Here is changes I'm thinking of making to the Aggressive AI setting (on vs off) - Agg refers exclusively to the "Aggressive AI's" game setting and not the presence or otherwise of the aggressive trait.

Things which will be changed from current build:
Agg AI's no longer have a diplo penalty towards humans.
Agg AI's no longer more like to dagger - they'll just dagger harder.
Agg AI's will be less likely to pursue Culture.
Normal AI's will train fewer units, favoring infrastructure more.
Agg AI's will build fewer wonders.

Things which already happen (wont be changed):
Agg AI's will be more likely to crush (full-out war)
Agg AI's will be more likely to declare war just for the hell of it.

Maybes:
Agg AI's will dogpile more and generally be opportunistic swine, while norm AI's will have some sympathy for the dogpile victim (maybe try to equalize things).


I acknowledge that different people want to play the game in different ways and I think that tweaking the aggressive AI setting is the best means for achieving this. Feedback, suggestions and general discussion about AI aggression is welcome here.

I think it looks pretty good from what you have listed.

If I'm reading it right, then the people who want to play a more 'wargame' style of play can simply select Aggressive AI and the players who want to play closer to the 'standard' Civilization can play with out it. If that be the case, then I think it could make most folks happy.

Note that I think that even the 'normal' AIs should still be quite capable of initiating and conducting wars, but they shouldnt be building up extended militaries to the exclusion of other things. And if they do go to war, it should be with the purpose of bettering their lot in life rather than berserkly lashing out heedless of the long-term consequences.

Hopefully this can become a good solution to what I view as the biggest problem currently confronting the 'Better AI'.

Agg AI's no longer have a diplo penalty towards humans.

That´s a great change. I hate being special :)

Normal AI's will train fewer units, favoring infrastructure more.

IMO normal's AI should build less units, should be more ineffective in offensive wars, but definitely should be able to defend and to repel an invasion by an aggressive AI or in the oppsite case we would see Builders a lot weakened.


Maybes:
Agg AI's will dogpile more and generally be opportunistic swine, while norm AI's will have some sympathy for the dogpile victim (maybe try to equalize things).

IMO also some of the other Normal's AI should begin Dogpile Wars, in this way they would be more competitive.Why ever all the easy conquests should be left to Genghis Khan and Montezuma? Only some of the most peaceful leaders like Gandhi,Asoka,Hatshepsut,Ramesse,Mansa Musa shouldn't begin Dogpile wars.These leaders could help who is invaded only if they are in good relation with civ attacked and definitely haven't a weak army compared to the aggressor

Marioflag,
You misunderstand the topic.
It's about the 'aggressive AI' custom game option not about warlike and builder type AI's

I suggest that even on normal setting cultural AI's should defend their culture capitals rigorously.

Especially they should be considered under threat no matter the diplomatic relations when nearing legendary status because humans will almost always try to burn them.

Maybes:
Agg AI's will dogpile more and generally be opportunistic swine, while norm AI's will have some sympathy for the dogpile victim (maybe try to equalize things).

That makes perfect sense.

I think you shouldent change the agressive(yes with the TRAIT agressive) AIs in normal games.


Now what? 90% of the people wated the AI tyo actually try a conquest/domination victory and now people are complaining? Im a heck of a pacifict guy, I really rarely attack AI or get more than haslf of the power graph of the leader in military, but heck, I want to see the Ai going for other victories and I would LOVE to be in the game that uncle Joe talked about in the other thread.
Dont forget that I was the one who insisted in putting AI to go for cultural victory, so no, Im COMPLETELY not a militar guy, I just want to see the AI going for more victories! And no Uncle Joe, that AI was not trying to stop you from winnig! It was actually trying to WIN! So what is the problem?


Note: I still think that there is too much defensive units.

Other Note: Yes I know he was talking about the setting Agreesive AI, and not the Trait, but IMHO the agressive AIs in normal game shouldent be much different. If what youj are saying ,Blake, will stop the Ai in normal game to try to win a domination/conquest victory, then its just not nice. And I dont like the agressive AI setting on..

And no Uncle Joe, that AI was not trying to stop you from winnig! It was actually trying to WIN! So what is the problem?

The problem is that its not a very effective strategy FOR winning. At best, he'll take out a few competitors and then be so far behind that any other non-engaged player will dispatch them (or at least be able to easily hold them at bay).

Yep, it was neat to see the AI on a rampage like that. But overall, its detrimental the gameplay if the AI is being so berserk that its killing its own chances of winning to do it.

Look at it like this. Have you ever played a group strategy board game where there was a player who didnt care if he won or lost as long as he got to roll his dice and attack someone? Its very annoying because there isnt anything you can do if he focuses his sights on you except reply in kind. Meanwhile, the other players are actually PLAYING the game while you are embroiled in the conflict with the player who is just attacking to attack.

To me, thats what this type of attack felt like. The Greeks would be HIGHLY unlikely to win the game because they were commiting 100% to the attack and were not doing anything besides trying to kill whomever was closest. But in a game where there are players who arent immediately accessible, he'll run out of steam and stagnate and continue to mass obsolete units in a vain effort to regain some sort of military supremacy. But by that point, its not likely to happen (and its exactly what I saw in my first game...a few AIs came on strong trying to conquer and then petered out and were worthless for the rest of the game).

People complain that the AIs were playing 'dumb' before and being conquered too easily etc. But I dont see this strategy as being any smarter. The end result is that they are still going to lose. The only difference is the 'conquerer' AI might take a few others down with him (which, unless one of them is the human player, is actually making the game easier for the other players).

And to me, it stems from the same thing as the defender spam. The AI doesnt properly moderate its troop strength (always selecting quantity over quality). If the 2.08 was too light, the 1/25 build is still far too high for most normal circumstances. Rein in the rampant excess of troop building (offensive and defensive) and I think the AI would be pretty close to 'Better'.

More effective use of higher tech troops would be FAR superior to simply massing up obsolete troops and trying to bull through. That is not a recipe for success. And thats why I think the AI does much better in the early game (Classical etc)...there ARE no real obsolete troops for it mass. But as the game goes on, its putting too much effort into those same troops and hamstringing its efforts to get more effective troops instead. And the AIs who arent trying to attack are still needing to divert the lion's share of their efforts to defending against those hordes and the cycle continues.

Personally I don´t see a problem with "attack early, get lot of land and backwards in tech", only if after that initial rush the civ focuses on building up and strentghtening his empire.

I made that strategy many times with a praetorian rush and it worked very well in the long run.

When did you stop the game? In which ERA? Maybe the Ai started to attack from the beggining because, as you said, there is no obsolete troops?

And how you know he didnt have any real chance of winning? Can I please get asave? The last save if possible, I want to put a small city in somewhere by world builder and see how the game goes without the human player, Im curious.

EDITed: Ah nevermind, I saw you did attach saves in the other thread. I will give a look in some hours.

The problem ultimately is:

If each civ adequately defends itself, which they are doing now,
then 1 civ vs 1 civ attacks will pretty much be doomed to fail. Especially if the defender has some siege units and counter attack units to weaken the attacking force.

Or to put it another way:

defending Civ has 4 cities with 25 units each.
10 each are attack units/siege units.

Attacking Civ marches toward a city.
40 units comes to counter-attack the attacking stack (fully utilizing its road mobility bonus)

Now THATS good "D" :)

To have a decent shot of success against such tactics it would likely take 2 or more civs working together to PROFITABLY take down another civ.

Short Term Solution: go along with what Blake is recommending (once the AI civs make good use of the military units that they have), along with a heavy amount of discussion about how fun/unfun the game is becoming and also how effective/ineffective the AI Civs are becoming.

Note that if this knocks everyone down a difficulty level (or even 2), then that alone will reduce the AI bonuses, and thus the size of the armies the AIs can build.

Long Term Solution: once the AI military tactics are decent, and the war-decision AI algorithms gotten to a stable condition, then the diplomacy part of the AI needs to be overhauled, along with additional tactics so that 2 AI civs (or a human civ and an AI civ) could work together somewhat effectively as a team. For example: AI civ 1 gives AI civ 2 a couple of good techs. In return, AI civ 2 uses 10 siege units to hit a city so that civ 1 can then capture that city. That would require a lot of work. But ultimately 1 on 1 wars are going to ultimately not be effective as a means of increasing power.

To to issue of number of defenders:

I think a close to optimal maximum number of defenders in a moderately theatened city (so one which could be attacked without the chance of relieve troops arriving in time) is around 7-8 units.

The breakdown is similar to this in the early game:
-2 city garrison defensive unit
-2 drill defensive unit
-1 antimelee attack unit
-1 fast (mounted) attack unit
-1 antimounted unit
-1 siege unit

Post gunpowder it changes some like this:
-2 city garrison defensive unit
-2 drill defensive unit
-1 antigunpowder attack unit
-1 antimounted unit
-1 siege unit

Post modern it changes like this:
-2 city garrison defensive unit
-2 drill defensive unit
-1 antigunpowder attack unit
-1 antiarmor unit
-1 airdefense unit
-1 siege unit

I mean mature cities of course not 1-3 pop outposts.
Cities that could be relieved from neigboring cities could host less defenders.
Cities considered out of threat could host just a minimum of defenders (like 2 defensive and 1 offensive).
Cities under heavy threat maybe should host more defenders just like top importance cities (capitals, holy cities).
Culture capitals or production capitals building the spaceship should be considered under heavy threat always.

Happy discussion guys and keep up the good work Balke/Iustus.

I understand you Uncle Joe and you're right about too many units are a draw back but i'm sure this will be corrected and i'd never play 2.08 again with AI's defending 10+ pop cities with 3-4 defenders and never actually mounting a dangerous attack on anyone.

Ah by the way, Blake, did you put the number of defenders according to the personality of the AI yet?

You are going to do that right?

Something nice would be for example, Isabella put a big number of defenders in it holy cities. Cultrual victory leaders put a heavier number of defenders in its cultural cities and etc..

Other Note: Yes I know he was talking about the setting Agreesive AI, and not the Trait, but IMHO the agressive AIs in normal game shouldent be much different. If what youj are saying ,Blake, will stop the Ai in normal game to try to win a domination/conquest victory, then its just not nice. And I dont like the agressive AI setting on..

AI's will have an easier time winning domination on Normal because OTHER AI's will also be less militaristic.... (less defenders, smaller counter-offenses) it's just that default AI's can't stand up to a MILITARISTIC human - well my idea is for the Agg AI's to be able to put up a decent residence to a militaristic human - and also able to badly punish builders who neglect military.

