Hi everyone!
The 4.0.13 update released today with the following changes:
We expect the 4.0.14 release will be next week (probably on Tuesday), and is expected to include some fixes to a few infinite loops and some select balance changes (like splitting up Enforcers and Telepaths again). It will be a short work week here in Sweden, so it’s likely to be the only update of the week.
As I mentioned last week, with multiplayer stability largely handled, AI is one of our next focuses. Today I want to talk about AI benchmarks, and have a discussion with you about how we should measure “success”.
They do still need to put up a bit of a challenge though, especially at higher difficulties.
The first economic goal we make for our AI is “please don’t collapse in an economic death spiral”, and it’s actually far better at that in 4.0 than it was in 3.x. The current AI does NOT meet the second “provide an adequate challenge” goal though.
One of the fundamental tools we have for our AIs are resource targets in their economic plans. They’ll strive to reach those targets, and many of these are set as “scaling” - if they meet the target, they’ll raise the target the next month. This attempts to ensure that they’ll keep thirsting for ever larger research and alloy numbers (or food if they use bioships!) as is appropriate. This is one of the tools we also use to make them exhibit their ethics - Materialists scale their Research targets faster than other empires, so they’ll inherently be more likely to build more Research specializations, while Spiritualists are more likely to have a lot of Unity specializations.
Ironically, improving AI tends to consume any benefits we carved out through performance improvements. The stronger the AI, the more stuff they have - fleets, colonies, and so on.
Then there come questions around whether the benchmarks should differ based on personality type. Should it be different if they’re Democratic Crusaders vs. Peaceful Traders? Or does differentiating them there make the friendlier empires too weak?
I’ve got my own set of benchmarks that come from running 3.14 and from the multiplayer community, and in general, I’m okay with Grand Admiral being significantly harder than it was in 3.14. but I’m interested to hear what you all strive for.
How much research and alloy production do you try to have 10 years, 30 years, 100 years, and when the end-game crisis comes calling? (Include your preferred difficulty settings and galaxy sizes as well if you could, as well as if you change any other important settings like tech costs.)
Since the next two weeks are both short weeks in Sweden, our next Stellaris Dev Diary will be June 12th. (You’ll be hearing from me in patch notes in the meantime though.)
The 4.0.13 update released today with the following changes:
Stellaris 4.0.13 Patch
Improvements
- Behemoth Fury is now available to Wilderness Empires.
- Improved tooltips for the following civics:
- Functional Architecture/Constructobot
- Environmentalist
- Astro-mining Drones
- Maintenance Protocols
- Ascensionists
- Augmentation Bazaars
- Brand Loyalty
- Death Cults
- Dimensional Worship
Balance
- Mutagenic Habitability now counts all planet types as ideal for upgrading Gaiaseeders
- Dramatically increased the draw chance for the Mineral Purification, Global Energy Management and Food Processing technologies
- Rebalanced the Pleasure Seeker civics to transform Civilians into Hedonists
- Logistic Drones are now Complex Drones not Menial Drones
Bugfix
- Fixed invaded pre-ftls not becoming biotrophies
- People once more die when they are put in the Lathe
- Bio-Swarmer missiles can now be used by all biological ships with medium weapon slots (including defensive platforms)
- Pops that are being pampered will now be forcibly switched to the correct living standard
- Replacing a district specialisation no longer destroys CyberCreed buildings that should be kept
- Corrected a tooltip bug where a planet would display itself as a possible migration target.
- Fixed capitalisation for resources in trade policies
- Updated assorted modifiers that still referred to Clerks
- A Trade deficit now causes Job Efficiency and Empire Size issues
- Fixed the tooltip for the Polymelic trait
- Armies now protect 200 pops from raiding, not 2
- Blocked the Federation Code technology for some empires, for example homicidals. To draw the tech, the empire is also required to be in contact with someone they can form a federation with.
