread is about diplomacy and you guys just wanna swing your edicks around.

Admiral_Tolwyn wrote:
Funny how this thread is about diplomacy and you guys just wanna swing your edicks around.

I was gonna comment about that, but you beat me to it, and you know, this is one of the two trolls I've found so far, and it's on a diplomacy thread, haha!

I have faith that they will will fix the diplomacy in the game, its an alpha and this sort of thing gets fixed during the beta phase,



I think we can all agree, as long as its not as bad as SoaSE's diplomacy then i can live with it, they even released a micro expansion named "diplomacy" and its possibly the worse game mechanic i have ever seen.

Yea its kinda broken atm, but I find it a bit funny as well. You can somewhat tell wich AI realy hates your guts before you actualy do anything. >.>

I've played many strategic games and I must say they usually are either too complicated and hard to use or too simple and don't work.

Yeah, I think we can all agree that the diplomacy is broken and it's broken in a number of ways. As has been said the mood swings that the AI goes through are just insane and far too changeable to represent a realistic experience for the player. I don't think it helps that defeated empires still appear on the diplomacy screen when they should have disappeared. It might be that the different levels of relationship don't work properly either. It's difficult to understand sometimes why the AI won't accept an offer when all you're given as feedback is that you have the wrong relationship status with them. :-/

The team is working on fixing the issues with Diplomacy and improving it. This has been stated several times already but I thought I could repeat it yet again in case someone missed it.

Good to know diplomacy is being worked on - even though I had no real doubt about that. Personally, as I am still learning the game and playing normal at most, I tend to just ignore diplomatic relations except if I can get a peace treaty in to buy me time with warfare research and ship building.

4x_Fan wrote:
Currently the game lacks multiple features of even a semi-serious 4x game, and has holes / dupes the size of a planet to drive through. This isn't a Zynga / OS release, either.

At the moment it plays better than any 4X I've played in a long while.



That's with the broken AI.



You've got to sort your anger issues out, and calm down. Seriously.



btw. "frak" makes you look stupid, IMO. Wouldn't have said anything had you not bolded it.

4x_Fan wrote:


As stated: cut the crap. Diplomacy is currently borked, and we're looking to the next few patches. You know, after they try and get the AI to stop abusing free dust...

Agreed and waiting... It's stupid how it currently works.

I'm actually curious about the planned implementation details of the AI. I do recall reading another post where someone asked that exact question, and was wondering if anyone could point me towards any dev responses. I haven't found any yet.

When i try to do diplomacy nothing comes up no deals or nothing and i have plenty of command points XD

Sunshard wrote:
I'm actually curious about the planned implementation details of the AI. I do recall reading another post where someone asked that exact question, and was wondering if anyone could point me towards any dev responses. I haven't found any yet.

The most interesting dev quote I've ever seen regarding Ai is:

ThorTillas wrote:
Hi there,



As long as I need to work, I cannot read all your posts… and unfortunately writing an answer takes me so much time that you guys are able to add 3 or 4 more posts before I’m done...

But this thread seems to be “the one” I need to follow it as long as a large part of my job at Amplitude is about AI development.



Will the AI cheat ?

-> Short answer : no.

In fact, the AIs will not gathered any information that a player cannot get and it will not be able to do actions that the player cannot perform.

But, depending on difficulty level, it will get some “Bonus” or “Malus” to his “Food/Industry/Science/Money” production.

The AIs have some difficulty to “always” make the right decisions in terms of system improvements or ship design creation. By giving them some production bonus, we allow them to make some little mistakes from time to time.



Did you use any neural network, genetic algorithms or any other research based algorithms?

-> Short answer : no

We don’t use Neural network or genetic algorithms. They are clearly difficult to canalize and are not applicable for our problems. But some other games have already used them. “Black and White” use a neural network as one part of the Creature AI and as far as I remember, “Creatures” use some genetic algorithms.



But it does not mean that we don’t use any architecture or concept from the research or previous games.

The large part of our architecture is based on automated agents. Like “Divide and Conquer”, we have split the whole AI in smaller parts named agents. Each agent is able to handle a specific task like the population repartition, choose a building to build, a ship design creation, the right tax rate to set, etc. The decision algorithm is based on input settings and world observation. The agent can change the world in his responsibility’s limits and send suggestions to other agents in order to get some help, change some other agents settings, etc.

When all the agents have done their jobs, several managers analyze the world and choose the agent’s settings for the next AI run.



Will the AI have personalities?

-> Short answer : yes

We build a personality settings in Endless Space. Each faction has its own personality and we can add some more, based on victory goals or the game’s current state.

Personality will not change the way the AI will choose a building or move his fleet, but change which building to privilege, how many ships to keep in defense when attacking, how diplomacy will impact on the attitude toward the other empire, etc.

So, yes, AIs will not react the same way to an aggressive colonization or a scout destruction depending on his personality.