I would rather have a PACIFIST AI settings for the wusses (heheh suck it up you wusses :P) but that is too big a change, and I can't really see a problem with making Aggressive AI the setting for "I'm brutal warmonger and these AI's put up precious little resistance" setting... a major complaint about Aggressive AI is that it makes a "AI vs Human" mentality - well that's on the way out - so if you're a thug and want to play with other thugs, turn on Agg AI. IF you want to play wolf amongst the lambs, well play on Normal... you'll have the choice.


Ah by the way, Blake, did you put the number of defenders according to the personality of the AI yet?

You are going to do that right?

Something nice would be for example, Isabella put a big number of defenders in it holy cities. Cultrual victory leaders put a heavier number of defenders in its cultural cities and etc..
Probably ... I'm not really sure what kind of logic to use for defender count based on personality - the amount of defense needed is more about circumstances and strategy (ie CV definitely indicates a need for more defenders). Protective AI's will actually tend to amass considerably more defense than other AI's but that's a side effect (in short if a unit has a City Defense promotion it wont be as readily recruited to head to war - it'll instead be kept home more often, so when protective goes to war, the war will be more subdued. Protective civs also tend to build more archers, ergo protective AI's do play slightly more protectively than others).

Couldent get Uncle Joe save working because it needs a mod..

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/6906/civ4screenshot0031se7.th.jpg (http://img206.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0031se7.jpg)

:hmm:

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/4935/civ4screenshot0032dj8.th.jpg (http://img261.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0032dj8.jpg)


Nice wonders...Now, what about protect it?



-----


And people complaining about unit spam..

EDITED: LOL the other city has only 1 warrior on it...Maybe I even attack Ramses lolz

Ps: Noble, perm ally on, spaceship off.

To to issue of number of defenders:

I think a close to optimal maximum number of defenders in a moderately theatened city (so one which could be attacked without the chance of relieve troops arriving in time) is around 7-8 units.

The breakdown is similar to this in the early game:
-2 city garrison defensive unit
-2 drill defensive unit
-1 antimelee attack unit
-1 fast (mounted) attack unit
-1 antimounted unit
-1 siege unit

Post gunpowder it changes some like this:
-2 city garrison defensive unit
-2 drill defensive unit
-1 antigunpowder attack unit
-1 antimounted unit
-1 siege unit

Post modern it changes like this:
-2 city garrison defensive unit
-2 drill defensive unit
-1 antigunpowder attack unit
-1 antiarmor unit
-1 airdefense unit
-1 siege unit

I mean mature cities of course not 1-3 pop outposts.
Cities that could be relieved from neigboring cities could host less defenders.
Cities considered out of threat could host just a minimum of defenders (like 2 defensive and 1 offensive).
Cities under heavy threat maybe should host more defenders just like top importance cities (capitals, holy cities).
Culture capitals or production capitals building the spaceship should be considered under heavy threat always.

I like this way of defending. :)

I would rather have a PACIFIST AI settings for the wusses (heheh suck it up you wusses :P) but that is too big a change, and I can't really see a problem with making Aggressive AI the setting for "I'm brutal warmonger and these AI's put up precious little resistance" setting... a major complaint about Aggressive AI is that it makes a "AI vs Human" mentality - well that's on the way out - so if you're a thug and want to play with other thugs, turn on Agg AI. IF you want to play wolf amongst the lambs, well play on Normal... you'll have the choice.

A wuss setting...

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Agg AI's no longer have a diplo penalty towards humans.

This is one of the things that I didn't like about the aggressive AI setting so I really like such a change.

As a certified Wuss, here my thoughts on having a Wuss setting, and other thoughts about playing Civ.

As a Wuss, if I defend myself inadequately and an opposing Civ waltzes in and just takes over my cities - well bravo to the enemy civ.

But here are some of the issues that make the game less fun for me as a certified Wuss:

1) I have Japan the warmonger civ, and Augustus Ceasar as my neighbors. I am developing fine, and Japan and Rome are at war. So far so good. So they declare peace, and so far so good.

Then Japan declares war on me. I talk to Ceasar and he declares war on Japan. I am worried that with his Prats he is too strong and he, not I, will get the cities close to my border. I am not strong enough solo to take a Japanese city, but with his Prats if we attacked a city together he would be more likely to capture it, not me.

I needn't have worried. Though he had more than enough units to wipe out all of Japan, he just sat there and basically built up. So I have an infinite stalemate war with Japan, where the behaviour of civ A (Japan) is to wear me down so civ B (Rome) can head off to victory.

I suppose it could be argued that Rome's strategy was perfect. Let 2 other civs duke it out while Rome grows. Especially since there is no way to go to Japan and say "Look this Rome guy just stabbed us both in the back good, lets take him down".

These war strats of the AI make being a Wuss very not fun. One civ (the aggressive country, Japan) works as the pit bull slave of his Master builder civ (Rome), who then waltzes on to victory as two countries waste all of our resources on a fruitless war.

In a similiar game, there were 3 civs at the top: Me, the Master builder civ (I forget who), and the slave aggressive civ (Julius Ceasar). We are the top three, and the slave agressive civ and I have borders. Our cities are quite a ways away from our common border, and I have more units than him in our respective opposing cities (plus mine are a bit higher quality).

He declares war, and although he has zero chance of ever capturing any of my cities, he basically plays his pit bull slave role to the hilt. I am strong enough to guarantee the safety of my cities, but he is able to pillage and keep units on many of the tiles inside my developer area. Plus all my production is spent replacing my losses (just as his is).

As a Wuss, I am learning that the only way to be able to live peacefully is not just to have enough defense units to adequately defend my cities, but also to completely destroy any aggressive slave civs, since all of these are willing to destroy their own civs in order to guarantee victory for their Master builder civs. And thats pretty much what I am starting to do in my games.

What I am hoping for with the Better AI is 2 things:

1) I would like the slave aggressive civs to call off wars when it is clear that they have nothing to gain by continuing their attack. While I appreciate the devotion the aggressive civs have for their Masters, it is not fun for me.

2) When I CAN get other Civs to declare war on the slave civs, it would be nice if they kind of sent units into the territory of the civ they declared war on.

3) When a civ declares war on me for whatever reason, the civ then uses that war as a diplomatic penalty against me. And so it becomes difficult to bury the hatchet in any meaningful kind of way. In the game where Japan was the slave aggressive civ, I would have been happy to team up with Japan to take down the backstabber Ceasar. Except that he would not talk with me because... well after all he declared war on me and I brought the battle onto his turf?

I don't mind the slave civs being aggressive. But aggressive and stupid is annoying.

I dont know, I fail to see what is being a 'wuss' about wanting to play the game as it was apparently INTENDED to be played rather than going balls out to conquer the AIs every game.

If thats fun for some folks, there is the 'always war' option too. I want a challenging but varied AI. I believe the stock AI provides good variety, but its execution of its strategies are somewhat weak.

Warmongering is fun at times, but I can do that in plenty of games. Civ4 is fun because I DONT have to conquer the world to win or fight numerous wars, even have the most powerful military in the world (as long as you play your diplomatic cards right). I can try those things if I choose, but the military is NOT supposed to be the focus of Civ4

By your own admission, you say that launching the pre-emptive strikes and 'rushing' the AI is a good strategy because the AIs have a hard time against that. Isnt that wussing out instead? Isnt that taking the easy way out?

Come on, the 'wuss' thing was clearly a joke. :)

I've mostly quit games midway lately when it's been clear that I need a stack of at least 40 units (10-15 of them cats) to get a single city. Yes, I could've built a supersod and gone on rampage. But stacks of that size make the UI crawl (takes a few seconds to simply select one unit out of the stack), so I'd wear myself down faster than the WW hits my civ..

Anyway, I'm not playing multiplayer games. I don't really want to play against opponents that exist to make my life miserable (as in, other humans or an AI using the same strats as a human would with the same efficiency). So I definitelly will be using the wuss-settings. Going down difficulty levels doesn't really work, as I already did that - I think the AI production and research bonuses on Prince are a bit too low for me already. For now, it's rather about needing umpteen units to go to any war at all.

For now, I'll stay and wait for the unit spam reduction build. Maybe if the AI can get around with fewer units, maybe use them better - maybe if I can go to war with a stack of a dozen units again like it used to be, only now needing to use my stack well and have it backed up by active defense ministacks..

Come on, the 'wuss' thing was clearly a joke. :)

Yeah, I know, but its just indicative of the mentality that if you dont want to be playing with hordes of units against hordes of units that you are a wuss. At least in my case, I just find it tedious, not intimidating or 'hard'.

Elandal sums it up perfectly in his post:

For now, it's rather about needing umpteen units to go to any war at all.

I can't really see a problem with making Aggressive AI the setting for "I'm brutal warmonger and these AI's put up precious little resistance" setting... a major complaint about Aggressive AI is that it makes a "AI vs Human" mentality - well that's on the way out - so if you're a thug and want to play with other thugs, turn on Agg AI. IF you want to play wolf amongst the lambs, well play on Normal... you'll have the choice.




This seems like a fair way of splitting the baby.

I dont know, I fail to see what is being a 'wuss' about wanting to play the game as it was apparently INTENDED to be played rather than going balls out to conquer the AIs every game.


For now, I'll stay and wait for the unit spam reduction build. Maybe if the AI can get around with fewer units, maybe use them better - maybe if I can go to war with a stack of a dozen units again like it used to be, only now needing to use my stack well and have it backed up by active defense ministacks..

While I am making the reduced spam I'm sure you recognize that an AI with 5 axemen, however well it uses them, cannot beat - or even resist against - a human who brings 15 axemen to the party and I've yet to really see an AI "out mass" a good human, once a human gets their economy rolling. When it comes to the massing game, "the humans started it".

Regardless of how the game was intended to be played - the fact is that massing a military and conquering the AI's is an EXTREMELY straightforward route to victory

The Wuss jab is justified because it IS forcing the AI to build an inadequate military as an imposed variant.

The Wuss jab is not justified at all.
There is no need to hurl insults at your customer base.
Not a good business strategy.
Not even in "jest".

You seem like you have a plan of action already set in play.
Make it happen.

Make the AIs effectively use the units they make.
The agressive AIs will attack effectively (and bribe for help if they are having trouble).
The builder AIs will make a decent amount of units and defend agressively (and bribe for help when attacked).

With luck this increase in AI playing strength will knock everyone down 1 or even 2 difficulty levels (hard to mount an attack on neighbor 2 when neighbor 1 declares war and sends in a powerful SOD and actually uses it well).

This will partially solve the massive number of units problem because 2 levels down the AIs have lower production bonuses.

I recommend only making one version of the game.
Just the standard version.
Once you get this going and in a state that you like then you can add in a more macho game. With your programming expertise this would likely only be beatable on Warlord difficulty and maybe not even on THAT level.

You have the ability to make aggressive AIs attack well, and builder AIs defend well. Do that first. Tweaking can come afterwards.

