Why I am concern about including Blake work and Khael FFH work in BTS.
Some poorly structured trough. This post was originally created for FFH mod, but then I had to include some reference on Blake Mod.

I think current agriculture civic in FFH is result of misunderstanding of global game mechanics.
Khael and Blake make similar mistakes.
Both of them based on wrong assumption that cottages were overpowered in vanilla Civ. It was probably true for Vanilla 1.0 realize, because at that time maintains cost climb to steep with population/level, making on high level adding population producing less then 2 commerce bad and by extremely powerful Kremlin, making rush buy as cheap as dirt.

Firaxis fix this problem by removing upkeep dependency from difficulty level and by nerfing Rush buy and Kremlin a bit, introducing balance between specialists and cottages economies.
This is a correct way to fix problem. One need to look on base reasons why something is unbalance and try to fix it from global prospective.
Global prospective was simple: If adding population need 2 commerce to upkeep, no improvements will be competitive with one producing max commerce. It is actually easy to estimate global balance of improvements player will be forced to build. So, by making other improvements more affordable by reducing cost of working them, firaxis made different improvements competitive.

Both Khael and Blake did not understand game dynamic and balance issues. Blake better AI was good when he optimize city placement, city development, et.., but then he went into direction of exploiting AI bonuses more and increasing AI cheating. Like making AI produce more units just were using AI ridiculous upgrade bonuses more. His idea to improve money management was good, but he include ability of AI to hide even more Money form player, making money useless in trade, the same like forts were useless in Vanilla/warlords. In short, he just make AI use cheap money better, making it to cheat more.
It all come from narrow vision of the game and ignore balance and fun issues. What is fun when AI see and can demand all your gold, but can have 2K gold when you can trade your tech only for 80 gold? Ridiculous. Correct way to fix problem is not by reducing players options and fun by increasing AI cheating by hiding more money. Correct way is to make using money in diplomacy as effective as using tech. This could be done by increasing value of money in trade, as WFUBTA limit already limit abuse of tech buying.
I am worried about what Firaxis include from Blake Mod to BTS, as latest Blake mod changes were reducing players options and enjoyment, making game more linear and increase AI cheating.

The same is true about Khael. He created agricultural civics based on wrong notion of useless of farms. When I read balance experiments in FFH I see people building only cottages and base balance decision on that. Wrong.
Even in Vanilla I always build river farms, not cottages, and that with just 3 food farms.

Slavery, converting 1 food into 2 shields early on is what decisive in SP and MP.
If you go into MP, production matter mach more, then commerce.
At start of game everyone on near = footing technologically, so some one who has better production will win. In FFH currently there is no balance, as agriculture with combination of slavery/sucrify of the week will beat everything.
Tie to tie no mine produce 6 shields, that 6 food farms do. Even if one convert food to production 1 on 1 basis, one will win with farms. Rushing production by population give ability to convert near unlimited amount of food to shields, when specialists, like most common priest converse 2 food into 1 shields at best, or 3 food into 1 shields if one does not have health. Happiness is not an issue in FFH, as there are a lots of way to get lot of happiness, if you have shields to build lot of buildings, expensive ones. Right now there is huge unbalance between water and land ties, between river starts and non fresh water start.
Elves actually are in big disadvantage. There workers/settler more expensive, but they always loose form agriculture civic early in game.

Grassland river agriculture farm produce 5 food + 1 commerce.
Grassland forest river agriculture farm produce only 5 food.

I will not continue with detail, simply good civs do not have option to convert food to production efficient enough compare with neutral/evil. With supper abundance of food it made everything extremely unbalance.
IN addition, result of the game predefine by how mach irrigatable preferably river ties player have near start location.

Bottom line, I am not sure how mach Blake or Khael work can actually damage Civ, as I have little confidence in there ability to undestang global balances of the game.

Well I doubt Kael FFH does anything to hurt the epic game. It is merely a scenario. So either you like it and play it or you don't.

As far as Blake goes, I guess it can go either way. But I have been and will continue to be very confident.

An interesting comment from a true "guru" of Civ !! :)

There has been mention that the AI bonuses have been reduced with BtS.

Like making AI produce more units just were using AI ridiculous upgrade bonuses more.

BetterAI comes with new Civ4HandicapsInfo which reduces the AI bonuses too. What are you talking about, Mutineer?

BetterAI comes with new Civ4HandicapsInfo which reduces the AI bonuses too. What are you talking about, Mutineer?
He did new Civ4HandicapsInfo only after we demonstrated to him it in our deity game.
It is only example and does not remove the point:
When he made global changes he did not look on global results of his changes or why his changes improve perfomance. A baby can undestand that when AI upgrade units for allmost 0 the more units AI build the more AI exploite it bonus.

Both Khael and Blake did not understand game dynamic and balance issues. Blake better AI was good when he optimize city placement, city development, et.., but then he went into direction of exploiting AI bonuses more and increasing AI cheating. Like making AI produce more units just were using AI ridiculous upgrade bonuses more. His idea to improve money management was good, but he include ability of AI to hide even more Money form player, making money useless in trade, the same like forts were useless in Vanilla/warlords. In short, he just make AI use cheap money better, making it to cheat more.

I think you've missed the point of BetterAI.

The point of the Blake AI was to make it so that the AI didn't need the bonuses it recieved due to difficulty level - to make it so that the AI didn't need to cheat to be competitive. It was never designed to coexist with the AI bonuses that already existed. It was designed to make them unnecessary.

The idea behind hiding money from the player in the diplomacy screen was sound. This was money that the AI wasn't going to trade anyway. Unlike technoloiges (which can be redded out), money all appears as one so there wasn't any simple way (that I know of) to make it distinct.

It all come from narrow vision of the game and ignore balance and fun issues. What is fun when AI see and can demand all your gold, but can have 2K gold when you can trade your tech only for 80 gold?

This is exactly equivalent to the AI being able to demand a technology you don't intend on trading or demanding that you join them in a war. There isn't a game mechanic which allows you to read out such options in the way that the AI can so the AI can ask you for anything. Your issue is with diplomacy in general - not the Blake AI

As far as I'm aware FFH is a scenario and won't be part of the main game.

Idea of Hiding money in trade screen is NOT sound. It is only good because currently it cost mach more to buy tech by gold then amount of beakers needed to research tech. Insted of inventing artificial methods of hiding information from player and limiting player options, information to which AI has full access and option AI has access. Insted of that it is Mach betetr to balance use money in trade, buy increasing value of money in trade.

I can undestand AI protecting some money in order to avoide to become bancrupt by crafty player, but I do not undestand AI hiding 95% of money.
Global balance solutions that do not reduce player options are allways a better solution.

Sooooooooo somehow the agriculture bonus is going to seep out of FFH and into the main game by some sort of electronic osmosis?
It would be especially incredible given that the FFH scenario is apparently based on FFH 1, before the agriculture food bonus was introduced.
I agree that the civic is overpowered in the mod, but it's a mod and not the main game, and you don't have to play it. It certainly doesn't give you the right to trashtalk someone who has put an immense amount of unpaid work into providing top-notch optional extra content for this game. Pull your head in.

I am sorry, but FFH included in BTS, so it is fair to discuss it here.

From what I gather from playing with the Blake AI mod a bit...it seems entirely worthwhile to have an AI that is smarter than to have one that requires the bonuses.

Mutineer, you really don't seem to understand that the enhanced AI isn't meant to coexist with the cheating bonuses the AI receives. It is meant to make the AI good enough that it doesn't NEED the bonuses...however, since the bonuses were not taken out of the game previously, a smarter AI will obviously exploit those bonuses better and more often.

Why not wait and test out the AI yourself when BtS ships, rather than bashing the work of someone who has done a tremendous amount of AI work on this game?

I am sorry, but FFH included in BTS, so it is fair to discuss it here.
Of course you can discuss it here. It would be more useful in the thread about this very topic in the ffh forum (where some of us are trying to persuade the ffh team of exactly the same thing), but whatever. But you're way the hell out of line throwing around personal insults about people because you don't happen to like the entirely optional mod that they've worked tirelessly on, without pay, for our benefit.

The senario is not based on either FfH I or II; it is a prequel to them both. It is supposed to play a little like an RPG, with the player playing as the legendary magical hero Kyorlin and controlling a small number of units which are individually much more important than any in vanilla,of even in FfH. Since it is set in an Ice age, where the climate is not well suited for farming, I doubt that agriculture will play much of a role (it might not even exist).

ps. there is no h in Kael.

