This threads purpose is to find better values for the various tags in the leaderhead.xml in Planetfall to give the leaders more personality. Of course the bahaviour of the orginal SMAC is the first source, but I think it might be worth to look beyond that, if we can improve balance, atmoshere, AI quality or just make use of new options Civ4 offers.

The first part is a kind of guide to explain what each value means - it's no complete, especially the second part about attitudes and diplomatic behaviour relies on some guesswork.


Part One of the XML-values: Basic Attitude, War behaviour, (Tech) Trading, Wonders, Espionage


<iWonderConstructRand>0</iWonderConstructRand>
---> Likelihood to initiate a wonder
+ LOUIS XIV.: 50
- MONTEZUMA, SITTING BULL: 0


<iBaseAttitude>0</iBaseAttitude>
---> General basic attitude towards other civs
+ GANDHI and ZARA YAQOB: 2
- many other (mainly the Warmongers): -1


<iBasePeaceWeight>0</iBasePeaceWeight>
---> How much value has peace for a civ?
+ GANDHI: 10
- BRENNUS,DE GAULLE,GENGHIS,NAPOLEON,... 0


<iPeaceWeightRand>0</iPeaceWeightRand>
---> some random number between 0 and this is added to the above
+/- FOR ALL LEADERS: 3


<iWarmongerRespect>0</iWarmongerRespect>
---> The higher the number, the better a civ gets along with other warmongers
+ many of the warlike leaders: 2
- the pacifists: 0


<iEspionageWeight>0</iEspionageWeight>
--> (unsure) might be the “value” of espionage yields compared to other things like profuction, commerce, etc.
+ STALIN: 150; CATHERINE,MAO: 130
- GANDHI: 50; MANSA,TOKU: 60


<iRefuseToTalkWarThreshold>0</iRefuseToTalkWarThreshold>
---> How long does the AI refuse talking after going to war? Doubled, if the AI started the war
+ SITTING BULL: 12
- DE GAULLE: 5


<iNoTechTradeThreshold>0</iNoTechTradeThreshold>
--> (unsure) likely % of all civs which must know a tech, that an AI is willing to trade this tech
+ TOKU 100
- MANSA 0


<iTechTradeKnownPercent>0</iTechTradeKnownPercent>
--> max. no. of tech trades in an entire game an AI leader will do with another leader before thinking that he/she becomes too advanced…
+ MANSA 20
- ALEXANDER, BISMARCK, BRENNUS, GENGHIS, HUAYNA, ISABELLA and others: 5


<iMaxGoldTradePercent>0</iMaxGoldTradePercent>
---> % of the total Gold in Treasury available for Trading/Diplomacy
+ LOUIS XIV: 30
- around 1/2 of the leaders: 5


<iMaxGoldPerTurnTradePercent>0</iMaxGoldPerTurnTradePercent>
---> % of the total GPT available for Trading/Diplomacy
+ LINCOLN, PACAL, SURYAVARMAN: 15
- all others: 10


<iMaxWarRand>0</iMaxWarRand>
---> 1 out of [number] chance per turn, that an AI starts to plan a war
+ MANSA MUSA, GANDHI: 400
- BOUDICA, GENGHIS, MONTEZUMA, RAGNAR, SHAKA: 50


<iMaxWarNearbyPowerRatio>0</iMaxWarNearbyPowerRatio>
---> Only if total war and nearby target: AI multiplies its own strength with [number]% to compare with possible targets
+ ISABELLA, MONTEZUMA, SITTING BULL: 130
- DE GAULLE, ELISABETH: 80


<iMaxWarDistantPowerRatio>0</iMaxWarDistantPowerRatio>
---> as above, but for non-nearby targets
+ ISABELLA, NAPOLEON: 100
- SITTING BULL: 0


<iMaxWarMinAdjacentLandPercent>0</iMaxWarMinAdjacentLandPercent>
---> One of three checks happening to see if total war vs. nearby civ happens. % of AI tiles adjacent to a civ must be greater then [number] to consider the civ as a target
+ ELISABETH, SITTING BULL, TOKUGAWA: 4
- ALEXANDER, ASOKA, BISMARCK, BOUDICCA, BRENNUS, GENGHIS,...: 0


<iLimitedWarRand>0</iLimitedWarRand>
---> 1 out of [number] chance per turn, that an AI starts to plan a limited war
+ ELISABETH, GANDHI, HATSCHEPSUT, LINCOLN, MANSA, PERICLES,...: 200
- ALEXANDER, GENGHIS, MONTEZUMA, NAPOLEON, RAGNAR: 40


<iLimitedWarPowerRatio>0</iLimitedWarPowerRatio>
---> Only if limited war and nearby target: AI multiplies its own strength with [number]% to compare with possible targets
+ ALEX,GENGHIS,LOUIS,MONTEZUMA: 130
- GANDHI,JOAO,JUSTINIAN. .: 80


<iDogpileWarRand>0</iDogpileWarRand>
---> 1 out of [number] chance per turn, that an AI starts to plan a dogpile war
+ LINCOLN: 150 (many others without a clear pattern 100)
- DE GAULLE: 20 (many others without a clear pattern 25)


<iMakePeaceRand>0</iMakePeaceRand>
--> 1 out of [number] basic chance per turn, that AI considers to try to make peace with one of it enemies (many others factors involved in final decision)
+ SITTING BULL 120
- ASOKA,CATHERINE,DE GAULLE,ELISABETH,GANDHI,LINCOLN.LOUIS,…: 10


<iDeclareWarTradeRand>0</iDeclareWarTradeRand>
--> 1 out of [number] chance per turn and other civ they have contact with, that the AI tries to bribe them into on of their wars (likely affecting only other AIs as potential war allies)
+ PACAL: 60 (a bit strange?)
- all others: 40


<iDemandRebukedSneakProb>0</iDemandRebukedSneakProb>
--> %chance that an AI demanding something from someone else without success will plan a later executed war on the rejector (100=DoW for sure!)
+ WASHINGTON: 100; CATHERINE,RAGNAR: 80
- many of the more peaceful leaders: 0


<iDemandRebukedWarProb>0</iDemandRebukedWarProb>
--> same situation as in last tag, but this time %chance that war is declared immediately (not used in game)
+ GENGHIS,ROOSEVELT,SULEIMAN: 50
- many of the more peaceful leaders: 0


<iRazeCityProb>10</iRazeCityProb>
---> % after capturing a city that city will be razed (other factors might cause razing even if this is 0!))
+ GENGHIS: 75
- around 1/2 (pazifists): 0


<iBuildUnitProb>50</iBuildUnitProb>
---> Base chance that city chooses unit as build (further modified)
+ MEHMED,NAPOLEON,RAGNAR,SHAKA: 40
- GANDHI: 15


<iBaseAttackOddsChange>0</iBaseAttackOddsChange>
<iAttackOddsChangeRand>16</iAttackOddsChangeRand>
--> both seem to have an impact of how the AI overestimates battle odds and therefore its likelihood to attack. The first is a fix number, then two times a random number between 0 and [2.number] is drawn and added to 1). This value gets added to the battle odds(?)
+ NAPOLEON,RAGNAR: 4 (base)
- many others: 0 (base)
rand. value is 8 for all civs! (except barbs, from which I have copied the tags)

Part Two of the XML-values: Diplomatic actions and it consequences

This section contains several blocks of tags, each with many single ones:

1. Effect of diplomatic (shared peace, same religion) and physical status (military power, close borders) of a civ on the diplomacy with others
2. AI tresholds for certain diplomatic actions
3. Some flavour stuff (favourite civic, religion and traits, production flavours)
4. Determining how often an AI chooses a certain diplomatic proposal
5. Determining how much time must have passed at least before a certain diplomatic proposal is made again to the same civ
6. How long the AI remembers certain past events
7. How strong the diplomatic impact of certain actions on attitude is at all
8. How likely the AI is to declare war based on it's attitude
9. Again some flavour stuff (favourite AI unit stratgey and terrain improvement)

I won't go as much into detail as with the first part - on reason is that Maniac link basically does this a lot better then I would be able to for most parts; the other is that a few parts (including the ones where Maniac linked guide also does not provide clear information) remain unsolved.

I don't get for example the relation of the 6th and 7th section. Ok, the first is about forgeting...but not all actions are listed in both sections - does it mean that anything not in 6. is permanent? But then I don't understand why there are also ones which are only listed in 6., but not in 7. (e.g. MEMORY_RECEIVED_TECH_FROM_ANY, likey that thing with "You have traded with our worst enemy!")
Also, I wonder if the values given in 6. are an absolut number or a 1 out of X chance per turn (I'm pretty sure that it is the latter, but the guide says the opposite)

Then their is an inconsistency with how the tags are used for determing the effects of having the same or a different religion (1st section):

iSameReligionAttitudeChange - Modifier to the attitude of the leader towards any leader with the same religion. GS: 1


iSameReligionAttitudeDivisor - Modifier to the attitude of the leader towards any leader with the same religion. GS: 10


iSameReligionAttitudeChangeLimit - The maximum change in attitude (positive or negative) which can occur as an effect of iSameReligionAttitudeChange. GS: 2 - 7


iDifferentReligionAttitudeChange - Modifier to the attitude of the leader towards any leader with a different religion. GS: 0 - -2


iDifferentReligionAttitudeDivisor - Not known. GS: -5


iDifferentReligionAttitudeChangeLimit - The maximum change in attitude (positive or negative) which can occur as an effect of iDifferentReligionAttitudeChange. GS: -1

The red values just don't make sense for me, but I checked the XML files - it does not seem to be a typo error, that are the actual values used in the files.

One way find good values for all the tags might be answering questions about how leader X should behave regarding Y, as with this information it isn't hard to code the behaviour into the tags (though there is no need for everyone to answer every question in line; just use it as guideline in your descriptions, if you like and feel like it might help you to provide feedback) Here is my list of questions I have come up so far:


Economic

- Tech Trading ...how interested in acquiring new tech and how willing to share tech in return, especially a new, secret tech no one has yet?
- How interested is he/she in secret projects? Or is the entire concept of "secret projects" rather something the leader is against?
- Generally, how good have the relations to be that a leaders trades something (might be ressoruces, tech, map)? Are there any items the leader will trade even with a worde attitude or not even, when relations are better?
- Relationship to money - saving for domestic purposes or using it for diplomatic/trade activities?
- How important is espionage (think of military intelligence, security measures vs. sabotage and/or offensive action)?
- How much of the economic capacity is he/she willing to invest in military?
- Are there any specially flavors for the leader (attention: this might be one key to solving the excessive-far-problem for some of the AIs...it seems to be especially possible to set a special terrain improvemnt as favourite for a leader!)


War

- How aggressive would you rate him or her? And how does that aggressiveness show...a short-tempered character declaring war, when not getting what he/or she wants? Full blown campaigns for idiological reasons? Opportunistic behaviour and going for weak target already in war with third parties? If a war is lost, how strong is the seek for revenge?
- Or is, on the contrary, peace valued a lot?
- Will he/she fight for his own or make use of allies frequently? Are Defensive Pacts an important part of his/her military strategy?
- How confident is he/she about the power and skills of the factions military, how risky and unpredictable does he or she behaves when commanding on the field? (has to been been seen differntly for evaluating overall military size and power on the one hand and estimating odds in single battles)
- Is it likey that a leader commits atrocities (currently only burning down a base)?
- At which point the leader is willing to capitulate?


Diplomacy/Attitude

- How would you describe the general mood of a leader towards others? And is/he or she rather fixed here or behaves erratic (one game nice, next game aggressive etc.)?
- How good have the relations to be, that he/or she is willing to declare war on third party asked by someone else?
- How good have the relations to be, that he/or she is willing to stop trade asked on third party by someone else?
- How is his/her relation vs. other leader with either MORE or LESS power?
- How much does he/she cares about close borders (feels threatened, attitude drops) and how likely is this alone a reason for going to war?
- How much does he/she cares for others having the same religion? OTOH, is there any chance that the leader will adopt to someone elses religion?
- How much does he/she cares for others having the same political ideology? OTOH, is there any chance that the leader will adopt to someone elses ideology?
- How good/bad the attidtude to someone has to be that the leader treats him as friend or foe (giving help, helping in war, no extortition anymore, no attacks vs. the opposite)?
- How good have to be relations to make the leader think about becoming someone's vassal?
- How often does he/she contact someone else...and what will be offered, demanded, traded then mainly?
- How unforgiving or thankful is he/or she if it comes to forgetting past good or bad events and diplomatic happenings?



Eventually it would make sense to do this work leader by leader, so that as soon as enough data is collected for one leader we can mod him or her into Planetfall. This would likely also help to solve some mysterious tags as well, if we can see them in action in the game. Here are the 7 from SMAC which are currently needed in alphabetical order:

Deidre
Lal
Miriam
Morgan
Santiago
Yang
Zhakarov

Another reserved post...

Awesome thread!

I dug up some info which may be useful:

A link:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=274966

And an Excel file:

Awesome thread!

I dug up some info which may be useful:

A link:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=274966

And an Excel file:


Thanks for the links! :goodjob: The guide you found is a lot more complete then the ones I came up with (though there are still questions open and some strange values just don't seem to fit in its or my own explanations...). I will sum up the content for the second half a bit more, as the tags are more grouped here (for each diplomatic modifer or action, there are usually the same two or three).
The good news is that frequency and effect of each diplomatic action can be modded, the bad that some tags will require more testing to be sure how they work (because here is one of the areas, where Civ4 provides inbuild, but completely unused stuff)

The next step is to form a picture of each Planefall leader. I currently brainstorming here and I would appreciate feedback and ideas of others - just say how you would characterize a special leader. As said above, this can be different from the original SMAC. Look in third post for a plan of mine how to do this.


I will post my own thoughts on Deidre, the first leader on my list, soon.

One way find good values for all the tags might be answering questions about how leader X should behave regarding Y, as with this information it isn't hard to code the behaviour into the tags (though there is no need for everyone to answer every question in line; just use it as guideline in your descriptions, if you like and feel like it might help you to provide feedback)

Yeah, I wouldn't really know the answer to many of these questions, how I would like the leaders to behave. :scared:

All fourteen leaders will eventually be included btw. Cha Dawn/Aki probably as Gaian/University leaders.

- Tech Trading ...how interested in acquiring new tech and how willing to share tech in return, especially a new, secret tech no one has yet?

Regarding tech trading in general, I think all leaders should be equally willing to trade techs (or share open borders). By not trading techs or opening borders even with good friends, the AI just shoots itself in the foot. You can see this in unmodded Civ4 where Mansu Masu or whatshisname often performs well, not because his core AI code is different than the others, but simply because he's more willing to trade techs.
I would say though that perhaps the attitude before an AI is willing to trade with you/another AI should be higher than in unmodded Civ. Since, due to conflicting religions and favourite civic, it's very hard to get along with everybody, this would force you to pick sides for succesful gameplay.

- How interested is he/she in secret projects? Or is the entire concept of "secret projects" rather something the leader is against?

A problem here is that Planetfall doesn't have many secret projects yet. :mischief:
I think it's hard to say though whether or not leaders like to build secret projects in general. Rather it would depend on what the secret project does.

- Generally, how good have the relations to be that a leaders trades something (might be ressoruces, tech, map)? Are there any items the leader will trade even with a worde attitude or not even, when relations are better?

Same answer as with tech trading.

- Relationship to money - saving for domestic purposes or using it for diplomatic/trade activities?

If Morgan Industries was to be made in the Khazad of Planetfall, they would want to hoard money. Not really an opinion about the other leaders. :-s

- How important is espionage (think of military intelligence, security measures vs. sabotage and/or offensive action)?

Angels should favour espionage of course.
I should note her that I'm running around with the following idea: How much you've spent in comparison with your target on espionage, should not affect the mission cost. Instead mission cost is mostly determined by the culture of the target city.

So basically this would mean: Culture = defense against espionage; Espionage = for offensive missions

- How much of the economic capacity is he/she willing to invest in military?

Same as in SMAC I guess: the Hive, Spartans and Believers would be the major military spenders.

War

Morgan would be the most pacifist I guess. Sure, commies are bad for business, but so is war.
Miriam, Deirdre and Lal would be ideological warmongers, for respectively religion, ecology and democracy.
Spartans would be the most rational warmongers. The true realpolitikers. I guess the University would be too.
I guess Yang might not go into full-scale ideological wars, but he might just declare war on you because you've pissed him off, rejected one fof his demands. He demands full obedience after all.

Spartans and Hive (and to a lesser extent University and Morgan) seem like the most likely dogpilers. In other words, the non-ideological warmongers.

Besides dogpiling the weaklings, the Spartans would also oppose the strongest faction if they're not too much outclassed. They want to be top doggie after all. This is a difference with Yang. He would also opportunistically dogpile, but he's more an isolationist, and thus would be less interested in balance of power/countering the strongest.

Lal would always come to the defense of attacked weaker democratic powers. No wars unless they're sanctioned by the UN! Favours defensive pacts.

Gaians and Believers not as much as Lal, but they would also come to the defense of those who share their ideology.

Hive and Believers seem like they might take the most risks in combat. Spartans, despite being warmongers, would not take risks with their units - again, the most calculated warmongers.

Is it likey that a leader commits atrocities (currently only burning down a base)?

I'm not sure if I'm gonna keep base razing at all, so can't really answer that question. Again, base razing seems another one of those "shoot themselves in the foot" tactics.
There's also planet buster use. Yang seems most likely to use those.

- At which point the leader is willing to capitulate?

Morgan and Zakharov would be most willing. Research and commerce can continue even under vassalization. Yang might rather see the world burn around him than give up absolute power. For the others I guess it would depend if you share their religion/favourite civic. But in the end they might surrender to save their people from more suffering.

How is his/her relation vs. other leader with either MORE or LESS power?

Santiago might dislike you simply because you're more powerful. For the others ideology probably matters more.

- How much does he/she cares for others having the same religion? OTOH, is there any chance that the leader will adopt to someone elses religion?

Miriam and Deirdre would be the religious loonies. Others would be flexible in their religion. Wouldn't mind switching.

- How much does he/she cares for others having the same political ideology? OTOH, is there any chance that the leader will adopt to someone elses ideology?

Lal, Deirdre and Miriam would care the most.

Yeah, I wouldn't really know the answer to many of these questions, how I would like the leaders to behave. :scared:

As said, I didn't expected that. Your feedback was very helpful and since you gave it for all leaders at once, I realized that my per leader attempt would have probably failed anyway. Even with the BTS leaders as comparison line, the differences between BTS and Planetfall are too big and so is behavuour of the leaders. So I have used you feedback directly to find possible values for all leaders. I will post and Excel file and some explanations in the next post


All fourteen leaders will eventually be included btw. Cha Dawn/Aki probably as Gaian/University leaders.

I'm glad to hear that, but I think we can stick to the orignial seven for the moment. Getting them right is difficult enough, but if we suceed getting in the others will be even easier.


Regarding tech trading in general, I think all leaders should be equally willing to trade techs (or share open borders). By not trading techs or opening borders even with good friends, the AI just shoots itself in the foot. You can see this in unmodded Civ4 where Mansu Masu or whatshisname often performs well, not because his core AI code is different than the others, but simply because he's more willing to trade techs.
I would say though that perhaps the attitude before an AI is willing to trade with you/another AI should be higher than in unmodded Civ. Since, due to conflicting religions and favourite civic, it's very hard to get along with everybody, this would force you to pick sides for succesful gameplay.

Though my understanding is that "a better AI" is not achieved by having all AIs playing the same (leads often collective stupidity and boring games), "optimal" way, I understand your point. Tech trading might be just too powerful and important to cripple any AI here.


A problem here is that Planetfall doesn't have many secret projects yet. :mischief:
I think it's hard to say though whether or not leaders like to build secret projects in general. Rather it would depend on what the secret project does.

I have the same feeling. Nonetheless I think some slight differences could be fun - e.g. the University should be probably most mad about getting secret projects, while the Spartans could be more tempted to invest in units, to conquer other peoples secret projects...


If Morgan Industries was to be made in the Khazad of Planetfall, they would want to hoard money. Not really an opinion about the other leaders. :-s

I see it the opposite way - Morgan has a lot of money and it is his tool to manipulate the world. Trade is everything. Thats why I would give 30-50% of his money free for trade. Generally, I would up the percentagess a bit compared to BTS, where I always feel that the AIs have not enough money available for trade.


Angels should favour espionage of course.I should note her that I'm running around with the following idea: How much you've spent in comparison with your target on espionage, should not affect the mission cost. Instead mission cost is mostly determined by the culture of the target city.So basically this would mean: Culture = defense against espionage; Espionage = for offensive missions

Agreed, though I think Believers, Hive and Spartans should get a boost as well (because of the way in which they run their societies). University and Gaians are the underperformers here, IMO. That would be for the old model - if culture takes the defensive part, the penalties could be left out.


Same as in SMAC I guess: the Hive, Spartans and Believers would be the major military spenders.