- Blocked the Development focus task Form a Federation for some empires, for example homicidals
- Added swaps for some empires, for example homicidals, for the Development focus rewards Federation Code, Xeno Diplomacy, and Xeno Relations
- Updated the Colony view tab mentioned in the hint of the focus task Enact a Planetary Decision to say Management
- CyberCreed pops with Ritualistic Implants can now colonise planets
- Fixed Recycled and Luxurious traits not applying to Roboticists
- Catalytic Processing Civic now lists correct information regarding job swap
- Cost for repairing orbital rings when you use bioships is now correctly calculated
- Gale Speed trait gained from Defeat no longer causes errors
- Fixed scope for LeaderShipSurvivalReason
- Fixed scope bug for ruler in leader_election_weight
- Fixed Worker Coop gaining Elite strata jobs in too many places and tidied up the civic tooltip
- Updated tooltip for Warrior Culture civic
- Added a pre-list colon to the Feudal Society civic's tooltip
- The everychanging stone can no longer cause artisans to have negative mineral upkeep
- Gave the Neural Chorus advanced authority the pop growth speed modifier that had accidentally been assigned to Memory Aggregator
- The Planetary Supercomputer no longer has an empire cap of 1
- The Research Institute/Planetary Supercomputer no longer give scientist capacity
- Added dashes to Traits tooltips and list items
- Fixed trigger logic for criminal syndicates and federations
- Fixed Offspring Bioships not being visible in game
- Fixed Offspring Bioships not being labelled as non-offspring ships in the ship designer
- The Machine Uprising will no longer spawn 100 machine pops for every 1 missing housing. However the pop-rework seems to have handled 6 million machine pops okay.
- Stopped removing occupation armies for bombarded and invaded planets on savegame load
- Repairing ruined buildings in zones is now always possible.
Performance
- Flattened pop job modifier node into planet one
- Made clearing modifiers a fire and forget job
Stability
- Fixed a possible OOS when a player leaves the game.
- Fix CTD when generating a Cosmic Storm mesh.
- Fixed a random freeze when loading save with stations containing multiple defence platforms.
We expect the 4.0.14 release will be next week (probably on Tuesday), and is expected to include some fixes to a few infinite loops and some select balance changes (like splitting up Enforcers and Telepaths again). It will be a short work week here in Sweden, so it’s likely to be the only update of the week.
As I mentioned last week, with multiplayer stability largely handled, AI is one of our next focuses. Today I want to talk about AI benchmarks, and have a discussion with you about how we should measure “success”.
What Makes a Good AI?
The AI in Stellaris has always been designed as very reactive, and AI personality has a massive impact on their behavior. Our goal is for our AI empires to feel like actors in the galactic play - acting in a manner consistent with their Origins, Authorities, Civics, and Ethics rather than always picking the “meta” play.They do still need to put up a bit of a challenge though, especially at higher difficulties.
The first economic goal we make for our AI is “please don’t collapse in an economic death spiral”, and it’s actually far better at that in 4.0 than it was in 3.x. The current AI does NOT meet the second “provide an adequate challenge” goal though.
One of the fundamental tools we have for our AIs are resource targets in their economic plans. They’ll strive to reach those targets, and many of these are set as “scaling” - if they meet the target, they’ll raise the target the next month. This attempts to ensure that they’ll keep thirsting for ever larger research and alloy numbers (or food if they use bioships!) as is appropriate. This is one of the tools we also use to make them exhibit their ethics - Materialists scale their Research targets faster than other empires, so they’ll inherently be more likely to build more Research specializations, while Spiritualists are more likely to have a lot of Unity specializations.
Ironically, improving AI tends to consume any benefits we carved out through performance improvements. The stronger the AI, the more stuff they have - fleets, colonies, and so on.
Benchmarking
One way to decide whether or not the AI is performing up to expectations is through benchmarking - what kind of fleet power, alloy generation, and research generation should they have by 2230, 2250, 2300, and so on? Around what year should they hit 10k fleet power?Then there come questions around whether the benchmarks should differ based on personality type. Should it be different if they’re Democratic Crusaders vs. Peaceful Traders? Or does differentiating them there make the friendlier empires too weak?
I’ve got my own set of benchmarks that come from running 3.14 and from the multiplayer community, and in general, I’m okay with Grand Admiral being significantly harder than it was in 3.14. but I’m interested to hear what you all strive for.
How much research and alloy production do you try to have 10 years, 30 years, 100 years, and when the end-game crisis comes calling? (Include your preferred difficulty settings and galaxy sizes as well if you could, as well as if you change any other important settings like tech costs.)
What’s Next?
We’re going to continue with 4.0 post release support.Since the next two weeks are both short weeks in Sweden, our next Stellaris Dev Diary will be June 12th. (You’ll be hearing from me in patch notes in the meantime though.)