Share Mutineer's concerns about the later "Better AI" improvements, but am putting my faith in the playtesters at Firaxis. Also, regardless of what one thinks of Blake's changes, I think he deserves a lot of respect for his efforts and none of the derogative language that is often used in the discussion of his work.

Does the better AI really hide 95% of its money.

To be fair Mutineer your written English is pretty poor. You may have some good points, but I feel your command of the English language is just too poor to discuss the finer details of the AI, hence why you have a lot of people disagreeing with you.

When I started to read your post my initial reaction was that you were an idiot, but after reading through I think you may have some points but Im not sure what, as I find you language very confusing.

Are you suggesting that Blake has made the AI rely more on its upgrade bonus ?
Because the AI can still cheaply upgrade units (even with the new handicaps) it is valuing commerce more than production ?
Currently this is a good tactic as it allows the AI to quickly upgrade its army but it will be harder to reduce the handicaps in the long run, because the AI does not produce good production cities.

Are you suggesting that Blake is just fitting the AI to the handicaps file rather than producing an AI that could play well with no handicaps ?

Please wait for BtS to come out before starting to rant, it would makes much more sense...

Blake did great things for the AI. He greatly improved the governors, he made it use better war strategies... The game is much funnier and challenging with BetterAI, and the AI uses less bonuses. I just made an 'unofficial' modded version of BetterAI (for more AI agressivity), so I know what I'm talking about.

Blake removed many of the {isHuman} tags in the code which made the AI behave differently with humans, and he decreased greatly the AI bonuses, so Mutineer's rant doesn't make sense.

There's nothing to be concerned about, you can trust him, he certainly know what he does. I would be very surprised if the AI didn't feel smart. I'm pretty confident that a guy like Blake can code one of the best AIs ever released, especially since this time he's free to change everything about the AI.

Mutineer looks like a jealous child to me. Hopefully he will make a better and funnier AI than Blake's. If he does, I'm pretty sure we'll all play with his mod (I certainly will).

To be fair Mutineer your written English is pretty poor. You may have some good points, but I feel your command of the English language is just too poor to discuss the finer details of the AI, hence why you have a lot of people disagreeing with you.


Your English isn't better, so I wouldn't call someone else on this if I were you. Mine own is far from perfect, but if you go around and critisize other people's English you should make certain that your own is pretty flawless.

Other people say that Blake actually make the AI rules deviate less from Player rules, which would be a good thing. I'll simply have to try it out sometime.

On Topic : I never used the mods, so I can't really say anything. If mutineer describes things correctly I would have to agree. Farms are fine as they are and I agree that anything that makes the AI rulewise more unlike the player is bad. Hiding more of the gold certainly falls into that.

The thing is, when the AI is made we are stuck with it.

Vigorous debate about it is a good thing so the developers can keep refining it.

Not many people play at these high levels and understand the mechanics so deeply like mutineer and Jorunkun.

We need this level of discussion.

Please wait for BtS to come out before starting to rant, it would makes much more sense...

Not really, since he will have spent money on that.

Not really, since he will have spent money on that.

Absolutely not. He doesn't have to spend money, he just has to wait for the opinions of the people who bought BtS...

Now, he talks about something :
- we don't even know since it's not out
- that can't be changed right now (until future patches) since the dev is finished and the game is about to go gold
- we will be able to change later the way we want with the SDK should it be necessary

:lol:

My guess is Mutineer simply would have liked to be part of the Firaxis team this time like Kael or Blake, hence this pointless rant.

Grassland river agriculture farm produce 5 food + 1 commerce.
Grassland forest river agriculture farm produce only 5 food.


Not really, because thanks to the Fellowship of the Leaves religion, elves can get ancient forests and have 6 food from forest river agriculture farm, and then retain this bonus when switching to other religions. Plus they can also build cottages on forests, you need to take this into account if you speak of the elves and not just stop at farms.

My English isn't great, but it is better than Mutineers.

There are a lot of posters on here for whom English is not a first language but you can understand them no problem.

In my opinion Mutineers written English is very difficult to understand, and I don't think he managed to get his argument across because of this.

I think he may have had some good points, but I cant quite get at what hes saying because of his communication.

Personally I do not see why I shouldnt say that.

Absolutely not. He doesn't have to spend money, he just has to wait for the opinions of the people who bought BtS...

Now, he talks about something :
- we don't even know since it's not out
- that can't be changed since the dev is finished and the game is about to go gold

:lol:

Other people's opinions are not HIS opinions. Anyways he just put up a critic, he didn't insult anyone. He said that in his opinion Kael and Blake didn't understand global mechanics of the game and made changes based on wrong assumptions, that's far from being an insult or personal attack, it's just an opinion, but you all are bashing him as if he's killed someone, while he does say something interesting and that makes sense (vs. other things more opinable), whatever his use of the english language. At least he tries to speak a language not his own to try and help and discuss with the community. All I can say about Blake's AI is that a work on the AI from the community was already included in Warlords and everyone on this goddamn forum rejoyced saying that the AI was much stronger or cried because they had to decrease their difficulty level. Based on these comments (other people's opinions, as you call them) I went and bought Warlords only to find out that if there was any enhanchement to the AI (I personally didn't see anything worth mentioning) it wasn't worth the money spent on it. A Project I was really looking forward to (Warhammer) even got a huge halt because the devs were convinced that Warlords AI was so far superior to Vanilla's and that it was worth it to waste all the work they had done until then to upgrade to Warlords... while these statements are just BS. Now, I respect any modder of this community, because I do know how hard it is to work to a mod during your spare time, instead of playing someone else's mod, but what I must agree on with Mutineer, and this doesn't apply to Kael's scenario in any way because it's just a scenario, is that it was a bad move from Firaxis to include a mod into the epic game. As long as it stays a mod it's fine, but it must be a choice, and not a dictate, because not all gamers agree with Blake's thoughts.

Blake better AI was good when he optimize city placement, city development, et.., but then he went into direction of exploiting AI bonuses more and increasing AI cheating. Like making AI produce more units just were using AI ridiculous upgrade bonuses more.

Optimization of city placement = more productive cities. But the AI's get production bonuses, so optimizing city placement is AI "cheating" in your book too!

Not really, because thanks to the Fellowship of the Leaves religion, elves can get ancient forests and have 6 food from forest river agriculture farm, and then retain this bonus when switching to other religions. Plus they can also build cottages on forests, you need to take this into account if you speak of the elves and not just stop at farms.
Farms are mach better then cotagess. Yes, after FoL and ancient forests elves do pick up. They are actially the only race that can switch from agriculture and do not loose mach. Problem is: that happened MACH later in the game. Initially they loose mach compare to most other races.

Kael with later "ballance" changes made it more dificult for elves, as planting forests was moved to divine 3 from divine 2, if I am not mistaken.

Interesting post. If i understand it correctly the main point is that the premise from which these modders proceded to rework the AI is incorrect- and by making these changes the result is that it decreases game options/fun.
The linearity of their approach is amplified by following this false premise. (ex Farms, slavery, production become the only viable mp routes)

What caught my eye is that the op is wondering about negative AI changes in the regular game based on a modders unwittingly bad idea. (Which could happen i suppose)
('Course I am of the belief that all mods (even flavor unit mods -) favor the player's (modder's) notion of gameplay which may have nothing to do with one's own idea of fun from the basic framework-

Kael with later "ballance" changes made it more dificult for elves, as planting forests was moved to divine 3 from divine 2, if I am not mistaken.

Hmm, I didn't know this, not sure it's correct. Btw I agree that in general farms are better than cottages, especially for elves that can run Guardian of Nature and have massive happiness, but a cottage on a forest is different, since it also provides hammers, while farms (with agriculture) have a penalty with that.

He said that in his opinion Kael and Blake didn't understand global mechanics of the game and made changes based on wrong assumptions, that's far from being an insult or personal attack, it's just an opinion,

Yeah, it's an opinion, but an opinion that a wide majority of people consider absolutely wrong.

All I can say about Blake's AI is that a work on the AI from the community was already included in Warlords and everyone on this goddamn forum rejoyced saying that the AI was much stronger or cried because they had to decrease their difficulty level. Based on these comments (other people's opinions, as you call them) I went and bought Warlords only to find out that if there was any enhanchement to the AI (I personally didn't see anything worth mentioning) it wasn't worth the money spent on it.

So your opinion on warlords 2.08 was another opinion most people disagreed with :) I don't even understand how you couldn't see the difference, but anyway.