And never ever insult your customers.
Not even in jest.

I don't see any problem with the "wuss" jab. If someone feels insulted, their problem.

In any case, the unit massing ends up with more unit massing that forces more unit massing ad infinitum. I don't find that fun in any way or shape - it's just more units. Going to war with 40 units instead of 20 makes the game a lot slower without adding any new tactical aspect to it. And if the human can mass 40 units, then certainly the AI should mass even more - double the defenses? Forcing the human to again double his attack stack.. No, there's nothing in that route, nothing but more units.

OK, there's one change in game the massing causes: at some point, it's impossible to attack due to economic effect of too many units. At which point there should be no more war (it's cold war, everyone has too good defenses for anyone to attack) and thus the one with most land (and best economy) wins when everyone else gets cobbled by the expenses.

So, the humans started massing units first. That's because the humans were the first to go to aggressive war, and the only way to do it is to have attack stack stronger than expected defense stack. But if the response is to mass stronger defense stack, then the result is what we have: more units on all sides. If taken to the extreme, the only possible wars are dogpile wars - no single civ can afford an offense alone anymore.

What this does lead to is that I think the AI should indeed stop massing at some point. Yes, the human can continue where the AI is simply forced to stop. And thus the human will win. Win what? A war. Not the game. If the stack needed is huge, then the economic disadvantage to the human player is huge as well, and the whole balance comes down to whether that short term economic disadvantage can still gain enough land to be turned into later economic advantage big enough to still win.

As I believe that in SP games the AI is an obstacle, not an opponent, I feel that is acceptable. The AI will lose the war because it's not meant to win. If balanced properly, the human player can then use the land gained (which must be a lot) to make a comeback and still race to the win. If that is not possible, then the game has failed.

And never ever insult your customers.

He isn´t selling us anything, so we are not his customers. ;)

Besides, I prefer to be a wuss than an insecure boy that needs to build a BIG stack to compensate the lack of other atributtes. :lol: j/k

Anyway, I´m sure that Blake will find a way to make the AI use the units in an intelligent way (like a human do*), and also build an army balanced to its needs.

* "The victorious general first seeks to win and then go to war, while the defeated general first go to war and then seeks to win". I only attack when the odds favor me, and force the enemy to attack me in a place where I have the advantage. And I´m sure that Blake follows this quote when designing the AI.

If we assume that the defender always has an advantage (should have - defender has roads to move units around, won't get WW from fighting in own cultural area, has city defenses..) then the attacker always needs to have more units than the defender - barring a big technological advantage. We can say that the attacker needs twice the units of the defender in a city capture attack. Sometimes the figure is smaller, sometimes larger (it's been said that to take a fort you need ten times the numbers - this would be insane in civ), but 2x isn't usually that far off the mark.

So, attacker is always at an economic disadvantage: more units = more expenses, and attacker is paying supply in addition to maintenance, where defender is only paying maintenance. Of course the attacker can pillage to gain some gold, and when playing with small numbers of units this may well have been enough - pillaging a farm doesn't pay for a 20 unit stack though.

As I noted in my post above, the short term economic disadvantage grows by the number of units needed. This depends on the overall economies, with later eras having higher commerce per population point. A unit costs exactly the same in maintenance and supply in both early and late eras, so it's expected that in later eras the number of units around is larger. Paying 10g supply for an attack stack is crippling in ancient era, but pocket change in modern era.

Assuming the attack is simple march to city, bombard, suicide sieges, send in the CR units, send in the mopup units, stay for a few turns to heal and wait for the reinforcements (replacements for lost units as well as garrison for the acquired city), then the only thing affecting the outcome is the number of units. And raising the number of units leads to, at some point, a short term economic disadvantage too large to allow for offensive of this type anymore.

A stalemate of this kind means that the starting position is everything. If you can rex and secure backlands for later settling, you're in for the win. If you can't, then you lose. If there's a runaway somewhere, you lose. If you fail in one war, you lose. If you're smaller than your neighbours, you lose.


So what alternatives are there really?

There's of course diplomacy to make sure all wars are dogpiles. A single civ defending against multiple civs should have no chance here - each of the attackers goes for one city, takes the short term hit, but the defender gets broken. The one who loses the war no longer has economy to keep it in the game - it's going to fall behind in tech and will then be suspectible to being attacked with superior units.

Then there's the concept of smarter war. But I don't know how that can be done. CIV isn't a wargame, so it has very limited and simple warring system. Mixed stacks go only so far in smarts - the basic warring is still the same, only now requiring more units.. But if there's a solution, it must be somewhere in the "smarter warring" area.

What this does lead to is that I think the AI should indeed stop massing at some point. Yes, the human can continue where the AI is simply forced to stop. And thus the human will win. Win what? A war. Not the game. If the stack needed is huge, then the economic disadvantage to the human player is huge as well, and the whole balance comes down to whether that short term economic disadvantage can still gain enough land to be turned into later economic advantage big enough to still win.

As I believe that in SP games the AI is an obstacle, not an opponent, I feel that is acceptable. The AI will lose the war because it's not meant to win. If balanced properly, the human player can then use the land gained (which must be a lot) to make a comeback and still race to the win. If that is not possible, then the game has failed.


I just cant believe on that, sorry. Did you read the thread in this sub-forum called "What is the Better AI'' ?


But I liked your last reply to this thread and somehow I agree.

Yes, I've read that Arlborn. I don't see it reading as "the goal of the project is to make SP into MP with AI opponents that equal human opponents". I do understand if some people want that, and if it's possible to separate these two aspects with the Aggressive AI switch, all the better. The goal is a holy grail of computer strategy games, definitelly worthy reaching for. But it's not a real single player game goal, it's an MP goal.

I'm just afraid of that the project ends up making the AI not smart enough to play against humans but rather massing so much that the game loses focus completely. Of course it can be argued that more units is a smart move, but I've already outlined how I see that road going and thus can't see that as enhancing gameplay.


Note that I haven't ever played civ multiplayer. I've played very few games in multiplayer environment at all - a couple of lan parties a decade ago, a bit of fps'ing at the office after closing the door, some mmorpging.. Most of my multiplayer strategy game experience comes from tabletop, not computer games, and even there it's limited to a maybe 10 years or so and nothing at all recently.
So I do indeed focus on the single player experience knowing that if I want multiplayer I want human opponents and I would play with my friends, not random ****s in the 'net. And from my past experience playing MP strategy games with my friends I know very well that the wars would not be decided by units (even if those are needed too) but rather by diplomacy.

I think the difference between SP and MP is that in MP all of the players know it is a game and behave accordingly. (Well, all the humans, anyway.)

In SP, the AIs should, and generally do, behave like civilizations. Only when they won't trade you Rocketry do they go out of character ("We want to win," or whatever the exact message is. I see that as an error in judgement on the part of the developers.)

Given that, although the AIs should take actions that lead to a win, they must be guided -- perhaps hampered -- by their natures. If that approach is not taken, the risk becomes devolving all AIs into a win-at-any-cost machines, just like when humans play MP. I think most SP players won't like that at all.

We are customers? I didn't know that Blake and Iustus were getting money for this. Man, this sounds like a good deal for them. I should also go into the modmaking business if it pays so well... :p






(the above is a joke, not to be taken seriously.)



Besides, I prefer to be a wuss than an insecure boy that needs to build a BIG stack to compensate the lack of other atributtes. j/k

Also funny. :lol: :lol:

OK, there's one change in game the massing causes: at some point, it's impossible to attack due to economic effect of too many units. At which point there should be no more war (it's cold war, everyone has too good defenses for anyone to attack) and thus the one with most land (and best economy) wins when everyone else gets cobbled by the expenses.

Elandal hit the nail right on the head and my 3 recent games all back that up. In my latest, I share a continent with Toku (playing as Ottomans). We have a Mexican standoff for while and we split the continent about 50/50. In the late Classical, he DoW's me. We fight a relatively inconclusive war (although 50+ units are killed on both sides). We have a period of piece and buildup and then he attacks again in late Medieval (although I know he'll probably do it so I have built up too). This time, I manage to take one of his cities by the end of the mess and again, we both lose copious amounts of units.

Somewhere in the middle of our war, contact is made with the other continent. One of the AIs (Hatty) is a vassal to the Vikings. Another AI is alone on their own continent. And the last AI is (Vicky) is best buddies with Ragnar due to religion. The result? All of the other AIs (except Hatty) have nearly double the points of Toku and I and are miles ahead on the tech tree. The reason: they didnt go into the ridiculously expensive 'death spiral' of going to extended warfare.

Elandal is indeed correct and it was something I had sensed, but never really put the finger on. When the numbers of units are as big as they are, the cost for going to war is IMMENSE. Even a 'successful' war will often leave you behind others who are at peace (but still building up their massed defenses). When stacks of 20+ are clashing, you could be lossing 1000s of hammers of production in a single turn!! And you MUST replace those units or else be weak and eventually overrun.

It goes back to what I first stated...the massed militaries cost so much that they mute the other effects in the game. And in the early game, you might gain some success relative to the cost of those troops by attacking a neighbor. But from Medieval on, the cost of going to war is just crippling. And thats why the more warlike AIs always tend to peter out and fizzle...they come out strong and may take out a rival or so, but then they hit that wall of expense vs payoff with the huge militaries and they crash.

If you happen to be one of those involved in the early war with a warlike AI, you'll struggle to remain alive...there is no doubt that the AIs can prosecute wars much better now, but the cost is astronomical. But its likely you'll never recover from the early wars (assuming you win). And on the flip side, if you manage to stay at peace (through diplomacy or simply building a bigger stick), then you'll likely cruise to victory because the AIs will either destroy themselves and then fizzle or else poorly balance econ vs military and also fall behind.

I also think that Elandal is again correct on the consequences of having the AI not build as many units. He is correct that yep, they may lose a war to an aggressive human player. But thats fine. As long as the cost of prosecuting that war is balanced to the gains, there is NO PROBLEM. I agree that in 2.08, the cost/benefit ratio of attacking many of the AIs is very lopsided in favor of attacking (Blake's 'pinata' effect). But 1/25 is the polar opposite. It doesnt need to be anywhere NEAR that high. As long as the AI makes a 'credible' defense, its fine. 5-6 units per city will indeed lose to human stacks of 15. But that doesnt mean that the AI should be building 15-20 to resist. That just encourages the human to build 20-25 and the cycle begins again, only with the cost of warfare overshadowing all else.

At some point, it just has to be accepted that the 'better' idea is to simply make the cost of an attack the deterrent. And I believe that 5-6 units plus some reserves would do that. It would no longer be the cakewalk that it can be in 2.08, but a real cost will still be assessed (15-20 units still isnt cheap when the rest of the world is teching/building infrastructure).