But algorithms behind the scene are the same, it is more a matter of perception of the world than a complete behavior change. Which means that a Craver will still check its fleet’s power before attacking even when its “attack modifier” is very high and/or its “defense modifier” very low.





That said. I hope those explanations were clear and answered a part of your questions...



Cheers,

Florian (and Adrien who double-checked this over my shoulder ^^)

Maybe you haven't seen that one, so far?

ComradePaddock wrote:
When i try to do diplomacy nothing comes up no deals or nothing and i have plenty of command points XD

Remember that you have to research the available deals (on the left part of the tech tree)

Also deep breath this is still an alpha build things are far from complete. I find myself accidently clicking on planets around uncolonized stars which just zooms into them rather then show their stats like it does in a colonized system.

Thanks Nosferatiel. I missed the keynote on agent-based architecture. :P



I assume by canalize they meant errr....thread?

VieuxChat wrote:
Remember that you have to research the available deals (on the left part of the tech tree)

ah god dammit i feel like such a noob XD

ComradePaddock wrote:
ah god dammit i feel like such a noob XD

Don't feel ashamed The first I launched ES I didn't find how to change the faction I wanted to play -___-

Thanks for the dev post about what they are working on for diplomacy. Good to know they are working things out. In general I like the way they actually have AI relations set up. As you differ in score they will adjust how they feel, nice mechanic. The only thing that is completely lacking is the fact that I wiped out an allied race (humans) who were allied to the Sophons. I was also allied to the Sophons, and yet, our relationship wasn't hurt a single point besides the fact of my rapid 'expansion'



But otherwise what they have is a solid framework, granted they said they are 20% though 'tuning' XD

Interesting. just interesting.

Tarus wrote:
Think about it and rebalance it, thanks

Please be less of a dick with your statements.



That said, I somewhat agree. The system certainly could stand to look at military success a bit, at least. I was wiping out two empires at the same time when both of my allies when hostile on me 'for showing weakness'. Admittedly, it was easy enough to kill them both aswell, but it shouldn't be -80 points when you are capable of engaging in a multi-front war against every other faction in the game.

We just be getting started here. If such issues still exist in beta, THEN they will actually be issues.

Never heard of gunboat diplomacy?

Cut the crap people, and stop the hugely irritating "fanboy" reflexive action ~ OP may be less than eloquent, but s/he's correct.





Diplomacy is currently totally broken and everyone knows it.



Op is correct: trade lanes, dust gifts, technology gifts do very little to help relations. In fact, the AI totally ignores any of these in its sudden switches from "I love you" to "OMG YOU LIKE COLONISED A SYSTEM THAT WAS SOMEWHAT NEAR MY FURTHEST BORDER!!! I HATE U!!!!1101!! within a single two turn phase are well documented. The code is currently at the emotional sophistication level of a 13 yr old.





That quote about the AI "not knowing more than a player" is frakking hilarious given that a large part of diplomacy / relations is currently based on your military strength. From Empires you've never met, let alone scouted your systems. Oh, wait ~ "We're going to war since your military is too strong / expansionist"... "%DiplomacyFailedResponseAction military strength too small". It's always nice when the XML tags get shown. :rolleyes:





As stated: cut the crap. Diplomacy is currently borked, and we're looking to the next few patches. You know, after they try and get the AI to stop abusing free dust...

4x_Fan wrote:
Cut the crap people, and stop the hugely irritating "fanboy" reflexive action ~ OP may be less than eloquent, but s/he's correct.





Diplomacy is currently totally broken and everyone knows it.



Op is correct: trade lanes, dust gifts, technology gifts do very little to help relations. In fact, the AI totally ignores any of these in it's sudden switches from "I love you" to "OMG YOU LIKE COLONISED A SYSTEM THAT WAS SOMEWHAT NEAR MY FURTHEST BORDER!!! I HATE U!!!!1101!! within a single two turn phase are well documented. The code is currently at the emotional sophistication level of a 13 yr old.





That quote about the AI "not knowing more than a player" is frakking hilarious given that a large part of diplomacy / relations is currently based on your military strength. From Empires you've never met, let alone scouted your systems. Oh, wait ~ "We're going to war since your military is too strong / expansionist"... "%DiplomacyFailedResponseAction military strength too small". It's always nice when the XML tags get shown. :rolleyes:





As stated: cut the crap. Diplomacy is currently borked, and we're looking to the next few patches. You know, after they try and get the AI to stop abusing free dust...

We know dude, no need to shout.

Igncom1 wrote:
We know dude, no need to shout.

And yet the three posts above mine didn't state this, and insulted / ignored / mocked the OPs post.





A new poster. Person who paid for the alpha. From the small selective evidence, not a native English speaker either, meaning potentially wider growth of sales / market penetration for the game.



Who you trolled.