A Project I was really looking forward to (Warhammer) even got a huge halt because the devs were convinced that Warlords AI was so far superior to Vanilla's and that it was worth it to waste all the work they had done until then to upgrade to Warlords... while these statements are just BS.

Another opinion that... well you know.

As long as it stays a mod it's fine, but it must be a choice, and not a dictate, because not all gamers agree with Blake's thoughts.

Nope, it won't be a mod, Blake made the AI this time. Every design choice in a game will please some and other ones will disagree. You don't have to buy BtS, but I'm sure the AI will be brilliant.

The OP is completely wrong. Blake's primary goal was to improve the AI such that it wouldn't need ANY 'cheats' to have a fighting chance against a human player.

I refer anyone curious to view the threads in the "Better AI" subforum under Project and Mod development.

As you can see there, Blake and Iustus continued improving on the Warlords 2.08 AI even after release as a "mod" for the community. This project was (AFAIK) done gratis, with many of us in the Civ IV community playtesting/enjoying the heck out of it. It more or less sucked all of my free time from December-March, and I loved every minute of it. There were some disagreements about what worked and what didn't work, but the ultimate goal was clear, and that was to teach the AI how to play without cheats.

I suspect that if you give Blake and Iustus' last Better AI mod version a try, you will be impressed with what the AI was capable of -- including going for a Cultural victory. I was a Monarch level player even on 2.08 Warlords and had to bump myself down to Noble just to have a fighting chance.


All I can say is: if Better AI is what Blake was able to do for free, I really can't wait to see what he can do when he was actually getting paid for it! :eek:

Well, I won't argue with a guru of CivIV -- especially since I don't really understand his complaint. :confused:

I will bring up some points about Better AI (BAI), since I've played it extensively for more than half a year. Recently I went back to playing 2.08 to see how it played differently, which gave me a fresh perspective on BAI.

My two favorite things about BAI have to do with the reductions in micromanagement Blake and Iustus implemented. :goodjob:

First, the resource governor (the magic guy who decides which tiles your city population works) is much improved over 2.08, which itself was improved over Vanilla and Warlords. Yes, you may still find the need to manually assign your population, but it will be for rare circumstances and not routine tedium.

Second, the never-used build governor (the magic guy who decides what your city should build next) is improved to the point of usability for non-strategic cities. Yes, it still produces an unwanted worker or fishing boat now and then, but otherwise it can be counted on to develop a city without you having to decide whether you want a Library or Theatre next, etc. I usually find myself actively managing no more than six cities; all the rest I leave to the BAI build governor.

What has been missing is sensible management of the workers, such that they build hammer improvements in cities that are emphasising hammers, etc. This apparently is coming in BtS. I look forward to it.

In 2.08 the AIs focus on commerce and huge cities. They tech rapidly and trade techs with each other madly. Some AIs may do warfare, but they're going to try to win by Space Race. It's one-dimensional.

With BAI, the AIs can and do build production cities (and GP farms too, I think). The AIs know how to go for Cultural Victory and some will try it. (I've been beaten this way a few times.) Some AIs still end up going for the Space Ship, but others take an aggressive approach. (I've never been beaten by Domination, but that might be because I don't play out such losing games to the end.) All of this means a more multi-dimensional game.

I look forward to the BtS AI that's better at using its military and knows how to do naval invasions (reportedly, anyway). This alone will make the game more interesting and exciting.

I wouldn't say BAI is perfect, but it is a big improvement over 2.08, Vanilla and original Warlords. Therefore, I expect that the enhanced AI in BtS will be seen a refreshing improvement for Civilization by the vast majority of players.

Remember everyone, that this is an international forum and not everyone here is an expert with English. For many, it's not even their native language, but their 2nd, or 3rd, etc.

Yeah, it's an opinion, but an opinion that a wide majority of people consider absolutely wrong.

A nice thing about opinions though, is their neither right or wrong. It's an opinion. ;)

Don't worry, to this point Firaxis continues to resist my suggestions to add the Golden Girls Coalition to the epic game. I think they fear the power of their special cottage upgrades (cottage, hamlet, village, town, nursing home) and the population boost they get at the discovery of viagra.

Aaaaarh. And you've been trying so hard to get them to accept it, too. Maybe they'll add it in along with TEH_ALIENZ?

Don't worry, to this point Firaxis continues to resist my suggestions to add the Golden Girls Coalition to the epic game. I think they fear the power of their special cottage upgrades (cottage, hamlet, village, town, nursing home) and the population boost they get at the discovery of viagra.

LOL... Wow, Bea Arthur would totally kick ass as a Civ leader... What would her traits be? :lol:

I've also played the BetterAI mod (made by Blake and Iustus) for quite some time. This mod was continuously improving the AI during the last months of the previous year and the first ones of this year. It was very interesting to see the AI do new things and improve with each iteration. Some mistakes were made along the way as not everything that you try will work, but still it kept improving over the weeks. So I think, I'll have to disagree with the Mutineer's opinion that "Blake did not understand game dynamic and balance issues".

About the hiding of money in BetterAI. In Warlords 2.08 and all previous versions of Civ4, the AI would always trade away all of the money it owned if you had something to offer that was worth that money. It wouldn't consider using the money for upgrades or using the money for research (researching at a higher research rate than the break even point). The AI would even trade its money away for one of your useless technologies the turn before it would declare war while it should use the money for upgrading units for the war. Of course, that is not smart. The AI should consider leaving some money for other goals than trading. And that is exactly what Blake taught the AI. The AI will only use some of its money for trading and will use the rest for other purposes.

About the BetterAI cheating more? Complete nonsense. First of all, we choose our difficulty level so that we have a challenging game. Depending on how good we are at the game, we will give the AI some handicap bonuses. You can't call that cheating as you chose to give the AI those bonuses. It's a handicap like many sports also know the idea of handicaps to level the playing field.
The BetterAI mod has reduced these handicap bonuses for the AI because it doesn't need them anymore. The BetterAI mod also removed some of the AI behaviour that was defined differently for humans than for AI controlled civilizations thereby equalizing the playing field.

I've not yet played the Fall from Heaven mod, I should do so soon. It is viewed as one of the best mods made by this community. The mod that is being included with the 'Beyond the Sword' expansion pack, is a mod that is based in the same world but in a far earlier age, some sort of ice age. Any problems that you have with some agricultural civic in this mod are probably not related to the mod that is going to be included in this expansion pack. Farming just doesn't work that well in an ice age.

I must agree with one point from the OP though, the first post is quite badly structured and therefor quite hard to read. ;)

About the hiding of money in BetterAI. In Warlords 2.08 and all previous versions of Civ4, the AI would always trade away all of the money it owned if you had something to offer that was worth that money. It wouldn't consider using the money for upgrades or using the money for research (researching at a higher research rate than the break even point). The AI would even trade its money away for one of your useless technologies the turn before it would declare war while it should use the money for upgrading units for the war.

Sorry, but it is incorrect. IN average only half of money avalible for trade by AI IN Vanilla and warlords 2.08.

I say in average, because it is not constant.

But if you switch human player to AI in multiplayer only half of his money will be avalible for trade, the rest AI will reserve.

I can see where Mutineer is coming from.

IMO I always thought a lot of the goals of better AI were somewhat pointless. The more the AI acts like an opportunistic human player, the more useless diplomacy becomes. I've always thought a good understanding of diplomacy is what separates the best civ players from the good ones, and the good ones from the merely terrible (myself). There is definitely an argument that by reducing what a person can get from diplomacy, the game becomes more about how well you can micromanage and how many extra shields/food/beakers you can squeeze out every turn. But this isn't Starcraft or WC3 where resource collection and usage (via units, upgrades whatever) are the paramount. The soft factors (diplomacy, religion, etc) should just be as important as well.

Look at the famous SG deity game. One of the most critical turns was when someone let Shaka cash in his GM and the resultant cash bomb was not available for trade. Now while this might be more "human-like," it deprived the human player of a strategic choice. A normal player might not have ever thought of waiting for the cash bomb to hit before attacking, while a noobie one would wonder how Shaka's power jumped after losing 30 units in a battle.

On the other hand, if the bonuses have been reduced, then a hopeful byproduct is that the AI will value money more. I guess we'll just have to wait to see how much less the AI's production advantage is before passing judgment.

"..thought some of the goals of a better AI were somewhat pointless"

If the result is that you have to further out micro-manage the AI rather than further outwit the AI via diplomacy, then ouch. It would be worse than pointless- as per ol mr Mutineer - it would be detrimental.
(Unless you want to emphasise the out micro managing the opposition part of your game)

Sorry, but it is incorrect. IN average only half of money avalible for trade by AI IN Vanilla and warlords 2.08.