So, FWIW, my opinion is that the AIs should build perhaps 2x-2.5x their 2.08 levels. If at war or actively building to attack, that should increase obviously, but for 'peacetime', the AI should cap their unit production and continue to develop. If one or more is killed off, so be it...the rest will still be presenting a challenge by continuing to progress.

Somewhere in the middle of our war, contact is made with the other continent. One of the AIs (Hatty) is a vassal to the Vikings. Another AI is alone on their own continent. And the last AI is (Vicky) is best buddies with Ragnar due to religion. The result? All of the other AIs (except Hatty) have nearly double the points of Toku and I and are miles ahead on the tech tree. The reason: they didnt go into the ridiculously expensive 'death spiral' of going to extended warfare.

This happens without Better AI on the Continents map. Yes, maybe it's worse with more unit build up, but if there is a peaceful continent and a warring continent, the research will be imbalanced.

This happens without Better AI on the Continents map. Yes, maybe it's worse with more unit build up, but if there is a peaceful continent and a warring continent, the research will be imbalanced.

No doubt it happens even in 'stock'. But the point is that the disparity was HUGE (much larger than what I routinely experienced in 1.0 or 2.08). Which led me to exactly where Elandal already was...the insane cost of war when units are dispatched 20 at a time while the costs of 'peaceful' development remain unchanged.

Thats what I was trying to say before in the old thread. The balance in the game between 'guns or butter' has been completely thrown out of whack.

This happens without Better AI on the Continents map. Yes, maybe it's worse with more unit build up, but if there is a peaceful continent and a warring continent, the research will be imbalanced.

Yep. Now I dont see the reason why the building of units made you have war with Toku. He would declare on you anyway, just perhaps now its a little harder to take him off of you?

I'm really curious to keep playing that game I started with the last version where 2 AIs didnt give me any resistence, and I had only 5 melee units(4 axeman and one spearman) and 2 horse units(the UU of Mongol). And I only needed the 2 horse units againt Cathy..And Ramses I pretty much would only need them also..
Now I gotta wait untill I make contact with other continnets(6 AIs left), but untill now, no mass spam of unit by the AI, I checked with chiplote and with only 3 defensive units and like 10 offensive units(axeman-swordman-horse archer era still) I had twice more power than any other(that includes Monty)...

Yep. Now I dont see the reason why the building of units made you have war with Toku. He would declare on you anyway, just perhaps now its a little harder to take him off of you?

I think you missed the point. The building of units didnt CAUSE the war with Toku. But the cost of fighting those wars was astronomical compared to 2.08. Instead of 10-15+ unit dying (to the tune of maybe 400-600 hammer lost), 40-50 units were dying (about 1600-1800 hammers worth). Of course you have to rebuild the losses (or else your military rating sucks and you get attacked again). So, if you are spending 1600-1800 on simple replacements for war that netted you nothing you can see how that hurts compared to those without that expense.

The cost of development and techs stay static, but the cost of military sky-rockets. Imagine that instead of the AIs building more units and the players following suit every game that military units simply cost 4-5x what they do now. So, the AI would still be defending with 2-3 units per city and attacking stacks might be 4-5, maybe 6 unit. Thats basically what this emphasis on unit production is doing...its simply multiplying the cost of military units by a large margin (400% or so would be my guess).

I just dont see how anyone can look at the military expenses going up while the rest of the costs stay static and NOT think that something will be knocked out of whack in the game model.

Something else I want to note is that my design goal is something like a "friendly" Multiplayer FFA game - assuming all players are of equal skill, only one of them is going to win (barring moral victories) - if you are one of the players in that FFA game, you should only have a 1/N chance of winning (where N is the number of players). Much the same should be true in a game against the AI at a suitably hard level.

I have no intention of making an AI you can win against every single time, I want an AI that will beat you and that will try to win itself (I'm basically committed to removing all anti-human bias - so all AI's should be subject to the 1/N rule, without some of them deliberately choosing victory-denial strategies).

Where does the "Better" come into it? Well, I also want balanced gameplay - a multiplayer game is balanced superbly despite the "1/N" thing, but an Immortal 2.08 game is not balanced the same way - what's the difference? Well when the AI uses unbalanced strategies, the humans need to use the opposite strategies - if the AI's always neglect defenses and tech mega fast, the human needs to conquer them, every time. Even if the victory odds come out to 1/N, it'll still only be possible to win if you pursue the "One Right Strategy".

What I want, is 1/N odds where you only get those 1/N odds if you correctly adapt to the situation - where it's not about pursuing the "One Right Strategy" but making the right moves and hoping for some lucky breaks. So at the ideally hard difficulty, you should sometimes be able to win by turtling and teching - the AI should not be able to tech so fast that it can always win such a tech race.

You can obviously get better than 1/N odds by playing a lower difficulty level.

Most players seem to want approximately (N-1)/N odds - that something bizarre or extremely unlucky must happen for them to actually lose. I could quote someone saying that Deity should be winnable every single time. I disagree, those who disagree with me, can deal with it. The goal of this project is not and has never been making an AI you can beat every time.

To put it another way, you'll get shafted sometimes.

And I know that in the original game, the AI provides "Whack a mole" gameplay - quite literally in their war strategies. The AI provides some resistance to your victory and you need to whack them if they get frisky, but they aren't really playing the game. I wouldn't say that was the design intent so much as limited time to program the AI, plus limited understanding of strategies at the time the AI was programmed.

I dont know exactly what to read into your post, but I think what you are attempting to do then far exceeds simply making the AI 'better'. To do what you are looking to do would require removing all of the AI 'personality' as well as the diplomacy engine since those items clearly restrict the AIs and not the human players. You'll never achieve the 1/n chance of a win with the AI if they are constrained while the players are not.

All that aside, I think it should be fairly clear by now that simply increasing the number of units that the AIs build doesnt really contribute to that goal all that much. Its not altering the chances of a game win by any particular party. It is diminishing the returns of military action (by players or AIs). If that is intended, then so be it. But it IS a new dynamic created by the latest builds.

I also want balanced gameplay - a multiplayer game is balanced superbly despite the "1/N" thingAs someone who has never played multiplayer how (if at all) will this impact on AI personalities? I play random leaders and the traits of that leader only have a minimal impact on the way I play. Of course that's just me. My concern is that AI leaders will go against their personality in pursuit of this balanced gameplay ideal, which is something I'd rather not see happen.

I dont know exactly what to read into your post, but I think what you are attempting to do then far exceeds simply making the AI 'better'. To do what you are looking to do would require removing all of the AI 'personality' as well as the diplomacy engine since those items clearly restrict the AIs and not the human players. You'll never achieve the 1/n chance of a win with the AI if they are constrained while the players are not.

All that aside, I think it should be fairly clear by now that simply increasing the number of units that the AIs build doesnt really contribute to that goal all that much. Its not altering the chances of a game win by any particular party. It is diminishing the returns of military action (by players or AIs). If that is intended, then so be it. But it IS a new dynamic created by the latest builds.

I probably should've put more emphasis on "Friendly Multiplayer" - that's not the cuthroat type where you play to win and ignore all "fluff" game aspects, but like where you might decide to not attack someone because they share your religion (then be surprised offended when they backstab...).

You're missing the big picture - as long as the AI has too small armies, conquering them becomes "The one right strategy" - regardless of your situation, you should attack your under-defended neighbors. The problem is - this means at higher difficulties everything has to be balanced around "The one right strategy" - since the AI's deficiency at fighting is not in any way corrected, the AI instead gets boosted in the other direction - it techs even faster, and the One Right Strategy becomes even more reinforced.

In the ideal world for me, it would be possible to win by space race on Deity, if the AI's spend enough resources fighting and (somehow) you manage to stay out of the crosshairs. I have absolutely no problem at all with tech stagnation caused by large-scale conflicts, it gives builders the chance to leap ahead.
And look at the conflict-induced dark ages in human history and the sheer amount of resources spent on war, Civilizations were torn down by "Barbarians" and kettle calling pot black aside - the "Barbarians" certainly proceeded to progress much less than the "Civilizations".

I'm not going for a historical simulation here, but:
WAR IS HELL.

That is one of my goals, war should be hell for those waging it and for those it is being waged on. I'll ease up on that for the normal AI setting, but under Aggressive AI, WAR IS HELL.

It can easily be argued that in the stock game (whether patched or not), the military budget needed to wage war was too low - warring was very cost-effective. Current BetterAI OTOH seems to have gone too far in the other direction: it's easy to spiral down the unit spam path, leading to economic stagnation.

The ways to avoid this depend on the neighbourhood. You can go for two different gambles:
1) Go light on military and work diplomacy to make sure you still can keep out of wars. You need enough land to keep economic advantage, and might try to capitalize on that advantage by beelining an advanced military tech that allows you a window during which you can go on offensive with fewer units, units that are technologically superior to those of your neighbours.
2) Go all-out war. Mass units, throw the kitchen sink at your neighbour. You still need to make sure nobody is going to attack you while you're going for someone - possibly by making sure everyone is busy warring.

Neither of the above is a surefire strategy. They depend on the types of neighbours you have (warmongers or peaceful builders) and can still fail. If you do succeed, you should be on the way towards victory, but should you fail you can go reroll. Due to the high risk/high reward nature of the strategies and the early phase of the game they need to be executed, I find them distasteful. The game is decided too early, the rest either being slow stagnation to death or a cruise for victory. There's no balance, no competitive endgame.

Note that going up or down difficulty levels is not really a viable solution: either the gamble is not necessary (going down enough you can compete without either gamble) and the gamble is only a way to win early on (you can gamble without fear of losing, as loss only means you need to play competitive game to the end); or the gamble is necessary, victory not being possible without gambling (again not good - you have to try a desperate strategy with high risk of failure to have a chance at competitive endgame).

If for any reason you get caught in the unit spam spiral of death, you no longer have a choice: you have to get something out of the military budget, so you have to go throw the kitchen sink at a neighbour. Should you lose that gamble, you can reroll. Victorious war may lead to competitive endgame or cruise to victory, depending on what the other civs were doing. Again, this is not balanced.

Also remember that if there's more than one continent and the different continents end up on different paths (one going the military route, the other going peaceful route), severe imbalance will already follow due to civs on one continent suffering from some degree of economic stagnation over what the other continent is having. You can see a glimmer of this already in stock game when one continent has peaceful builders / techers that happily trade and speed up the tech tree with the other continent consisting of more aggressive leaders that are grumpy tech traders and rather build units and go to war. In stock game, it's nothing a human player can't overcome: conquer the aggressors, take hold of at least a major part of the continent, develop the land and race the techtree powered by more land than anyone else has. But if the military budgets get higher, the difference between the strategies gets sharper as well.