Smart people here :rolleyes:







Thought experiment: if a single one of these posters had calmly stated: "Yep, def. an issue atm, they're looking into it, here's a post [linktobugforum], any other questions?" then my response would never have occurred. Instead, three of you were frakking giant molar pinal glands about it.



Obligatory Gif ~ although given some here still think the Chuck Norris meme is current, this is going to blow their minds

While i cant speak for the other people here, it may be becuse of the amount of times its been brought up as a registerd issue.

Igncom1 wrote:
While i cant speak for the other people here, it may be becuse of the amount of times its been brought up as a registerd issue.

Posts: 3

Join date: May





You're a wizard, Harry!







@OP.





Yes, Diplomacy is currently not working as intended. We're hoping it's patched soon. Welcome, and ignore the 'friendly' natives

First person agreed, second was being... odd, third was trying to be clever.



Anyway, I completely agree. Diplomacy right now is entirely useless. Having to research as much as you do for peace, trade, and more trade is rather limiting on the interaction side without a decent investment into the points that could be better spent elsewhere, tying other races reactions to you to military strength (why make peace when you can destroy?), and the almost utter lack of the need to trade for anything. I don't need anything from them usually (not that they have offered) and trying to give them things never changes.

4x_Fan wrote:
And yet the three posts above mine didn't state this, and insulted / ignored / mocked the OPs post.





A new poster. Person who paid for the alpha. From the small selective evidence, not a native English speaker either, meaning potentially wider growth of sales / market penetration for the game.



Who you trolled.







Smart people here :rolleyes:

And yet you do the same to me?

Igncom1 wrote:
And yet you do the same to me?

With 394 posts, you're a big girl/boy/T now, and we presume / hope you've clocked up enough play hours to know the mechanics well.



Btw ~ I bothered to start prying apart code recently just to see if I could fix some of the issues not being dealt with atm. My findings were... interesting.







Waiting on the next patch. Suffice to say, if it doesn't: a) fix dupes b) fix AI dust / growth exploits / builds, c) address diplomacy and d) actually, you know, add some shit then I'll be walking away. The complexity of the mechanics under the nice graphics ain't so amazing.





Facebook: classic pump n dump. We're not amused.







p.s. And yes, I'm well able to bio every Amplitude member and then bother to see whose funding this. The Steam deal made me a little... nose twitchy about who was an Angel / VC here.

Hey Com. and Devs,



i see here a big problem with the diplomatic system. A Big part of how succesfull you can do diplomatic agreements is based on your empires CP Points....

But one Question about this.... IF i have so many CP Points .... why i should do Diplomatics at all and let my ships just eat tons of dust???? If i have CP Power i atack and get new stars and dont make peace ^^



And from Dust pay or Traiding i get realy nothing ^^





Think about it and rebalance it, thanks

4x_Fan wrote:
With 394 posts, you're a big girl/boy/T now, and we presume / hope you've clocked up enough play hours to know the mechanics well.



Btw ~ I bothered to start prying apart code recently just to see if I could fix some of the issues not being dealt with atm. My findings were... interesting.







Waiting on the next patch. Suffice to say, if it doesn't: a) fix dupes b) fix AI dust / growth exploits / builds, c) address diplomacy and d) actually, you know, add some shit then I'll be walking away. The complexity of the mechanics under the nice graphics ain't so amazing.





Facebook: classic pump n dump. We're not amused.







p.s. And yes, I'm well able to bio every Amplitude member and then bother to see whose funding this. The Steam deal made me a little... nose twitchy about who was an Angel / VC here.

I'm certain all of us will very sad to see you go. I'm certain the answer is, of course, the right one, as walking away from an alpha you have already paid for is the only clear and cut answer. I mean, if the alpha is simply unplayable, I can not imagine how the release version will be. Bad business, if you ask me. Bad business indeed.

SomethingBlue wrote:
I'm certain all of us will very sad to see you go. I'm certain the answer is, of course, the right one, as walking away from an alpha you have already paid for is the only clear and cut answer. I mean, if the alpha is simply unplayable, I can not imagine how the release version will be. Bad business, if you ask me. Bad business indeed.

Kid, you've no idea what you're talking about.



Here's a pitch: get an exclusive alpha indy release deal with the major online distributor at the moment, then release to mediocre reviews and a general vibe that "not much got changed in the three months of alpha, barring already planned / costed artwork" and you'll see some rather unhappy faces. Especially since someone is funding this, and you got punters to pre-pay.





Pre-paying being the golden goose of kickstarter / Indy coding at this moment: screw that up for Valve, and I can only imagine the blowback.





Currently the game lacks multiple features of even a semi-serious 4x game, and has holes / dupes the size of a planet to drive through. This isn't a Zynga / OS release, either.





