AI Rework - Beta Progress and Update #5

Nuclear Escalation Balancing

One of the biggest challenges for the new AI - still not fully solved - is determining when to escalate a conventional conflict into full-scale nuclear war.

In the early technological eras, this decision is relatively straightforward. Factions rely mostly on conventional forces, nuclear production is limited, and delivery systems are inefficient. As a result, nuclear weapons tend to be used in a tactical role, such as eliminating hardened targets.

As the game progresses and tactical nuclear weapons become more advanced - particularly nuclear MRBMs - the situation becomes more complex. Factions begin to build up their arsenals, and conflicts can quickly escalate into regional nuclear exchanges that are fast and highly destructive, but still somewhat contained.

However, once launchpad ICBMs, missile silos, SSBNs and anti-missile defenses enter the picture, the line between a localized conflict and an existential threat becomes much harder to define.

During an ongoing conventional war, key questions arise:

• When is the right moment to commit strategic nuclear forces?

• Strike too early, and you may not have enough assets for an effective first strike.

• Wait too long, and the enemy may outbuild you or inflict critical losses on your conventional forces.

• Launching missiles often reveals the location of your assets, potentially allowing opponents to disarm you before finishing off your remaining forces and launching an invasion.

This Beta is an attempt to find the right balance in these decisions. Your feedback on how “right” it feels will be extremely valuable.

Campaign Improvements

Another area of focus in this build is the Campaign.

It should now play more reliably, but if you encounter any issues or inconsistencies, your reports will be very helpful in polishing the experience.

General Fixes

There are also a number of smaller fixes and improvements included. Overall, the game should feel smoother and more stable compared to previous versions.

What’s Next

Hopefully, this will be the final beta build, with the next update planned as the full release.

That said, AI development is an ongoing process and there is always room for further improvement. Even after release, additional features and refinements are planned, including:

• Active use of special operations teams and terrorist units

• Expansion into space warfare

• A bio-weapons rework

• Improved use of combat engineers and forward operating bases

• Better unit situational awareness in edge cases

• Improved handling of heavily “turtled” players

• More diverse AI strategies

As always, thank you for your continued support, it’s been invaluable throughout the beta process!

Changelog:

1.1.2 beta 6

• Fixed the issue with a faction falling into an endless "build army division" loop

• Fixed the issue with interceptor aircraft crashing on patrol

• Fixed a crash related with handling logistics

• Fixed the problem with SSBNs over-saturating the low-priority targets

• Fixed the problem with too restrictive blocked zones preventing air attacks

• Leaders portrait images and faction icons can now have any name and not necessarily be indexed unless the index is supposed to be used in the map file

• Enemy mobile units can now dynamically change position to minimize the chance of being destroyed

• AI is now more passive on lower difficulty levels

• Added the air-first nuclear strategy

• The AI is now much slower to escalate to the full-scaled nuclear war (if not set to Aggressive mode and not provoked)