Unfortunatelly whatever the point of balance, the human player will find a way to exploit the AI. If the AI doesn't build enough units, the human player will simply roll over it. If the AI builds enough units to make this impossible, then the military expenses (both hammers and maintenace costs) will drag the economy down causing stagnation - most likely exploitable by working lighter allowing the AI civs to stagnate. Neither option allows for balanced game. Therefore I still conclude that the balance will be found in the economic advantages and disavantages the human player will have from building a military that will invariably be enough to conquer the AI civ.

As I said earlier, I don't have a solution that would make warring hard but possible - I don't know how to make the AI smart in warring. I'm not even sure if fighting smart is possible using the civ combat engine - it is quite limited afterall. I do believe that between humans, diplomacy would play a huge role with the wars that are started by deals being decided more by the dealings before than on the field using units - the units are just an endgame for the diplomacy. And there's no way for AI to match this, to participate in this level of diplomacy. Due to the diplomatic castration, units end up playing the role of diplomats as well as the role of armies. Which leads us back to problem #1: how to use them in smart way?


I can't say I'd envy Blake's or Iustus' position here. There are good reasons why the AI needs to mass units (so the human player won't take them out easily), but OTOH that leads to other problems (unit spam spiral of death). If a solution that satisfies all parties exists and is found, great. If not, then the division of AI behaviour using the Aggressive AI setting is a good way to go.

You're missing the big picture - as long as the AI has too small armies, conquering them becomes "The one right strategy" - regardless of your situation, you should attack your under-defended neighbors.

Absolutely agree. Even though people are CHOOSING not to attack the AI, I agree that its almost always a viable strategy in stock.

However the opposite extreme does not 'fix' the problem....it changes it. NOW the optimal strategy seems to be to build up your military and 'stay out of the crosshairs' as you call it. War is very likely not going to be profitable so avoiding it becomes paramount. But even trying to duck fighting doesnt allow you to deviate from the need to pour resources into the military left and right.

Somewhere between the two extremes is likely the 'right' answer IMO. If 2-4 units is too few and hordes of 15+ are too many, then the likely 'sweet spot' is closer to 6-8 IMO. Even that is probably too many in some cases once siege weapons are prevalent.

And so I spent enough time writing a single post that several were posted by others :)

Now I understand the design goals a lot better. It's a fine target, and I certainly hope it's reached some day. However, it's not what I'm looking for in the game, and thus I'm happy enough to have the not-so-aggressive AI setting that allows for different game.

The thing I'm looking for is a game that has its lows and highs, but where I have a fairly high chance of being competitive all the way to the end. The best game might not be one where I launch the spaceship - it could as well be one where Monty launches his ship three turns before I can. The major issue there is that I can play the game to the end knowing that I still have a chance.
If the game is for any reason decided too early, it becomes dull for me. If I have to decide on a gamble and lose or win during the middle ages, then what's the point in having eras after that? And if it's all about that single gamble, timing your tech and military for a single offensive, then that's the effective victory condition.

So if you want to think in 1/N terms, I would like to have something like (N-1)/N chance to get to modern era in competitive shape, then whatever chance to actually win (that's less important to me). That is: barring unusual conditions, I'm not out of the game before the ship parts are being built.

I just played a game of Civ1 and it really took me back. (Don't worry...I'm not going far off topic here.) What I especially noticed was how different military tactics were to what Civ has now evolved to (Civ4). In Civ1, when a unit was killed, everything in the stack was killed too except in cities, making SODs non-existent (for the most part). Zones of control also made for very interesting unit advances. Now we have Civ4, and the battle mechanics have made it preferable, or necessary as I'd argue, to put everything in stacks. I think it was the developers' intentions to put in collateral damage units to prevent the SODs (this was in the manual IIRC) but they fell short.

Anyway, this is not the place for me to argue how Civ4 rules could be improved. For the Civ4 we're stuck with I think making the AI 'better' will require bigger stacks. I'm not talking about ridiculous 20+ stacks in meaningless cities, but defending an important city with 10 or so units I think is justified.
I'd like to see the AIs use intel better like scouting and the recently-improved air-explorers to determine where other players (human or AI) have their main forces located, and then use this info to attack where they are weak (or defend where they are strong). I'm sure this is already done to some extent since I've seen AIs head for the most poorly defended cities of mine, even in stock Civ4. Amphibious landings would be awesome to see as I bet many human players are complacent about their coastal defenses (I know I am when playing against AIs).

I guess I'm just critical of the combat engine in Civ4, agreeing with Elandel's comments #44, and understanding that the BetterAI isn't necessarily going to please everyone.

All said, I think Blake and Iustus are doing well with the mod, and I agree with the project objective so I look forward to every new build release.

P.S. To those who were offended by Blake's 'wuss' comment. Seriously, Civ4 is A GAME and I'm sure the way one plays it does not reflect one's qualities as a person. I don't want to be rude but if you identify your gameplay that much with your personality you need to find bigger things to worry about. Besides.. in reality I'm sure it's equally likely that warmongers and builders are wusses.:lol:

That is one of my goals, war should be hell for those waging it and for those it is being waged on. I'll ease up on that for the normal AI setting, but under Aggressive AI, WAR IS HELL.Do you have any plans as to how to achieve this? Crippling economy; Tech stagnation; war weariness?

Whilst more of a peacenik (read wuss ;)) than warmonger I fully admit that a Civ 4 game without war is actually a little boring. It is part if civilisation (both real and game).

I'm interested at this point to see whether there are alternatives to helping achieve your goal whilst returning unit numbers to a more reasonable number (IMO).

It sounds like an interesting design goal, Blake. While I'm not that familiar with multiplayer, I do understand the goal of an AI that is competitive on every aspect of gameplay, including the military aspect. Good luck as it sounds like a formidable task. :goodjob:

Lovely goal Blake, and Im in to it.


Now, I dont play with agressive AI on(might try somewhere in next version), and in my current game I dont see any unit spam yet. So I think its starting to work the thing between normal game and agressive AI game. Well we are heading now to the gunpowder era, lets see what happen..But I can play olny tomorrow or other later day argh!~

Cant wait! :D

My personal opinion is that Blake is going the right way.

I agree with the Blake the point of this mod, is to make sure the human player isnt special that its a 1/N chance of winning.

On my latest game using 25/01/07 aggressive AI, has been one of the most exciting yet.

Because it has not been all about me. 3 seemingly aggressive CIVs on my continent has taken out the the men in the middle partitioning them as they go.

I've managed to maintain a tech lead but they've now all pilled in on me and I've made some mistakes and lost a small city, but to me its working they have built up a bigger miltary force than me and are not afraid to use it.

I've had one example of Ghengis making peace with Rome and then declaring war the very next turn on Mansa, which was excellent because Ghengis had a huge army and he needed to use it or he'd go stale.

Good work Blake !

I do agree they've are some changes to balance which need to be made but some of these outside the scope of the project.

A particular bugbear of mine is inflation, the problem with it is it's completely based on time. Therefore if you manage to research quickly you can research even quicker, and if you research slowly you research even slower. I think this needs to be changed.

Uncle_Joe on this latest build using Aggresive AI, I have to say I'm not seeing huge stacks of unit because the AI are so keen to use their military when ever they have the chance.

The problem is that builder AIs are getting small chance when attacked...Or no chance at all..

Sure if they got good diplomatic relationship with their neighboor AND their neighboors are busy eslewhere, they got a big chance of even winnig the game, but that is not what normally happens..

And then we come to Defensive unit spam thing.

That is a bit complicated :lol:

The problem is that builder AIs are getting small chance when attacked...Or no chance at all..

Sure if they got good diplomatic relationship with their neighboor AND their neighboors are busy eslewhere, they got a big chance of even winnig the game, but that is not what normally happens..

And then we come to Defensive unit spam thing.

That is a bit complicated :lol:


This is what I am seeing in all my games with the 25/1 build.

If you are not building a huge army you will be attacked, no matter your diplomatic stance towards the AI.
This is resulting in it becoming a war game only.

Earlier builds were most impressive, with the AI doing well at culture, wonders and developing its citys well, but now it is too much of a warmonger game. The standard game is what I would expect from an aggressive AI setting.

In my opinion this is what it should be.

There is no point the warmonger CIV building a huge army and not using it. Remember it takes less units to defend than attack. So the builders still have a chance.

I mean how are Ghengis, Monty etc meant to win if they dont take over countries ? The point of this mode is so all the AI's can win somehow, Blake has already stated this.

If the aggressive AI's dont attack they stagnate. I mean some countries simply should disappear due to geography right from the start, especially if they are completely surrounded.

This is what I am seeing in all my games with the 25/1 build.

If you are not building a huge army you will be attacked, no matter your diplomatic stance towards the AI.
This is resulting in it becoming a war game only.

Earlier builds were most impressive, with the AI doing well at culture, wonders and developing its citys well, but now it is too much of a warmonger game. The standard game is what I would expect from an aggressive AI setting.

I dont think that the unit'spam' is a bad thing. Maybe tune down 2/3 in the non-agressive AI setting OK, but if its too much then any warmonger player can win easily..

The problem is that then when they get a good power and see that the neighboor is an easy prey, even if pleased, well..

I think Blake has to find somewhere in the code where he can restrict a bit more each AI to their personality..

@scu98rkr: For as much as you may like it, CIV is not a game olny about war..They have to gollow their own personality unless the choice would be REAL dumb and would destroy them completely..
But, for an example, Gandhi attacking a friendly CIV only because it would be relatively easy to conquer dont make sense in my mind...At least not with the Agessive AI setting off.

Im not particularly a warmonger. In fact I tend not to go to war, I tend to get into a lead just sit there.

One of the reasons I like this this build is because its makes me go to war. I cant just sit there out tech/building the enemy. I have to think about my defense as well.

Personally I feel this build gives the Warmongering AI's a chance, before they used to building up a huge army and not attack.

In my case I havent seen any non aggressive CIV's attacking mainly because the aggressive CIV's have attacked them before they can.

I dont think this makes the game JUST about war but you have to be aware of it !

Before the only way the AI could win was Cultural or Space race. Ie Ghengis, Monty etc could NOT win.

You could say this made the game too much about teching/culture.

If we want the warmongering AI's to stand a chance of winning (conquest/domination) and using their personalities. This sort of change is needed.

Have you ever seen an AI get close to winning conquest domination ?

I think one of the problems is war requires much more micro management and people get sick of this if they are constantly at war. Rather than the war it self being the problem.

Man, I didnt mean anything of it!

I love ot see that the warmongers AIs stand a chance!!

The problem is that the other AIs are going out of their personality because of the war! I think it should happen only with agressive AI setting on.

