I don't want to spawn a million topics about AI so will try to summarize my thoughts here.
First I have aquestion: are you going to change AI? I don't mean bug fixes, I mean significant changes.
Next I have a suggestion. I think that there have to be additional level of AI. Looks like players don't have enough challenge from current AI on maximum agressiveness.
Then I have a list of problems with AI that I see in my games.
1. Once AI has a specialization it is stick to it. Sometimes it makes monsters. For example in RealWorld Mod by Piermario there's a couple of industries that are not profitable at all due to balance issues that will be fixed later. And in every game there's an AI person with that specialization that notoriously tries to run a business in this area and always fails. It should not be done this way. AI should be wiser.
2. Raw materials. Every game I see the same story. Once there is a Seaport supply of Chemical Minerals and later in game Oil, all AIs are using this only source of raw material and inevitably their production stops. It looks especially funny in 10-city environment with 10 different sources of Chemical Minerals in range from $35m to $100m. A company with 1B profit cannot afford a Chem Mine?
2a. Probably not a problem if #2 will be solved. Once AIs start receiving less Raw Materials that their factories need, they start spawning factories of the same product. Their overhead skyrockets and they die.
3. Advertising expenses. In RealWorld Mod Piermario made some industries with low profitability. AI company that was bound to this sector by its CEO specialization researched these products to 100, built a network of Factories and Shops. It got some profit and started to invest all its money into advertizing. After a couple of years it went bancrupt. Nothing stopped it from advertizing its products. Neither debt nor forced firms closure. Nothing.
4. Farms. AI just cannot into farms. (Just like Poland cannot into space if you know what I mean
). I never had an AI that can be my rival in frozen meats. Even in games with 44 opponents.4a. Farms again. For example AI with Snacks specialty (same story with other products or specialties). Once it will find out that 3 out of 6 products in Snacks requires Strawberry, it builds a Farm. Small farm. With 1 crop unit of Strawberry. In a 4 million city. Then it goes to scenario in problem #2.
5. Media Firms. Now I play a 10-city game and see the same pattern in every city. Let's say there are 3 media firms per city, all with 30+% share. One with $1.5/ad, one with $5/ad, one with $10/ad. Looking at their revenue graph I think that they switch their strategy every several months. But it does not matter. It looks kind of stupid and is definitely wrong. I remember that in my previous games their price was in range of $3-4 and was not so spread out.
There are probably many other issues I don't remember of, but even with this list it seems that we have a problem.
P.S. Maybe I sould have posted it in Release version but now I play Sub DLC beta and see it there.
Cheers,
megapolis
