Gday, Playing with Expanding AI on turn 279, it hasn't expanded at all, alas. As you can it has spammed IN. It did have a lot of FI too, but that was all. A city it owned said it was building TR but never launched any. [I know you have said the AI needs help, I'm just giving feedback :)]
Also, the Activate last doesn't always activate the last unit. ( it does say in the RHS help box "The last child activated manually") it is inconsistent and doesn't always activate the last unit moved.
Cheers
Finished the game. The above shots is his view for the game and stats.( In the units produced table he only produced IN, FI, DE & TR)
Also this window "Unit Processing Stopped" (below) keeps appearing, is there an option to stop it appearing? I know unit processing is stopped :).
Also, where do I find the battle odds calculator? It would be handy to have come up before you attack.
Sorry found something else: Inland cities with ship specialties seems a waste/unrealistic.
A huge challenge for the AI is geographical, if this was a fixed map every time, the game might be boring, but the AI would definitely not have issues like this. It looks like here it has encountered a road block which it is desperately trying to push through. You easily are able to bottle neck him and then it just becomes a cleanup op. This is a definite problem reoccurring issue for all the AIs. Thanks for the screen. I have always contemplated and AI that has map strategies, like one dedicated specifically to a real world map.
The Info Area (lower right) shows the basic battle odds for the active unit vs the unit the mouse cursor is over. It does not take into account readiness I believe. (because enemy readiness is not your intel).
Inland Cities with ship specialties _are_ a waste in most respects - as is a city at 10% efficiency. In other words, it is a handicap for that city and something to be dealt with strategically. Do remember that Engineers can build ports, and these can be useful sometimes in specific situations, but often yeah, it is a handicap.
Regarding activate last, what you have to remember is since the last unit you manually worked with several units could have been automatically processed when activated, which is why you see those before you get to the unit of choice.
The Process Break Dialog will appear after you press the red flag stop sign while it is processing units. The flag is supposed to be reset after it breaks, (the dialog), but I have had one other report that it might be going off at odd times as well. If you press it while the AI is doing its thing, the dialog will come up when it is done.
Are you using the stop sign? If so, how?
Oh, I missed this comment between the screens:
Finished the game. The above shots is his view for the game and stats.( In the units produced table he only produced IN, FI, DE & TR)
That is correct for the Expanding AI. He works with a very limited set of units to do his tasks. This was purposely done to create an AI that is effective at times but simple enough code wise so that people could expand on it if they chose to. The other two AI's use more units in the arsenal, but does that make them any more effective? It is up for debate.