Morgan would be the most pacifist I guess. Sure, commies are bad for business, but so is war.
Miriam, Deirdre and Lal would be ideological warmongers, for respectively religion, ecology and democracy.
Spartans would be the most rational warmongers. The true realpolitikers. I guess the University would be too.
I guess Yang might not go into full-scale ideological wars, but he might just declare war on you because you've pissed him off, rejected one fof his demands. He demands full obedience after all.

Spartans and Hive (and to a lesser extent University and Morgan) seem like the most likely dogpilers. In other words, the non-ideological warmongers.

Besides dogpiling the weaklings, the Spartans would also oppose the strongest faction if they're not too much outclassed. They want to be top doggie after all. This is a difference with Yang. He would also opportunistically dogpile, but he's more an isolationist, and thus would be less interested in balance of power/countering the strongest.

Lal would always come to the defense of attacked weaker democratic powers. No wars unless they're sanctioned by the UN! Favours defensive pacts.

Gaians and Believers not as much as Lal, but they would also come to the defense of those who share their ideology.

Hive and Believers seem like they might take the most risks in combat. Spartans, despite being warmongers, would not take risks with their units - again, the most calculated warmongers.

Sounds resonable. I first didn't liked Deidre as warmonger, but after thinking about it, it feels right - she was characterized as pacifist in SMAC, but in fact it played out as being at war with her all the time, if not running a Green Economy.


I'm not sure if I'm gonna keep base razing at all, so can't really answer that question. Again, base razing seems another one of those "shoot themselves in the foot" tactics. There's also planet buster use. Yang seems most likely to use those.

But only if the AI does it all the time...I think there are situations, where it makes sense. OTOH as you have decreased the destruction happening, when capturing a city, it might be not so wise in Plnetfall. Nonetheless I would preserve the option for flavour, but it should be tied to the Planet Charta or something similar then.


Morgan and Zakharov would be most willing. Research and commerce can continue even under vassalization. Yang might rather see the world burn around him than give up absolute power. For the others I guess it would depend if you share their religion/favourite civic. But in the end they might surrender to save their people from more suffering.

Santiago might dislike you simply because you're more powerful. For the others ideology probably matters more.

Miriam and Deirdre would be the religious loonies. Others would be flexible in their religion. Wouldn't mind switching.

Lal, Deirdre and Miriam would care the most.

I agree.

Attached is my first attempt of completely reworking the leaders - in theory (so I haven't started to change the leaderhead.xml yet). It's a file about the values of the BTS leaders in 3.13 and I have simply added the 7 from Planetfall underneath.

What I haven't touched so far are the flavour entries and the complete 5th and 6th section of Part II - I don't want to fiddle with the memories, as long as I don't really understand and I'm not sure if the the intervalls in which the AIs ask for something should be changed.

If the values are acceptable or after doing necessary corrections, I would be willing to code them into the leaderhead.xml as well.


Imporant changes:

- Clearer distinction between warmongers and pacifists (regarding respect, weight for peace)
- completely reworked likelihood for the different types of wars, e.g. the "fanatic" leaders will constantly seek for their ideological enemy, but don't have a lot of interest in dogpile wars any more
- more gold for trade (how much more depends on type leader)
- streamlined (tech) trading interest - no more "Tokugawas" and "Mansa", but overall better relations needed
- Leaders show more personality when demands are refused (will they go to war at all and how sneaky they will be?)
- Religion and Civics now matter for the leaders you would expect them to matter
- If leaders are opportunitic or fanatic should now affect their rection on diplomatic proposals more (e.g. when will they enter a war vs. a third person?)
- their active diplomacy should reflect their personality a lot more - expect tribute demands from the bad guys (and girls :lol: ), conversion attempts from religious leaders and so on
- also certain leaders now react stronger (both postive or negative) attitude wise, when you behave at their will or step on their toes regarding (for them) "touchy subjects"
- the important group of values for DoW of the AIs on certain relation levels (mainly known as what determines if civs can backstab at "Pleasent") has been reworked - the more a leader cares about your actions in an ideological way, the less he or she is willing to backstab. But watch out for the opportunist ones...

Though my understanding is that "a better AI" is not achieved by having all AIs playing the same (leads often collective stupidity and boring games), "optimal" way, I understand your point. Tech trading might be just too powerful and important to cripple any AI here.

I should note btw, as opposed to my earlier post, this does not count for Open Borders. The Autarky civic means not having open borders doesn't have to equal 'foot-shooting'. So Yang could be very hard to get open borders with, while Morgan and Lal would sign the agreement with everyone.

I have the same feeling. Nonetheless I think some slight differences could be fun - e.g. the University should be probably most mad about getting secret projects, while the Spartans could be more tempted to invest in units, to conquer other peoples secret projects...

Having looked at your Excel file, I'd suggest dropping Deirdre to 20, and raising Yang to 30 - he's an industrial type after all.

I see it the opposite way - Morgan has a lot of money and it is his tool to manipulate the world. Trade is everything. Thats why I would give 30-50% of his money free for trade. Generally, I would up the percentagess a bit compared to BTS, where I always feel that the AIs have not enough money available for trade.

I'll refrain from comment on Morgan until there's a more concrete image what gameplay benefits to give him.
I definitely agree the AI doesn't have enough money for trade. The basic problem here though is that they simply have little credits in their reserves, often less than 100. 50% of nothing is still nothing. So it would require some SDK work to get the AI to keep a larger credit reserve.

Agreed, though I think Believers, Hive and Spartans should get a boost as well (because of the way in which they run their societies). University and Gaians are the underperformers here, IMO. That would be for the old model - if culture takes the defensive part, the penalties could be left out.

With culture as espionage defense, it seems more fitting to me that the Believers would focus on culture, but not on espionage per se.

Nonetheless I would preserve the option for flavour, but it should be tied to the Planet Charta or something similar then.

Yeah, I was thinking you could only raze bases (and build planet busters) if you haven't signed the UN Charter (I could make that a seperate 'civic' category). I could also give some advantages to certain leaders for base razing. Eg the Pirates get much more money from it, and if Cha Dawn did it the Flowering Counter would increase.

I'd like base razing to take several turns though (depending on population size). Otherwise a single mistake has too high consequences, and combat will be too focused on base defenses.

What I haven't touched so far are the flavour entries and the complete 5th and 6th section of Part II - I don't want to fiddle with the memories, as long as I don't really understand and I'm not sure if the the intervalls in which the AIs ask for something should be changed.

Yeah, regarding AIs asking for something... I'm thinking refusing such a demand should not carry any negative consequences. For three reasons:
1) AIs never make each other such demands, so it ends up merely being a general diplo penalty for the human player.
2) That may just be my personal experience, but I never give in to such demands anyway. They just annoy me.
3) Instead of giving a penalty for for instance refusing to change religions, you could simply give the leader a higher penalty for not having the same state religion. Same effect in the long term.

While those demands annoy me, others would probably prefer to keep them - even if they didn't have any diplomatic effect - for the chance to show off SMAC's diplomatic flavour dialogue.

If the values are acceptable or after doing necessary corrections, I would be willing to code them into the leaderhead.xml as well.

The effects of AI changes can never by fully predicted, so I'd put them in the XML and then see if they work out as intended!

Here are some comments on what you have already written in the Excel file:

iBaseAttitude: I'm wondering if - like tech trading - this isn't one of the cases where everyone should have the same value??

iBuildUnitProb: perhaps drop the values here a little?? I mean, in unmodded Civ there are only a handful who have value 40, but in your Excel there are no less than three of the seven! In my observation, the AI often builds many military units already - they just don't do anything with them...

iBetterRankDifferenceAttitudeChange: I assume this value affects relation towards players weaker than the leader in question. I noticed you gave Santiago a -1 here. I'm rather thinking that Santiago would not look automatically have worse relations with weaker players. It's just, she would be more likely to declare war on weak players, regardless of how she likes them. ,)

I'll refrain from comment on Morgan until there's a more concrete image what gameplay benefits to give him.
I definitely agree the AI doesn't have enough money for trade. The basic problem here though is that they simply have little credits in their reserves, often less than 100. 50% of nothing is still nothing. So it would require some SDK work to get the AI to keep a larger credit reserve.

My experience is different, especially for Planetfall - it is not so uncommon that the AIs have up to a few hundred credits for trading (what can mean up to several thousand in the treasury, if the trade percent is only 5% or 10% - which is the setting for most BTS leaders) However, it might be that my experience is cuased by playing on Emperor difficulty mainly - in normal BTS (where I play either Prince or Monarch), money is shorter - at least up to the industrial age, where the AIs treasuries seem to grow.


I'd like base razing to take several turns though (depending on population size). Otherwise a single mistake has too high consequences, and combat will be too focused on base defenses.

That sounds great. It reminds me a bit of the Age of Wonders series, where you have two options to get rid of a captured city - either plain destruction (always within 1 turn, but no plunder taken) or looting, which tooks one turn per city size (up to 4) and gives you Gold.


Yeah, regarding AIs asking for something... I'm thinking refusing such a demand should not carry any negative consequences. For three reasons:
1) AIs never make each other such demands, so it ends up merely being a general diplo penalty for the human player.
2) That may just be my personal experience, but I never give in to such demands anyway. They just annoy me.
3) Instead of giving a penalty for for instance refusing to change religions, you could simply give the leader a higher penalty for not having the same state religion. Same effect in the long term.

While those demands annoy me, others would probably prefer to keep them - even if they didn't have any diplomatic effect - for the chance to show off SMAC's diplomatic flavour dialogue.

Hmm, I'm not so clearly apposed against the AI demands. Surely, 1) annoys me to no end as welland sadly there seems to be no way to change this. For 2) - I actually give in to those demands occasionally, usually if I can afforf to do so and if keeping up relations with the demanding AI is important for me. 3) makes kind of sense and if also more "fair", because you get the effect everytime (and not as per turn chance of a demand)
I would keep them for flavour reasons, but then it's kind of strange that no effect is attached. What I have already done though (and what surely could be taken further), is reducing the negative reaction of some leaders - why not remove the negative reaction for all leaders, except the ones really mad about the item? This would mean in case of religion e.g. only Miriam and maybe Deidre would like you -1 less if you refuse, while you get away without penalty from the others.


iBaseAttitude: I'm wondering if - like tech trading - this isn't one of the cases where everyone should have the same value??

My intention was to make the warlike leaders are bit more angry in general, while e.g. Morgan mood would be rather positive vs. anyone in the beginning - everyone could be a trading partner. But it is not impossible that this causes strange sideeffects (e.g. the same to AI leaders never getting along with each other just because on is "angry" and the other "friendly")


iBuildUnitProb: perhaps drop the values here a little?? I mean, in unmodded Civ there are only a handful who have value 40, but in your Excel there are no less than three of the seven! In my observation, the AI often builds many military units already - they just don't do anything with them...

Thinking about it, you might be right that I have gone overboard with this.


iBetterRankDifferenceAttitudeChange: I assume this value affects relation towards players weaker than the leader in question. I noticed you gave Santiago a -1 here. I'm rather thinking that Santiago would not look automatically have worse relations with weaker players. It's just, she would be more likely to declare war on weak players, regardless of how she likes them. ,)

No, it's the exact opposite (I double-checked again) - the relation towards someone stronger. I gave the -1 because of your hint on Santiago challenging the top dog. Relations towards weaker leaders are determined by "iWorseRankDifferenceAttitudeChange".

But you are right; I have mixed up "worse relations" and "likely to dogpile" here (I attached even -3 for Santiago here). Probably no need to double-punish weaker factions here.

My experience is different, especially for Planetfall - it is not so uncommon that the AIs have up to a few hundred credits for trading

I was more thinking the AI should have like 1000 credits up for trade, when the techs being trades also start costing 1000s of beakers.

I would keep them for flavour reasons, but then it's kind of strange that no effect is attached.

Here's another alternative: the AI should actually *reward* you for following their suggestions. "If you switch to Voice of Planet, I will give you knowledge of Centauri Empathy."
Would require SDK modifications though.

Here's another alternative: the AI should actually *reward* you for following their suggestions. "If you switch to Voice of Planet, I will give you knowledge of Centauri Empathy."
Would require SDK modifications though.

Nice idea, I see only the problem of exploiting the AI here - what would happen if you switch to only reap the gift? It might work, if on the other hand the penalty for refusing is kept and if switching a way later would have serious negative consequences status wise (e.g. high penalty for just having a different religion; there is also a parameter, which regulates how fast the attitude drops for this - I think those "Divisor" thing, though there is that said anomaly with the different religion tags)



A suggestion - if you start to implement changes to the leaderheads and decide to use different values then the ones I suggested in my file, could you update it please?
Could be helpful for testing purposes, as then everyone can theorize about what could have caused behaviour X and where further improvemnts could be made eventually. Also, it is likely easier to maintain such a file then to build it up from scratch again, if one day the SMAX leaders get added and comparison values might be helpful.

Nice idea, I see only the problem of exploiting the AI here - what would happen if you switch to only reap the gift?

Switching civics or religion still costs you a turn of anarchy. So the trick is making the gift more or less the same value as a turn of anarchy costs you. That way it's still only a good idea to switch if the new civic/religion is better than your current one.

In fact, why not make it so that a leader does not give you any gifts, but that switching civics/religions on the request of a leader does not cost you a turn of anarchy? It would be much easier to code - no need to write an AI to judge the value of a gift.

A suggestion - if you start to implement changes to the leaderheads and decide to use different values then the ones I suggested in my file, could you update it please?

Sure. Just to be sure, does that mean you're not gonna put the values in XML?

In fact, why not make it so that a leader does not give you any gifts, but that switching civics/religions on the request of a leader does not cost you a turn of anarchy? It would be much easier to code - no need to write an AI to judge the value of a gift.

A very simple and elegant solution :goodjob: The anarchy is sometimes what makes me refuse a switch (only to delay it a few turns to be able to switch as second civic at once), so I think this would add to the decision. Moreover, switching out again would still cost you a turn anarchy.


Sure. Just to be sure, does that mean you're not gonna put the values in XML?

I originally planned to do so, but I thought you would prefer to do this yourself, when reading your reply to my values file. I would be still willing and able to take that job, just let me know if you wish any further corrections.

I also don't feel to comfortable with adding lines to the leaderhead.xml (the improvement weight entries at the end come to my mind, as they could help to make certain leaders go in the Terraform or Hybrid direction, but there are no entries in Planetfall leaderheads yet), so I would prefer to leave that part to you.

Here is the list of corrections I have made so far to my original file based on your feedback:

iWonderConstructRand

DEIDRE 20 (was 30)
YANG 30 (was 20)


iBaseAttitude

MORGAN 0 (had 2)
SANTIAGO 0 ( had -1)
YANG 0 (had -1)
ZHAK 0 (had 1)


iBuildUnitProb

DEIDRE 25 (was 30)
LAL 25 (was 30)
MIRIAM 25 (was 40)
MORGAN 15 (was 20)
SANTIAGO 30 (was 40)
YANG 30 (was 40)
ZHAKAROV 20 (was 30)


iWorseRankDifferenceAttitudeChange

MORGAN 0 (was -1)
SANTIAGO 0 (was -3)
YANG 0 (was -3)
ZHAK 0 (was -1)


iOpenBordersRefuseAttitudeThreshold

LAL furious (was annoyed)
MORGAN furious (was annoyed)
YANG cautious (was annoyed)

I originally planned to do so, but I thought you would prefer to do this yourself, when reading your reply to my values file. I would be still willing and able to take that job, just let me know if you wish any further corrections.

I'd very much appreciate it if you would put those values in the XML. :)
Then I can for instance spend time earlier to put the civic/religion switch idea in the SDK.

I also don't feel to comfortable with adding lines to the leaderhead.xml (the improvement weight entries at the end come to my mind, as they could help to make certain leaders go in the Terraform or Hybrid direction, but there are no entries in Planetfall leaderheads yet), so I would prefer to leave that part to you.

Yeah, no need to touch terrain improvement preferences.

I have completed editing the leaderheads.xml now. I have attached two versions of it - v1 is exactly what we have discussed so far, while v2 incorporates some changes I have made after doing some playtesting (a fun game - more AI wars based on ideology, building up good relations is more essentially now, leaders act differently in regard to what they demand and are willing to do, more trading possible) - some things just don't played out as intended (see explanation of changes below).

Attached is also again the table with both the v1 and the changes for v2 (red/green marked values).


Changed in v2

1. Everyone has 80% of Gold and GpT availabe for trade. The values in BTS are far too low for my taste and just doubling from 5 to 10 or ocassionally 20 just isn't enough. The idea behind those values is to avoid tech brokering and bankrupting the AI. But I don't think this is such a big issue, that all AIs should keep 70% to 95% of their Gold away from trading. They get a discount on unit upgrades, they don't give a lot of Gold for tech anyway and you can't trade in GpT for tech. 20% a reserve should be enough and the gains from additional tech trades should help them (money just cannot act as currency in Civ4, if there is not at least enough circulating to pay the beaker differences between techs)
I have choosed a flat value for the moment (also more fair because of the tech-trade impact); we can bring back individual differences anytime we are sure about how single leaders should behave in financial matters.

2. Some minor changes to impact of sharing favourite civic and same/different religion - if we think of religions in Planetfall in a broader sense("idealogies", "movements"), they should matter for most leaders (except maybe Santiago and Morgan). Even Yang and Zhakarov could be imagined as following religions liked Ascetic Virtues or the Consciouness. So I gave them slightly higher values. Lal on the other hand is more plotical focussed and could be imagined as rather tolerant towards other religions. I also came to the conclusion that both Deidre and Miriam need some emphasize on the right civics as well - they are the main ideological competitors regarding Hybrid/Terraformed and while both directions are attached to religions, they found on certain civics.

3. Lal and Morgan caring more for open Borders and/or Trade. I think it adds some spice and flavour to the usual mixture of civic and religion influence, if some leaders are especially interested in stable economic relations. For Lal it is also a way to fill that desire for Democracy with some more life.

4. Several changes were necessary in regard to the tresholds values for certain diplomatic actions of the AI. I missunderstood the impact of those tresholds first - I thought "PLEASED" would mean that a leader would be willing to do then something when his/her mood is pleased - but it means in fact that he/she needs to be "FRIENDLY" This lead to some too harsh restrictions.

5. I incorporated the spirit of the changes under 2) and 3) also into the contact chances and diplomatic penalties/boni for certain actions - especially the fanatic leaders show now more activity (demand tribute more often, which is however restricted by the changes under 4) to those who they don't like and both ask to change civics and religion more often). Yang can be now better appeased by meeting his demands and Morgan/Lal show their preference for free trade.


I recommend v2 of course, but if there is anything you don't like, I will change it back again :)


Note: XML-files have to be renamed (remove "-v1" or "-2") before use

Thanks - downloaded. I'll check i out!

Edit: This post has been thrown into the recycling tanks!

While playtesting the file I noticed also some things which I could not adress:

- While the combination of Voice of Planet and Terraformed isn't allowed, it is possible to run Edenism under Hybrid (especially an AI controlled Miriam is prone to do that in games she doesn't switch to Terraformed) - is that intended?

- I noticed that the religios flavour section in the leaderhead.xml isn't used for Planetfall yet. My suggestion would be to attach each religion to one leader (Morgan and Santiago left without a preference):

Deidre = VoP
Lal = Homo Superior
Miriam = Edenism
Yang = Ascetic Virtues
Zhak = The Consciousness

Jugding from what "favourite civic" does - a moderat leaning towards the civic - I think that would be interesting for religion as well. It adds to flavour (without fixing things completely), if a religious Yang or Zhakarov follow religions which fit their overall ideology. Also, the "Choose Religion" setting in the game setup would work then.

- Another limit is reached when it comes to modeling the effect of different or (better said) opposed civics - there is no such entry like we have it for religions. Planetfall has it for Hybrid/Terraformed, but SMAC went much further with that. It just does not feel right that Yang and Lal are best friends and that Morgan hardly cares about my Planned Economy. I tried to counter that to some extend by increasing the likelihood of civic switch demands and the attached penalties for refusing, but that of course only affects relations to the human player. I would suggest to add that kind of extra-tension also to pair likes Democracy/Police State and Planned/Free Market.

- That would be probably hardest to code...a thing I miss from SMAC is that AIs sometimes offered you a "compensation for your expenses" (credits, tech and/or an alliance), if you entered a war on their behave. I find myself declining most war requests in Civ4/Planetfall (except the ones from very good friends) comapred to SMAC, just because it is often not worth to declare war someone you have rather neutral relations with, if someone asked you with the same or only litter better relations - you lose more on one side (and probably third parties as "friends" as well) than what you get on the other. This would be much more interesting, if AIs demanding going to war - while having annoyed or cautious relations with me - would offer something. It would be also only fair, because the human player needs to pay the AI nearly always for going to war, even good friends (only exception seems to be if they were already at war with the target earlier)

Another problem I noticed is the overall AI leaning towards Democracy. Except Yang, who always chooses PS as soon as possible, hardly no one ever leaves Democracy for PS or Fundamentalism. Not sure if it is too good or if there are not enough outdrawn wars, but the effect is that everyone becomes Lal's friend and signs a DP with him. DPs further concrete peace and make Democracy even more likely. My current game is paralysed by not less then 7(!) DPs. I think at max. 2 or 3 are healthy for a 7 player game.

