Suggestion: Make AI destroy improvements

[robc04_1]

Currently it is easy to just sit back inside our cities and force the AI to bring the battle to us because they don't pillage our tile improvements. The AI could pose a significant threat if they started dismantling our tile improvements since it would bring some pain to our economy and force the player to think about attacking the enemy in the open field. There are times in may be wise to just take the city when the attacker has overwhelming force, but there are plenty of times the AI doesn't bring enough troops to take a city. During these times destroying tile improvements could cause a lot of pain, especially since the AI is usually strong in numbers but not in troop quality.

Actually this leads to another suggestion. I think the AI is slow to upgrade their units as they gain techs. Even late game I've been fighting large stacks of very weak units. Eventually I start to see some strong planes or ships. Even in games that I am not the tech leader, the AI units tend to be much weaker than mine. It doesn't seem like they ever pay to refit existing units. I've also never been attacked by a mech. I've seen the enemy use all of the other classes, but no mechs.

[void]

Hi robc,

We had pillaging for bugs and AI factions during beta, but disabled it since it felt a bit annoying with them constantly taking out your improvements. I guess we could reenable it and maybe make the decision chance based.

The AI decides what to build also based on production output and production cost, which puts mechs at a disadvantage with their comparably high costs. You're right, that needs to be looked at -- while I've seen them build mechs in matches, they're too rare.

[robc04_1]

Thanks for responding! I can see why as a player you'd get annoyed at getting pillaged, but I think the cost of not getting pillaged by the AI is too great to ignore.

If pillaging is enabled, then the player has to make the decision to come out of the city to stop the pillaging (and face worse odds in combat), or letting the AI pillage so your troops can encounter combat in the city where they are safer. It opens up more aspects to war and makes it a bit deeper. It also doesn't seem fair that we can pillage the AI, but the AI can't pillage us. I'm not sure if you need to make the aliens pillage (that may be too much), but having the AI factions pillage would add more interesting decisions to the game. It would be great if instead of making the chance random, have it be based on whether the AI thinks they can take the city. If they don't think they can, then pillage more.

[NightReaper]

+1!
Agree totally where other AI players are concerned. I also think the alien life should be a pain also possibly on a sliding scale from minimally intrusive (random accidental transit damage?) from the get go to diabolically involved (rage induced) once they cross into the fully engaged aggressive phase once it is initiated. Just my two credits...

[jdmillard]

There is a good argument for the fact that the defending faction (human player) must consider creeping out from behind his/her enhanced defensive walls. I think this makes for great strategy! However, there'es also something to be said about it being super annoying. My suggestion is that it should take a whole turn to destroy an enhancement such that you must set the military unit to "destroy enhancement" and it will be completed the next turn. This way the defending player has a chance to try and destroy said military unit.

This way, If I get a notification (just like the notifications that say an enemy unit is approaching) that says someone has started to destroy a mine near xyz city, I can run my units over there to take them out before the opponent's turn again. This is almost chess-like. You have do decide if it's worth abandoning your powerful wall defense in order to protect infrastructure. If I take the bait, I save my mine but then the opponent can orbital bombard my units without the city walls protecting them. This introduces more variety in the offensive/defensive strategies.

[robc04_1]

That is a good idea jdmillard (to have the tile improvement destruction complete at the start of the next turn)! I think that would open up a lot more strategy to pillaging. I hope Proxy can add this in (AI pillaging + pillaging completing at the start of your next turn).

[jdmillard]

That is a good idea jdmillard (to have the tile improvement destruction complete at the start of the next turn)! I think that would open up a lot more strategy to pillaging. I hope Proxy can add this in (AI pillaging + pillaging completing at the start of your next turn).

... with a notification at the beginning of your turn. Sorry, I just had to say it again. Call me OCD.

[robc04_1]

yep, with notification

[Rossmeister]

If we're trying to achieve verisimilitude in this game, which is always a strength if you ask me, I don't see any reason at all for xenos not to ravage the land and destroy improvements.

If YOU were a drone, wouldn't you want to erase colonists and all they bring with them from the face of the planet? On the lower difficulties, all you need to counter xenos are enough troops. With decent production you just have to pump out units and suddenly you're safe for the rest of the game. In my opinion, xenos should always try to destroy all improvements except roads and fungus. Maybe roads too though, depends on how you conceptualize them. If they're dirt roads there's no point in destroying them, but if they're concrete highways just sitting there.. Prime targets for spitters. Xenos should invoke the fear of gruesome annihilation, but they just don't per now. At least not on lower difficulties.