Proactive and Mobilized AI Mod

Proactive and Mobilized AI Mod

Overview
A fairly common complaint about this game is the passive nature of the AI during wars. More often than note, an AI will go entirely defensive/passive once you have destroyed their main battle fleet. For this reason, players generally do not need more than one monolithic fleet (aka Doom Stack) with the singular purpose of wiping out an AI’s fleet.

From my tests, there are two primary reasons for this AI behaviour in the default game.

First, the AI is limited to using at most 10 spaceports at any time to construct its fleet. Therefore, regardless of the AI’s size or resource stockpile, their fleet will only recover 10 ships at a time. In the late game where fleets regularly consume 500-1000 ship slots, the AI is effectively hamstrung to never be able to compete with the winning fleet. It also means that large federations will almost always win against large empires if each control equal number of spaceports.

Second, if an AI’s fleet is smaller than a hostile side, the AI will not send its fleet into the hostile territory. This cowardly behaviour means that the aggressor will progressively destroy the economy of the weaker AI until the weaker AI is incapable of ever making a come back.

These two points have fairly far reaching effects in the game. First, it means that wars are largely deterministic based on which belligerent has more empires (aka more space ports producing ships) and on which side has a larger overall fleet. Second, it means that a player using a Doom Stack will quickly find that the AI simply turtles at their spaceports awaiting their destruction.

The Mod
For the above reasons, I created this mod with two major changes to the game…

Increase Shipbuilding Limit to 125 Spaceports

The first change increases the maximum number of spaceports an AI will use for construction to 125.

Why 125?

The maximum ship slots in game is 1000. Assuming the AI has enough resources and 125 spaceports, an AI could conceivably construct a fully stacked fleet 1000 ship slots in a single build order. This behaviour is not so different from most players who will attempt to leverage every possible spaceport to recover lost ships.

Decrease Requirements for AI Offensives into Hostile Territory

The second change reduces the Fleet Power requirement for AI’s to attack hostile territory.

In practice, you will likely notice two things. First, depending on the number of opponents you face, you will see at least one AI fleet marauding through your space. Left unchecked, your major mining stations and frontier outposts will quickly fall. Second, you will rarely see large AI empires turtle at their spaceport. As long as they have the spaceports, you will see rapid recovery from most engagements.

What Does It Mean for You?
Generally, you will want at least 2 fleets instead of one monolithic Doom Stack. You will want at least one fleet defending against marauding fleets. Chokepoints and Warp Snares become crucial to delaying marauding fleets. You will want at least one fleet attacking the enemy’s main battle fleet to keep it on the defensive.

(In fact, I recommend at least 3 fleets, as you will want a fleet just large enough to focus on destroying space ports.)

In co-op multiplayer settings, it becomes crucially important to split these tasks amongst your allies.

Taking on large Federations is… exciting.

Compatibility
This mod should be compatible with all other mods, as it uses a unique definition file.