Not much can be done about the fanatic leaders, the have already "Pleased" as treshold for DPs. But the other 4 are still at "Cautious" and while that may be realistic and atmospheric for leaders being more realpolitikers, it hurts the game too much (at least until we get the SMAX factions; a 12 player game is less endagered to get paralysed, especially with the alien factions).

Eventually the values for war consideration need to go up as well, but I would wait with that until some others have reported their experiences.

IIRC (and someone will surely correct me if I'm wrong), the "favored religion" is mostly ignored in BTS- if you are playing with the unrestricted religion names then they will choose their favored name for the religion, but it has no other gameplay effect. They won't switch to that religion preferentially nor aim for the founding tech based on that preference.

I'm afraid I still haven't looked at your leaderhead XML itself. (I discovered a crash, the fixing of which got my priority)) But in the meanwhile some comments on what you wrote here:

- While the combination of Voice of Planet and Terraformed isn't allowed, it is possible to run Edenism under Hybrid (especially an AI controlled Miriam is prone to do that in games she doesn't switch to Terraformed) - is that intended?

Yeah, kinda. The Edenism religion can be interpreted in many ways. Either it's Christianity Miriam-style, or it could be the desire to turn Chiron into a paradise garden. I guess a paradise garden doesn't necessarily need to mean "completely anti-Planet, pure Terran", so I figured I'd leave the option open. When in doubt, give the player the most choice I guess.

- I noticed that the religios flavour section in the leaderhead.xml isn't used for Planetfall yet. My suggestion would be to attach each religion to one leader (Morgan and Santiago left without a preference):

What MadMan said. Plus 'Choose Religions' should never be used in Planetfall. Eg Voice of Planet being enabled by researching Terraforming is just silly.

For the record, the Spartans' natural religion would be Homo Superior. Of course they'd interpret the ideology a little different than the Peacekeepers...
- Another limit is reached when it comes to modeling the effect of different or (better said) opposed civics - there is no such entry like we have it for religions.

It's on the to-do list, but I probably won't get to it any time soon.

I tried to counter that to some extend by increasing the likelihood of civic switch demands and the attached penalties for refusing, but that of course only affects relations to the human player.

The penalties for refusing a civic/religion switch should be set to zero!!! See earlier discussion on removing anarchy for switching due to a leader demand.

- That would be probably hardest to code...a thing I miss from SMAC is that AIs sometimes offered you a "compensation for your expenses" (credits, tech and/or an alliance), if you entered a war on their behave.

I haven't delved into diplomatic AI at all - no idea if this would be possible.

Another problem I noticed is the overall AI leaning towards Democracy.

The Democratic civic is just very powerful - I also use it most of the time... (also have used Consensus before)
Ideas on how to make the civics in the line more balanced, are always welcome.

The penalties for refusing a civic/religion switch should be set to zero!!! See earlier discussion on removing anarchy for switching due to a leader demand.

Oh, sorry...I was just to busy with bringing everything in line with the current version and forgot that you were already about to change the demands.

I will change that and also the DP stuff I mentioned above and load it up as v3 then.


The Democratic civic is just very powerful - I also use it most of the time... (also have used Consensus before) Ideas on how to make the civics in the line more balanced, are always welcome

Hmm, I don't think cutting the GP bonus would be a good idea...25% e.g. would be just to little IMO to make a real difference for GP generation at all.
That leaves happiness for the biggest cities, which I think is the greater deal anyway. Reducing number of affected cities is likely out due map size issues, but cutting the boost to happiness to 1 could be an attempt to quick-fix the problem. Some other random ideas:
- add increased war weariness as penalty
- If we ever get a kind of U.N. charta, the civic could also force you to obey to it regardless if the council has abandonded it.
- Happiness penalties for certain buildings (Genworker Factory, Punishment Sphere)
- increased support/construction times for formers (represent labor unions)

I have a couple questions after looking at the Excel file:

iLimitedWarPowerRatio : what does this do? Your values are generally higher than those in vanilla.

iDeclareWarTradeRand: what does this do? In vanilla all are 40, except one (Pacal) is 60. In your v2, 5 of the 7 factions are 60.

iDemandRebukedSneakProb & iDemandRebukedWarProb : what is the difference between these?

I have a couple questions after looking at the Excel file:

iLimitedWarPowerRatio : what does this do? Your values are generally higher than those in vanilla.

It is a percentage value and describes the power relation between the AI having that value and a potential target for a limited (=tatical) war. It functions as a treshold, because a declaration of a limited war is only possible, if they the potential target is not stronger then iLimitedWarPowerRatio I choosed higher values to make the AI more aggressive (especially the ones who do not engange in full-scale wars do often)


iDeclareWarTradeRand: what does this do? In vanilla all are 40, except one (Pacal) is 60. In your v2, 5 of the 7 factions are 60.

Yeah, I stumbled about this one as well. First of all, I don't get the exception with Pacal. The guide you linked has an obvious error for this, as it said "Lower = more likely, lower = less likely". I think it's pretty sure that it is a 1/x-chance-per-turn-value and according to a guide, it determines how often one AI tries to bribe another AI (likelihood of requests to human player to become a war ally are handled later among the "contact rands") into an ongoing war.

Now that you say it, I see that I have done here the opposite of what I intended to do - higher values make bribes less likely instead of more likely (which I think would be better). I would now even suggest to put that at 20 - I don't think it will lead to a lot more wars, because there are enough brakes and retsrictions in leaderhead rules for Planetfall, which prevent too frequent and artifcial values. Thanks for spotting this one! :)


iDemandRebukedSneakProb & iDemandRebukedWarProb : what is the difference between these?

Both determine the reaction of AI, when a human player refuses a demand (I firmly believe that the terminus "demand" is here strictly used for tribute, at least thats what my playing experience clearly shows). Both are percentage value for a single RNG roll after a human refused tribute. Logically, iDemandRebukedWarProb must take place, as it determines the chance of an instant war declaration on the defying player. It that roll fails (or does not take place for some leaders), there is the a second roll (iDemandRebukedSneakProb), which determines if the AI starts planning a war vs. the defyer. I generally set lower values for the iDemandRebukedWarProb , as thats more prone to damage the AI - the low chances are just in for giving certain leaders personality and to keep that moment of uncertainty for the human player...you never now how some of them react. I removed that impulsive behaviour for the rational leaders, though.




Edit: I noticed that the civfanatics modiki now provides information about the leaderhead.xml as well: http://modiki.civfanatics.com/index.php/Civ4LeaderHeadInfos

Reading through it I spotted that iNoTechTradeThreshold probably works different then the guide I used suggested - it is not mood based, but refers to actually happened trades in the past:

iNoTechTradeThreshold An AI leader will stop trading a rival any
technology, if he realizes that the rival is becoming too advanced, and
this happens when the rival has received via trade a certain number of
technologies. This value sets the number of technologies.
(5 stops trading soon; 20 stops trading late (all 5 except Mansa Musa))

I set the value to 10 for all (which seemed to be a kind of low middleground), but maybe it needs adjustment, if playtests show that this hard limit effectively prevents tech trades in the late game.


The Modiki also states that values for iDemandRebukedWarProb are actually ignored in game...I'm not sure about this. I definetly remember some occasions, in which defying tribute lead to instant war (though this seems to happen more rarely than the actaul BTS values for the tag suggest - maybe other factors are still involved?)

I digged through some other threads, which were linked in responses to the guide you brought up - some things are just a lot more complex then expected. The entire war-declaration-procedure uses a lot of other varaibles which are outside the leaderhead. xml - e.g. it seems to play a huge role, if AIs have financial troubles (defined as not breaking even with max. 40% Gold from the slider) - this seems to prevant war declarations most of the time, but OTOH some leaders might be tempted to go to war because of this to fill their coffers by pillaging (sadly I didn't get yet what makes the difference between causing on or the other effect). BTW, are they AIs aware of the new stockpile process? It is nearly always a good idea to have it running in at least one city.
Also they might go to war just because they have gone overboard with unit bulding. That article also brought some light in to when the war/peace percentages attached to the relation levels come into play.

Even the tech trade limitations aren't that fix. The seem to get ignored if relations are
very good or in case of the counter for past tech trades, there is a decay function at work.

I also understand now the tags for different religion effects better - there naming seems to be correct, it is just that there is a hidden factor (you get an extra -1, if the AI has the Holy city of its religion) and that the main penalty is attched immediately and there is just one time another -1 after 5 turns.

--------------------

I have edited the changes towards the DP tresholds and the removal of penalties for refusing civic/religion demands:

I would now even suggest to put that at 20 - I don't think it will lead to a lot more wars, because there are enough brakes and retsrictions in leaderhead rules for Planetfall, which prevent too frequent and artifcial values.

Have you figured out why the AI seemed to declare less wars in Planetfall?

The Modiki also states that values for iDemandRebukedWarProb are actually ignored in game...I'm not sure about this. I definetly remember some occasions, in which defying tribute lead to instant war (though this seems to happen more rarely than the actaul BTS values for the tag suggest - maybe other factors are still involved?)

For the record, I can't remember EVER getting an instant war declaration because I refused some demand.

I have edited the changes towards the DP tresholds and the removal of penalties for refusing civic/religion demands:

Thanks!

For the record, I can't remember EVER getting an instant war declaration because I refused some demand.

It happened to me in a recent game, and I'm pretty sure it isn't something that was added by BetterAI. I think it is a possible but rare circumstance in BTS.

Have you figured out why the AI seemed to declare less wars in Planetfall?

Not yet. I did some further editing and testing after v3 mainly by increasing the war rands again. The problem is that all I cause with that is AIs going into war preperation state forever ("we have enough on our hands now"), but actually they never declare. Thats even worse, because then you (and other AIs as well) cannot even bribe them into wars.

Some theories what could be reasons (after lecture of this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=286180&page=2 ):

- Planetfall AIs seem to be often in great financial troubles. They build a lot units, which they pay support for and they neither seem to use the maintenance process nor do they consider a switch to Police State (ok, Emperor gives them discounts and free units...but it is not uncommon for me - if have the espionage means - that I see the AI running the Gold slider somewhere between 50 and 90% and not even break even with it). Financial problems of the AI can prevent war declarations:


A) 4. AI is in financial trouble when (Inflated Costs + foreign trade deficit) > 60% of (beakers per turn + taxes income + foreign trade surplus), threshold increases by additional +8% when aiming for cultural victory, +12% when at war or preparing one, +10% when researching Future Techs

1. An AI in financial trouble only opposes war if it is currently not using AI_STRATEGY_DAGGER and it isn't an aggressive raider who likes wars as a means to get money. Your understanding of the condition is correct -- the developers IMHO intended that an AI in financial trouble will still consider to start one of the 3 types of war (MaxWar, LimitedWar, DogpileWar) if its respective iWarRand is smaller than 100 (iMaxWarRand < 100 --> consider a MaxWar-Raid; iLimitedWarRand < 100 --> consider a LimitedWar-Raid; iDogpileWarRand < 100 --> consider a DogpileWar-Raid). However, as described in post#84, they made a slight mistake so that now the iMaxWarRand affects both the war check for MaxWars and LimitedWars. Since the number of leaders with iLimitedWarRand < 100 (20 leaders) is way bigger than the number of leaders with iMaxWarRand < 100 (6 = only Alex, Boudica, GKhan, Monty, Ragnar, Shaka) this bug decreases the likelihood of limited wars started by financially troubled civs.

Given war rands <100, AIs can behave the opposite way (declaring war for "raiding" and acquiring money), but I don't seem to get that working now.


- OTOH, it is beneficial for warmongering if they spend a lot of money on unit support (al long as they don't go broke of course!):

I think what this means is that when a high fraction of the AI's total expenses is due to its military units, but the AI is not in financial trouble at the same time, then the likelihood for preparing or starting a TOTAL_WAR will increase significantly (even more with Aggressive AI on).

Example:
iUnitSpendingPercent = 19%
iHighUnitSpendingPercent = 6%:
iWarRandThreshold = 4 (with AggAI 9)

RNG can roll [0,1,2,3,4] for a total war! That's 5 times the probability of the usually required RNG = 0 (which is still valid for limited and dogpile wars)!

Considering the large amounts of units the AI starts with at deity and the high discounts it gets for training more, this might explain parts of the often occurring DoWs. There should also be a peak after Courthouses (or earlier Ziggurats!) since this will quickly lower the maintenance costs for cities. Maybe selling resources to the neighbors or getting them to adopt expensive civics might help a little....if I understand all of this correctly.

IMO, that's even more of an argument to teach the AI using the maintenance process - as that would keep their unit spending up - the unit maintennace still has to be payed, there is just another source of income to cover it!


- There might a problem with the units the AIs build or with the strategies they attach to them - in BTS e.g., Saladin has a personality which severly hinders him in regard to offensive wars (Planetfall leaders have no favourite AI strategies set yet, but maybe setting something offensive her would help):

Sissy Sal:
Saladin has discarded his war plans (out of WHEOOH again) because he has assessed his offensive power not high enough after the (fixed!) turns of preparation.
If I understand it correctly the game mechanics for this assessment are rather funny as they only let Sal consider his offensive task force (= number of units with AI ATTACK, ATTACK_CITY and PILLAGE) in relation to the number and size of his cities. In contrast to his decision to start preparing for a war, this judgement is completely independent of your power and the strength of the units he has, so upgrading his Camels and Jumbos didn't help either. As part of his personality he also favors to build units with (the wrong) UNITAI_COUNTER (XML-value UnitAIWeightModifier) during times of peace. Together with his protective trait this turns him more into a strong defender than a real threatening offensive aggressor (compare to Monty!).

I went back to the 990AD save and deleted all your units, canceled open borders and bonus trade deals with Sal, traded with his worst enemy Mehmed, switched to Pacifism and Christianity so I got him to -9 FURIOUS and became his new worst enemy--he still switched out of WHEOOH in 1130AD !!!
(...)
It works the other way around too. This time I buttered up to Sal and switched to Theo|Islam, gifted him Gunpowder which got him to PLEASED so that I could sign a DP after he researched MT. Then I WB-ed him 20 Warriors (UNITAI_ATTACK) and this happened:



- I also checked the power ratings of the units (= contribution to "Soldiers" in the demo screen and also relating into the power grpah), since the power evaluations play a great role in the war decision routine as well. I found (with one exception, its Helion vs. Cyborg - the former is rated lower by 2 despite having better values in everything) resonable values here, but since techs and buildings provide power as well, there might be room to optimize (e.g. giving units with offensive funtions more power)


- Also, the AIs do not start wars, if they feel that their units aren't advanced enough and the follow a strategy for getting better units:

The AI's current strategy and financial situation is pretty important for the likelihood of DoWs. Especially the fact that the AI will not even start thinking about any wars when it is following the GetBetterUnitsStrategy might be responsible for the much earlier DoWs on Deity compared to the lower difficulties. The AI needs to be able to build at least 2 offensive units (UNITAIs ATTACK_CITY, COUNTER, RESERVE and PILLAGE) in its capital. Units of the types Axeman, Spearman, Chariot qualify here (basically everything better than Warriors and Archers), so once it manages to hook up the necessary strategic resources it will drop that strategy and start rolling the dice. With the 2 starting settlers and discounts for training more plus the fast teching I think Deities will reach that point 1000 yrs earlier.

I'm not sure if that could be a problem for Planetfall.

- Planetfall AIs seem to be often in great financial troubles. They build a lot units, which they pay support for

Do you think they build more units than is good for them, or they don't build enough energy-producing terrain improvements in general?

IMO, that's even more of an argument to teach the AI using the maintenance process - as that would keep their unit spending up - the unit maintennace still has to be payed, there is just another source of income to cover it!

As far as I can tell, the existing process AI should suffice. :confused: Not sure what I could do more. There's already a code which determines the value of a process, and the AI is already encouraged to use processes if they're in financial troubles. Do you know if there's an easy way to see in-game if the AI considers itself in financial trouble?

I think in future games of mine I'll create at the start three permanent alliances with two, two and three members. Will make diplomacy more boring, but that way I can always observe what one of the AIs is doing during a game.

with one exception, its Helion vs. Cyborg - the former is rated lower by 2 despite having better values in everything

Thanks! I fixed it.

Do you think they build more units than is good for them, or they don't build enough energy-producing terrain improvements in general?

Too many units for my taste if they stay in peace. I usually defend my inner bases with one unit. For bases bordering areas with native life or neighbours I can't be sure that peace is kept, I might go up to two or three. I pay for that strategy from time to time, when native life manages to take a base or a sneak attack of the AI succeds initially.
The AIs garrison are usually not below 4 combat units, while bigger cities and the capital often seem to accumulate even more units. The AI needs to build some more units then the human player to make up for its strategic and tactic deficits, but I would be tempted to start a war with so many.
Of course that doesn't make it easier to decide what to do at the moment. Less units would make them probably even less willing to go to war...

For the terrain improvements...I can't see a clear pattern. In the same game there are factions which are e.g. in love with windmills, while others don't bother with them despite being broke. The game I played yesterday is a good example of this: Santiago windmilled the entire land around her capital, while you cannot find a single one in Lal's land. I have attached a save (I played this with an experimental v4 of my leaderhead.xml, which I have attached as well, but I don't think that this makes a huge difference regarding terrain improvements)


As far as I can tell, the existing process AI should suffice. :confused: Not sure what I could do more. There's already a code which determines the value of a process, and the AI is already encouraged to use processes if they're in financial troubles.

Thats really strange, as I never witnessed an AI using the process after you have doubled its gain (before that change, I remember at least a few occasions)


Do you know if there's an easy way to see in-game if the AI considers itself in financial trouble?
I think in future games of mine I'll create at the start three permanent alliances with two, two and three members. Will make diplomacy more boring, but that way I can always observe what one of the AIs is doing during a game.

Using debug mode might help. I found a guide how to use it from jdog5000 in the BetterAI forum:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=279903

BetterAI adds some functionality to it, so if merge code of it into Planetfall, doing that for the debug stuff might help as well. I think I will give the debug mode a try as well, maybe it helps me with tracking down the strange AI behaviour regarding endless war preperations.

The AIs garrison are usually not below 4 combat units, while bigger cities and the capital often seem to accumulate even more units.

It's possible to modify in the SDK how many units the AI considers an adequate garrison. However AFAIK those numbers currently aren't any different from those in vanilla Civ4. :confused:

Thats really strange, as I never witnessed an AI using the process after you have doubled its gain (before that change, I remember at least a few occasions)

I have seen the AI use the Research process recently. The only reason I can think of they don't use Stockpile Energy is because their maintenance costs aren't high enough. But that wouldn't match with the theory that the AI spends too much on unit maintenance.

Did you know btw it's possible to see some information on the AIs using Shift-F2 (when chipotle cheat mode is on I assume)? Among other stuff the unit maintenance it's paying.

I took sometime to examine the save above again, this time with using the possibilities of the debug mode.

I think I have to withdraw my statement on that unit maintennace is killing the AI financially - the screenshots shows that they pay a lot more far city maintenance. So they likely don't go broke because of this (might be a double egded sword nonetheless, as low unit maintenance costs makes them more unlikely to go to war).

So if they go broke, it must have different reasons. In that game, Lal is the best example. He has to run 90% Gold and hardly breaks even. Examining the figures, I don't think his problem is city maintenance as well. The absolue value is comparable to
mine; I have 10, he has 9 cities. So what is killing him? Clearly badly improved terrain - no windmills at all.
You are also right on the process, the AI can use it. The save is likely rather at the beginning of Lal's financial crisis and the AI has just yet not decided to use processing - in a save 20 turns later he runned it in one of his biggest cities.

He still runned 90% Gold, but at a positive cash flow of +21. The maintenance expenses shifted somewhat more to units. The big problem of no enegry generating terrain improvements stayed however.

What might be a problem for the AI is how the strategize their units, though. The table shows that the overwhelming majority of their units is assigned to defense duties. This might be a culprit for the no war problems (though I failed to proof that
so far...I worldbuildered the Gaians tones of units - this time correctly with offensive strategies-, but still couldn't get them into declaring war)

I hope that DanF5771 will take a closer look on my saves, he said that it might be a pathfinding issue:

So maybe it is a pathfinding problem. E.g. the default BTS-AI is not able to figure out that it has to use boats to get the land units to a target in the case that the target is located on the same landmass, but the path is blocked by impassable terrain (only mountain peaks and inland lakes in BTS). During my quick test of Planetfall I popped a Chopper from a Unity Pod and was a bit irritated about its available movement options until I read "Unit may not reveal undiscovered terrain except inside a player's territory" (btw. how can I have fog=undiscovered terrain within my cultural borders?). Furthermore I noticed Armors can't enter Fungus and that there is no direct way from a flat land tile up to a ridge tile. While these are probably pretty cool features I can imagine that they are rather "challenging" for a pathfinding algorithm. I'm not 100% sure, but I guess the individual attack units are grouped together and the AI searches a path for the whole selection group to reach the target. And if it can't find one because some of the units are restricted in their movement options in such ways, the whole group of units just keeps sitting in the city... This could be readily tested by some quick WB-terraforming.