I say in average, because it is not constant.

But if you switch human player to AI in multiplayer only half of his money will be avalible for trade, the rest AI will reserve.

I've based my words on an observation where I compared the money the AI had when spying in his cities and when I contacted him in the trade screen.

You could always get the money an AI gained through selling of technologies or cashing in a great merchant. The AI would never reserve that money for other purposes.

Look at the famous SG deity game. One of the most critical turns was when someone let Shaka cash in his GM and the resultant cash bomb was not available for trade. Now while this might be more "human-like," it deprived the human player of a strategic choice. A normal player might not have ever thought of waiting for the cash bomb to hit before attacking, while a noobie one would wonder how Shaka's power jumped after losing 30 units in a battle.

I don't know about this SG, but I don't get you. At the one hand, you want the AI to behave smarter, but on the other hand, you want the AI to trade away all of its money just before a war starts. That would be an utterly stupid move for the AI.

Of course, when you're playing a far inferior opponent, then there are countless ways to beat him and countless tricks that you can use to beat him. So once the far inferior opponent doesn't do the most stupid moves (like trading away all of its money just before a war), the options to beat him become less and smarter moves are needed.

(I don't consider the move of letting the AI use its Great Merchant to get all of its money especially smart. It's just a trick based on the knowledge that the AI will trade away its money afterwards totally disregarding the threat that you pose. It's a trick based on the stupidity of the AI.)

But also not really, since he hasn't seen final release. It's like judging a product by it's alpha version. Obviously, they've been working on this product in private, and anything that was previously released is not the final version.


Not really, since he will have spent money on that.

Sorry, but it is incorrect. IN average only half of money avalible for trade by AI IN Vanilla and warlords 2.08.

I say in average, because it is not constant.

But if you switch human player to AI in multiplayer only half of his money will be avalible for trade, the rest AI will reserve.

Are you referring to Warlords 2.08 or the most recently updated version of Better AI?

I don't have time to find the post, but I recall Blake saying that he did not view 2.08 as being final, which is why he was working on Better AI in the first place.

You understand that some of us are speaking about innovations made for the Better AI mod above and beyond what was available in Warlords 2.08, yes?

Personally, I would much rather have an AI that acted like a human player would to a greater extent and relied upon cheats and handicapping less.

Why not wait and test out the AI yourself when BtS ships, rather than bashing the work of someone who has done a tremendous amount of AI work on this game?

Mutineer's points are excellent, and I think it's worth discussing these problems before the expansion is released.

I followed Blake's AI closely. In the beginning, it improved city placement, city specialization, and AI military behavior. These improved the AI's competitiveness while maintaining the AI's fun-oriented behavior.

But with time, Blake began to make some changes with no regard to the AI's intrinsic advantages--and only after massive complaining did he even introduce the first (and only?) altered AI handicap file. I remember playing a Better AI version where Blake introduced the AI's new military defense logic. In my first game with it, Mansa Munsa produced 52 skirmishers to defend four cities and built almost no infrastructure. Whenever he felt I was producing enough forces to endanger him, he produced more defense, and so my army was always dwarfed by his massive defensive forces.

At first I didn't mind. I expected that this huge defensive investment would cripple Mansa, but lo and behold, Mansa was still rich! He had almost no upkeep costs and could afford to build all these units while nearly matching my research speed (thanks to more AI advantages!). When he hit Feudalism, he upgraded all 50+ skirmishers to longbows in one turn, and at that point, I decided that I would rather play Warlords 2.08.

It's that type of experience that makes me wary of Blake's contributions. One should prevent the AI from doing something stupid, but one shouldn't make the AI so effective that it abuses its own cheats like a player would--if those cheats were available to the player.

Even though Civ 4 is very rich, a person who plays it a lot will notice ways in which core game dynamics lack richness. This lack makes multiplayer Civ 4 simpler in some ways than single player. It leads to delicate tradeoffs when improving the AI.

I understand mutineer's concerns, but I think we should wait to play the game until we judge. Likely BTS will play a lot different to BetterAI mod, which did have some problems sure. But working on it full time for all this time will have surely improved it a lot.

I think the new AI is by far the most important part of BTS. It has the potential to make the game much more fun, or also much less fun. Something like corporations or espionage will probably not have that much effect, but the AI changes will be huge. The enjoyment of thousands of people who love civ is in the hands of one Kiwi - I'm crossing my fingers :)

It's that type of experience that makes me wary of Blake's contributions. One should prevent the AI from doing something stupid, but one shouldn't make the AI so effective that it abuses its own cheats like a player would--if those cheats were available to the player.

Why are you assuming that a several-months-old project done for free is going to be the same as the final product in BtS?

Why are you assuming that a several-months-old project done for free is going to be the same as the final product in BtS?

I'm not making any such assumption. Could you quote the specific line which accidentally implied that conclusion?

I thought this thread was to discuss the effects of Blake's and Kael's design philosophies. Since the only playable examples of Blake's philosophy are several months old, I can't help but discuss potentially outdated information. But even if the information is outdated, that shouldn't prevent us from having the discussion. As long as our eyes are open to the possibility that things have changed, I don't see any harm--and I see potential benefits--in discussing what we know and what we have.

Perhaps I'm missing the point here, but is this actually an argument in favor of keeping the original semi-moronic AI in the game? Blake's AI may not be perfect (at least it wasn't a few months ago), but it was far better than what was originally shipped.

Mutineer's points are excellent, and I think it's worth discussing these problems before the expansion is released.

I followed Blake's AI closely. In the beginning, it improved city placement, city specialization, and AI military behavior. These improved the AI's competitiveness while maintaining the AI's fun-oriented behavior.

But with time, Blake began to make some changes with no regard to the AI's intrinsic advantages--and only after massive complaining did he even introduce the first (and only?) altered AI handicap file. I remember playing a Better AI version where Blake introduced the AI's new military defense logic. In my first game with it, Mansa Munsa produced 52 skirmishers to defend four cities and built almost no infrastructure. Whenever he felt I was producing enough forces to endanger him, he produced more defense, and so my army was always dwarfed by his massive defensive forces.

At first I didn't mind. I expected that this huge defensive investment would cripple Mansa, but lo and behold, Mansa was still rich! He had almost no upkeep costs and could afford to build all these units while nearly matching my research speed (thanks to more AI advantages!). When he hit Feudalism, he upgraded all 50+ skirmishers to longbows in one turn, and at that point, I decided that I would rather play Warlords 2.08.

It's that type of experience that makes me wary of Blake's contributions. One should prevent the AI from doing something stupid, but one shouldn't make the AI so effective that it abuses its own cheats like a player would--if those cheats were available to the player.

And after Blake had made the AI aware of a buildup of forces by its neighbours and made them react to this, he took away some of the handicap bonuses that the AI had. After that the AI might build too many troops so that it couldn't maintain them with the new and higher upkeep costs of the new handicaps for the AI. So the AI had to be taught to only use a certain fraction of its income for unit maintenance and this thus limited the number of units that the AI would build. And that is about where the BetterAI mod development stopped and Blake started to work directly for Firaxis.

I wonder why you stopped at the first incarnation of the new AI mechanic where the AI would react to the forces of its opponents and didn't tell us about the further improvements. Might it be because otherwise you wouldn't have a point to make?

Improvement of the AI is not something that will go right every time. You will try to improve it by introducing new AI routines but they won't do the exact right thing right away. It takes some experimenting and some ingame experiences with the AI from several game testers. The whole time that the BetterAI mod development was underway, we were playing a Beta version of a mod under development. New elements were being added and some worked well right away and some others needed refinement. The 1.0 version of BetterAI has never been finished because Blake started to work for Firaxis and Iustus didn't have time for it because of his new job.

The new handicap files weren't introduced due to massive pressure from the beta testers of this mod. One of the main design philosophies of the mod was to improve the AI so that it didn't need the huge handicap bonuses anymore.

The biggest thing that needs to change is the definition of difficulty level.

I WANT the AI to be able to do things like Mansa did in the above post by Zoolooman. But only at higher difficulty levels. Certainly not on settler or chieftain!

I hope that in the new expansion they scrap the idea of "AI cheats' and simply have different AI's for each level. So when I go up against a deity level AI it is actually five or six times smarter and more ruthless than the equivalent Settler AI.

