[Bug] AI gains free escort ships with Colony ships - proceeds to spam

[Katrin]

Scenario:

I am allied with the Utopians; 100% strongest AI.

They meet and declare war on the Brutes (?), who are on 40%ish.

Who are allied with Talon.


After a war of attrition with the Brutes, I wipe out their systems, and make sure that a) Utopians get to colonise said systems and b) Talon aren't taking systems.

Talon then discovers the magic bean to steam-rolling us: it spams 1000's of colony ships, each who get x2 of the strongest ship as escort - it then dumps these in system after system.

Tactic 1: Bomb their systems. No effect. Talon can (and does) colonise faster than I can clear; even when I clear two whole systems, the mass colony ship spam is able to replenish them within 5 minutes of my leaving a system.
Tactic 2: Do every mission for Utopian, strengthening their systems, allowing them to win. No effect, problems arise as fast as I clear them; worse still, Talon can take systems when I'm not perma-clearing their colonies.
Tactic 3: Change sides? Not possible - the amount of ships mean I cannot go without a friendly source repairing me.
Tactic 4: Sod this, go for Feared victory. I get to 358 / 450 by the time Talon have steam-rollered.

Other solutions tried:

Tech up Utopian with shields, weapons etc so they'll build ships as good as Talon - no appreciable increase in Utopian ship standards.
Slow Talon down with sabotage - no impact.

And so on - basically, the game became 100% unwinnable, from a start where the two AI were equal (and I'd had to wipe out the Brutes myself to prevent Utopians losing ground).




This picture was taken before Talon got their next tech (Fleet somethings?) and shows how impossible the game got. Top left you'll see one of the colony ships ~ in another thread, you'll see the line of dead Dryad ship corpses which were actually Talon colony ships ~ and every single one of those centipede AI is a colony ship escort.
Top left you'll see the two latest arrivals pealing off their escort duty to come join in the "fun".


AI spamming 1000's colony ships + guards = unwinnable.

AI colonising instantly to a full strength planet = unwinnable.



I started off the system with 80k+ credits ~ I finished it with about 2k, due to constantly getting trashed by mobs of 20+ Talon ships.


Not fun.

[Sedlex]

Butbutbut, losing is fun!

Joke aside, this happened to me once too at the start. I ragequit the sector. If it were to happen now, I'd probably switch sides and try to join in rolling Utopian.

...nah, I'd still ragequit.

[Katrin]

Just happened again ~ it seems to be certain AI who get this ability?

This time it was Overlords; even though I'm vastly more tech'd up than them [new AI race], it took 40 mins to clear a system with 7 planets due to them re-colonising multiple planets at once.

Of course, in that time, they were also happily munching on my ally.




[Suggestion]

Planets get a "cool down" timer (nuclear winter needs to clear / fall out settle) which precludes instant recolonisation if the planet is destroyed by player / AI weapons. This could create a new dynamic, sending invasion fleets in order for AI <> AI conflicts to progress without this cool down.

[Moonshine Fox]

They shouldn't even be able to spam colony+escort this fast. Their economy would tank in no time. No, this is another problem, I think.

[Draciel]

Talon, Overlord and maybe one more are friendly with monsters, so their colony ships are not destroyed easily, so they have no problem to reach destination... So they can colonize sector full of monsters quickly, another races have little chance here, cos lifetime of their colony ships is 5 seconds .

So they can colonize less, or maybe their colony ships can be attacked by monsters when they are launched to colonize planet...

[Katrin]

Originally Posted by Draciel

Talon, Overlord and maybe one more are friendly with monsters, so their colony ships are not destroyed easily, so they have no problem to reach destination... So they can colonize sector full of monsters quickly, another races have little chance here, cos lifetime of their colony ships is 5 seconds .

So they can colonize less, or maybe their colony ships can be attacked by monsters when they are launched to colonize planet...

This looks like it's part of the cause.

However, there's more shenanigans going on.

In my current game (where I have Overlord doing the spamming thing), there are two races left; Humans and Overlord. I am allied with Humans, warring the Overlord. The Overlord's power relation bars were slowly lowering as we chipped away at systems.

Currently:

Overlord - Planets 55, Tech 42
Humans - Planets 81, Tech 43

But Overlord's Power bar is increasing, not decreasing

Ships? Nope ~



Planets? Nope ~



Resources? Bingo ~




Now, I understand that they have the "Productive" trait, however, given we've just taken over 15 planets or so from them, surely their resources should have diminished, at least a little?

I suspect that there might be a +resource mis-calculation, added to their ability to ignore trash mobs, and the AI behaviour where they prioritise colony ships + escorts even when warring leads to the infinite train of colony ships + escorts that I've been seeing.


[edit]

Actually, thinking about this ~ I think this is tied to colonies being built at max pop / full growth that I've seen. i.e. AI loses planet > AI immediately re-colonises planet at full strength.

This might explain why I'm not seeing much production dip in those charts - the AI is effectively regaining full strength production immediately upon re-clolonising.