I also worldbuildered Deidre a transport fleet and escort, but that doesn't help as well.

I think I will try gifting units to the other AIs as well, maybe I had just bad luck with Deidre (just seems to the most resonable explanation...if only the unit gifting would help at all...)

Clearly badly improved terrain - no windmills at all.

Actually not only doesn't he have windmills - he hardle has terrain improvements AT ALL. :confused:

I haven't looked at your save yet, because I had made some changes to my own Planetfall v8 folder making it incompatible with your save. Meaning I have to reinstall Planetfall to look at your save. ;) I definitely will look at the save though.

What might be a problem for the AI is how the strategize their units, though. The table shows that the overwhelming majority of their units is assigned to defense duties.

We'd need some comparison data with unmodded Civ4 though. How much of their units is the AI using for defensive duties there? Perhaps what we see is in fact normal.

Regarding pathfinding problems. I guess it's a possibility. But I play with Scattered Landing Pods turned OFF. Meaning the AI often starts on one landmass (at least in the next version with a modified starting position generator...), and a path from one civ to another should be assured. Still war declarations are rare.

I have looked at your save now.

The Peacekeepers are the only faction with financial problems. The Spartans are running 50-50, but the other four are running 90% Science! So my first thought would be the AI is having no problems with financial management.

The reason why the Peacekeepers are having problems is because they got caught in the Spiral of Wormy Thought: there are several spawning spots in their territory, and they're not cleaning them up. Furthermore I noticed two formers (which is 40% of their workforce) just sitting in a base doing nothing. The reason for that is AI code: workers withdraw to cities when there is danger nearby, and just sit there until the danger's gone. They never consider moving to another city where there isn't any danger... And since fungal towers are immobile, it can take quite a while before the danger moves away itself. I'll have to modify that worker code, so they consider moving to other cities.

Anyway, I think it's safe to say financial troubles are no reason for no war declarations.

The version of leaderheads included Plf version 9 is your version 3.
Is 4e deemed good to include in the next patch?

The version of leaderheads included Plf version 9 is your version 3.
Is 4e deemed good to include in the next patch?

v3 is the right one. Everything else was experimental with partly crazy and equalized values and didn't improve the situation so far. So as long as we don't now the reason for the few-AI-wars-problem, I think we should stick with v3 for the moment. I also hope for some feedback of the other regular users of Planetfall how the like the new AI personalities overall (even if that is only possible to an extend without war declarations)

BTW, I runned another game with 8d recently, this time examing if less total wars (all leaders to 1/900 for that game) means more limited/dogpile wars and if the instant war declaration after refused tributes works at all. Less total wars reduced the number of AIs in early eternal WHEOOHN mode, but did not lead to more delcarations. If instant war declarations after refused tribute work at all, then not at the percentage of that value (I set 100 for all leaders in that test) and the two or three times I get extorted and refused, nothing happened at all.
I experienced again the phenomen of AIs going overboard with defenders - Deidre managed to get around 40 units in 71 years, of which 31 had a defense AI strategy.
Morgan shows a similar ratio. AIs with less overall units have rather a 50/50 distribution, but it seems that any building up goes towards defense. I'm currently trying to get some comparison values for standard BTS.

Reading the SDK function responsible for war declarations is now somewhere near the top of my to-do list.

Kitsune has already remarked that the AI seems more aggressive, for the record.

What does WHEOOHN stand for by the way??

I can mess with the function that determines how many garrisons the AI considers necessary. Some comparison data with BtS would definitely be appreciated though, both on how many city defense AIs they have, and how much of their maintenance costs are unit costs.

Given that losing a base destroys less buildings, it is a sound strategy to focus less on base garrison and more on other unit AIs. I have no idea right now though if reducing the desired number of base defenses will lead to the AI producing other units, or simply less units. Do you have any idea?

What does WHEOOHN stand for by the way??

Short for "We have enough on our hands now", the AIs explanation when it refues to go war on a players behave (think it applies in inter AI diplomacy as well, though) because of an ongoing war or war preperations.


I can mess with the function that determines how many garrisons the AI considers necessary. Some comparison data with BtS would definitely be appreciated though, both on how many city defense AIs they have, and how much of their maintenance costs are unit costs.

Given that losing a base destroys less buildings, it is a sound strategy to focus less on base garrison and more on other unit AIs. I have no idea right now though if reducing the desired number of base defenses will lead to the AI producing other units, or simply less units. Do you have any idea?

I will hopefully have soon some data from a BTS game.

I have no indepth understanding of the AI process of producing units and then assigning them to a certain strategy, but I imagine it the way, that mainly the value iBuildUnitProb determines the amount produced at all, likely further modified by factors as being at war and similar things. Then the AI likely decides what to do with the unit and assigns a strategy. Given that garrison needs lead them to assign the defensive strategy, a reduce in that need would hopefully free units for offensive duties.

Of course that explanation fits only, if it is possible to assign any combat unit to both offensive and defensive strategies and the AI can decide over this dynamically in the game. I still remember the days of Civ3, were it was preset in the editor, if the AI could use a certain unit for defense, offense or both...

The AI does seem much more aggressive. They seem to be demanding tribute a lot more. In fact I met Lal and Miriam around the same turn. Having built the unity observation bay they both demanded I share my world map with them. Not a chance. Later on they both DoW'd me on the exact same turn.

Hmm, this seems to imply there is no randomness in AI demands and reactions re map trading.

I have now acquired some data regarding AI unit strategies from an BTS game (with an older version of unofficial patch installed, but I don't think this has much impact and if - it's only an optimized version of the AI) The three screenshots show the AI unit distribution in turn 100, 150 and 200.Regarding ongoing wars:

In turn 100: no wars
In turn 150: Mansa Musa vs. Cyrus, Mehmed, Hannibal, Louis
In turn 200: Mansa Musa vs. Cyrus, Mehmed, Hannibal, Louis and Me vs. Sitting Bull

My observation is that the ratios we have in Planetfall are common for peace-time AIs (first table), but not if an AI actually wages war (see secon and especially third table) - so it is no wonder that AIs don't leave the WHEOOHN in my games and declare war. The only thing I don't get is why this seems to be different in games of others, especially with lower difficulty... It would be really interesting to exermine such save with the debug mode, just to see if the unit distribution is different.

So here is my call - if anyone has a save of an "aggressive" game (means a lot of AI declarations vs. the human player or other AIs) with v10 around, please post it! Needs not to be necessarily before a war brokes out. Thanks!

Maybe it's just the expections we have from SMAC, were very early DoWs were common. The BTS AI engine favors AI build-ups and later declarations a lot more, so that might be the reason why we see few early strategic war declarations - playing 200 turns into a BTS or Planetfall game is just a different story. That leaves us with the diplomatic reasons, e.g. declaring after refused tributes...

Good news! :) DanF5771 has posted his findings regarding the strange AI behaviour and showed how he brought the AIs to declare war in that save (he deserves credit for doing that, IMO) - it is both the unit strategy distribution I suspected (in connection with the fact that I have made total wars more likely, which require serious SoDs) and Dan's first idea of pathfinding troubles with impassable terrain, different movement of units and the water movement of land units:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=8167872&posted=1#post8167872

Very interesting information indeed! :)

I'll have to think a while what the solutions for these problems could be though. For I still don't have a clue why the AI stresses certain unitAI types more, or how to make the units not walk around in circles between water and land.

I called in the cavalry.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=8180905#post8180905

Kitsune has reported Lal likes you better for having a different religion! Is this a consequence of the leader XMLmodifications?

Perhaps he likes leaders who pursue their freedom of choice? :mischief:

Kitsune has reported Lal likes you better for having a different religion! Is this a consequence of the leader XMLmodifications?

Yes. Just forgot a "-". Here is for the moment a version 3a which should fix the problem.

Thanks!qsdfghjk

I have found the reason why the AI only spams city defenses. The AI only builds offensive units when the unit costs are under a certain percentage of the total expenses. Because in Planetfall unit costs are a larger part of the expenses, this means the unit costs are always too high, so the AI thinks...

I have modified it so that the AI compares its unit costs with its total commerce production instead. In my AI autoplay game two war declarations happened in the first 110 turns, and those who declared war had a decent number of attack units. I guess that's a good sign.

Who knows further playtesting may show the AI is now *too* agressive. In that case some leaderhead values may have to be re-examined again.

though we might consider to use some unit flavours to further emphasize leader personalities (e.g. some leader going for offensive units in general, other laying emphasize on city raiders or pillagers)

Depends on what you have in mind. I'm wary of making flavour changes if they make the AI play worse. Rather my goal is to make flavourous gameplay at the same be smart gameplay.

The new Spartan promotion probably would make them better pillagers, for instance.

I'm experiencing an interesting game with the latest patch!

I'm playing as the Spartans and gave myself a random team mate so I could observe AI behaviour better (turned out to be Lal). So that at least some AIs would be able to compete with my team's tech research, I also created a team of Miriam & Morgan.

I fixed AI attack unit production in this patch, and boy, am I feeling it!

Miriam (and thus Morgan) declared war on me and sent a large stack in my direction. On the same turn the University declared war on me - must have been a dogpile declaration.

I had four bases at that point. The base closest to Miriam had a group of Rover/Armor. Unfortunately Miriam's stack was bigger, so I couldn't hope to keep it. If this were vanilla Civ4, losing that base (my second biggest with many buildings) and all its infrastructure would have been de facto game over. In Planetfall however a base's infrastructure is left 95% intact upon capturing it, which means keeping your army alive is more important to the war outcome than keeping control of all your bases at any cost.

So instead of trying to defend Survival Base at all costs, I evacuated the base defenses and exploited the rover/armor group's mobility to go attack one of Miriam's bases elsewhere.

Meanwhile though Zakharov had sent a single Plasma Thrower to my two other bases which were only defended by a single Flame Thrower or Infantry. So I lost both of those too. I was left only with my Headquarters Sparta Command at one point! Fortunately Sparta Command is a production powerhouse and I was able to build up my military fast. I have been able to recapture two of my bases - one is still under University control though. And that Believer base Great Conclave has now switched hands between me and Miriam several times already. Miriam/Morgan still has a greater quantity of units than I have, and Zakharov has a greater quality (Plasma Thrower), so I have no idea yet how this war will develop.

I love this kind of dynamic and opportunistic warfare, attacking the weakest target instead of turtling inside your bases. This would not be possible with base infrastructure being lost upon base capture, or with the Scattered Landing Pods option.

Interesting report and it is kind of what I experience in my current game as well (with SLPs off, but it feelable with that option turned on as well - especially the ideological leaders don't care much about proximity of a target). AIs now frequently execute their war plans - and despite I'm playing Emperor, which made me fear that would be always their target, there is a lot of AI infighting as well. Especially dogpile DoWs (bribery of another AI into the war right from the start) are common (might be a result of the codefix for this in the 3.19 patch).

I currently don't have the impression that there are too many wars, except maybe the ones caused by refusing tribute. I think a right value is one that makes it a gamble, if you get away with not paying tribute - but currently, 4 out of 7 leaders have a 40%+ chance to DoW after a refused war, which almost forces you to pay tribute to stay at peace. I'm inclined to reduce that to max. 25% and only Yang will have that value, the others will range between 10-20%. I'm more a fan of the AI picking its targets strategically, anyway.

But I would love to here some other opinions...

Does the war/peace balance now feel better?
Too many wars overall? Too many after refusing tribute?
If AIs declare (exspecially on you, the human player) - do they do it in a resonable way or do they overetsimate their chances too much?
Does attitude matter enough or do you feel that you get attacjed too often, while having decent relations?

Here is BTW the file I'm currently using...it concentrates on further sharpening the contrast between the leaders, some examples:

- Yang (more isolationistic - major wars only vs. neighbours, cares less for ressource trade/OBs, more suspicious if someone has different religion, easier to appease if you obey his demands)
- Santiago (almost no ideological leaning, values shared wars and DPs more, can be bribed into wars even if relations are bad, does not trust leaders with different religions, also easier to appease)
- Morgan (strong emphasize on keeping peace, OBs and ressouce trading; does not care about religion at all)
- Lal (also into liberty and trade; tolerant if someone has different religion)
- Zhak (religon as ideology)

I also did a lot of changes to the increments in which relations detoriate or improve for a certain situation - it takes e.g. a lot of time to get the full same-religion-boost with Deidre or Miriam.

Thanks for the update Pfeffersack! I had a look at the Excel file. Some cool changes!

Though there are also a few changes I don't understand the logic of.

First of all, even if the effect is small, I think all leaders should care at least something for all the usual relationhip modifiers: same/different religion, using favourite civic, open borders, resource trades...

One example: I think Santi and Zak should care about people following their favourite civic. I would suggest that Lal cares more and Yang cares less (a fellow dictator is still a rival), but that the other factions should care an equal amount about their favourite civic.

I don't understand why you made Yang and Zak ask more frequently for a religion change. Especially Zakharov, of all the factions it seems he would care least about the five religions/ideologies. His ideology is knowledge and free flow of information. My suggestions would be: Dee and Miriam care most about religion. Zakharov cares least. The others are in the middle group. This counts for both same and different religion. Exception: Lal. He is in the middle group for sharing a religion, but cares just as little as Zak for having a different religion. Again, I do feel they should all care at least something.

I noticed Yang now remembers it longer if you gave him tribute.
Do you know how relationship boni/penalties with a memory limit work? I've never really paid much attention to those. I don't see a way to affect the height of the relationship effect. Am I right you can't currently affect that? Also what happens when you for instance trade tech while you already did the same thing recently? Do you get the relationship bonus twice, or is the period before the bonus expires just extended? If it's the latter, I'd consider making it (in the SDK) so that appeasing Yang gives a higher relationship bonus, not just make the bonus last longer.

The same thing could be done for Zakharov: the relationship bonus for trading techs with him could be much higher.

Someone suggested a while back that Zakharov should be able to ignore tech brokering restrictions. I considered that a bad idea because then the human players would be disinclined to trade techs with him, the opposite of what I'd like to achieve. If trading techs with Zak would lead to a much higher relationship bonus however, then it would be worth still to trade techs with him, even if it carries the chance he will broker one of your techs.

Back to Yang: IIRC the AI only asks human players for tribute. So if the main way to please Yang would be to pay him tribute, then Yang would be unable to get along with other AIs. So I was thinking Yang should also have a better opinion of players weaker than him - they're harmless, they don't form a threat to his power. Yet at the same time he should still be just as willing to attack those weaker than him. (Is this possible?) So if a weak AI faction was close to Yang, the way to continue those 'good relations' with Yang would end up being forced vassalization... ;)

Summarized, this would mean there's a clear and distinct way to please each leader:
Deirdre/Miriam: sharing religion
Lal: sharing his favourite civic
Santiago: sharing wars
Morgan: trading resources
Zak: trading techs
Yang: paying tribute

As a final note, why does the AI seem to sneak-plan wars more often when refusing a demand compared to vanilla Civ, even though the odds for it are lower here? Or am I just paying more attention to it now?

First of all, even if the effect is small, I think all leaders should care at least something for all the usual relationhip modifiers: same/different religion, using favourite civic, open borders, resource trades...

No problem to do this, though religions are a special case here - even if the effect (both positive and negative) is set to 0, there will be still a +1 or -1, if the AI has the shrine of its faction religion (this seems to be hard-coded, at least it is not accesible from the leaderhead.xml) - which is quite common for PF, especially after the change regarding religion spread.



One example: I think Santi and Zak should care about people following their favourite civic. I would suggest that Lal cares more and Yang cares less (a fellow dictator is still a rival), but that the other factions should care an equal amount about their favourite civic.
I don't understand why you made Yang and Zak ask more frequently for a religion change. Especially Zakharov, of all the factions it seems he would care least about the five religions/ideologies. His ideology is knowledge and free flow of information. My suggestions would be: Dee and Miriam care most about religion. Zakharov cares least. The others are in the middle group. This counts for both same and different religion. Exception: Lal. He is in the middle group for sharing a religion, but cares just as little as Zak for having a different religion. Again, I do feel they should all care at least
something.

I did those changes because of the recent discussion about "religion=ideology for some leaders?" - that's why I said that point always causes confusion for me ;)

But I understand your logic (though I would seen Morgan as a similar character in this regard - he might care for others running Free Market, but for religion? Except we think of him as seeing religion as a kind of business...)

I would suggest an impact of +/- 2 (weak), 5 (middle) and 8 (strong), reduced by one for religion because of the shrine impact. Sadly there is yet no possibilty to give a penalty for running the wrong civic :(



I noticed Yang now remembers it longer if you gave him tribute.
Do you know how relationship boni/penalties with a memory limit work? I've never really paid much attention to those. I don't see a way to affect the height of the relationship effect. Am I right you can't currently affect that?

No, it is already possible to set how strong the impact on relations should be - everything under "MemoryAttitudePercents" deals with that (so my change for Yang just means that you get +2 for each accepted demand or request) The question of "How long does an effect last?" is set under "MemoryDecays" (which I haven't touched yet), though not all factors listed under "MemoryAttitudePercents" appear here - and the missing ones (like -3 for declaring war) are the eternal boni/penalties.

There is one item for which it is reversed, it is "MEMORY_RECEIVED_TECH_FROM_ANY" - I assume it deals with the penalty for trading with the worst enemy, but I don't understand why I can't it strength (maybe it is tied to the postive impact of tech trading with that leader?)

I assume that the "eternal effects" can be turned into decaying ones, if the needed tags are added, but I haven't tried (BTW, I would suggest that for for some things like the war declararation - this should take extremly long to wear of, but it should be possible).
About decaying...I'm pretty sure that the numbers are 1/x chances per turn (and not fixed time periods in turns), though I'm not sure if the chance hitting means the entire boost/penalty is gone or just one modifier point (though I supect the latter). There is info about this on civfanatics, but it is not always 100% clear and reliable...and I have to admit that I haven't tracked this down enough in game yet to say with certainty.



Also what happens when you for instance trade tech while you already did the same thing recently? Do you get the relationship bonus twice, or is the period before the bonus expires just extended? If it's the latter, I'd consider making it (in the SDK) so that appeasing Yang gives a higher relationship bonus, not just make the bonus last longer.

The positive effects of tech trading are a bit complicated because they can effect two modifiers - "You shared your technological discoveries with us", but also eventually "fair trade relations"...but luckily I digged up a source where both are explained:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6801315&postcount=380


You have shared you technological discoveries with us

Depending on leader we get between 0.05 (Asoka (!), Bismarck, Isabella and Toku of those that could be in the game) and 0.2 (Mansa, Peter) per tech traded to that AI. Decays with 1/100.


Fair Trade

A complex calculation depending on three things:
1) the total value of all things given for free to that AI: iGrantValue
2) the total value of all things traded to that AI: iTradeValue
3) the number of turns we have known each other: iTurnsKnown
The total bonus is then (iGrantValue + iTradeValue/3)/((iTurnsKnown +1)*5), but capped at +4. In other words this value will deteriorate over time, unless we add more trades to it. The calculations of the values is very involved, but I can list that too if it becomes necessary.


You have traded with our worst enemies

The calculation is very similar to that above, except the constant factor in the divisor is 10 instead of 5. In other words, we can trade twice as much to a worst enemy before we reach a certain modifier, compared to the Fair Trade. Note that the worst enemy can switch, but things added to iGrantValue and iTradeValue never disappear, they only get diluted by passing time.


So "Fair Trade" is clearly more "hardcoded" and capped at +/-4, while "Shared Technology" stacks theorectically unlimited (and you can easily affect how much each traded tech effects it) - however, both modifiers detoriate over time.

So for your question - I believe in terms of fair trade "overflow" just extends the time before detoriation (if I understand the formula correct), while for shared discoveries yout get the full effect.



The same thing could be done for Zakharov: the relationship bonus for trading techs with him could be much higher. Someone suggested a while back that Zakharov should be able to ignore tech brokering restrictions. I considered that a bad idea because then the human players would be disinclined to trade techs with him, the opposite of what I'd like to achieve.
If trading techs with Zak would lead to a much higher relationship bonus however, then it would be worth still to trade techs with him, even if it carries the chance he will broker one of your techs.

As said above, that can be easily done and makes perfect sense for me.

BTW, I always play with "No Tech Brokering", so this might influence what feels right (also true for "Aggressive AI", another "default" option for me...)



Back to Yang: IIRC the AI only asks human players for tribute. So if the main way to please Yang would be to pay him tribute, then Yang would be unable to get along with other AIs. So I was thinking Yang should also have a better opinion of players weaker than him - they're harmless, they don't form a threat to his power. Yet at the same time he should still be just as willing to attack those weaker than him. (Is this possible?) So if a weak AI faction was close to Yang, the way to continue those 'good relations' with Yang would end up being forced vassalization...