The settler AI should make all the MISTAKES of a novice Civ player. But when you move up towards Noble or Deity the AI should become much more ruthlessly efficient.

As Roland said the point is to get rid of the need for AI bonus' altogether. If they do that, or even have bonus' start coming into play at Monarch/Emperer level instead of Noble level . . . then I'd be impressed.

I hope that makes perfect sense to everyone. I know I tend to ramble sometimes.

Of course, when you're playing a far inferior opponent, then there are countless ways to beat him and countless tricks that you can use to beat him. So once the far inferior opponent doesn't do the most stupid moves (like trading away all of its money just before a war), the options to beat him become less and smarter moves are needed.

You said it yourself: the options to win become less. That isn't fun. Many people already say Civ4 is too one-dimensional, with early rushes and constant war more often than not being the dominant strategy. In the above situation, what smart move could you do? In that case, the "right" strategy was to kill the GM and go to war *again.* Wow, how exciting :lol:. Given equivalent difficulty, if it came down to crazy options (bribing Shaka into pacifism) versus realism (it'd be impossible to bribe Shaka into pacifism, but his army is 30% less), I'd probably prefer the former.

I dunno, I really think the whole "dumb AI with a ton of bonuses" versus "smart AI with few bonuses" is really a wash. Does it really matter if the enemy has 12 longbows (dumb AI) or 10 longbows and 3 catapults (smart AI)? Not really. It's just an extra move to split up the stack or wait a turn to heal. Big whoop. Wars are won with strategy, not tactics (especially Civ4 ones).

I wonder why you stopped at the first incarnation of the new AI mechanic where the AI would react to the forces of its opponents and didn't tell us about the further improvements. Might it be because otherwise you wouldn't have a point to make?

Oh, come now. Let's be civil, even if you think I'm wrong. ;] If I didn't have a point to make, I wouldn't be posting. :P

I eventually downloaded and played on all versions of Better AI except for the most recent public release (which was 2/12, I think). I will admit, the problem with my example was extreme, and it was eventually handled a lot better. But really, that's beside the point. I wouldn't have chosen that example if it didn't indicate--to me--a potential problem with Better AI's design philosophy.

As a human player, I'm interested in playing the game to have fun. In most cases, since I'm a competitive player, I have the most fun when I overcome a significant challenge against a difficult opponent. For this reason, increasing my fun and improving the AI were often the same thing.

However, there is a point when fun and AI "strategy" diverge. At the time of its implementation, Blake's new defense logic was an example of that. When I found that it was busted by the AI's advantages, I went into the XML and reduced the AI bonuses to upkeep and unit upgrading, and that did a lot to solve my complaints. However, it didn't solve the fundamental conflict I had with Blake's design philosophy--he was changing AI behavior, not because he wanted to make the AI a better player, but because he felt that human military investments paid off too easily. And to me, that was a low-fun direction.

Now, you might say: "What's the difference, Zooloo? The AI is a better player if it's harder for the human to defeat it. So wouldn't more defenders be more fun for you?" And I answer, sometimes, yes, it can be more fun. But sometimes it can't. It's a matter of implementation.

Blake's earliest Better AI versions made the AI a tougher military target because the AI was playing an overall better game. But the build I described made the AI worse, in some ways, by forcing it to adopt a highly defensive strategy as a rule. Yes, it was harder for humans to win wars after that update, but it was the result of a tedious and unsatisfying change. By increasing the number of defenders in all cities, it felt as if the AI and I were simply forced to spend more and more money on our military forces, or we wouldn't win any territory. It was an arms race which simply slowed down every other aspect of the game.

In short, Better AI was sometimes designed to stop popular human strategies. And that, to me, is a design philosophy that lends itself to creating less fun gameplay.

If you like, I can dig around in old threads and find some quotes that verify that design philosophy. But I hope you'll take my word, not as someone who thinks Blake is a bad designer (because honestly, his AI logic is very subtle and smart), but as someone who thinks Blake's design aesthetic was sometimes antithetical to player fun.

If you like, I can dig around in old threads and find some quotes that verify that design philosophy. But I hope you'll take my word, not as someone who thinks Blake is a bad designer (because honestly, his AI logic is very subtle and smart), but as someone who thinks Blake's design aesthetic was sometimes antithetical to player fun.

The threads are there for anyone who cares to read them. Anyone who does will realize that the Better AI experience was a development effort carried out with the CFC public as playtesters. Yes, there were things that worked and things that didn't. There were many debates about what was fun and what wasn't, including whether the AI should build up a large military or be a cream puff. A lot of it was learning by doing. My point is that Better AI was and is an unfinished product.

Furthermore, Blake wasn't working for Firaxis when he worked on it. He didn't have their resources nor their guidance. He didn't have to meet their standards for playability. Because of all that, I predict that the BtS AI will be improved over Better AI and that the concerns raised in this thread will not be the concerns of the vast majority of BtS owners.

You said it yourself: the options to win become less. That isn't fun. Many people already say Civ4 is too one-dimensional, with early rushes and constant war more often than not being the dominant strategy. In the above situation, what smart move could you do? In that case, the "right" strategy was to kill the GM and go to war *again.* Wow, how exciting :lol:. Given equivalent difficulty, if it came down to crazy options (bribing Shaka into pacifism) versus realism (it'd be impossible to bribe Shaka into pacifism, but his army is 30% less), I'd probably prefer the former.

I dunno, I really think the whole "dumb AI with a ton of bonuses" versus "smart AI with few bonuses" is really a wash. Does it really matter if the enemy has 12 longbows (dumb AI) or 10 longbows and 3 catapults (smart AI)? Not really. It's just an extra move to split up the stack or wait a turn to heal. Big whoop. Wars are won with strategy, not tactics (especially Civ4 ones).

Ok, it is clear that we have different preferences. I don't like strategies based on inferior predictable moves from the AI. I would call such strategies exploits of the predictable inferior thinking process of the AI and would therefore like the AI to behave smarter so that I can't exploit the AI's stupidity that much. You don't like to lose strategic options caused by the AI not doing inferior moves anymore because you think it makes the game more shallow and reduces the options for victory.

I think we have a very different look on what we expect from the AI opponents and thus we can do nothing else then agree to disagree. Ok? :)

Oh, come now. Let's be civil, even if you think I'm wrong. ;] If I didn't have a point to make, I wouldn't be posting. :P

You were misrepresenting the BetterAI mod by only showing the shortcomings of an attempt to improve the defensive capabilities of the AI and not mentioning the later improvements on those shortcomings. People reading this thread who didn't participate in the beta testing of the BetterAI mod might think that what you were describing was the intended final version of the BetterAI mod, which is clearly not true. I used irony to make that very clear.

If you were insulted by my post, then I am truly sorry. That was never my intention.

I eventually downloaded and played on all versions of Better AI except for the most recent public release (which was 2/12, I think). I will admit, the problem with my example was extreme, and it was eventually handled a lot better. But really, that's beside the point. I wouldn't have chosen that example if it didn't indicate--to me--a potential problem with Better AI's design philosophy.

As a human player, I'm interested in playing the game to have fun. In most cases, since I'm a competitive player, I have the most fun when I overcome a significant challenge against a difficult opponent. For this reason, increasing my fun and improving the AI were often the same thing.

However, there is a point when fun and AI "strategy" diverge. At the time of its implementation, Blake's new defense logic was an example of that. When I found that it was busted by the AI's advantages, I went into the XML and reduced the AI bonuses to upkeep and unit upgrading, and that did a lot to solve my complaints. However, it didn't solve the fundamental conflict I had with Blake's design philosophy--he was changing AI behavior, not because he wanted to make the AI a better player, but because he felt that human military investments paid off too easily. And to me, that was a low-fun direction.

Now, you might say: "What's the difference, Zooloo? The AI is a better player if it's harder for the human to defeat it. So wouldn't more defenders be more fun for you?" And I answer, sometimes, yes, it can be more fun. But sometimes it can't. It's a matter of implementation.

Blake's earliest Better AI versions made the AI a tougher military target because the AI was playing an overall better game. But the build I described made the AI worse, in some ways, by forcing it to adopt a highly defensive strategy as a rule. Yes, it was harder for humans to win wars after that update, but it was the result of a tedious and unsatisfying change. By increasing the number of defenders in all cities, it felt as if the AI and I were simply forced to spend more and more money on our military forces, or we wouldn't win any territory. It was an arms race which simply slowed down every other aspect of the game.

In short, Better AI was sometimes designed to stop popular human strategies. And that, to me, is a design philosophy that lends itself to creating less fun gameplay.