I used to only think 'bugger it I'm going to be attacked' when I had Monty / Alex on my borders or was a different religion etc.
Not when Gandhi researchs bronze working.

To me thats the point, if we want the AI to be better it has to do the unexpected.

Although Ghandi etc are meant to be more peaceful and lean towards building / culture. They need to be able to go to war if the opportunity is right.

For instance if your on an island with Ghandi, and think I wont build any defensive unit because its just Ghandi. Your exploiting him, because you know what will happen and he does nt.

Therefore if you do leave your self unprotected Ghandi should go to war because this is the best course of action. However Ghandi should be more inclined for peace if your forces are about equal than Monty for instance. All AI should be capable of all tactics if the situation is right.

To me thats the point, if we want the AI to be better it has to do the unexpected.

Although Ghandi etc are meant to be more peaceful and lean towards building / culture. They need to be able to go to war if the opportunity is right.

For instance if your on an island with Ghandi, and think I wont build any defensive unit because its just Ghandi. Your exploiting him, because you know what will happen and he does nt.

Therefore if you do leave your self unprotected Ghandi should go to war because this is the best course of action. However Ghandi should be more inclined for peace if your forces are about equal than Monty for instance. All AI should be capable of all tactics if the situation is right.

True, True.

But if I am playing with a 'peaceful' AI next to me and deliberately foster good relations I would hope that I could let my guard down a little.
e.g. I had Roosevelt with me on an island. I had quite a few archers and chariots, shared a religion and was donating a healthy resource. I was around plus 5 or 6 in relations. Then quite soon after he researched Bronze working he went for me.
eg. in another game Frederick came sailing over from his lonely island. On first contact he must of had a city catch my religion, as he immediately converted to my religion. He also immediately asked for a trade deal which I agreed to. I was only just below him in power at this first contact.
Next go he declares war! Only thing I can think of was a surplus of troops. I defeat 2 loads of units he lands and he takes peace. He immediately asks for that trade deal again, which I give him. Relations look rosey now. After the 10 turns of peace are up immediate war again!

True, True.

But if I am playing with a 'peaceful' AI next to me and deliberately foster good relations I would hope that I could let my guard down a little.
e.g. I had Roosevelt with me on an island. I had quite a few archers and chariots, shared a religion and was donating a healthy resource. I was around plus 5 or 6 in relations. Then quite soon after he researched Bronze working he went for me.
eg. in another game Frederick came sailing over from his lonely island. On first contact he must of had a city catch my religion, as he immediately converted to my religion. He also immediately asked for a trade deal which I agreed to. I was only just below him in power at this first contact.
Next go he declares war! Only thing I can think of was a surplus of troops. I defeat 2 loads of units he lands and he takes peace. He immediately asks for that trade deal again, which I give him. Relations look rosey now. After the 10 turns of peace are up immediate war again!


While this is acceptble for some AIs, its not acceptble IMHO for all the personalities. Like for example Isabella(same religion) or the Indians and some others.

If a really peacefull AI or trustfull is a friend of you, it shouldent attack you out of nothing, or the game will get boring as all the AIs will do always the same.

True, True.

But if I am playing with a 'peaceful' AI next to me and deliberately foster good relations I would hope that I could let my guard down a little.
e.g. I had Roosevelt with me on an island. I had quite a few archers and chariots, shared a religion and was donating a healthy resource. I was around plus 5 or 6 in relations. Then quite soon after he researched Bronze working he went for me.
eg. in another game Frederick came sailing over from his lonely island. On first contact he must of had a city catch my religion, as he immediately converted to my religion. He also immediately asked for a trade deal which I agreed to. I was only just below him in power at this first contact.
Next go he declares war! Only thing I can think of was a surplus of troops. I defeat 2 loads of units he lands and he takes peace. He immediately asks for that trade deal again, which I give him. Relations look rosey now. After the 10 turns of peace are up immediate war again!


Is Roosevelt actually a "peaceful" leader?

I recall seeing a spreadsheet floating around the forum someplace showing how the AI would behave in various circumstances. I recall being surprised at how aggressively coded the American leaders (esp. Washington) were in Warlords.

I have to say I have not yet played the latest build with the "aggresive AI" option off.

The example with Roosevelt seems harsh and I do with think +6 with no negatives Roosevelt should think twice about attacking you, especially if power is similar.

However in the second example Bismark tends to be a bit of a warmonger if he thought he could take some of your cities why not ?

I think the only thing is he didn't consider is how difficult sea invasions are.
(After playing some LAN mulitplayer I've realised its not just the AI which has problems with this, sea invasions are just plain hard.)

I guess this is the right thread for this. Note, that I'm not complaining. Just reporting. :)

Playing 07-01-25 build. Stalin has been almost continuously at war since he got horse archers (guessing a bit here). He beats somebody into submission, then declares on somebody else. When it was my turn, he already had two vassals.

Can't say I've seen this behavior before. It probably has to do with the changes that prevent an AI from sitting on a big, unused military.

Also, in this game, one of Stalin's victims was Mansa. Also my neighbor, I took the opportunity to join in. His capital was the seat of four religions (all but Buddhism and Hinduism). I captured two cities from him and then he was out. If it had been only one, I would have guessed he was trying for OCC CV! :lol:

EDIT: Forgot to mention: Not a single shrine!

After pondering on this today (rather then doing what I am paid for) I wonder if the fact that I am not using the AI handicap may have some bearing on the matter.

^^^ Now that you mention it, I'm sure it matters in these discussions.

To be on the record: I'm using only the Better AI, no XML changes.

To me thats the point, if we want the AI to be better it has to do the unexpected.

Although Ghandi etc are meant to be more peaceful and lean towards building / culture. They need to be able to go to war if the opportunity is right.

For instance if your on an island with Ghandi, and think I wont build any defensive unit because its just Ghandi. Your exploiting him, because you know what will happen and he does nt.

Therefore if you do leave your self unprotected Ghandi should go to war because this is the best course of action. However Ghandi should be more inclined for peace if your forces are about equal than Monty for instance. All AI should be capable of all tactics if the situation is right.I have the same reservations about AI going against it's personality, but that's a very good point.

Sounds like that's what Blake is aiming for in terms of balanced play and pursuing 'the right strategy'.

I think I am seeing the "guns make us powerful; butter only makes us fat" situation that Uncle Joe (and others) were describing earlier using the 1/25 mod in my current game. It probably helped that all civs started on this large wrap-around continent in the southern hemisphere, making it easier for everyone to get involved in wars with everyone else. Tech has definitely been delayed a bit. Per chipotle, Hannibal and Julius Caesar were both major practitioners of the "dagger" strategy. Ramses has been opting for "peaceful/builder" a lot, but this hasn't stopped him from taking large parts of Japan for himself. I had a horrible starting position, hemmed in by Korea, although I've started to make up for it by colonizing a lot of otherwise empty overseas island-continents.

This has been an entertaining game so far, and i don't think I'm going to win (unless I can eke out a 21st century spaceship win,) as Ramses is far and ahead #1 in terms of population.

Not really complaining about this, but I can see how the constant fighting with large (15-20 unit) stacks could get annoying if this is ALL that goes on in a game. FWIW, Noble, 8 civs, small tectonics map, NOT using the new handicaps.

I think I am seeing the "guns make us powerful; butter only makes us fat" situation that Uncle Joe (and others) were describing earlier using the 1/25 mod in my current game. It probably helped that all civs started on this large wrap-around continent in the southern hemisphere, making it easier for everyone to get involved in wars with everyone else. Tech has definitely been delayed a bit. Per chipotle, Hannibal and Julius Caesar were both major practitioners of the "dagger" strategy. Ramses has been opting for "peaceful/builder" a lot, but this hasn't stopped him from taking large parts of Japan for himself. I had a horrible starting position, hemmed in by Korea, although I've started to make up for it by colonizing a lot of otherwise empty overseas island-continents.

This has been an entertaining game so far, and i don't think I'm going to win (unless I can eke out a 21st century spaceship win,) as Ramses is far and ahead #1 in terms of population.

Not really complaining about this, but I can see how the constant fighting with large (15-20 unit) stacks could get annoying if this is ALL that goes on in a game. FWIW, Noble, 8 civs, small tectonics map, NOT using the new handicaps.


Anyway that is not so bad if he wins, because Ramses is builder, but not extreme.
If he is going to win, then its a vicotiry of a non-warmonger AI.
Do he always has a big power in the graph?

All I want is AIs having chance of winning following their personality(unless its too dumb for a specific situation). After all, I would love to see Alex winning a Conquest victory, but Gandhi? No please.:rolleyes:

Some of this is moved from the other thread. It seems to belong more properly here.

The goal seems to be as stated "ultimately to play a balanced game more like a human". Blake wrote an interesting post at the end of the 2nd page in the AI aggression level thread regarding the design goal.

I tend to share the views of Uncle_Joe and Elandal on this so I'm interested to hear what you think.
Just read Blake's post. The one about the 1/N win chance?

There are two things being talked about, both by Blake and others. One is simple task implementation (we might call this "tactics" though not in a strict military sense); two is strategy (again, not necessarily in a military sense).

A task might be the worker algorithms, citizen governor, or military unit actions. We should recall that one of the things BetterAI did was remove the blind "road everything" from the worker algorithms. There are many more changes to this type of routine task that I've seen the BetterAI change. These little things add up to an overall "smarter" AI. So, in this sort of "tactical" sense, the AI is acting much more like humans.

The strategy is what most people are immediately leaping to here. Talking about Dagger, or turtling/teching, etc. We've been so focused on the military but this is really an overall question... what path does the AI pursue to victory, each time it selects how to govern each specific civ in a game.

I tend to share the views of Uncle_Joe and Elandal on this so I'm interested to hear what you think.
I think it might sound like I'm disagreeing with them, which is why I've tried to be careful to put in some "agree with you" etc.

I do think that the current BetterAI is not what *I* want, and based on the 1/N post by Blake, is not what he wants either. That said, I don't want to go back to 2.08 either, I think they're making huge progress.

I guess what it comes down to is that I don't expect miracles, and I expected all along to have some wild swings in the "strategy" behavior. So, now that we're actually seeing some of those wild swings, it doesn't bother me. Oh, it bothers me in the sense that I will continue to give feedback and that we're not quite there yet, but it doesn't bother me in the sense that I think everything since 2.08 (except the bug fixes) is trash and needs to be thrown out. To me, that would be a huge mistake.

My personal preference is towards entertainment, I play primarily for fun. Though it's nice to have a challenge once in a while, I don't look for it every game.

It's tough to strike a balance that pleases everyone. Hopefully a combination of the Aggressive AI option and difficulty levels will allow for variation in AI playing styles.
Agreed!