Great idea :goodjob: Thats the kind of feedback needed to develop the personalities :) It's definitely possible to do that - though it is important to consider the various parameters which could have an effect on this desired behaviour:

1. As you said for "liking" weak factions: "iWorseRankDifferenceAttitudeChange"
2. The war parameters - chance to declare a certain type of war per turn (I made him already a dogpiler) and the power ratios (maybe restrict a "total war" - the one I think which most likely will lead to capitualation - to weak oppponents?)
3. Good relations and still willing to attack...this is mainly achieved by the "NoWarAttitudeProbs" (for strategically planned wars) - here it can be set that "pleased" or even "friendly" relations don't protect you (completely) from an attack, but also by the "DeclareWarThemRefuseAttitudeThreshold" - here you can set the attitude treshold for wars a leader gets dragged in. So we could even differenciate regarding why Yang attacks a weaker faction, he has good relations with - rather/only because of his own decision or because somone offer him something? Maybe we could use this to make him different to Santiago.



Summarized, this would mean there's a clear and distinct way to please each leader:
Deirdre/Miriam: sharing religion
Lal: sharing his favourite civic
Santiago: sharing wars
Morgan: trading resources
Zak: trading techs
Yang: paying tribute

I will rework the file following that guide.



As a final note, why does the AI seem to sneak-plan wars more often when refusing a demand compared to vanilla Civ, even though the odds for it are lower here? Or am I just paying more attention to it now?

I'm not sure. Is this still your impression after the AI fix regaring war preperations? I suspect that the few declarations which happened before the fix were mainly diplomatic ones. In BtS the chances might be higher, but I guess they just don't have an effect as often - because more strategic declarations happen. Difficulty might have an effect as well...what level do you play? PF on Emperor leads for me nearly always in a state of being weaker and getting frequently extorted, but overall it is the level for me to have a competitive AI til the end game. It could be also just because the extortion chances are generally higher - 5 out of 7 leader are 1/100 or below...and those 5 are always in the game. Standard Civ4 offers more leaders (54), of which only a part gets randomly drawn for most games and 21 of them are 1/1000. Maybe I should tweak those values again?

But I understand your logic (though I would seen Morgan as a similar character in this regard - he might care for others running Free Market, but for religion? Except we think of him as seeing religion as a kind of business...)

Perhaps he could appreciate it medium if you shared religions, but only give a low relationship penalty if you have a different religion, similar to Lal?

BTW, I would suggest that for for some things like the war declararation - this should take extremly long to wear of, but it should be possible

Hmm, I disagree. I don't like "once an enemy, always an enemy". It should be possible to get along after all if later the causes of the former animosity disappear, eg you switch to your former enemy's civic and religion.

Re Zak liking tech trading:
As said above, that can be easily done and makes perfect sense for me.

I'd suggest he likes it five times better than the other civs or so.

Great idea :goodjob: Thats the kind of feedback needed to develop the personalities :) It's definitely possible to do that - though it is important to consider the various parameters which could have an effect on this desired behaviour:

The thing I worry about: won't this also cause him to declare war on his powerful friends?

I'm not sure.

Me neither. It's hard to know what's the reason why an AI decides to declare war on you.
Anyway, no need then to change things for now I'd say.

In BtS the chances might be higher, but I guess they just don't have an effect as often - because more strategic declarations happen.

Ah, so AIs only start planning war after a demand refusal if they don't have any other wars planned at that time?

Does iDemandRebukedSneakProb the chance to plan war after refusing tribute, or after refusing any religion/civic/whatever demand btw?

Perhaps he could appreciate it medium if you shared religions, but only give a low relationship penalty if you have a different religion, similar to Lal?

Yes, I will do it that way then.



Hmm, I disagree. I don't like "once an enemy, always an enemy". It should be possible to get along after all if later the causes of the former animosity disappear, eg you switch to your former enemy's civic and religion.

I don' like it as well ;) I just started out conservative here, because that value is really a critical one - it has a huge impact on strategy, if I can declare a war without facing peristent negative consequences. But there is nothing wrong to start with a faster decay and set it higher again, if we think that it will make offensive warmongering too effective.



I'd suggest he likes it five times better than the other civs or so.

Five times better then the current value of 20 (which is the BTS maximum only reached by Mansa and Peter) would mean 100. If I understand the source I mentioned in my last post coreectly, that would mean +1 per tech...



The thing I worry about: won't this also cause him to declare war on his powerful friends?

Indeed, that a kind of problem, as the NoWarAttitudeProbs setting for the relation levels applies for all kind of wars - though the role for limited (-10) and especially dog-pile wars (-20) are lowered, so that here even 80 or 90 can act as a protection (however, aggressive AI and being a raider in times of financial trouble counters that), while full wars are still possible.

So with some careful choosing of the values here, we could restrict Yang wars vs. "friends" to total ones - and those could be further restricted to total wars vs. adjacent (iMaxWarMinAdjacentLandPercent) and weak neighbours (iMaxWarNearbyPowerRatio).

Other and more fitting solutions are surely possible as well, but that would probably require coding outside the leaderhead XML.



Ah, so AIs only start planning war after a demand refusal if they don't have any other wars planned at that time?

I just wanted to refer to the rule that an AI already at war does not start another, but it seems that even that isn't true in case of wars for refusing tribute (from the thread, in which Dan 5771 explained all the AI and war stuff, post #140):

WHEOOHRN does NOT prevent an AI from switching to WARPLAN_PREPARING_LIMITED after the refusal of one of their demands. Likewise there is nothing that keeps the AI from opening a second front while still being busy in the other war. In a test game I bribed my favorite neighbor Monty (modded to CONTACT_DEMAND_TRIBUTE = 1; iDemandRebukedSneakProb = 100) into a war vs. poor Lizzy. Unsurprisingly, Monty demanded a tech from me in the very next IBT (btw. they never demand monopoly techs). Instead of giving him the tech I provided him with a couple of Modern Armors via WB which promptly entered my cultural borders after some turns of "war preparation" had elapsed. He was still at war with Lizzy at that time!



Does iDemandRebukedSneakProb the chance to plan war after refusing tribute, or after refusing any religion/civic/whatever demand btw?

Only for refusing tribute; Dan said that somewhere in the same thread (and it is also my experience)

Five times better then the current value of 20 (which is the BTS maximum only reached by Mansa and Peter) would mean 100. If I understand the source I mentioned in my last post coreectly, that would mean +1 per tech...

I'm not sure myself how it will work out, but keep in mind this modifier should end up in the same order of magnitude as the Gaian/Believer religion bonus, plus serve as a encouragement to trade techs with Zakharov despite (in the future) he being able to broker your techs.

So with some careful choosing of the values here, we could restrict Yang wars vs. "friends" to total ones - and those could be further restricted to total wars vs. adjacent (iMaxWarMinAdjacentLandPercent) and weak neighbours (iMaxWarNearbyPowerRatio).

Let's try it out! :)

Only for refusing tribute; Dan said that somewhere in the same thread (and it is also my experience)

Thanks for the info!

I added civic aversion diplomacy penalties.

Any ideas on the exact values for the penalties?

Dee: Hybrid - Free Market
Miriam: Terraformed - Knowledge
Morgan: Free Market - Autarky (I just changed it from Planned)
Hive: Police State - Democratic
Sparta: Power - Wealth
Zak: Knowledge - Fundy
Lal: Democratic - Police State

I'd suggest that factions whose civic aversion is another faction's favourite civic should give a smaller diplo penalty. Too pre-determined diplomacy may not be fun.

So Morgan, Santiago and Zakharov could give a bigger penalty. Perhaps Lal could be the exception to my own suggestion and also give a big penalty? Not sure.

Did you already add diplomatic plusses to factions running a favorite civic? Like Spartans running knowledge for instance?

I added civic aversion diplomacy penalties.

Any ideas on the exact values for the penalties?

Dee: Hybrid - Free Market
Miriam: Terraformed - Knowledge
Morgan: Free Market - Autarky (I just changed it from Planned)
Hive: Police State - Democratic
Sparta: Power - Wealth
Zak: Knowledge - Fundy
Lal: Democratic - Police State

I'd suggest that factions whose civic aversion is another faction's favourite civic should give a smaller diplo penalty. Too pre-determined diplomacy may not be fun.

So Morgan, Santiago and Zakharov could give a bigger penalty. Perhaps Lal could be the exception to my own suggestion and also give a big penalty? Not sure.

Sounds resonable. Just to clarify...the way those negative civic effects work is a mirror of the positive effects? (so: it can be accesses over the leaderhead XML; the leader, which has an aversion would either never switch to the hated civic or if, then the penalty would not applies; there are three values affecting initial penalty, time increments in which the relations detoriate further and a maximum for that continued worsening).

In case the values can be set over the leaderhead.xml I would of course need the modified one to do the changes.

I would suggest that if a Faction runs another faction's favorite civic while it doesn't run its own favorite civic if that is in the same column gives at least a double benefit diplomacy-wise.

Sounds resonable. Just to clarify...the way those negative civic effects work is a mirror of the positive effects?

No I'm afraid there's only a direct and immediate negative for now. They all have this line right now:
<iHatedCivicAttitudeChange>-1</iHatedCivicAttitudeChange>

I would suggest that if a Faction runs another faction's favorite civic while it doesn't run its own favorite civic if that is in the same column gives at least a double benefit diplomacy-wise.

Then why would a human player ever run his favourite civic? ;)
I was rather thinking a faction should get some reward (extra trade route income?) if a faction runs its favourite civic. Then the diplomacy option asking an AI to switch civics could actually become of some use.

Then why would a human player ever run his favourite civic? ;)

To have a synergie between faction boni and best civic? :nono:

No I'm afraid there's only a direct and immediate negative for now. They all have this line right now:
<iHatedCivicAttitudeChange>-1</iHatedCivicAttitudeChange>

If it is only that line for that moment I could add it my self to the leaderhead file, if you like - just tell me where to insert it.

Along to what you have suggested I would use the following values:

Deidre, Miriam: -2 (not too much more negative attitude from the religious zealots)

Lal: -6 (I think this extra big penalty here is ok, Civics are his department - otherwise we will stay at "everyone's Lals darling")

Morgan, Santiago, Zhak: -4 (for the reasons you said)

Yang: -2 (he despises Democracy, but OTOH he is an isolationist and as long as you fulfil his requests...moreover, another Police State might be an ideological friend, but it can be also a military powerhouse)

The values are a bit lower then what you can get out of sharing civics, but as long as we are stuck with a single immediate penalty I just don't feel comfortable with e.g. a sudden -8 from Lal.

Thanks, I'll use those values for the next patch!

Maniac, I have updated the spreadsheet from leaderhead v10 with the suggestions you have made and also included the new hated civic tag. If the new values are ok, I will start to convert the leaderhead.xml

Thanks, the values look great!

Here is the file...

Thanks - will be in the next patch, probably this weekend. :D

Five times better then the current value of 20 (which is the BTS maximum only reached by Mansa and Peter) would mean 100. If I understand the source I mentioned in my last post coreectly, that would mean +1 per tech...

Hmm, I ended up with +17 so far in my current game - for my taste a bit too much. I think 3x (=60) would be enough. Of course, the problem could be also tackled by giving him a faster decay for positive tech trade effects (OTOH, that would be against the idea that leaders are especially picky and "unforgiving" about things which are important for them).

Hmm, that's indeed a bit much. Perhaps a reduction might be advised then.

Hmm, that's indeed a bit much. Perhaps a reduction might be advised then.By the way, I think the personality traits right now are a bit too strong. I mean it's nice to give them a distinct feel, but right now they seem to be a bit inflexible and predictable (a bit like Monty in vanilla Civ). I rather like them a bit more unpredictable, keeps you on your toes. ;)

I think it's mainly from the addition of the hated civics, it makes them a bit predictable in the diplomatic constellation and their reaction to your actions. I rather like that component, I wouldn't want it to go, but I think the other values need to be tweaked a bit (basically, I have the feeling that the values are okay without the component and IIRC, it was added rather recently, exaggerating the underlying values/responses etc.).

I mean it's not really bad (better than in v8, for example), but lacks a little bit of fine-tuning. Obviously, just the feel I get from the game, no real number crunching involved.

Cheers, LT.

By the way, I think the personality traits right now are a bit too strong. I mean it's nice to give them a distinct feel, but right now they seem to be a bit inflexible and predictable (a bit like Monty in vanilla Civ). I rather like them a bit more unpredictable, keeps you on your toes. ;)

I think it's mainly from the addition of the hated civics, it makes them a bit predictable in the diplomatic constellation and their reaction to your actions. I rather like that component, I wouldn't want it to go, but I think the other values need to be tweaked a bit (basically, I have the feeling that the values are okay without the component and IIRC, it was added rather recently, exaggerating the underlying values/responses etc.).

I mean it's not really bad (better than in v8, for example), but lacks a little bit of fine-tuning. Obviously, just the feel I get from the game, no real number crunching involved.

Cheers, LT.

Everything is possible, direction is just needed what to change, e.g. same/differen't religion and same civic can have 3 different weighting's ATM:

- strong: +8/-8*
- middle: +5/-5*
- weak: +2/-2*
* the extreme values for religion are only reached, if the AI has founded it's current religion as well, otherwise it' s: +/- 1/4/7

The strong and middle effects could be reduced to 6 and 4 for example.

Of course that leaves the question, if the factions having their focus not in areas (Morgan with emphaisze on trade, Santiago with emphasize on sharing wars and Yang with emphasize on paying tribute) should be changed as well and if the "cutted" feeling of the AIs above should show up in other areas again (otherwise we have an effect on how easy it is to becaome friend or foe as well, just because the max number of possible +'s and -'s shrinks)

Personally I don't share Lord Tirian's experiences, as the hated civic is just one of many relationship modifiers. Also I'd argue that running someone's hated civic keeps you more on your toes, because you know war with that faction has just become more likely.

The only guy that bothers me with the big effects are Lal. However once I get to focus on the Councils, I was thinking to add a Council membership civic category. Lal's favourite civic would then be 'Planetary Council'. His huge reaction to civics would be less of a problem if his loved and hated civic are not in the same civic category. Also, at this point I could perhaps let Lal give relationship benefits for voting the way he does in Council, instead of for running the Council civic.

Hi guys,

Thrilled to see this project up and running. I don't know if it's something you want to keep from the original, or how you'd implement it, but:

In SMAC, when Yang was #1 in the power rankings, he would declare on someone below him ASAP. When there are no "big brothers" to bring into the fight, he starts a fight as often as possible.

Hi guys,

Thrilled to see this project up and running. I don't know if it's something you want to keep from the original, or how you'd implement it, but:

In SMAC, when Yang was #1 in the power rankings, he would declare on someone below him ASAP. When there are no "big brothers" to bring into the fight, he starts a fight as often as possible.

It would need additional coding outside the XML files to make that happen in Planetfall.
Yang in Planetfall is designed to "like" weaker factions on the one hand, but he is also very willing to extort and attack such "friends", especially if they are geographically nearby. He can declare even on Friendly, his mood declines fast, if you don't comply to his demands and he is restricted to rather weak opponents, if he wages an offensive war. For me that mirrors quite good what was hard-coded in SMAC (some unpredictability can't hurt, IMO)

--------

Maniac, I have done the discussed change to Zhak regarding reducing the diplomatic tech trade bonus (to 60). I also added some more anger potential, if you spy on him (penalty for cought spy doubled to -200 - I think that's resonable for someone, who techs fast OTOH and gets easily infiltrated on the other hand).

BTW, I made the naming of the file consistent to the Planetfall version naming - I will from now on always refer with the name to the next expected patch to Planetfall (so now v11g)

Thanks!

For me that mirrors quite good what way hard-coded in SMAC (some unpredictability can't hurt, IMO)

QFT!

I also added some more anger potential, if you spy on him (penalty for cought spy doubled to -200 - I think that's resonable for someone, who techs fast OTOH and gets easily infiltrated on the other hand).

I think that might not be a good idea. The espionage defense penalty makes Zak a more attractive target. Making him more pissed off at you than other leaders could kinda cancel out that attractiveness again.

I think that might not be a good idea. The espionage defense penalty makes Zak a more attractive target. Making him more pissed off at you than other leaders could kinda cancel out that attractiveness again.

The reason why I had this idea is that you can pretty easily build up a relation with Zhak, if you just get him one time above the trade tech treshhold. From then one, the constant trading imprves the relations further and further - and if you can't get something via trade from him, you can still steal. The -1 if you get cought at all just don't really make a difference. It's the thing that you can get both (trading and stealing) without much trouble.
But maybe the reduction of the diplo bonus form tech trading alone is enough...here are the files without the espionage change:

Thanks. For some reason so far I have never been able to get Zakharov to trade excessively with me, so I haven't experienced too good relationships with him yet. I can probably tell more when it happens to me once too.

I think Zakharov should be more willing to trade techs in general, especially if you have techs to offer in return. His personality is single minded pursuit of knowledge, and he should happily give anything possible to get his hands on previously unknown data.

Also, the main weakness of the university was that they carelessly share knowledge, giving them a penalty to Probe, and making them easier to steal from.

I think Zakharov should be more willing to trade techs in general, especially if you have techs to offer in return. His personality is single minded pursuit of knowledge, and he should happily give anything possible to get his hands on previously unknown data.

Indeed, there is no difference between the leaders in Planetfall in this regard - Maniac prefers to have all the AI play in this critical area to the best of their abilities (and as much as I like the idea of role playing...I'm very convinced that any change here would tip the fragile balance - I'm currently quite happy, that there is no clear pattern that some factions always thrive, while others always oose - strongly in favour of Zhakarov):

Regarding tech trading in general, I think all leaders should be equally willing to trade techs (or share open borders). By not trading techs or opening borders even with good friends, the AI just shoots itself in the foot. You can see this in unmodded Civ4 where Mansu Masu or whatshisname often performs well, not because his core AI code is different than the others, but simply because he's more willing to trade techs.
I would say though that perhaps the attitude before an AI is willing to trade with you/another AI should be higher than in unmodded Civ. Since, due to conflicting religions and favourite civic, it's very hard to get along with everybody, this would force you to pick sides for succesful gameplay.

Especially lowering the attitude treshold for allowing tech trade with Zhak would cause this. Making him more willing to trade his own monopoly techs might work better, but I never encounter it as a huge obstacle in Planetfall anyway - so we would probably have to increase it for everyone else to create a real difference...


Also, the main weakness of the university was that they carelessly share knowledge, giving them a penalty to Probe, and making them easier to steal from.

He gets 20% less ESP because of the governors office; also he has the lowest weighting for investing in ESP via the slider.

For the record, Zakharov is now willing to trade tech one attitude level lower (cautious?) than the rest. Other way around, if my changes are working, all other factions should also be willing to trade with Zak at Cautious instead of the level higher (Pleased?).

Re the German civforum thread btw, don't you like to have the screenshots displayed as thumbnails instead of the almost full-sized image?

Re the German civforum thread btw, don't you like to have the screenshots displayed as thumbnails instead of the almost full-sized image?

The thumbnails are just not activated in our system (i guess...).

Nope they work:

http://www.civforum.de/showpost.php?p=3201388&postcount=23

This is a normal image link....or not?
Edit: No, it isn't :D. I even didn't know, that this works.
But i prefer the large images.

Re the German civforum thread btw, don't you like to have the screenshots displayed as thumbnails instead of the almost full-sized image?

I have done that now and also added the screenshots from the older patches.

I personally prefer larger images, too and clicking each one and waiting a few seconds until it opens is not really comfortable...but I agree that it is still better then someone capitulating in the progress of opening the entire thread and missing out Planetfall because of that...

I personally prefer larger images, too and clicking each one and waiting a few seconds until it opens is not really comfortable...but I agree that it is still better then someone capitulating in the progress of opening the entire thread and missing out Planetfall because of that...
Put them into spoiler-blocks?

Cheers, LT.

Because of the SHAM modcomp, I now see there's always a huge -6 relationship penalty between Santiago and Morgan. This is mainly caused by the iBasePeaceWeight value, which apparently besides the chance for declaring war/peace directly affects relations as well. I was thinking it would be better to remove the attitude effect of this value.

The way iWarmongerRespect works also simply causes a +1 relationship boost between everyone except with Zakharov and with Morgan. I'd suggest to set this value to 0 for everyone.

The full value of iWorseRankDifferenceAttitudeChange and iBetterRankDifferenceAttitudeChange is only given in situations where one player is #1 and the other one is last. Otherwise a fraction is used. The consequence is those values practically never come into effect. As a test I'd suggest to double these values.

Why was Zakharov given a iBetterRankDifferenceAttitudeChange of -1 by the way? A positive value of +1 (or after doubling +2) seems more apt to me: just like Morgan he'd probably be willing to suck up to whoever is most powerful, as long as that means he can continue his research unbothered.

Thoughts?

Because of the SHAM modcomp, I now see there's always a huge -6 relationship penalty between Santiago and Morgan. This is mainly caused by the iBasePeaceWeight value, which apparently besides the chance for declaring war/peace directly affects relations as well. I was thinking it would be better to remove the attitude effect of this value.

