I still don't have the game just curious.

I remember Blake changed the behaviour of this setting in his mod for Warlords from 'making the human civs extra hated by ai civs' to 'making ai civs more warlike'.
Do the option works this way in BTS too or works like in standard vanilla/warlords?

Here's Blake's commentary about default AI vs Aggressive AI on BtS on realms beyond at this thread (http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2337&page=1&pp=10)
(http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2337&page=1&pp=10)
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost.php?p=24977&postcount=16



1) You do need to pick an appropriate difficulty level. Monarch is easy for any experienced player, I would say unlosable. Or it was unlosable in Warlords (pre-2.08 ) anyway.
2) If you're going to rush, have the courtesy of letting the AI know by turning on Aggressive AI. Be a wolf amongst the lambs if you want, but it's fairer to be a wolf amongst wolves.

Because Aggressive AI does not so easily fall victim to trivial rushes, it does play significantly harder - or at least, promotes a balanced game.

(As for why this is: There was way too much whining about the AI training too many units. So the default AI is pretty wussy, much like the default player. Aggressive AI embraces unit spam in all it's glory).

I would have liked to remove the Aggressive AI setting and replace it with Peaceful AI setting, making aggressive AI the default and making it clear what the suboptimal setting (for challenge) is, but that wasn't high on my list of things to get changed...

edit:
So to just spell it out.
Non-aggressive AI is non-competitive. It's what players wanted.


http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost.php?p=24979&postcount=18


To further explain AI military behavior.

A naturally militaristic AI like Alexander or Monty will still make a respectable military effort under normal settings, in AI vs AI wars, it's all relative anyway. Some AI's have to be bad at defense, so others can invade them. In BTS the AI are far less "samey" in their strategy - in short they can pursue goals, but obviously in min-maxing their metagame they sometimes make themselves extra vulnerable to be invaded, it's the price of not being samey/predictable.

Aggressive AI no longer causes the AI to have a relationship penalty with humans. Basically it can be said that the AI expects things to get aggressive. The pacifist AI's aren't actually that much more likely to declare war, they just keep larger armies on hand as to not be easy victims. The naturally militaristic AI's go crazy. In any case if you neglect your army, any AI will notice and with it's larger power will be more likely to declare war and come for you. It is more likely you'll get declared upon, especially if you don't change your playstyle...


The default AI is a bit of a sandbox, you can employ the strategy you want and the AI may interfere with your plans... but on Aggressive AI, the AI can DICTATE your strategy! If Alexander is going to invade you, then you damn well prepare an army or you're going to taken out of the game! Even with the best prepeardedness if you fail to avoid a dogpile you're probably a goner.

On the normal setting, you just play, it's casual.
On aggressive AI, you adapt, it's hardcore.

there are A LOT of wars between AIs. i say it's working as advertised.

Imo it's changed.

I've found if you start without the aggressive AI turned on, it's possible to steam roll at least 3 civs in pretty quick succession in BTS. It's not unusual to find a city undefended or poorly defended whilst they're building wonders et al. However, with A AI turned on, the AI will focus on it's military from the outset, thus making it a more formidable foe.

In past games the AI, without Aggression turned on, would spam their cities with defenders regardless. like I said, on normal mode the AI now focuses on buildings and such like.

If you're wanting a a half decent AI, then I suggest you now start with them being aggressive. I think the default mode is now for builders and such as it gives no challenge whatsoever to the warmongers amongst us and it's a pretty cheap shot doing so.

I reckon its alot more peaceful than the last version of BetterAI, and there is also considerably less unit spam.

I cant remember what the default Warlords AI was like.

EDIT: Never mind, already posted.

They use some pretty big SODs with the aggresive AI. Looking at the AIs financial advisor I can see paying 100 GPT for an army is no problem for them. I rarely saw any of them not paying anything on unit maintence each time I checked.

This is the new 'default' setting according to Blake himself if you want to be challenged. The AI will play more like a player and force you to adapt. You should play under 'agressive AI' setting if you don't want a sandbox (and you're not afraid to loose sometimes ;).

Blake explained that most people preferred to win all the time, which I think is true, since you can read everywhere even here people complaining about the AI (or reloading) when they lose, or boasting about their victories, so the sandbox mode is the default one.

"there are A LOT of wars between AIs. i say it's working as advertised."

That is very good news to me, as I always thought that prior version where AI vs AI wars were too rare.

The AI seems to produce more units.