Not precisely. What I'm saying is the the 'military buildup or die' every game is extremely 'unfun' IMO. And in fact, its so 'unfun', that I would be willing to throw out the rest of the improvements to avoid it. By the same token, I know that the 2.08 AI is a bit too soft. I know that the Better AI team doesnt want to bother with tons of parallel mods and all of the versioning headaches that would involve.

So, if the heavy military emphasis is going to continue as part of Better AI (for whatever reason), then I was hoping for a one-time 'sub mod' that doesnt develop further that simply catches the worst of the problems of the 2.08 bugs. I can always tweak the handicaps to season to taste for difficulty, but the gameplay is what I believe CIVILIZATION should be.
That makes sense.

I guess the question then becomes what do you mean by "military emphasis".

Yep, I've played Diplomacy numerous times (as well as tons of multiplayer strategy games). But that is not even the same ball park as trying to program an AI. You can get a 'read' on people and you can leverage betrayals as currency with the other players. Some times it might be 'tactically' sound to backstab someone, but if that means others dont trust you then perhaps in the long run its not worthwhile. Trying to get an AI to duplicate the nuances of multiplayer diplomacy is not realistic (until we get self aware AIs and then we have that whole Skynet thing or the Cylons turning on their masters etc etc ;) ).

Given that, the only thing we have is the diplomatic modifiers. In many cases these arent even 'in game' events. But they give the illusion of nation-states as opponents. But trying to base actual diplomacy off of them is folly. How can you convince another AI that double-teaming the leader is a good thing even though all of you are 'friends'. You'll get the 'We couldnt betray our good friends' response regards of how beneficial it is. And there is nothing you can do. That is only the barest hint of the limits on diplomacy between humans and AIs.

To me, trying to go down that particular path is a waste of time and effort. Its not going to work within the framework of Civ4.
I don't think it's a question of "going down that particular path". All I'm suggesting is to recognize the similarities between the diplomacy modifiers and how humans act in a game such as Diplomacy (or MP Civ).

You mention backstabbing. Exactly... there is a Civ modifier by "you attacked our friend" as well as one for "we remember what you did to the English" or something like that.

I'm going to back up a minute, because we lost the quote trail. How does this relate? You originally said
why bother to have 'relations' with the AI? Why bother trying to develop good relations or share a religion or anything of the sort because if the AI is playing only to 'win', then none of that would matter a whit. ...making the AIs play solely to 'win' regardless of other circumstance is COMPLETELY throwing the core concepts of Civilization out in favor a game of conquest.
Maybe I'm overlooking your qualifier "regardless of other circumstance" but to me, if you backstab an AI, then other AIs should have a bigger military on their borders with you. If you have good relations with an AI, then they should have less.

And, programming the AI to win means that they should recognize when it is a good idea to double team the leader.

So again, that leads me back to square one. If that is going to be the focus of the mod from this point, then its something I can personally do without. Trying to make the AIs behave like humans is just going to suck the suspension of disbelief out of the game IMO.
Wait a second... are you saying that you want the ai to recognize when it is a good idea to double-team the leader, or you don't want that?

That situation probably distills this debate down to its essence. If I'm good to an AI (say, Isabella), adopt her religion, give her stuff, help her fight her enemies, don't backstab anybody (including her of course), then let's give a situation where someone, let's say Catherine, is #1, I'm #2, and Isabella is #3. Let's assume we're all friendly with each other, and Catherine is about to win, with whatever victory condition. Should Isabella be amenable to me getting her to join me in a war on Catherine?

Personally, I would be disappointed if the AI was programmed to preclude that possibility. I spend all game doing my "builder" strategy or other non-warlike game, which we like as part of Civ. Then, I discover Catherine is about to win. And, I can't do a thing about it?!? How disappointing is that. It makes me say, "I should have converted to a war strategy earlier and wiped her out."

Yet, it sounds like you're saying that's preferable to the alternative, which is to program the AIs to recognize some human goals, such as ganging up on a leader.

On the other hand, there are so many improvements made to the way the AI handles things such as expansion or the way it distributes its econ. I hate to miss out on those too. Which is why I'm asking for a 'quick fix' if the situation cant be compromised with the Aggresive AI setting toggle. I dont intend to say that the project should 'punt' or 'fold' or whatnot, but simply that the direction that the mod is heading makes the game LESS fun for me, not more...unlike the original improvements that were added with the first versions of Better AI.
To me this becomes a question of what is meant by "the direction the mod is heading"... the observed results, or the stated goals of the BetterAI team.


The ways to avoid this depend on the neighbourhood. You can go for two different gambles:
1) Go light on military and work diplomacy to make sure you still can keep out of wars. You need enough land to keep economic advantage, and might try to capitalize on that advantage by beelining an advanced military tech that allows you a window during which you can go on offensive with fewer units, units that are technologically superior to those of your neighbours.
2) Go all-out war. Mass units, throw the kitchen sink at your neighbour. You still need to make sure nobody is going to attack you while you're going for someone - possibly by making sure everyone is busy warring.
3) Build enough units for defense. Reserve the capability to rush build in case of attack. (Note that the AI has this option too, and the BetterAI does a pretty good job at this, though it could still be improved.)
4) Get land via other methods... opportunistic settlers wandering around through the war zone of two neighbors, waiting for cities to be razed (very likely in the early game), isolating large chunks of territory by not having open borders (or by closing them when the AI sends a settler or galley over), etc.

As I said earlier, I don't have a solution that would make warring hard but possible - I don't know how to make the AI smart in warring.
IMO, teach it to:
1) know when to quit a war
2) either upgrade or disband old / worthless units
3) be better at rush / whip of defender / counter-attack units
4) better use anti-stack defenses (cats)
5) better distinguish garrison troops and counter-attack troops
6) not create so many garrison troops

I do believe that between humans, diplomacy would play a huge role with the wars that are started by deals being decided more by the dealings before than on the field using units - the units are just an endgame for the diplomacy.
This gets back to #1 above... the AI needs to know when to quit.
-- Part of that is to not overexpand and thereby suffer economic penalties to an empire size that the current economy can't afford.
-- Part is the ability to recognize when the goals have been met (the goal is not necessarily total victory over the opponent, but simply getting more territory for one's self and/or hamstringing the opponent's growth).
-- Part is recognizing the "big picture" in terms of victory (in particular the power graph... this gets back to ganging up on the leader... B and C are warring enough that both their power drops to a certain level below A, then a decision has to be made in regard to what is remaining to be gained from continuing the war or suing for peace because A is the real enemy who is threatening to win the game)

I can't say I'd envy Blake's or Iustus' position here. There are good reasons why the AI needs to mass units (so the human player won't take them out easily), but OTOH that leads to other problems (unit spam spiral of death). If a solution that satisfies all parties exists and is found, great. If not, then the division of AI behaviour using the Aggressive AI setting is a good way to go.
My own personal feeling (from direct observation of my games using the recent builds, as well as from posts by Blake and Iustus) is that the current BetterAI builds and designates too many units as city defenders. Change that, and we've achieved 80-85% of the goals here.

Wodan

Anyway that is not so bad if he wins, because Ramses is builder, but not extreme.
If he is going to win, then its a vicotiry of a non-warmonger AI.
Do he always has a big power in the graph?


Lately he has -- I don't recall if Egypt was always on top with regard to power. If you want to, check the file I uploaded titled "NO DRAFT" under the Bug Report thread. (I couldn't get "draft" to work -- bonus points if you can tell me what's wrong with THAT and/or tell me what I missed....)

[EDIT: Never mind, Iustus explained what was wrong with the Draft thing, and it was weird. Nothing wrong with better AI, though.]

I guess the question then becomes what do you mean by "military emphasis".

By that I mean that even if I'm not intending to attack a neighbor, a heavily disproportionate amount of my econ is going towards constantly building and upgrading military units. I would guess that my military expenditures in 1/25 are between 3x and 4x what they would be in a similar 2.08 game (regardless of circumstances).

The only way to survive in 1/25 (short of luck) is to horde military. You cant neglect it even for a little while or else your military rating falls and its tough to catch back up. So, I end up with stacks and stacks and stacks of military units every game. To me, that is not fun and its not 'decision making'. The decision is already made...build military and more military.

Wait a second... are you saying that you want the ai to recognize when it is a good idea to double-team the leader, or you don't want that?

I'm saying thats its going to be impossible to program an AI to make 'judgement calls'. In some cases, I absolutely think it would be a good idea to double-team the leader. In others I dont. And I certainly wouldnt want to get to a situation where every time you are about to win, 5 AIs pile on because its the 'smart thing to do'.

Its not really a solvable equation IMO because there isnt even a 'right' answer to be shooting for.

To me this becomes a question of what is meant by "the direction the mod is heading"... the observed results, or the stated goals of the BetterAI team.

Both. The observed results are to me, not as much fun when I feel like I must build military as my primary focus game after game. The stated design goal seems to support this because if the AI is going to be 'smart' and 'play like a human' then naturally it should be attacking you if you start to take a lead. In many cases, thats what other humans would do.

Now, supposedly they intended to temper that with the AIs' 'personalities', but to me that is going to be next to impossible. Are we saying that its 'smart' for the warlike AIs to attack the winner but not smart for the builder to do so?

On another note, it also makes AI behavior predictable and adds to the 'luck of the draw' factor in the game. If I KNOW that AI 'x' is going to attack me if I'm in the lead, then I'll make sure to take out AI 'x' as a 'pre-emptive strike' since I'm going to be attacked anyways (again, since its 'smart' to do so).

Its a big complicated ball of wax that I cant see being resolved any time in the near future. My understanding is that the AI team is trying to build towards the 1.0 release. And in that case, I think we are farther from what I consider to be 'fun' than we were a number of weeks back. YMMV.

[...]
3) Build enough units for defense. Reserve the capability to rush build in case of attack. (Note that the AI has this option too, and the BetterAI does a pretty good job at this, though it could still be improved.)
This is a variation of "go light on defense". To keep a credible defense took 30% of my total commerce (unit maintenance), which means it was already in the spiral of death - I was down to half my research power without having an offensive force. Not to forget the hammers building the defense forces took, albeit with the reduced research power I'm not sure if there had been other good builds available at all..
So light on defense combined with capability of rushing credible defense WHEN (not IF) the attack comes. Certainly a valid strategy, but the risk of facing overwhelming attack is still too high to not call it a gamble.

4) Get land via other methods... opportunistic settlers wandering around through the war zone of two neighbors, waiting for cities to be razed (very likely in the early game), isolating large chunks of territory by not having open borders (or by closing them when the AI sends a settler or galley over), etc.
This is something I probably have to work on. I really don't like settling so that I can't secure a culturally owned path to my core, but maybe it's necessary at times.
I think I noted the backyard backfill in "lucky start" category, although after considering Snaaty's strategy this seems doable without reliance on lucky start that gives the backyard to you: settle forward to create the backyard. Again this is something I probably should try.