I tried to picture the varying leaning of the leaders towards aggressive behaviour with this variable, using the usual Civ4 settings as a guideline. I don't know if setting this to 0 has any negative sideeffects (you mention the impact on war declaration decisions) - Civ4 has 0 only for the most serious warmongers. Also more variation could be produced by using iPeaceWeightRand more.

However, I agree that for the moment testing this with 0 is the best idea, as I have no clear vision how to improve the current situation. Should go iPeaceWeightRand then to 0 as well or stay at the default 3 from Civ4?


The way iWarmongerRespect works also simply causes a +1 relationship boost between everyone except with Zakharov and with Morgan. I'd suggest to set this value to 0 for everyone.

My attempt here was to carry the idea of "warmonger" respect over from Civ4, but beside I realized now how poor my implementation was, I'm also not sure aynmore if that concept has a place in Planetfall at all - do Santiago and Yang really like each other, just because they like war? Sometimes, but then likely because they share common goals, which seem to be then a better way to model a relation boost.


The full value of iWorseRankDifferenceAttitudeChange and iBetterRankDifferenceAttitudeChange is only given in situations where one player is #1 and the other one is last. Otherwise a fraction is used. The consequence is those values practically never come into effect. As a test I'd suggest to double these values.

Sounds good :goodjob:


Why was Zakharov given a iBetterRankDifferenceAttitudeChange of -1 by the way? A positive value of +1 (or after doubling +2) seems more apt to me: just like Morgan he'd probably be willing to suck up to whoever is most powerful, as long as that means he can continue his research unbothered.Thoughts?

My thought behind this was to create rivalry between him and someone else having a higher score (which likely means superior tech). But again, your explanation makes probably more sense and adds better to his character - he will probably not go to war against that stronger rival anyway...instead he will try to trade techs, sell them around and try to catch up that way. So no need for worse relations.


I will make the changes then - just specify further for 1), what should be done.


Edit: BTW, when fiddling with the leaderheads again...should be anything done in regard to the Yang AI ?

Also I think they need adjustion regarding unit production - I think their unit production probability should get a serious boost. Yang runs Police State all the time, which gives him dozends of free units extra (plus what the AI has free on high levels anyway) and he has still not all lot more troops than others - which is crucial, if every unit is penalized by 20% and further every 2nd without any boosting special abilities (but halved maintenance) No wonder that mindworms settle in his lands Also, his combat odds perception might need a trim in direction of attacking at worse odds.

His 30% are still less the Civ4 40% for warmongers like Shaka, who rely usually on tons of units to win their wars. I'm not sure about the combat odds, I haven't specifically seen a problem here so far, so I would wait with that until it comes up as a problem. But the small number of Hive units in my Monarch game alarmed me.

However, I agree that for the moment testing this with 0 is the best idea, as I have no clear vision how to improve the current situation. Should go iPeaceWeightRand then to 0 as well or stay at the default 3 from Civ4?

I wasn't thinking of changing the values in XML. Rather I would remove the effect of this value on AI attitudes inside the SDK.

Edit: BTW, when fiddling with the leaderheads again...should be anything done in regard to the Yang AI ?

His 30% are still less the Civ4 40% for warmongers like Shaka, who rely usually on tons of units to win their wars. I'm not sure about the combat odds, I haven't specifically seen a problem here so far, so I would wait with that until it comes up as a problem. But the small number of Hive units in my Monarch game alarmed me.

I wouldn't draw conclusions based on one game. With me Yang has always been and still is one of the most consistent performing factions. In my latest game he had the biggest army.

It would be wise for him to build more infantry units, but I'm not sure what's the best way to do that. Just increasing the percentage of production he spends on military may not be a good solution: it might cause him to build more of everything instead of just more infantry.

I wasn't thinking of changing the values in XML. Rather I would remove the effect of this value on AI attitudes inside the SDK.

Have you any special reason in mind why you would prefer an SDK change - I thought the golden rule of modding is to do in XML, what is possible there :confused: Isn't anything coded outside of the XML slowing down everything e.g.?


It would be wise for him to build more infantry units, but I'm not sure what's the best way to do that. Just increasing the percentage of production he spends on military may not be a good solution: it might cause him to build more of everything instead of just more infantry.

The leaderheads.xml just has only flavor for AIunittypes so far, but maybe it is also possible to add flavor to certain unitclasses?

Have you any special reason in mind why you would prefer an SDK change

Because (unless I didn't look right) that value also affects the probability of declaring war and peace in general.

The leaderheads.xml just has only flavor for AIunittypes so far, but maybe it is also possible to add flavor to certain unitclasses?

Yeah that is an option. I think Test of Time included something like that.

I runned into an issue with diplomatic bonus for voting - Miriam voted in my current game constantly for Lal, giving her a +18 in his attitude. That's a bit too much. I had set the bonus for voting for him to 3, so that means she has accumulated this 6 times net. There is randomness in the wear-off factor as far as I know, but as voting behaviour is only something counting for 10 turns anyway, which is then subject to a new decison, it would make sense to set the wear-off to 10 turns as well (currently 20).

The other leaders values are BTW:

Deidre -250/250
Miriam -250/250
Morgan -200/200
Santiago -100/100
Yang -100/100
Zhakarov -200/200

The +/- 50 extra for Deidre and Miriam don't make a lot of sense the more I think about them (was my attempt to reflect their strong ideologies, but in fact council votes don't have to anything with that and they also add confusion - because the 1st, 3rd,... votes will cause a change by +/-2 always, the 2nd,4th,...then one by 3)
So I would revert them back to +/- 200, which would also make Lal more unique again.

Changing Miriam and Deirdre seems fine with me.

I'd wait a bit with changing the memory length. Such matters are also influenced by the number of council proposals, and the frequency of voting. That may change in the future.

Wouldn't reducing the memory length in fact make the influence of this attitude modifier less than vanilla?

Wouldn't reducing the memory length in fact make the influence of this attitude modifier less than vanilla?

Yes, it would (which I think would make sense and could be compensated -if desired- by a stronger change in attitude). But you have a point with depedency on council votes and council intervals - in the said game above one diplomatic victory election followed another. That is not uncommon im Planetfall (I already posted about lack of variety in council votes), but not guranteed to be that way in every game.

--------

I have done the discussed changes (except the ones to the peace modifiers you want to disable with the SDK):

I noticed that my modded leaderhead.xml causes errors when loading my save, so I will have to look into it first :(

Now it should work...

I hate to say it, but it looks like none of the values in iWorseRankDifferenceAttitude and iBetterRankDifferenceAttitude does what I expected it to do. Another problem is that the modifiers which show up in game are in two cases misleading by giving out a wrong (=opposite) reason, why you are liked/hated by someone

I experimented with all 4 possible cases and use the worldbuilder to create situations where they show up:


iWorseRankDifferenceAttitude with a positive number:
---> causes liking someone because of your own score being lower then his or hers
In game-description for a positive modifier: "We have a higher score then you!" ---> that's just plain wrong, because the modifier would never show up in that case, it shows up if your score islow.


iWorseRankDifferenceAttitude with a negative number:
---> causes hating someone because of your own score being lower then his or hers
In game-description for the negative modifier: "You have a higher score than us!" ---> fine


iBetterRankDifferenceAttitude with a positive number:
---> causes liking someone because of your own score being higher then his or hers
In game-description for the positive modifier: "We have a higher score then you!" ---> fine


iBetterRankDifferenceAttitude with a negative number:
---> causes hating someone because of your own score being higher then his or hers
In game-description for a negative modifier: "You have a higher score then us" ---> that's just plain wrong, because the modifier would never show up in that case, it shows up if your score is superior.


Not sure if something can be done about the wrong labeled modifiers (the problem is BTW already present in standard BTS because all 4 cases are used; it just never got discovered because the modifiers are hidden normally) but I will uload a corrected LH file soon.

I tested this in game and now the score-relation-modificators show up as intended (though a-low-score-Morgan-AI will like you, as explained above, for "having a higher score than you"):

Wow, thanks for the new discoveries and files! Those text strings should be easy to change - I guess DaveMcW understood them wrong.

I discovered recently how to make AIs forget past war declarations. If you add in the <MemoryDecays> section of a leaderhead these lines...

<MemoryDecay>
<MemoryType>MEMORY_DECLARED_WAR</MemoryType>
<iMemoryRand>X</iMemoryRand>
</MemoryDecay>

...the AIs will forget the declare-war-penalty someday. The "X" is for setting how quick they should do so. "X" seems to get figured into a 1/x chance per turn to forget the entire penalty (I tested with 5 and Yang lost around 8 turns after doing the change the entire -2 I had towards him for a past DoW)

Leaves only the question, how fast the leaders should forget and if their should be differences (I tend to say yes - the ideological leaders should be longer angry then the realpolitikers). The memory decays used in BTS range from 200 (AI remember value for receiving help) to 10 (cancelled OB recently, though that seems to have no effect in game, because it lacks an entry in the memory attitude section) or 20 (voting for/against, trading with enemies or recently made demands)

I don't really have inspiration for concrete numbers for war declarations. :scared:

I wanted to mention another idea I had though regarding the huge diplo bonus Lal gave Miriam for voting for him. I could simply remove the diplomatic bonus for voting for someone else's victory. But of course keep the bonus for voting for someone as secretary-general/planetary governor (or perhaps even increase it for certain leaders). As governor elections happen at a fixed rate, it's much easier to fine-tune the diplomatic bonus for it. Sounds good?

I don't really have inspiration for concrete numbers for war declarations. :scared:

We could start out conservative and use 200 for the more unforgiving leaders, while the others get 150. That's still a lot of time average time to get over it and shouldn't hurt anything. We might decrease it in future, but then we have to deal with the question, if the AI should really remember a gifted tech so much longer then a declared war...


I wanted to mention another idea I had though regarding the huge diplo bonus Lal gave Miriam for voting for him. I could simply remove the diplomatic bonus for voting for someone else's victory. But of course keep the bonus for voting for someone as secretary-general/planetary governor (or perhaps even increase it for certain leaders). As governor elections happen at a fixed rate, it's much easier to fine-tune the diplomatic bonus for it. Sounds good?

That sounds like a fine solution :goodjob: Your are absolutely right about it being easier to balance and from the point of realism, giving out points for diplomatic victory votes is questionable anyway - either the vote suceeds...then the game is over. And if it doesn't, the leader who was voted for hasn't gained a lot (except the unlikely case, that the voting civ could have voted for the opponent instead of just abstaining)
So giving a bonus for this just cries for exploiting it (a human player can always vote for someone else to gain the points, as long as he or she isn't going to win the election)

I noticed that Afforess has already made an entire mod component out of the idea of more "forgetful und forgiving" AIs - maybe this could be something for Planetfall?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=330881

I noticed that Afforess has already made an entire mod component out of the idea of more "forgetful und forgiving" AIs - maybe this could be something for Planetfall?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=330881I think it could be implemented for some leaders. SMAC's setting actually rationalises Civ4-diplomacy a lot better: They are *really* single leaders (meaning holding grudges like a person instead of a nation makes much more sense) and the events are "only" covering a couple of centuries, as opposed to Civ's millennia.

On the other hand, I could see more pragmatic and/or Machiavellian leaders acting more "forgetful" than others (for example, I don't think Yang would really hold grudges, because he doesn't care for something like individual pride and Lal should be a rather forgiving person). And Zakharov really holding grudges for espionage (i.e. caught spies) would also make sense.

Cheers, LT.

I don't think it would be a good idea to just take this over without reviewing it on a case-by-case basis.

for example, I don't think Yang would really hold grudges, because he doesn't care for something like individual pride

I'd argue the opposite. Yang is depicted as someone with strong self-discipline. He probably has a strong personal moral code (just one no one else agrees with) and could be the leader to hold personal vendettas the longest. He would also be under the least pressure from other elements in society to change foreign policy.

And Zakharov really holding grudges for espionage (i.e. caught spies) would also make sense.

Again, one can argue the opposite. If he's more resentful than others towards spying, that will stop making him a more attractive espionage target.

I'd argue the opposite. Yang is depicted as someone with strong self-discipline. He probably has a strong personal moral code (just one no one else agrees with) and could be the leader to hold personal vendettas the longest. He would also be under the least pressure from other elements in society to change foreign policy.*shrug* - I don't think he won't hold a grudge, but his strong self-discipline makes me think he would never act on it, unless it's aligning with his general agenda anyway - in which case he'd do it without a grudge as well. Holding a grudge only means he allows other people to influence his behaviour/plans, which doesn't fit him, in my opinion.

EDIT: I think it may really depend on the incident in question. I think he would mind interfering with his business on a long term a lot, but wouldn't care for something like "Declared War on Friend".
Again, one can argue the opposite. If he's more resentful than others towards spying, that will stop making him a more attractive espionage target.Right, I forgot about that - a more forgiving Zak is better gameplay-wise.

Cheers, LT.

In my recent game I found it silly that Deirdre became pissed off at Morgan for switching from Voice of Planet to Homo Superior, despite him still having a positive Planet value and thus being part of the Concordat.

For that reason I've added a new diplomacy modifier for Deirdre based on other players' Planet Attitude, and I've reduced the effect of religion for relations with her.

This is the edited Excel file showing the changed values.

The next patch will introduce the Data Angels as AI players; possibly the Pirates, Drones and Consciousness as well. Do you have ideas for their leaderhead values?

In my recent game I found it silly that Deirdre became pissed off at Morgan for switching from Voice of Planet to Homo Superior, despite him still having a positive Planet value and thus being part of the Concordat.

Yes, don't like that, too - plus that it happens sometimes that Deidre runs a different religion then VoP and hates you for running the VoP.


For that reason I've added a new diplomacy modifier for Deirdre based on other players' Planet Attitude, and I've reduced the effect of religion for relations with her.

Simple, but brilliant idea to tie it directly to the PA :goodjob: Creates also a difference to how Miriam behaves technically. Is it one diplomatic +/- for each point of positive/negative PA you have? The amount of reduction of the different/same religion modifiers needs to take the strength of the new effect in account. From what I have seen in my games, PF has already "strong" leanings in both direction (more then +20 or -20 in relations is not uncommon in the late game), so we should probably don't add more on the top of it.


This is the edited Excel file showing the changed values.
The next patch will introduce the Data Angels as AI players; possibly the Pirates, Drones and Consciousness as well. Do you have ideas for their leaderhead values?

I have some ideas (mainly influenced by the original SMAX design) and already wroted them down in numbers as a start, but since the file contains a lot of values there are still a lot of white feels.

Some questions in advance, before going into the specifics for the new factions/leaders:

- I noticed that several expansion leaders have no shunned civic set; from the ones you are about to add, this applies to Svensgaard and Domai. Is this by
design or just open to debate?

- another point regarding the Pirates and Drones - an important consideration IMO is here how they are designed in game. For the Pirates - I assume they will
start in the ocean, but will they have at least a tendency to stay there (= no or at least not much land colonization)? For the Drones - since they rely on unhappy and revolting bases from others to expand - are there plans to introduce new diplomatic modifiers? The existing ones just allow a very general design and it might be better to build them around any specials you have eventually planned.

- Aki Zeta is troublesome as well - I still have here in mind as "just another university leader", but now that she represents an entire faction, I wonder what the Cyborgs should be about. I noticed already a connection to the Telepathic Matrix and I remember an idea with gaining something out of fallen Cyborg units in the world... Then we have the SMAX design. Rational, peaceful, building style. What role should religion play for her?


My brainstorming...

Roze: Very high espionage spending, moderate to high political aversion vs. Power, rather peaceful with some variance in behaviour (limited and dogpiles wars, rarely full wars), tolerant to close borders (crazy idea...maybe she should actually like this, because it allows easy spying?), moderate religious feelings, likes OB treaties;backstab risk; rather low military spendings, tries to compensate by signing DP's and drawing other in wars (I think here it would help to mod in the things with AIs paying you for going to war). Frequently asking for something for free, both meeting or refunsing the demand will have a strong influence on relations (though her "memory" should be rather short in both directions) Unlikely to extort - steals instead...that would offer an interesting way to deal with her...give in to her requests or suffer from here espionage potential! Rather willing to accept vassalage.

Svensgaard: strict no-member civic follower, eventually razing (land) bases, should favor scavenger/bloom/marine regiment/"hidden nationality" abilities/promotions, very picky about close borders (would make sense if he sicks to the water, then he will just get mad if you try to colonize the ocean), heavy militarist (but focussed on navy), low peace values, hardly any interest in secret projects, another fan of limited/dogpile wars, strong overestimate of combat odds on the tactical level (though he calculates carefully on whom to declare before), [ likes OBs - perhaps rather not, because that limits his use of HN units, also Pirates might not like someone knowing their waters] , also ressource trades (even at very bad relations!)...if he don't extorts them, high sneak attact % if demands aren't met, likes the weak like Yang, but rather unwilling to help; low interest in religion/politics; backstab risk. Unwilling to become a vassal.

Domai: he should care about politics like Lal (but which civic he should like/dislike?), though in a different way. Great emphasize on happy population (perhaps no Genefactories for him?), focus on ressource trading. Not a dogpiler or fan of tactical wars, but willing to pick his true enemies, even if they are far away. Perhaps some diplo modifier based on the number of Drones in another factions bases? Trustworthy. Perhaps unwilling to become a vassal as well?

Aki-Zeta: prefers peace over war, if at all rational wars (should she look for weak targets or rather focus on relations?) also on the tactical level, strong desire to acquire secret projects, low espionage leaning, can become vassal easily ("survive to fight another day")

Some more thoughts on Favored/Disliked Civics...

What we have:

+ -
Aki Z-5 --- Consensus --- Fundamentalism
Cha Dawn --- Hybrid --- Terraformed
Deidre --- Hybrid --- Free Market
Domai --- Planned (Wealth) --- ??? (Police State)
H'Minee --- Biodomes --- Terraformed
Lal --- Member --- Police State
Marr --- Police State (Planned) --- ???
Miriam --- Fundamentalism --- Knowlegde
Morgan --- Free Market --- Autarky
Roze --- Autarky (Democratic) --- Power
Santiago --- Power --- Wealth
Svensgaard --- Power (Autarky) --- ??? (Wealth)
Yang --- Police State --- Democratic
Zhakarov --- Knowlegde --- Fundamentalism

Some civics are used doubled, others not at all. While I don't think that we must obsolutely go for each civic one time like/disliked, I see room for improvement...

After Lal has now "Member" as favourite, "Democracy" is unused - why not give in to Roze? She would benefit a lot from the GP + in terms of getting Hackers...and freedem of information has to do with being Democratic. The current choice of Autarky hurts here - OBs make espionage easier, but she has no economic benefit out of them

Autarky would fit better for Svensgard (would create an atmospheric break with Morgan, also we could design then Svensgaard better as Pirate faction - rarely OBs, instead hidden attacks on ships) and he could dislike being a Member (would lock him out of the PC, but the differences with LAL would add to atmoshere...U.N. and piracy don't go well together)

Domai could shun Police States as well and someone else perhaps should not like Consensus...?

Simple, but brilliant idea to tie it directly to the PA :goodjob: Creates also a difference to how Miriam behaves technically.So... Deirdre cares about how you treat Planet and Miriam is the religious proselytiser? I like that! :goodjob:

On the brainstorming:

Svensgaard seems to be a likely candidate for Autarky - more than for Power, since that sounds more like Santiago's thing. Perhaps have Wealth as hated civic - better than Member, I think (he shouldn't care about other people being in the council, it's just that he doesn't care).

Domai should have strong leanings towards Consensus, I think that's the closest thing to SMAC/X eudaimonia we have in Planetfall - and differentiates him from Lal. Lal believes in democracy tempered by bureaucracy (after all, he likes voting, councils etc.) - Domai would love the idea of wide-scale direct democracy that makes everybody happy. He could also like Wealth, since the Planetfall interpretation includes social welfare and general materialism (wheras Lal would probably prefer Knowledge a bit more).

Cheers, LT.

So... Deirdre cares about how you treat Planet and Miriam is the religious proselytiser? I like that! :goodjob:

On the brainstorming:

Svensgaard seems to be a likely candidate for Autarky - more than for Power, since that sounds more like Santiago's thing. Perhaps have Wealth as hated civic - better than Member, I think (he shouldn't care about other people being in the council, it's just that he doesn't care).

Domai should have strong leanings towards Consensus, I think that's the closest thing to SMAC/X eudaimonia we have in Planetfall - and differentiates him from Lal. Lal believes in democracy tempered by bureaucracy (after all, he likes voting, councils etc.) - Domai would love the idea of wide-scale direct democracy that makes everybody happy. He could also like Wealth, since the Planetfall interpretation includes social welfare and general materialism (wheras Lal would probably prefer Knowledge a bit more).

Cheers, LT.

I like your ideas. Your explanation regarding Svensgaard and the council makes sense.

IIRC, one (probably Marr) of the Alien factions in SMAX liked a Planned Economy, so if we set Domai to Wealth (Consensus would make sense as well, but then we would have a double with Aki Z-5), we would free that one.

I have edited my list with your suggestions.

I have made my way through the excel sheet and found a value for each tag. Unless I found reasons to exceed them (marked red), I sticked with the tag limitations we have used for the first 7 leaders and tried to used to those values we have already used for others (just in a different combination).