If you like, I can dig around in old threads and find some quotes that verify that design philosophy. But I hope you'll take my word, not as someone who thinks Blake is a bad designer (because honestly, his AI logic is very subtle and smart), but as someone who thinks Blake's design aesthetic was sometimes antithetical to player fun.

I also was a part of the beta testing of the BetterAI mod, so I know those discussions and participated in them. First Blake improved the economical aspects of the AI, some of these were implemented in Warlords 2.08 and some were added to the BetterAI mod at a later stage. The reason Blake did this first was because it was the easiest (his words). A lot of beta testers at that point were complaining that the only (or best) way to win against the AI was by using military force because the AI just wasn't very good at that. So Blake (and Iustus who had joined the BetterAI team around that time) started the hard job to improve the military AI. He improved its offensive capabilities by letting it create large offensive stacks with many catapults/trebuchets/cannons/artillery and he improved the defensive AI by letting the AI react to the buildup of a military. Because the AI is very passive in Warlords 2.08, he also increased the aggressiveness of the AI.
At that point, it became obvious that the AI was benefiting too much from the military handicap bonuses it gets in Warlords 2.08 and a new handicap file was created. In the last month, further refinements were made to the military AI and the AI switched repeatedly between too aggressive and too passive and building too many defenders and too few defenders. And at that point, Blake was contacted by Firaxis and was suddenly gone.

The military AI is a work in progress and since no version of Civilization has ever produced a remotely decent military AI, it would be a great achievement if this were possible.
In Warlords 2.08, you build a sizable stack with plenty of trebuchets and some good stack defenders and walk towards the AI city while absorbing some minor attacks which are healed by your healing unit. You bombard, do some collateral damage and take the city with your city attackers. And the AI doesn't really pose a serious threat to your city attack stack while you do this. Rinse and repeat until the AI empire is conquered.
A good military defensive AI would not defend its cities with 12 longbowmen and have huge handicap bonuses on upkeep and upgrading. It would also not defend its cities with 6 longbowmen and 3 catapults and have moderate handicap bonuses on upkeep and upgrading. No, it should defend with 3 longbowmen and 2 catapults and have some reserve troops in other cities which rush to the defense of the threatened city. It would hammer your offensive stack with 5 catapults from this city and neighbouring cities and then use knights and macemen from neighbouring cities to finish your stack. That's what a good AI would do and then you will start thinking about real strategies like diversionary attacks, feints to lead his forces into a trap or attacking from an angle that is unexpected. This AI wouldn't need massive troops to defend its territory and thus wouldn't need the AI handicap reductions on upkeep and upgrading.
And I really do think that such a military AI would improve the gameplay immensely and add to the strategic elements of the game. Heck, it would be the first time that real strategy was needed to beat the military AI.

Will Blake have created the good AI that can fight as well as I described above? Now, to be fair, I doubt it. That would be a monumental achievement. But I do think he will have come closer to that goal.

Ok, first of all I admit I have not read all of the posts in this thread thoroughly. I have however read enough that were critical of Mutineer (and perhaps alarmingly critical of even the right of a non-English native speaker to offer up a criticism of someone close to Firaxis) to at least jump in with some comments.

I also echo Sooooo above and agree that we must wait for the game to ship before passing anything resembling final judgment.

That said, some thoughts:

1) Unless Mutineer significantly edited and cleaned up his original post, any native English speaker who read it and was unable to understand his argument needs to reexamine their reading comprehension skills. I've read lots of Muti's posts, and while he is often well outside conventional grammar and spelling norms, I've always had no problem at least understanding what is going on. I certainly wouldn't use an attack on his grammar as my main counterpoint to his argument.

2) Enough with the automatic defense of people due to their perceived higher status. I appreciate all the work Blake has done providing BetterAI to the community. I also appreciate the SG play that Mutineer has posted about. One is not inherently more generous that the other. Blake has chosen to work on BetterAI with his own free will, so he doesn't deserve a pass or immunity to criticism because he happened to have put in a lot of work. He does indeed deserve to be free from personal attacks, as do all of us here, but Mutineer was merely attacking the decisions Blake had made, not the man himself at least as far as I read. Additionally we have absolutely no knowledge to confirm the fact that Blake isn't being paid for BetterAI. In fact his near total disappearance around here seems a strong indication he is in fact being paid by Firaxis - and I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it, but lets withhold the charity angle.

3) One of Mutineer's central assertions is that BetterAI makes the game unbalanced and unfair (as well as less open-ended) by letting the BetterAI exploit inherent AI advantages. One of the claims offered by BetterAIs supporters has been that the AI in fact is designed to allow the computer players to no longer need significant bonuses. Indeed, if this is the direction taken by BTS, I think we can all agree it will be a positive advancement. That said, the BetterAI as it is available now most certainly does not act as though the AI bonuses are irrelevant. I would call your attention to Acid_04: The final frontier, a SG with Muti and Blake as participants. Clearly we see the AI exploiting it's ability to upgrade troops for nearly no cost. Clearly we see instances of the AI outplaying the human team not with any better strategy or intelligence in the classical sense, but with better use of its bonuses.

Basically the way I see it there are three components or levels to BetterAI.

The first level fixes things that the conventional Soren-built AI does that are stupid. Founding cities in clearly the wrong locations, building the wrong tile improvements, working the wrong tiles. Almost everyone can agree these are awesome fixes and something that should be included in the game. They only marginally affect difficulty however, and seem to be able to coexist with traditional gameplay across difficulty levels.

The second level affects the way the AI makes use of the rules of the game - things like whipping its cities more often or building more or fewer units, or larger or smaller stacks. Whether or not these changes make the AI smarter or simply more aware of it's bonuses is difficult to debate, since there is currently no way I'm aware to divorce the two. This aspect of control however is where Muti makes a very valid point. Anyone suggesting that BetterAI is designed to effectively make the AI exist without bonuses needs to be able to explain the effect these changes have on the current difficulty level. In short, they make the game harder. In fact they make the game harder on each difficulty level, which is potentially a huge problem. A noble AI will still whip out an extra archer to defend a city. A Warlord AI will still build a different mix of units in a stack. The difference in difficulty levels is still maintained through the ever-present AI bonuses. At present to me it seems difficult to say whether there is any mechanism to allow these changes to BetterAI to have any real meaning without the existing bonuses - since taking the bonuses away would seem to have the effect of severely diminishing the differences between the difficulty levels. The only way in which BetterAI could function alone would be....

The third level of (potential) BetterAI changes would involve the AI making smarter and smarter decisions at each difficulty level, so that no bonuses were needed. On Settler the AI would make many mistakes and nearly all suboptimal moves, on Prince the AI would play a fairly solid game, and on Deity the AI would make the right decisions all of the time as well as make surprising the seemingly inspired moves to keep the player constantly off balance. In other worlds the SP experience would come to mimic playing beginner, average, and world-class MP players. Perhaps this is what Blake will bring to BTS, but right now I see no indication of this in the current Warlords+BetterAI game. Instead, I see smarter play tied to existing bonuses or handicaps at all difficulty levels. In order for many posters in this thread's opinions to be correct, and Mutineer to be totally wrong, the AI will need to make tremendous progress in this area, which we all can agree will be very very difficult. Until we know things are headed conclusively towards this development, automatic criticism of Mutineer (who has played the BetterAI more or less successfully at the highest levels) is at best premature and at worst blindly dogmatic.

First, I apologise if some of what I'm about to say is reiterating what others have said (jkp1187, Quagga and Roland) but I felt I needed to chime in.

I think many people forget betterAI was only ever a work in progress. Sure some will enjoy the last version like I do, but there are definitely problems with it. But to say that these problems are because of Blake's incapacity or inability to understand the core game mechanics is ridiculous. The biggest problems were simply because it was unfinished.
I don't pretend to understand how difficult it is to make a mod, especially one involving AI changes, but I'm sure a pretty solid understanding of game mechanics etc. would be necessary. Besides, I reckon Blake would have felt like he let people down when he stopped working on betterAI. The loss of contact with Blake (presumably due to some confidentiality contract) was an unfortunate circumstance of him joining the BtS team, but I believe it is unfair, or perhaps just misguided, to criticize his product (betterAI) when he himself was not yet satisfied with it.

@Zoolooman, commenting on one of the intermediate versions of betterAI is fairly pointless. The 52 skirmisher issue was fixed AFAIK. It's unfortunate you haven't played the latest build - that's the only one I use now.

