Did the AI regress?

[blueskirt]

I played Dyson for the first time since version 1.08 and it was nice to see additionnal maps and that levels were sorted in order from the easiest to the hardest and all the little details that were added since version 1.08. There is one thing that disappointed me however. It seems like the AI regressed. That or the levels were made incredibly easier. I remember that in v1.08, the asteroid belt level (Level 4 now, level 3 back in v1.08) was a whole lot more epic than it is in v1.20.


Back in v1.08, I started in the bottom right corner, and had to kill my purple neighbor in order to get a good planet. Then I fought and defeated the orange tribe that kept pestering me since the begining of the level. Then I felt confident enough to tackle both the pink and green colonies at the same time, and as I was done with them, I realised that the yellow colony, on the opposite side of the asteroid belt, had done exactly the same as I and controled the remaining 50% of the map! And then we jumped at each other's throat and after a very long fight, only one was victorious and man that was great. It was after this battle that I suggested this game to all my friends.

In v1.20, enemies didn't get any bigger than the purple colony in the picture above. They controled 1 or 2 planets maximum, the rest was gray planets. It was only when I controled 90% of the map that the last enemy woke up and conquered a third planet. I don't know what you did between v1.08 and v1.20, but I hope you will make the AI more aggressive and expansionist, or make the levels harder before the Steam release.

[Rudolf]

The game is currently easier than before, which is good for some people and bad for others. This is mostly a side effect of the continuess changes to the game, for example the current release has not been rebalanced in regards to the new conquest rules. The AI will undergo a lot of work, and the level design and values need to take a very large an chaotic set of paramaters into account before the final balancing of te game. We are working on all this stuff now. The game will certainly offer a more interesting and dep challeng ein the final version of the game.

I may release a new set of default parameters in a seperate thread to address the current imbalance if there is demand, but I am on the fence on that one atm. :-)

[Pandanapper]

Must say I enjoy the game, but I don't think the AI is aggressive enough when playing.  Even on the higher levels.  Are there plans to put tactics into the game for the AI?