I gave Svensgaard some unique, extrem diplomatic values - he will trade ressources with everyone and you can build up a relation plus quickly, but he might also decide to withdraw his support, if someone bribes him. On the other hand, he doesn't like trading maps or signing OBs. And don't get in his way - do not colonize where he does and think twice before refusing his demands... Another way to get him on your side is fighting his wars (like Santiago)

Roze is similar to Zhak in regard that you can buy her favor (but in her case by fulfilling her requests..and she has a short memory) and she likes of course spying a lot. She isn't very interested in warfare or extortion, because she uses different means to get what she wants.

Domai (similar to Lal) and Aki Z-5 (similar to Zhak/Morgan) are more conservative, though I have tried to make him value ressource trades a lot - he does not like to be the victim of a trade embargo, but if he thinks someone should be boykotted, then he will get mad as well, if you don't follow his ideas (he is interested in social instability in his enemies bases...) Aki will probably need most work, but as said above that has to wait IMO until we have designed the Cyborg faction as a whole.

Is it one diplomatic +/- for each point of positive/negative PA you have?

Yep.

The amount of reduction of the different/same religion modifiers needs to take the strength of the new effect in account. From what I have seen in my games, PF has already "strong" leanings in both direction (more then +20 or -20 in relations is not uncommon in the late game), so we should probably don't add more on the top of it.

I have never ever seen +/-20. :confused: If anything I'd prefer to give Zak back his bigger effect re tech trading.

I noticed that several expansion leaders have no shunned civic set; from the ones you are about to add, this applies to Svensgaard and Domai. Is this by
design or just open to debate?

Open to debate. I don't know what to give them. Svensgaard didn't have a Social Engineering aversion in SMAC either, and IIRC Domai's one was Green. And I don't want to restrict more factions from Planetfall's equivalent Hybrid.

For the Pirates - I assume they will start in the ocean, but will they have at least a tendency to stay there (= no or at least not much land colonization)?

Yeah in SMAC the Pirates as played by humans were coasthuggers rather than a true sea based faction. I was thinking I could solve this by giving them +1 food on Ocean, +1 energy on Shelf and nothing extra on Coast. That way the deep ocean is most attractive.

For the Drones - since they rely on unhappy and revolting bases from others to expand - are there plans to introduce new diplomatic modifiers?

Nope. Do you have ideas?

I wonder what the Cyborgs should be about

As said before, good question indeed. ;) No anarchy seems a good benefit (and the reason why Telepathic Matrix costs less for them). I was also thinking of giving them -100% distance maintenance. The Autarky civic doesn't fit their theme anyway. They could get the Scavenger promotion for free on research of Mind/Machine Interface. Or a more limited promotion that only affects a few unitcombattypes. That's all I have right now.

Storywise, I've never like the official origins of some Unity algorithm taking over Aki Luttinen. It's anachronistic in SMAC's own universe as Digital Sentience is still faaaaaar away at that point. Also to allow the Consciousness to appear early enough in the game to make a difference without feeling out of place, I was thinking to make their faction about becoming some shared Consciousness rather than already being one from the start. I'd also drop 'Cybernetic' from their name, so that the Psionic/Affinity route can also be seen as an alternative valid way to achieve their faction's goal. Though gameplaywise they should still be encouraged to research the computer techs, and roleplaywise the rational guys.

tolerant to close borders (crazy idea...maybe she should actually like this, because it allows easy spying?)

IIRC Civ4 makes spying easier on civs with whom you don't have open borders?? If so, I'd like to reverse that.

What does iCloseBordersAttitudeChange do by the way? IIRC I saw a seperate diplo modifier for open borders. :confused:

Domai: he should care about politics like Lal (but which civic he should like/dislike?), though in a different way. Great emphasize on happy population (perhaps no Genefactories for him?)

:D I've already added a unique building for the Peacekeepers and Drones, the Hab Complex replacing the Genejack Factory, which gives the same effects plus an additional :).

Aki-Zeta:low espionage leaning

Disagree with this one - should be average I feel. They're also computer guys after all.

I like your descriptions. :goodjob:

Just two notes:
How about giving Roze a -2 to worserankdifferenceattitudechange. She dislikes Power after all.

I'm not a fan of AI extortions. Besides those are already Yang's thing. So I don't really like the idea of Svensgaard's DemandTributeAttitudeThreshold at Friendly.

Some more thoughts on Favored/Disliked Civics...

Yeah the Pirates as Autarky makes sense. Moving Angels to Democratic makes sense then. Then I'd prefer to keep the diplomatic effect with the Angels for running Democratic limited though. The reason being (same as the one why I moved Lal to prefer Member):

Police State has Yang only weakly liking Police State, and Lal strongly hating it.
Democratic has only Yang weakly hating it.
Fundamentalism has no one liking it, and TWO factions hating it.

Thus diplomatically speaking Democratic already is the preferred choice, even before adding an Angel preference. Most of the time Democratic already seems like the better choice to me (and the AI), so I'm wary of adding more benefits to it.

Domai should have strong leanings towards Consensus, I think that's the closest thing to SMAC/X eudaimonia we have in Planetfall - and differentiates him from Lal. Lal believes in democracy tempered by bureaucracy (after all, he likes voting, councils etc.) - Domai would love the idea of wide-scale direct democracy that makes everybody happy. He could also like Wealth, since the Planetfall interpretation includes social welfare and general materialism (wheras Lal would probably prefer Knowledge a bit more).

Consensus is already covered by the Consciousness, while no one prefers Planned or Wealth. Wealth could makse sense for the Drones, except it would be a little weird if Domai liked Morgan if he was running Wealth as well. Then again, Morgan uses Planned as well. :crazyeye:

Open to debate. I don't know what to give them. Svensgaard didn't have a Social Engineering aversion in SMAC either, and IIRC Domai's
one was Green. And I don't want to restrict more factions from Planetfall's equivalent Hybrid.

I think one faction without an aversion would be ok (as a kind of special). Domai hating Green never made a lot of sense to me; at least their are better candidates (Police State or Free Market)


Yeah in SMAC the Pirates as played by humans were coasthuggers rather than a true sea based faction. I was thinking I could solve this by giving them
+1 food on Ocean, +1 energy on Shelf and nothing extra on Coast. That way the deep ocean is most attractive.

Sounds good. Boni for sea tiles are both necessary to give the Pirates a chance at all and to distract them from land coloniaztion.


Nope. Do you have ideas?

As said it is hard to model the Drones idea really good with the existing tags.
They could hate more then one civic for being "oppressive" or "unfair" for the workers.
But that alone just does not hit the nail - their goal is a kind of revolution of the Drone citiziens all over the planet. They will get their bases mainly from revolts in unhappy bases, that's sure. This might also cause constant war or at least a war threat for this faction (how will other AIs react if they lose a base to the Drones?)

So it is important, who they like and don't like. I think it is first necessary to clarify what they are against...my first thought was just counting the number of Drones in each faction, setting the number in relation to the factions overall population and then creating a modifier out of this. But the problem with this approach is that this modifier would be very volatile and that they could technically make someone their enemy by isolating the faction from trade or using spies creating unrest (which might create interesting gameplay, but feels very odd storywise). The other way would be penalizing those who treat Drones/Citizien "bad" - but here we might run into the problem that Planetfall does not have a lot of measures for such behaviour. Perhaps each Genfactory and Punishment Sphere, units with nerve stapler special abilities/promotions, lack of food/bad health/high WW (but those last three are again subject to the problem described above). Or a completely different approach...Domai's ideology favors the working class (citizien/drones) and you could argue that any
specialist citizien represents a kind of "elite". So he could hate factions depending on how many specilialists they have - but of course that has the downside that you have to explain, why he employs specialists in his own faction (unless we decide to cut them for the Drones, which would be a pretty major and maybe unfun step). Those last suggestion however would have the benefit that he would like factions where he has a lot of "supporters"...

Maybe after the implementation of the Drones time will tell us a better solution.


As said before, good question indeed. ;) No anarchy seems a good benefit (and the reason why Telepathic Matrix costs less for them). I was also thinking of giving them -100% distance maintenance. The Autarky civic doesn't fit their theme anyway. They could get the Scavenger promotion for free on research of Mind/Machine Interface. Or a more limited promotion that only affects a few unitcombattypes. That's all I have right now.

Storywise, I've never like the official origins of some Unity algorithm taking over Aki Luttinen. It's anachronistic in SMAC's own universe as Digital Sentience is still faaaaaar away at that point. Also to allow the Consciousness to appear early enough in the game to make a difference without feeling out of place, I was thinking to make their faction about becoming some shared Consciousness rather than already being one from the start. I'd also drop 'Cybernetic' from their name, so that the Psionic/Affinity route can also be seen as an alternative valid way to achieve their faction's goal. Though gameplaywise they should still be encouraged to research the computer techs, and roleplaywise the rational guys.

Sounds interesting as a start...I currently have no additional ideas.


IIRC Civ4 makes spying easier on civs with whom you don't have open borders?? If so, I'd like to reverse that.

It works already the opposite - spies are less likely to be detected, if you send them to a faction you share an OB with and you get a discount on the mission ESP costs (15% IIRC)


What does iCloseBordersAttitudeChange do by the way? IIRC I saw a seperate diplo modifier for open borders. :confused:

"Close Borders" is the term for tension growing out of mutual cultural pressure at tight border parts and not to be confused with "Open Borders". For the latter there is the usual array of a divisor tag and attitude change limit one.


:D I've already added a unique building for the Peacekeepers and Drones, the Hab Complex replacing the Genejack Factory, which gives the same effects plus an additional :).

Nice idea - UB's for Planetfall. I had the idea of unique buildings a while ago, when I remembered the Recreation Area quote, where Lal talks about the typical buildings in the bases of variuos factions (Casino for Morgan, Garden for Deidre, Barrack Yard for Santiago, Reading Room for his HQ and the Meeting Hall for Yang), but it is hard to come up with interesting effects as always.


Disagree with this one - should be average I feel. They're also computer guys after all.

I like your descriptions. :goodjob:

Just two notes:
How about giving Roze a -2 to worserankdifferenceattitudechange. She dislikes Power after all.

I'm not a fan of AI extortions. Besides those are already Yang's thing. So I don't really like the idea of Svensgaard's DemandTributeAttitudeThreshold at

Friendly.

Done.


Yeah the Pirates as Autarky makes sense. Moving Angels to Democratic makes sense then. Then I'd prefer to keep the diplomatic effect with the Angels for running Democratic limited though. The reason being (same as the one why I moved Lal to prefer Member):

Police State has Yang only weakly liking Police State, and Lal strongly hating it.
Democratic has only Yang weakly hating it.
Fundamentalism has no one liking it, and TWO factions hating it.

Thus diplomatically speaking Democratic already is the preferred choice, even before adding an Angel preference. Most of the time Democratic already seems

like the better choice to me (and the AI), so I'm wary of adding more benefits to it.

I have included those chnages in a new version of the sheet as well (all changes in green)


I could do the changes to the .xml file as well, but it would take some time (also it would be better to them to a file, which already has any modifications you have made in advanace to adding the new factions)

Some additional thoughts regarding the Drone creation mechanics (to make them competitive and counter the issues caused by having isolated bases in or near enemy territory). Some (or at least are all together) are probably unbalanced or not feasible to be implemented, but brainstorming never hurts ;)

- When the very first base in a game revolts often enough to change it owner, it would be the start of the Drones faction, as far as I understand the plan. To give them a better start, at this point all bases which have Drones would switch instantly to Drones control as well(storywise see it as unique situation - no one expects the Drones to unite, other bases follow and the guards are cought on surprise). Of course after that initial "big revolt", the Drones will only win single bases, which revolt
- Always (regardless if it the "big revolt" or if it is just a single base later), give the Drones in each new Base one defender per Drone before
- Also, Drones should suffer no anarchy phase in acquired bases and maybe the first culture ring could be forced automatically
- Fighting the Drones faction in a war should cause double WW (perhaps only if you declare/attack/fight on their territory?)
- generally no revolts in Drone bases?

I hope to reply more later, but I'd just like to note now that I'd certainly appreciate it if you would be willing to make the XML changes. It would speed up when I can release the next patch.

I also had the idea to make Knowledge the civic aversion of the Drones. References to the SMAC Drones' -2 Research, and would cause an emnity with Zakharov and his unethical research practices.

@ Maniac

I have edited the leaderhead .xml and attached it together with the updated spreadsheet.

I incorporated your feedback and also made some additional changes (marked green/red in the excel sheet):

- Domai dislikes now Knowlegde with -6
- Roze is indifferent to close borders (instead of liking this; if you want her to react like others leaders, suggest a numer - however I still would leave here at least as 0, as she might see close broders as an advantage for her espionage business)
- reduced the frequency of Svensgaard demanding tribute by half


- I replaced Svensgaard 0 for iMaxWarMinAdjacentLandPercent with 1 (reason: 0 would allow him to start total wars vs. someone he hasn't even a border with - that might fight for ideological leaders, but not for someone caring for the maritime sphere only)
- removed Svensgaards plus +4 relations with weaker civs (would make him unnecessarily similar to Yang without any real foundation in his character)
- reworked the OB effects for Svensgaard, Roze and Domai: Svensgaard is picky about to sign OBs at all because of his piracy ambitions, so it does not make sense to give him a huge relation effect for when he signs an Ob with you. For the other two, you can gain up to +3 (Domai needs the mobility to reach outlying bases - perhaps I should alter his refuse treshold as well?, Roze is interested in less risky spy movement); for Domai this will take longer than for Roze, though.
- Domai will now ask you twice as often to stop trading with someone else (he also values such actions more, so it is consequent that he asks more often for them as well)
- gave Roze a very slight relation penalty for captured spies back (I first thought it would be nice to set a 0 here - her view could "espionage as a kind of game" - but I'm not sure if her leaning towards it will play out strong enough in the game to protect her to justify completely consequenceless spying; could be exploited otherwise)


BTW, I have realized recently during playing what parameter iLostWarAttitudeChange really means - I always though of some counter for ended wars where the AI had to pay for peace, lost more units and so on, which worsens then the relations forever. But that doesn't seem to be the case. The modifier only seems to appear in currently ongoing wars, if you are about to beat the AI - then they get even more mad by the degree set in this tag. Now the question is what it does influence, if an AI does hate you more or less during a war. The only impact I can image is on peace terms, but I have no idea in which direction it works.
Currently we have it for most leaders at -1 (BTS setting for all leaders), only Santiago and Svensgaard are at -2.

Thanks for the file!

- Domai will now ask you twice as often to stop trading with someone else (he also values such actions more, so it is consequent that he asks more often for them as well)

Do you ever break open borders because an AI asks you to? Especially since IIRC the AI never asks other AIs to break open borders, so I'd rather see this behaviour changed to the same as the other AIs.

I was also thinking about removing the Consensus civic. The "no unhappy for non-state religions" could be moved to Democratic. Seems a more interesting bonus than just some fixed extra happiness in your largest bases. I could then make Planned the favourite civic of the Consciousness, and Wealth of the Drones.

Do you ever break open borders because an AI asks you to? Especially since IIRC the AI never asks other AIs to break open borders, so

I'd rather see this behaviour changed to the same as the other AIs.

Rarely. Being consistent with the philosophy of not over-emphasizing AI-human-only diplomatic issues, I agree (though I still think it would make sense in the context of the drones philosophy).

I was also thinking about removing the Consensus civic. The "no unhappy for non-state religions" could be moved to Democratic. Seems a
more interesting bonus than just some fixed extra happiness in your largest bases. I could then make Planned the favourite civic of the Consciousness, and
Wealth of the Drones.

Given that Consensus seems to be a (another) underused choice anyway and it would make it easier to set the Consciousness and Drones favourite civics, I think that a good idea. Fits also pefectly to Democracy. If we now just get Fundametalism
right so that AIs will consider it at least occasionally as a choice like Police State...
perhaps give Fundi a 3rd free XP point (and take one away from Power if necessary)?
Or +50% longer resistance when a base base get captured...`
Or spread of partisan units when a base gets captured...
Or increased building speed for missionaries...

-----

I think the addition of the expansion factions will make some further modifications necessary. They have without a doubt spiced up the game and brought in a
lot more action - on the other hand, they also catalysed some negative mechanics:

1. The vasall mechanics might need rework outside of the leaderhead.xml. We have two types of vasalls - conquered ones and peaceful ones - and the leaderhead.xml only offers one parameter for each to characterize a faction. For peaceful vassalization, you can set a mood treshold - the future vassall needs to think high enough of a potential vasall. For capitulation, there is just a positive or negative value setting if a leader is rather (un)willing to capitulate. The main problem I see is that the capitulation parameter only fits for isolationlists/realpolitikers like Yang or Morgan - almost never capitulate, just for the sake of staying independent or give in to a stronger to survive. A Deidre or Miriam would probably surrender to someone with similar goals, but fight till death vs. a heathen. And that is something you cannot achivec with that purely strength-based value.
And capitulations like Miri to Zhak(!) in my last game seem to turn over the entire game, because the attitude of teams is somehow middled, so that clear
diplomatic blocks/clevages vanish completly

2. The result of 1) in combination with more potential aggressors leads to more war declarations and faster detoriation of relations because of the -3 for "You declared war on us" (leading to more wars again and so on...). Thats why I think we need to make the AI forget declarations at some point. I have posted a solution in this thread a while ago and I would suggest to implement this with a middle-value for the "speed of forgetting" for everone for the moment. We can still differnentiate the factions later. We might try 50 or 100, which is a common value (ok, the AI needs 150 turns to forget that you refused a demand, but that's IMO too much anyway).
BTW, drastically increasing "forget speed" for AI-human-only-actions generally would be another way to balance them.

3. Maybe we should finetune the war attitude percentages also - I have e.g. Deidre (0/50/100/100) in mind. Now that she directly factors your PA into her feelings, extrem values (like furious/friendly) get more likely anayway. Furious means no protection from war plans anyway (no value here), but the current design is that annoyed is already 0 for Deidre. That means that it does not really matter how much you set her up - I would prefer to change her values to 50/75/100/100, so that she will focus on the Terraformers more
The Cautious value was anyway the one I always had most trouble with - how willing should leaders be to attack someone they have neutral feelings against? Sure, that should count too much for Yang/Santiago (but even they shouldn't destroy all relationships - sometimes they need allies...), but for some characters 100% might be interesting. That still does not mean necessarily that they cannot attack you at cautious relations - they can be still bribed into wars or react to other diplomatic issues with war (they just will not consider you as a target in their strategic war plans)

If we now just get Fundametalism right so that AIs will consider it at least occasionally as a choice like Police State...

I'm planning to let Fundamentalism double the effect of your state religion.

1. The vasall mechanics might need rework outside of the leaderhead.xml

I've put it on the to-do list, but I kinda consider it low priority compared to other stuff I've planned. Another option is, when a faction capitulates, to replace its leader by some generic leader who adopts the conqueror's policies. Makes sense to place some puppet leader in a vassalized faction;

2. The result of 1) in combination with more potential aggressors leads to more war declarations and faster detoriation of relations because of the -3 for "You declared war on us" (leading to more wars again and so on...).

May I ask around what turn AIs start to declare wars in your games? I play with Aggressive AI, yet no one ever declares war until 150-200, at which point I quit because I get bored with the lack of action. I want someone to declare war on me! :mad: :doitnow!: I don't know. Perhaps I'm just not waiting long enough. I'm kinda getting worried though that there is again some problem in the code which prevents the AI from declaring war. :scared:

3. Maybe we should finetune the war attitude percentages also - I have e.g. Deidre (0/50/100/100) in mind.

May I first ask what these numbers mean? :confused:

May I ask around what turn AIs start to declare wars in your games? I play with Aggressive AI, yet no one ever declares war until 150-200, at which point I quit because I get bored with the lack of action. I want someone to declare war on me! :mad: :doitnow!: I don't know. Perhaps I'm just not waiting long enough. I'm kinda getting worried though that there is again some problem in the code which prevents the AI from declaring war. :scared:

That's interesting. I already stopped playing PF with Aggressive AI a while ago (after one of my major adjustments to the file and deeper understanding of the AI war declaration logic, I realized that it was just no longer needed), so my experience with too many wars is without AAI :lol: Of course difficulty might have an impact as always...

I browsed the notes for my version k) game and indeed, the first war was in turn 176 the AI declaring on me. I can't say that I'm missing action though...on Immortal I'm busy with keeping up with the expansion speed of the AI, preparing for the inevitable later declaration later and keeping the mindworms away...or close ;)

It is possible that PF has some elements which block earlier declarations - maybe the AI has just enough other "troubles" to deal with. Have you examined which strategies they runned during the peaceful period? This could give an hint on what goes wrong perhaps.