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Of course the AI in BtS is not going to be the last version of the betterAI mod. I presume Blake and others have had several months to program it, and the testers are paid professionals this time (I don't mean to insult the CFC testers of betterAI). This time the AI will actually be finished ie. more polished, unlike betterAI, and if there are serious or obvious problems they'll be fixed with the (inevitable) patch.

I find it ironic, personally, that some are so worried about what effect Blake's AI changes will have on BtS, while my decision to buy BtS will probably be largely due to the fact Blake is now part of the development team.

having been part of that deity acid04 SG, I want to make a few comments.

1. Why do some CIV fans condemn anyone who dares to question the game? Are you guys so insecure about the game? Mutineer's English might not be the best (and sometimes it is a tad difficult to grasp), but that does not warrant personal insults.

2. Muti is a very good player and his ideas and comments were always valuable in the SG's I played with him. In fact during the acid games I learned a lot about CIV. So much so, that I found the game utterly static and unfun. Human's are forced into a 'preset' pattern of play. Game mechanics nerf any sort of 'smart' strategy, Blake's unfinished AI made that even worse. I don't find it fun to be forced to play that way. It might be better for overall balance, but I damn balance, if I can't have fun.

3. We don't know the status of Blake's AI for BTS. We can only hope that there are testers good enough to really test it. And that is something I doubt simply due to past experiences. I am sure Firaxis is very busy churning out a lot of goodies etc. , less playtesting though.
Just look at what happened to vanilla and warlords. Both stopped at certain patches and nobody there bothered to maybe give us proper patches. Firaxis needs the money from BTS. It's all about business, isn't it?

Another point, partly in response to sunrise089.

The AI doesn't know anything technically (with no intention to insult, but rather so I can explain my point). It doesn't know how to exploit its bonuses. If it appears to do that, then it's a consequence of the changes that otherwise make the AI more competitive. For example, suppose you tell an AI that every city should be defended with no less than 5 units, and those units get built very quickly due to its handicaps. This is not the AI exploiting its advantage. It's simply a handicap giving the wrong sort of advantage to the AI. Would you suggest the AI somehow do something deliberately to make itself less efficient while building those units, just so it doesn't appear to be using its handicap? I doubt it. However, I completely agree that it is not fun to see an AI "appear" to exploit its handicaps so blatantly. The classic example is the ridiculously cheap upgrades. I don't think many people would argue for the AI "exploiting" its bonuses at all. But as long as there are handicaps at all, there'll be this problem to some degree. And clearly it bothers some more than others.

By the way, sunrise089, I think your argument is very sound and for the most part I agree with you. The obvious exception being your different interpretation of what I described above.

And certainly, Mutineer's command of English is irrelevant to the validity and strength of his arguments. I think the contentious discussion he has brought about is very valuable.

Well, lets discuss why we wont AI to improve and how define AI to be improved.

Just for example, lets look on city grow, slavery and draft.
How AI work with it now?

Well, AI very rarelly used slavery and I do not know does it used draft at all or not. AI is not veyr good in deciding which ties to work and/or improve.
Insted he has follow bonuses:

1) Bonus to population grow. Most people are not aware about it, but this bonus is huge and let AI grow coties to max happiness very fast.
2) Bonus to happiness. On levels > noble AI has more happiness then HUman, in addition AI practically does not suffer from WW.

As result AI can produce more with out using slavery and draft. Good use of slavery and draft just let human to compencate for AI bonuses.

Now, what happened if city governor become better in assigning ties, improving them, better in building improvements?

AI cities start to grow even faster and bigger. Now to compensate we reduce grow bonus a bit.

Question, did AI become better?
Answer, very little. Players mostly will not notice diference. Most important, it would not open new options for a player. Simply because it does not matter to player why AI cities grow that fast and that big. What is matter is: Did it open a new way to player to effect grow? Did it give player a new options to effect AI?

Answer is: not at all. AI will still grow to max happiness or food limit very fast, making pillage farm to have the same effect on AI production = very little. Untill you make city starving pillage fars does not effect AI production at all. You really need to pillage a lot of improvements befor city will be visible effected. WW still would not effect cities. Player still restricted to the same tactics.
in early middle game player city can be crippled production wize by pillaging 2 food resources. Player get it's production from small cities, limited by low happiness and high War wareness. AI useally does not even work food resources at that moment. It most lickly run uptimise shields and one does not need that big food excess for that. pilaging couple food resource will low AI production very little.

A lot of thinks is civ are interlinked, it is dificult to decribe. Mach of AI behavious just emulate pressure and behaviour human player has.

AI programmed to ask for peace after some time. This emulate human player need for peace because WW killing him. One of "Better AI" "improwements" were to let AI to contimue war longer. But AI has a lot of bonuses to WW, so it has no natural mechanism that could force it to seek peace.

I can continue to discuss AI behavior as attempt to do it like human player why do not have problems human player forced on him for ever.

My main point is, I am trying to define, what is a better AI.

AI is better if it give players more options and they preferably are the same as when he is playing competent human opponent.
If AI reducing player options, by hiding money, producing so many units that player simple can not hope to compeate with AI maintance bonuses, et.
AI is actially worse, even if it beat human player more easy and with less bonuses.

Lets see what happened if we teach AI to use slavery, for example. WE open a whole can of worms.
First, slavery multiply AI bonuses and AI city grow bonuses are huge. I do not remember execly, but they are easy hit 50%.
then there are AI production bonuses, and whith slavery they now multiply.

so, if human can get 2 shields/food, AI get 2* 2*1.2 ~5 shields/food on some middle monarch/emperor level. OK we should reduce grow bonuses. but thinks do not finish here.
Now AI can react on invasion the same way as competent human player would. It can whipe defence/turn untill his city is size 1 or he produced enoght defenders. So, now human has to bring
useal amount of units + 2* number of units AI will whipe + 2* number of units AI can whipe in near by cities.
So, should we reduce player upkeep cost so he can have that many units? and then we will run in other problems, like is it fun?
Is now a decisive war posible at all? Is it fun when borders do not move most of the game?


There is other aspect fo this: How mach AI should emulate human player from point of view of game enjoyment?
When playing human player task often is not to beat player and take all his cities. That tend to be tooo expencive.
I single players war are profitable, in multiplayer they are not. In multiplayer again competent opponent war is a way to slow him down, not to profit from it.
Point is generally to make other players to see that he is lost, that he only wasting time now. AI does not care about wasting time.


I want to add, some people put strange questions, like if I propouse to keep old AI, stale development. I AM NOT.
I am only trying to discuss what is a meaning of "BETTER AI", what we wont from it.

And yes, I do want to point out that in my expirience Blake did not consider this questions when he work on it as an open project.
Attempt to raise this questions in his development treat meat with very defencive and agressive responce, mach like many posts there.

AI is better if it give players more options and they preferably are the same as when he is playing competent human opponent.

Are you saying that when someone plays multiplayer against competent opponents, he has more options than in SP?

If so, can you give a couple examples?

I understand everything you wrote. You clearly know the game very well, and your concerns seem valid to me. But Blake has professionals on his side now, and much more time and resources. The AI may well fall short of your expectations, but I don't expect it to be worse than 2.08 or Blake's last build.

My personal worry is that Firaxis will take Blake's knowledge of how to program a good AI and do the wrong stuff with it.

We at CFC needed to smack Blake around a bit, but we eventually made him realize that with the smarter AI there needed to be toning down of the AI's existing advantages. Less handicaps, and less anti-human bias.

Okay, so, it's confirmed that that first change is going to be in BtS. What about that second one? Will the BTS AI treat the human player the same way it treats the other AIs (which is how it is in Blake's mod and how it should be), or will the BTS AI pick on the human player and be nicer to the other AIs, which is how it is in vanilla and 2.08?

I don't trust Firaxis here. Sid Meier's always made the AI discriminatory in his games. This idea of having the AIs treat other AIs just the same as humans has been around for a long time, but near as I can tell Blake was the first person to actually implement it. He better as hell not be the last, that's what I'm saying.

It would suck ballsack if the AI still discriminated against humans, and had the intelligence Blake is capable of giving it to back that behavior up.

Are you saying that when someone plays multiplayer against competent opponents, he has more options than in SP?

If so, can you give a couple examples?

Yes, human has.

War wareness is one of examples. Im MP if you trap your opponent army on your land and destroy it, player more or less forced to seek peace, otherwize he suffer war wariness for nothing or you can use it as way to get ahead of him with out using mach resources.