Without quoting more, I do agree with you on many points. Your points regarding what smart warring might mean were definitelly good ones. Indeed if understanding the big picture can be broken down into small steps the AI can take, it'll be closer to the goal of being smart.

Not to forget the hammers building the defense forces took, albeit with the reduced research power I'm not sure if there had been other good builds available at all..

And this is exactly what I meant when I've referred to the latest builds reducing decision-making (ie guns or butter). Often tech is progressing much slower (not necessarily a bad thing), but that leads to situations where I'm not making any trade offs....I just spam military until something new comes along to build and then I build those in every appropriate city. So the 'decision' is to always build military, but puncuated with the buildings as soon as they are available.

In 2.08, there are often lots of buildings available that I may want but I also know that I have to build at least some military to keep up with the Joneses. Even the 2.08 AIs will attack if you are really weak and while they might not 'conquer' you, they can make a nice mess...certainly enough to make it not desirable to be attacked.

The only way to survive in 1/25 (short of luck) is to horde military. You cant neglect it even for a little while or else your military rating falls and its tough to catch back up. So, I end up with stacks and stacks and stacks of military units every game. To me, that is not fun and its not 'decision making'. The decision is already made...build military and more military.

Why don't just spy on your enemy planning a war against you what kind of force they'll send on you and build a proper combination to counter their forces. Also rally units to your border cities. Also can build forts into defensive terrain with some defenders to trick them.
But let them pull ahead in power to launch that damn attack on you.
Just be well prepared and slaughter them :D
Getting into an arms race with your enemy yet decided to attack you is pointless. It will just hurt both of you.
Let them attack and than wipe them out quickly instead of arms racing :D

Is Roosevelt actually a "peaceful" leader?
I recall seeing a spreadsheet floating around the forum someplace showing how the AI would behave in various circumstances. I recall being surprised at how aggressively coded the American leaders (esp. Washington) were in Warlords.

Yes he has very peaceful personality.
Washington is a bit less but still peaceful too.

Joe, you are becoming tiresome.

I don't think the unit spam even exists anymore. Players are complaining the AI's are defending themselves far too lightly.

Also AI personalities are a tricky thing. Some AI's are horrible backstabbers - I think for example Asoka and Frederick (although it may be Peter) actually have backstabber personalities, it's just that they wouldn't ever build up enough military to start feeling frisky - one of my few military defeats (pre-Better AI) was to Asoka, who decided to backstab me with a large axeman horde he built for god knows what reason. I can probably try and reduce this tendency by tying in the old aspects of personality with the side effects of reducing aggression - for instance the "Train Unit" probability - those AI's with a high train unit.

Here are the "Bastard Charts" to show which leaders are the biggest scumbags, according to their probability of training units, their probability of declaring war, their probability of shamelessly dogpiling and finally their probability of declaring war at Pleased - the Total column is basically their "Bastard Rating" - the higher the total, the more likely they'll cause trouble. For all numbers, bigger means badder.
(A 0% of dogpiling does not mean a 0% of him dogpiling you - it'll just be a total war rather than a dogpile war - however 0% at pleased DOES mean a 0% chance of declaring war - it wont happen unless the AI decided to declare before becoming pleased)

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/3615/bastadchatsbh3.png

The winner is Ragnar, being highest or highest equal across the board - except in attacking those he is pleased with (only one is higher).

There are some anomalies - Mehmed despite having SOME nice personality traits (respects friends) is actually a big warmonger - call him an Honorable Warmonger, Brennus is like his little brother. Don't trust these guys unless they're actually pleased.

Catherine and Isabella both have fairly low train units - but are also very shameless in declaring war, making them the incompetent backstabbing b*tches we know and love. However Isabella also has her obnoxious personality working against her - making her both more likely to declare war, and more incompetently (catherine is more likely to wait for a position of strength).

Elizabeth is generally peaceful, but does have a chance of declaring war at peace but more importantly has an incredibly high probability of sliding a knife in your back if you are distracted - Roosevelt has an identical warring personality (good job...), fortunately both these leaders have low unit training probabilities so they may be too timid to attack (which is why they are backstabbers). Asoka is also something of a closet bastard but does respect his friends. And actually many leaders, such as Mansa Musa, will just decide to up and attack people they are pleased with - the dice rolls make it that way. Just because SOME peaceful AI's will do this shameless backstabbing rarely, does not mean that Hatty or Ramsesses will - those two are much more pleasant (not all peacemongers are XML'd equally...).

What Better AI does is enable all AI's to train up larger armies if they feel the need (rather than the army component being based largely on dice rolls also), this generally increases their chances of declaring war. This will tend to make the closet bastards (like Elizabeth) more likely to come out of the closet...
Whether this is going against their personality, or just a repressed aspect of their personality, is subject to debate.
I will be using the "Train Unit" factor in more places to get more diversity in army sizes (the train unit factor wont be respected much when actually in a real war, when desperate they'll all spam units).

Anyway hopefully this gives some insight into the AI personalities...

Joe, you are becoming tiresome.

Enough said. I've tried (apparently unsuccessfully) to make the point. I cant back it up any further.

As I've said REPEATEDLY, its your call to make.

Good luck with itl

@Blake: Is that 'Train Unit' the actual % of the hammers they use in total, used only in units(in Vanilla)?

And how come your changes changed it if you didnt change that part? You just took off some restrictive codes?

Im impressed by that list.

No the train unit is a fuzzy thing...
Basically at a certain point in the (Vanilla) code for choosing production - after things like basic defensive and economic needs have been taken care of, the AI will have Build Unit % chance of training a unit, otherwise it will try to build a building, and if it can't build a building, it'll then train a unit.
Defense
Settlers Workers
BuildUnit% check:
- Choose a unit
- or Choose a building
Choose a Unit
Choose a Building
Process.

What BetterAI does to the build selection process is adds a lot more context sensitive decision making - rather than just having a simple dice roll decide whether to build a unit or building, the AI will actually build a unit if it feels underdefended, or build an economic building if it'll pay off quickly, or prepare a dagger stack and it'll build a barracks before training significant units... and so on. Only after all that context sensitive stuff is done, does it finally get to the simple BuildUnitProb dice roll.
Once the AI runs out of buildings to build, it goes into unit spam mode regardless - until it hits it's quota of units and uses a process, if one is available.

It is somewhat fair to say that the buildUnitProb is indicative of how large an army the AI would like to keep on hand - especially offensive army above and beyond the basic defensive requirements. The probability itself doesn't mean much - but Isabella's being twice as large as Gandhi's means that Isabella should have twice as many offensive units...

That chart does indeed shed new light to my experiences. Seems I've been hit by closet warriors where I thought I had peaceful neighbourhood.

The only way to survive in 1/25 (short of luck) is to horde military. You cant neglect it even for a little while or else your military rating falls and its tough to catch back up. So, I end up with stacks and stacks and stacks of military units every game.
Have to disagree there. My latest game I started on a peninsula. Continents map. Louis was in the middle, and Alexander down south.

I spread my religion to Louis, and tossed him some bones (extra fish or something, free gift, plus some cash I think). I did the same thing to Alex.

Louis, true to his nature, built a wonder or something and had strong cultural pressure on 2 of Alex' cities.

Quite soon, Alex, of course, declares on Louis. He asks me to help. I tell him to go sit and spin (not in those words of course). Louis asks me to help. I say yes. Not a single unit of Alex' attacked me. (Louis was between me and Alex, remember.)

After a bit, I sue for peace with Alex.

After a bit more, I send Alex some cash to declare peace with Louis.

Okay, repeat that cycle twice more. My dip relations with Louis are huge by this point. (I have a +5 or something for religion, +4 for agreeing to help him in wartime, +4 for good trade relations, +2 for supplying him with resources, yadda yadda.)

After the second time Alex had all but wiped Louis out. I still hadn't fought a single one of his units. Yet, I had just a single unit in every one of my cities, either a warrior or a chariot. Alex had swords and phalanxes all over the place. Anytime I wanted, I could have build some units and saved Louis' bacon. But, I didn't have a problem at all with Alex both wiping him out and also with Alex choking himself with empire maintenance and unit supply costs.

So, I guess I have to take exception to your "only way" phrasing. There is at least one set of circumstances where it can be done. I daresay there are more.

ps by the time Louis was gone, my tech level was way way ahead. I was building Cav and Muskets while Alex had just barely gotten longbows.

Devil's advocate now. Game before this one, with the 1/9 build (I think). Anyway, I did Aggressive AI and got a middle pangaea start. Holy cow was I torn asunder. :run:

I'm saying thats its going to be impossible to program an AI to make 'judgement calls'. In some cases, I absolutely think it would be a good idea to double-team the leader. In others I dont. And I certainly wouldnt want to get to a situation where every time you are about to win, 5 AIs pile on because its the 'smart thing to do'.

Its not really a solvable equation IMO because there isnt even a 'right' answer to be shooting for.
You've got a point, but I think it could be done. And I definitely think that there should be an increased chance of AIs declaring war if you're in the lead and/or about to win.

I agree having ALL of them declare war EVERY time would be bad for the game. There shouldn't be a kingmaker phenomenon going on (AIs with no chance to win knocking down the leader simply so 2nd place could win). Also, peaceful AIs that you have good relations with should stay that way.

However, military AIs, especially on aggressive settings, by all means should attack. They've probably been doing it all game, though, so that's nothing new.

The real question is a "neutral" AI, who has a realistic chance to win if he "changes sides" against you. I definitely would be in favor of the BetterAI programming this to happen.

Its a big complicated ball of wax that I cant see being resolved any time in the near future. My understanding is that the AI team is trying to build towards the 1.0 release. And in that case, I think we are farther from what I consider to be 'fun' than we were a number of weeks back. YMMV.
Thanks for your thoughts on the rest of the stuff. No comment except on this last. To me, I'll repeat that if the BetterAI team reduces the building of huge garrison stacks this will help immensely IMO. I think they've already said they're doing this, so we'll have to wait till the next build and see.

This is something I probably have to work on. I really don't like settling so that I can't secure a culturally owned path to my core, but maybe it's necessary at times.

I think I noted the backyard backfill in "lucky start" category, although after considering Snaaty's strategy this seems doable without reliance on lucky start that gives the backyard to you: settle forward to create the backyard. Again this is something I probably should try.
Give it a try. I do it more often than not. It's hugely powerful. It's my main "counter" to the people who say you HAVE to do an early war to do well on high levels (because you need the territory). One or two well sited cities can cut off galley/coastal approaches, or can block off a neck of land and give you the majority of a continent and/or subcontinents t