We'll see. But we're only 2 months from launch, and I've not seen much crunch in 3 weeks, barring announcing already designed / planned content. Frakk the artwork, someone start working on mechanics, and coding some AI algos, because it needs it.





And you know, publishing major fixes, like most alphas do.





[edit]



Correction: people spent silly amounts of time faffing around with "G2G interactive social media experiments" and not frakking coding. That always looks good to VCs when looking over their investments. Add to that that on their forums, they allowed non-team Mods to make statements about future releases & had no grasp on the whole dynamic of potential allies becoming irked by the lack of general feedback etc.

Alpha is alpha.



Deal with it.

4x_Fan wrote:
Kid, you've no idea what you're talking about.



Here's a pitch: get an exclusive alpha indy release deal with the major online distributor at the moment, then release to mediocre reviews and a general vibe that "not much got changed in the three months of alpha, barring already planned / costed artwork" and you'll see some rather unhappy faces. Especially since someone is funding this.



Currently the game lacks multiple features of even a semi-serious 4x game, and has holes / dupes the size of a planet to drive through. This isn't a Zynga / OS release, either.





We'll see. But we're only 2 months from launch, and I've not seen much crunch in 3 weeks, barring announcing already designed / planned content. Frakk the artwork, someone start working on mechanics, and coding some AI algos, because it needs it.





And you know, publishing major fixes, like most alphas do.

First off, don't call me Kid. I have done nothing to act like a child while you continue to do so. Second, nobody forced you to buy the game. You took a (oh my lord!!!) $25 chance just like everyone else here. You win some, you lose some. Apparently, you have lost in the past which makes you jaded. Get over it. Leave or stop being a troll.

Igncom1 wrote:
Alpha is alpha.



Deal with it.

Dealt with it (more than once).



If you can't see good advice then...





*shrug*

SomethingBlue wrote:
First off, don't call me Kid. I have done nothing to act like a child while you continue to do so. Second, nobody forced you to buy the game. You took a (oh my lord!!!) $25 chance just like everyone else here. You win some, you lose some. Apparently, you have lost in the past which makes you jaded. Get over it. Leave or stop being a troll.

And your reply added 0% content, much the same as your last three.



If you've nothing to say, but bleat, why post?



Bleats me. Guess you like posting.. fluff?



Your rebuttals are 'weak as' in addition to the non-content, making the whole experience rather... lacking in ramifications.





Be back in a month; by then I'll have sniffed around to know the deal, and know whose getting screwed. And by whom. Ciao.

Nothing quite like an internet troll.

Tarus wrote:
Hey Com. and Devs,



i see here a big problem with the diplomatic system. A Big part of how succesfull you can do diplomatic agreements is based on your empires CP Points....

But one Question about this.... IF i have so many CP Points .... why i should do Diplomatics at all and let my ships just eat tons of dust???? If i have CP Power i atack and get new stars and dont make peace ^^



And from Dust pay or Traiding i get realy nothing ^^





Think about it and rebalance it, thanks

Yeah mate diplomacy does need tweaking and I'm sure it will be, diplomacy will make or break this game. In my opinion.. as its obviously still alpha it needs a major overhaul. Oh and ignore the douchebag calling you a dick just for giving your opinion, I already got a wiff of that idiotic mentality recently. Even if people think you cant express your opinion like some english professor, I'm sure the devs can read between the lines of what you don't like about the game. heh

Igncom1 wrote:
Nothing quite like an internet troll.

Yep, keep telling yourself that.



You're a special snow-flake as well.







[hint:mypostsaren'ttargetedatyou,perse~they'retargetedatthepeoplewiththegoldengoosehere.Thatain'tyou.]

Igncom1 wrote:
Nothing quite like an internet troll.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.



As far as diplomatics are concerned, I am more the shoot now, ask questions later type in these games. I mean, its really wonky in ES right now, that's noted and been noted. My diplomatic stance deteriorated after the sophons, a supposed good race, colonized near me. They didn't like that I was so close but they did it. There should be some sort of points scale, visible or no, and each thing should affect this scale. Encroaching on territory would be a turn based negative, eventually leading to war no matter what. Gifts would be 1 time positives. per turn gifts would be turn based positives. Ship attacks, un welcomed ships, whatever else would be 1 time negatives. when the scale hits x, they break any alliances, y, they go neutral, z, they declare war. Add positives and negatives for relative military values; weaker than AI adds a turn based negative, stronger than AI adds a turn based positive. And finally, racial preferences would be positives and negatives through out. Hissho AI would be harder to get along with, while Sophons easier.

Anywho, /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/13096-updated-summary-of-suggestions-ideas here a link to some suggestion where diplomacy has meany entrys from the fans.



/#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/13003-summary-of-suggestions-so-far-discussion And here you can discuss such a topic.





And finally i would like to appologise to 4x_Fan if i offended or angerd you, you have the right to your opinion and in most respects you were right in your original comment.