Pillage of food resources is an other. Quick raid to pillage 1-2 food resources cripples human opponent ability to whip army early on and drastically reduce his production. Just prevent him from improving them and you forcing him to whip his low population to remove your blockers. Pillage AI food has Mach smaller effect.

On other hand many of diplomatic options player has againt AI can not be used again human player, he generally mach less stuped. There is a real reason why MP mostly played with no Tech trade. Still, even diplomatically
IN MP one can achieve a lot, if one undestand well trade ballance and power ballance.

I think many people forget betterAI was only ever a work in progress. Sure some will enjoy the last version like I do, but there are definitely problems with it. But to say that these problems are because of Blake's incapacity or inability to understand the core game mechanics is ridiculous. The biggest problems were simply because it was unfinished.
I don't pretend to understand how difficult it is to make a mod, especially one involving AI changes, but I'm sure a pretty solid understanding of game mechanics etc. would be necessary. Besides, I reckon Blake would have felt like he let people down when he stopped working on betterAI. The loss of contact with Blake (presumably due to some confidentiality contract) was an unfortunate circumstance of him joining the BtS team, but I believe it is unfair, or perhaps just misguided, to criticize his product (betterAI) when he himself was not yet satisfied with it.
+1


If there is one thing I want to say, it's this.

I do not act without all due consideration. If people needed to complain a lot before I made a change, that is because I would not make the decision lightly without at least attempting to evaluate the ramifications. My philosophy is more of one of cautiousness than stubbornness.
I would also like to point out that complaining something is broken is not the same as providing a solution. This is broken. Yes I know it's broken. But it's going to stay broken until someone (probably me) comes up with a satisfactory solution, I'm not going to make some random half-arsed change just to appease those who complain it's broken. Related to this is that certain changes were made, with the full awareness that they would or at least may break the game and that future changes would be needed to return it to a state of balance. This comes back to cautiousness, I needed to convince myself that I was prepared to deal with the consequence cascade before I started the cascade. The too many defenders debacle was an excellent example of this - I knew without doubt when I started that that it would cascade into a cycle of various states of brokenness, but that I'd also eventually stabilize it and have an AI which plays an improved defensive and offensive game. I am completely aware that I am not an omniscient being and that there are limits to my cognitive abilities, limits which must be worked within when possible (not breaking stuff) and around when necessary (being prepared to fix what breaks).

I hope I have explained what my design philosophy actually is.

I'm trying to understand the original post, and not succeeding. And, no, I'm not referring to English proficiency.

Concern about changes to the AI, which would affect the entire game, I can see. Whether or not that concern is valid... I think Blake's post covers that issue fairly well. I personally feel Blake has done wonderful work with the AI and look forward to many hours facing it in BtS.

Now, concern about the Fall from Heaven scenario being in the expansion... what?! Your criticism of specific design choices for FfH II would belong nicely in the FfH II forum (the balance thread, in particular), but what does that have to do with BtS? Kael already said that Firaxis rejected his Golden Girls civilization, so worries that his 'misunderstanding' of Civ IV game mechanics will destroy BtS are invalid.

Seriously, though, why are taking specific examples of game mechanics from an incomplete mod to Civ IV when discussing concerns about the expansion. Game mechanics in FfH II have nothing to do with the BtS epic game. Also, you do realize that FfH II is only in the second of 4 pre-release phases, right? Mechanics in that mod change all the time and it'll continue to be that way until it is complete.

So, again, I try to figure out what the point of the original post is. And after typing, deleting, and re-typing, I'm at a loss. I shouldn't have bothered to respond, I suppose, but I felt it necessary since it seems your post can simply amount to: you don't like Kael's and Blake's work. My response: you are in the minority.

Zoolooman, to answer your question to me, I will simply quote your entire post, boldfacing the particularly relevant sentence. It accepts as its basic premise the notion that because Blake's original work (which never even reached version "1.0",) had some flaws in it, you are therefore skeptical of anything that he will produce in future.

Mutineer's points are excellent, and I think it's worth discussing these problems before the expansion is released.

I followed Blake's AI closely. In the beginning, it improved city placement, city specialization, and AI military behavior. These improved the AI's competitiveness while maintaining the AI's fun-oriented behavior.

But with time, Blake began to make some changes with no regard to the AI's intrinsic advantages--and only after massive complaining did he even introduce the first (and only?) altered AI handicap file. I remember playing a Better AI version where Blake introduced the AI's new military defense logic. In my first game with it, Mansa Munsa produced 52 skirmishers to defend four cities and built almost no infrastructure. Whenever he felt I was producing enough forces to endanger him, he produced more defense, and so my army was always dwarfed by his massive defensive forces.

At first I didn't mind. I expected that this huge defensive investment would cripple Mansa, but lo and behold, Mansa was still rich! He had almost no upkeep costs and could afford to build all these units while nearly matching my research speed (thanks to more AI advantages!). When he hit Feudalism, he upgraded all 50+ skirmishers to longbows in one turn, and at that point, I decided that I would rather play Warlords 2.08.

It's that type of experience that makes me wary of Blake's contributions. One should prevent the AI from doing something stupid, but one shouldn't make the AI so effective that it abuses its own cheats like a player would--if those cheats were available to the player.

I am always glad to see "The God of Civ" post. Thanks for the interesting thoughts Mutineer.

If there is one thing I want to say, it's this.

You're alive! Then perhaps you'd like to request a skip in RBW2?

^-- :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Zoolooman, to answer your question to me, I will simply quote your entire post, boldfacing the particularly relevant sentence. It accepts as its basic premise the notion that because Blake's original work (which never even reached version "1.0",) had some flaws in it, you are therefore skeptical of anything that he will produce in future.

I disagree, and I think it's unfair to paint my position as mere blind skepticism. The basic premise is that his design choices reflected an intent to reduce the effectiveness of popular human strategies. Because I saw that intention in the past, I was wary of its return in the future.

"Was" is the operative word, since Blake graciously explained himself in this thread. And though his post was understandably defensive, it gives me the sense that he won't rest until any issues are resolved. But I think that feeling is neither here nor there, as far as we're concerned.

Taking a page from Mutineer, I think this thread should focus on the subtle balance that must be restored once a stupid AI begins to use "human" strategies as a human would. And to facilitate that discussion, people (not including you jkp) need to stop pretending that Mutineer's posts are incomprehensible. The man speaks understandable English and has a great grasp of the issues. Give him his due.

I favor the changes that Blake is making to Civ for two reasons

1. I have memorized the AI- it is stale, I know what the AI will do in almost all circumstances, there are no surprises. Anything that changes AI behavior is refreshing.

2. I would prefer that the AI play like a human, Blake's AI comes closer to this than any other Civ incarnation.

So your opinion on warlords 2.08 was another opinion most people disagreed with :) I don't even understand how you couldn't see the difference, but anyway.


No, it's not an opinion that I didn't see such a difference to make me change the difficulty level, it is a matter of fact.

1. I have memorized the AI- it is stale, I know what the AI will do in almost all circumstances, there are no surprises. Anything that changes AI behavior is refreshing.

No project will ever be able to change this. What the AI does is already written, so once you learn how whatever mod changed what, you will be at a point where you will know what the AI will do in almost all circumstances, yet again.

2. I would prefer that the AI play like a human, Blake's AI comes closer to this than any other Civ incarnation.

The AI will never play like a human. That's why it is an AI. A human can just take some senseless decision, or it can overlook something and take a wrong decision, a human can be unpredictable, an AI can't, see point #1 why.
And to answer someone's else question, this is why a MP game offers many more possibilities than a SP game.

No project will ever be able to change this. What the AI does is already written, so once you learn how whatever mod changed what, you will be at a point where you will know what the AI will do in almost all circumstances, yet again.Of course it can, by changing the AI you provide a new set of AI behaviors to learn that are different from the last, so it splashes fresh water on the game so to speak

The AI will never play like a human. That's why it is an AI. A human can just take some senseless decision, or it can overlook something and take a wrong decision, a human can be unpredictable, an AI can't, see point #1 why.
And to answer someone's else question, this is why a MP game offers many more possibilities than a SP game.I want the AI to play competently, intelligently and pursue victory (like a human). Blake's AI does this better than any other option.

Finally consider this-
"Does there appear to be an active agent against whom you compete? If the answer is no, then I call the activity in question a puzzle; otherwise, it's a conflict. Most of the simpler videogames appear initially to be games, but after some amount of use, the player recognizes the algorithms at work and the activity becomes a puzzle rather than a game." - On Game Design by Chris Crawford