May I first ask what these numbers mean? :confused:

I refer to a quadruple of values which comes into the play at the very end of the AI-war-decison-logic. If an AI considers a certain type of war and has passed all other checks with it (so it thinks that it is prepared technologically and numerically and has picked an opponent), then it will a roll a final dice, which might lead to terminating that war plan because of the relation to the victim. Each leader has 4 such values - for leaders he is Annoyed, Cautious, Pleased or Friendly with. Friendly and even Pleased in most cases terminate that plan with 100%, while for annoyed and cautious you have a % chance. It just has the effect that war declarations get more or less often, because more or less of the planning attempts get terminated (furious means that there is no such roll and war will be planned, if the previous checks shave been passed).

Of course difficulty might have an impact as always...

Yeah, perhaps I should increase my difficulty level to Immortal too. It's just that at higher difficulty levels you get the feeling the only way the AI can compete is by massive cheating. That doesn't make for a fun game either IMO.

One other possible difference: do you play with or without Scattered Landing Pods these days?

Have you examined which strategies they runned during the peaceful period? This could give an hint on what goes wrong perhaps.

In my latest game Miriam was planning war on Lal, Lal was planning war on Domai, and Domai was planning war on Lal. They all had to go overseas to reach their target, but they all had transports plus escorts. So I don't know what kept them from declaring. The only thing I can think of is that because they were all planning war, they were all building up their military at the same time, and none of them ever felt they had gained a sufficiently large power advantage to actually declare.

I refer to a quadruple of values which comes into the play at the very end of the AI-war-decison-logic.

Thanks for the explanation! Currently though Deirdre hardly ever declares war at all in my games, so I'd first like to figure out why that is before I halve her chance to declare on people she's Annoyed/Cautious with.

Yeah, perhaps I should increase my difficulty level to Immortal too. It's just that at higher difficulty levels you get the feeling the only way the AI can compete is by massive cheating. That doesn't make for a fun game either IMO.

True, but after a couple of Emperor games played out the same way (me taking the techlead within the first half of the game, then no more competition or threat from the AI), I see this as the minor evil. Immortal AI are at least sometimes dangerous enough to bring me in trouble in regard to surving and will usually prevent me from winning - that's the setting I search for to have fun.


One other possible difference: do you play with or without Scattered Landing Pods these days?

After your hint a while ago, always without.


In my latest game Miriam was planning war on Lal, Lal was planning war on Domai, and Domai was planning war on Lal. They all had to go overseas to reach their target, but they all had transports plus escorts. So I don't know what kept them from declaring. The only thing I can think of is that because they were all planning war, they were all building up their military at the same time, and none of them ever felt they had gained a sufficiently large power advantage to actually declare.

I could really imagine that this has influenced things. Many AI's are very power-sensitive.


Thanks for the explanation! Currently though Deirdre hardly ever declares war at all in my games, so I'd first like to figure out why that is before I halve her chance to declare on people she's Annoyed/Cautious with.

That's another thing I cannot confirm - I was always one of her preferred targets in the last games. And if manage to have peace for a couple of turns, she happily went for someone lese. Also, she has never trouble to fill her bases with native life units. I assume that is similar in your games?

---

When I do the changes to Domai, should I add then the forget code for wars at least? I doubt that this will delay/call of any initial hostilities, but it might increase changes a tiny bit that things can settle sometimes again later...?

True, but after a couple of Emperor games played out the same way (me taking the techlead within the first half of the game, then no more competition or threat from the AI), I see this as the minor evil. Immortal AI are at least sometimes dangerous enough to bring me in trouble in regard to surving and will usually prevent me from winning - that's the setting I search for to have fun.

Okay, I'll try Immortal in my next game. Having looked at the Handicap file, the only thing which worries me comparing those difficulty levels is "iNoTechTradeModifier", which goes from 40 to 30. Do you know what that means? Personally I like t if AIs who are pissed off at you become more dangerous on higher difficulty levels, but I don't like it if increasing your difficulty levels also makes AIs who would usually be friendly towards you also become more hostile - it ruins the potential fun of diplomacy. So I don't know - what does iNoTechTradeModifier do? Does it make everyone less likely to trade techs with you or so. :scared:

Also, she has never trouble to fill her bases with native life units. I assume that is similar in your games?

Yeah. In my experience Deirdre is really good at playing Planetfall. In my last game she was in fact the only one more powerful than me, and expanded like crazy. :eek:

When I do the changes to Domai, should I add then the forget code for wars at least? I doubt that this will delay/call of any initial hostilities, but it might increase changes a tiny bit that things can settle sometimes again later...?

Actually I'd prefer those values to stay the same. I consider warfare becoming more likely as the game progresses a good thing! My end goal after all is to encourage for instance big climactic wars between hybrids and terraformers to finish off the game in a satisfying manner.

Okay, I'll try Immortal in my next game. Having looked at the Handicap file, the only thing which worries me comparing those difficulty levels is "iNoTechTradeModifier", which goes from 40 to 30. Do you know what that means? Personally I like t if AIs who are pissed off at you become more dangerous on higher difficulty levels, but I don't like it if increasing your difficulty levels also makes AIs who would usually be friendly towards you also become more hostile - it ruins the potential fun of diplomacy. So I don't know - what does iNoTechTradeModifier do? Does it make everyone less likely to trade techs with you or so. :scared:

From the Civfanatics Modwiki:

iNoTechTradeModifier Sets a percent modifier for an AI, that determines how many techs a rival can get by trade, before the AI thinks he is becoming too advanced. (100 for chieftain, 70 for noble, 20 for deity)

It would mean that after a AI has traded say 15 techs with you or so, it would stop just because - though there might be factors which reduce this counter over time again.
Shouldn't become a huge problem though - I'm not sure if I have ever triggered this denial reason in PF, since I have switched to Immortal.



Yeah. In my experience Deirdre is really good at playing Planetfall. In my last game she was in fact the only one more powerful than me, and expanded like crazy. :eek:

Yes, she absolutely knows how to expand (which is good as that goes well together with Hybrid). If she has problem (beside not attacking in your game), it is using her units effectively. The AI has well-known troubles to understand being the attacker in PSI-combat. Now even that has less consequences for Deidre - she has at least a beefed up PSI-defense- but she still misses out the full advantage she could have.


Actually I'd prefer those values to stay the same. I consider warfare becoming more likely as the game progresses a good thing! My end goal after all is to encourage for instance big climactic wars between hybrids and terraformers to finish off the game in a satisfying manner.

I understand where you come from, but the problem in my last game was that all those war declarations ruined the relations between most players and that seemed to work against those Hybrid/Terraformer climax. Several players had mutual relation well under -30 and the "war coalitions" were usually master and vassal vs. another master/vassal. A third side joined the fun seemingly in a random manner...it was rather chaotic. But maybe I was just unlucky with that game. Or it was somehow influenced by playing LT's Map of Planet (which I really like)

Yes, she absolutely knows how to expand (which is good as that goes well together with Hybrid). If she has problem (beside not attacking in your game), it is using her units effectively. The AI has well-known troubles to understand being the attacker in PSI-combat. Now even that has less consequences for Deidre - she has at least a beefed up PSI-defense- but she still misses out the full advantage she could have.

I need to see the AI in action to see what it's doing wrong and how to improve it. As I've never fought a war with Deirdre, that kinda makes it hard. ;) What exactly is she doing wrong? :confused: Her trait ensures her psi defense is the same as her psi attack. And psi units are just as likely as any other unit to use terrain defense boni to their advantage when planning their attack route.

Several players had mutual relation well under -30 and the "war coalitions" were usually master and vassal vs. another master/vassal.

I don't understand. I've never seen such low relations, not in Planetfall, not in FfH, not in vanilla. To get so low, an AI would almost have to immediately redeclare war ten turns on the same player every time the peace treaty expired. :confused: Is that the case?

I need to see the AI in action to see what it's doing wrong and how to improve it. As I've never fought a war with Deirdre, that kinda makes it hard. ;) What exactly is she doing wrong? :confused: Her trait ensures her psi defense is the same as her psi attack. And psi units are just as likely as any other unit to use terrain defense boni to their advantage when planning their attack route.

To get the 3:2 advantage in land-PSI-combat, you need to be the one to attack. That's not different for Deidre (she just has the advantage that failing in that doesn't give her 2:3, but 3:3 odds - better, but still not 3:2)...and here I see a problem with the AI. A human player will patiently wait (if possible) for the enemy to do the second last move to attack then - the AI is just programmed to march forward and to attack - but it gets attacked in this process very often.


I don't understand. I've never seen such low relations, not in Planetfall, not in FfH, not in vanilla. To get so low, an AI would almost have to immediately redeclare war ten turns on the same player every time the peace treaty expired. :confused: Is that the case?

Not -30 from war declarations alone, but together with other stuff. I have seen e.g. -9 from three declarations in my last game. What I don't like about it, is that it is quite huge compared to other things and also absolutely eternal. For atrocities like razing a base or using a nuke...yes, such stuff shouldn't be forgotten easily...but just having declared a war mattering after 300 turns?

To get the 3:2 advantage in land-PSI-combat, you need to be the one to attack. That's not different for Deidre (she just has the advantage that failing in that doesn't give her 2:3, but 3:3 odds - better, but still not 3:2)...and here I see a problem with the AI. A human player will patiently wait (if possible) for the enemy to do the second last move to attack then - the AI is just programmed to march forward and to attack - but it gets attacked in this process very often.

Ah yes true. Unfortunately I have little hope something could be found which addresses this in a satisfying manner. Or perhaps something can be found (I'm remembering some potentially useful function in the SDK now), but it would probably slow down the game significantly.

Not -30 from war declarations alone, but together with other stuff. I have seen e.g. -9 from three declarations in my last game. What I don't like about it, is that it is quite huge compared to other things and also absolutely eternal. For atrocities like razing a base or using a nuke...yes, such stuff shouldn't be forgotten easily...but just having declared a war mattering after 300 turns?

In this particular case it doesn't matter though. -30 and -21 both mean Furious. Anyway, hard for me to say more about this without experiencing more wars myself.

Ah yes true. Unfortunately I have little hope something could be found which addresses this in a satisfying manner. Or perhaps something can be found (I'm remembering some potentially useful function in the SDK now), but it would probably slow down the game significantly.

That fix would also be likely to lead to many, many stalemates in Psi Combat, given everything else equal. If two AI Psi units see each other, neither will take the first move. If the human meets an AI, s/he will eventually learn that the AI plays this way, and also not take the first step.

Ironically, the bias to the defender in almost all Civ IV combat is what makes large-scale invasions possible, because you can defend your stacks.

Here is a slightly modified leaderhead file (Wealth and Planned as new favorite civics for Domai and Aki and normalized reactions for Domai on Trade Embargos)

Thanks!

Here is the modified HandicapInfo.xml related to the discussion about AIs hating you just for being a human player from Noble difficulty on: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=338471&page=9 (post #326-)

I kept the boni for Settlers and Chieftains, but for every other difficulty the attitude modifier it is now 0.

Thanks!

I found two interesting threads dealing with the creation of extremly ruthless runaway AIs:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=338781

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=311889&page=1

Looking at the XML for the Runaway AI:

iNoTechTradeThreshold = 50
iTechTradeKnownPercent = 0
TechRefuseAttitudeThreshold = ATTITUDE_FURIOUS

Be very willing to trade and broker techs. Plainly all AIs should trade techs more. We should also improve the sophistication of the tech trade code.

FLAVOR_GROWTH

This is to try to leverage the IMPERIALIST trait as much as possible. All AIs with IMPERIALIST should produce settlers more often.

iRefuseToTalkWarThreshold = 150
If this is a boost, then that means that all the diplomacy that the AI does while it is at war is a net disadvantage, which is unfortunate. We need to make the AI want more in exchange for peace, and have a better idea of what peace is worth to it.

iMaxWarNearbyPowerRatio = 70
iMaxWarDistantPowerRatio = 30
iMaxWarMinAdjacentLandPercent = 0
NoWarAttitudeProbs = 10 for all attitudes
These and other changes set the Runaway AI's war strategy: it finds a civ that it has a significant power advantage over and it attacks them, regardless of attitude. This is a great war strategy, and all AIs should do it to a greater or lesser extent. If Ghandi sees another civ sitting on 25% of Indian power, and it's not in a vassalage/defensive pact, then that civ is a sitting duck for the warmongers out there. Ghandi should offer a vassage agreement. If the victim civ refuses, Ghandi should attack and capitulate the civ for its own protection.

iSameReligionAttitude* = 0
iDifferentReligionAttitude* = 0
iFavoriteCivicAttitude* = 0
The existing AI's current religion diplomacy hurts it, so disabling it improves the AI's performance. The same applies for civics. Here's my suggestion for improving religious diplomacy:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=337714

UnitAIWeightModifiers - UNITAI_COLLATERAL = +10
AIs should build slightly more collateral units.

ImprovementWeightModifier - IMPROVEMENT_TOWN = +20
AIs should slightly increase their valuation of towns.
Edit: on reflection, this probably only helps because of the bug jdog fixed where AI workers keep bulldozing towns.

iBuildUnitProb = 80
iWonderConstructRand = 0
AIs should build slightly more units and slightly fewer wonders.

Though I don't think the whole thing fits for any PF leader (maybe except the Aliens), I found the read interesting because it shows that even pretty extreme values (can)work. Especially those thinhgs could be fun, if changed for some leaders:

iRefuseToTalkWarThreshold = 150
150 is probably too much, but I somehow feel now that 15 as maximum value in PF is abit low, taking in account that one problem of the AI is that they tend to sign peace, even when they are winning

iMaxWarNearbyPowerRatio = 70
iMaxWarDistantPowerRatio = 30
iMaxWarMinAdjacentLandPercent = 0
Could fit for the rational warmongers. Values below 100 mean that an AI only attacks, if it feel superior. 75 ist currently the lowest for PF and most AIS are 100 or above.
It would probably lead to less wars from those leaders, but the ones started would turn out more effective.

UnitAIWeightModifiers - UNITAI_COLLATERAL = +10
This probably hurts for no one. CD is power.

iBuildUnitProb = 80
iWonderConstructRand = 0
For unit building, 30 is maximum for PF and the leaders just differ in increments of 5.
I think that's just too little difference, gieven that even values as 80 and 90 seem to work. I wouldn't go so far, but 50 or 60 for some leaders could spice up things.
For wonders, it seems that 0 does not mean no wonders (AI will still go for them, if the have rational reasons) - it just means no additional "addiction" for wonder building.
So we could try some leaders with 0 as well.

iRefuseToTalkWarThreshold = 150

For the reason mentioned in the post you quoted, I don't think changing this value is a good approach to creating a better AI.

[quote]iMaxWarNearbyPowerRatio = 70
iMaxWarDistantPowerRatio = 30
iMaxWarMinAdjacentLandPercent = 0

I don't like this because
1) I think there are too few wars before turn 200.
2) after turn 200 I'd prefer to see conflicts between Hybrids and Terraformers. Making AIs only declare war at large power differences would run counter to that goal.

iBuildUnitProb = 80

Unit construction is stopped when an AI spends a certain percentage of its income on unit maintenance, so I can see why at a certain point extreme values don't make a difference. You could set unit construction probability at 200 and it wouldn't make a difference. Perhaps a higher value can be experimented with for Yang?

For the reason mentioned in the post you quoted, I don't think changing this value is a good approach to creating a better AI.

I don't really get the argument made there and believe the poster has a wrong idea of what this value does... Naturally, an AI at war with someone does not do diplomacy with this enemy - except peace negotiations. It does diplomacy with third parties still, even more - it will ask them to help in the war or to stop trading with the enemy. The tag in question does only one thing - it prolongues the initial pase after a declarartion where the AI will not talk with the enemy about peace. It does not affect third party diplomacy.

So the question is if it is beneficial for the AI to refuse talking about peace longer. I tend to say yes. I always have the feeling that they give in too fast if they have sucess. Of course the point can be made that this also means they give in later if they loose, but as far as I know a really bad course of the war can override that-no-talk-period.

I think an increased value could help everyone (though there should be still differences - warmongers and ideologic leaders should have a higher value then rest)

Of course the quoted poster is right that changing the AI logic for valuing peave offers might tackle the problem better.


I don't like this because
1) I think there are too few wars before turn 200.
2) after turn 200 I'd prefer to see conflicts between Hybrids and Terraformers. Making AIs only declare war at large power differences would run counter to that goal.

Indeed, 1) might suffer from this. For 2) - especially when combined with greater differences in unitbuildprobabilty - I don't think so, as I would only change some of the leaders (those which care least about that struggle)


Unit construction is stopped when an AI spends a certain percentage of its income on unit maintenance, so I can see why at a certain point extreme values don't make a difference. You could set unit construction probability at 200 and it wouldn't make a difference. Perhaps a higher value can be experimented with for Yang?

I will do some testing then...

Unit construction is stopped when an AI spends a certain percentage of its income on unit maintenance, so I can see why at a certain point extreme values don't make a difference. You could set unit construction probability at 200 and it wouldn't make a difference. Perhaps a higher value can be experimented with for Yang?

Coming back to this after 1 and 1/2 game with Yang set at unit construction probabilty at 80. Attached is the power graph from my current game, turn 235 (looked similar in the last game - soon after changing the value, he started to build up his forces).
He engaged also in some bigger wars vs. Santiago (who performed better then average), so I think this option might have healthy impact on the frequence of early wars (BTW, first war in that game was turn 116; Yang not in involved though).

I would suggest to rework all leaders - not all with 80 of course. My idea would be creating 4 groups and having the probabilities at 20-40-60-80.

Yang would be the only one at 80 (he needs to go for masses of units with the strength handicap and his natural choice PS compensates for the costs)

Santiago/Miriam should be at 60. Both factions have boni in the military department and they need to get a big army to be able to declare (though not as big as Yang)

Then we would have a big block of leaders at 40. Lal, Deidre, Zhakarov (though he could go through with 20 as well; depends on how war-happy we wan't him to be), Domai and Svensgaard (he could be imagined as 60er as well, but I fear that this would weaken him to much on the economic side; he needs to build up his sea bases)

Morgan, Roze and Luttinen seem to be candiates for the 20% setting.


Of course, if an overall increase of probabilities isn't acceptable (even performance issues could stand against the AI building more units), then we might just go with 60-40-20-0 (I'm convinced that 0 doesn't mean no unit building!). My main point is rather that the differences are currently just too slight (or can anyone point out a clear pattern that always the same factions dominate the power graph?), increments of 5 or 10% just don't play out in the game.

Wow. So there's certainly more room for building more units. Looking at that pic I wonder though, do all those extra units actually lead to better AI performance? I see that Yang is in terms of score more or less the weakest of the original seven factions. Was he too before he started pumping units? If extra units don't eventually translate into more bases, population, research... then building extra units in fact isn't a good strategy.

Wow. So there's certainly more room for building more units. Looking at that pic I wonder though, do all those extra units actually lead to better AI performance? I see that Yang is in terms of score more or less the weakest of the original seven factions. Was he too before he started pumping units? If extra units don't eventually translate into more bases, population, research... then building extra units in fact isn't a good strategy.

You a raise a good point here. The extra power might have influenced his vassals in the decision to join him, but the units did not translate yet into more success on the battlefield. He declared several tiles, but the war where more or less a stalemate, I did not get a notification about a base switching owners. However, that might have different reasons.
In general I have the feeling that more wars in PF then in BTS end in stalemates. I still suspect bunkers to be on reason. But you convinced me, they aren't too strong. They are annoying, but there are strategies to deal with them (in my current game I found another - Swarming promoted Sporelaunchers). I'm however not sure if the AI does know how to deal with them. Another strategy e.g. is sacrifing a unit before. I'm not sure if they AI would ever do that (they do when attacking a base, but not very often outside).
What I could imagine to try out is increasing the overestimate-factor in battles for Yang (overall I have the feeling that the AIs behave fairly onservatice here and miss out opportunities often to gain an advantage by taking up a risky fight) and the period in which he will not talk after declaring war. Increasing the chance for total wars a bit might help as well (he is still hindered by his preference for close victims).

I have the opposite impression from playing Civ4 in general, not just Planetfall: I always feel that AIs are attacking other stacks with a too low chance of success. So personally I don't think increasing overestimation odds further would be a good idea.

Not talking for a while after a declaration of war does sound Yang-like.

I played two more games with modified settings under patch f). These included beside higher unit construction probabilites and longer no-talk-periodes also a higher maximum strength for the enemy, higher war preperation chances and lower chances for good relations blocking wars. In both games there were early declarations around turn 70, so it seems to be possible to get the AI into doing this. The price is however that they will attack less prepared and go for stronger opponents, leading to often less sucessful wars. They cought me unprepared, which lead to losing one of those game completely and two bases in the other, but someone anticipating the new thread of early declarations will probably easy repel them.

I have some hope that the new version of jdogs Better AI mod will probably help the AI (it is mainly focussed on teaching them to use victory startegies) in wars as well - assuming that it will beome like earlier versions of BAI part of Planetfall, I think it is best to see first how it impacts AI performance in Planetfall before thinking again about adjusting the values mentioned above.

I said that I would leave this topic until BAI 1.00 is incorporated, but my current game with patch 13i is just too fun to be not posted here. I have attached two saves and the slightly edited leaderhead.XML I used. Both saves will lead to a war caused by the ongoing DP with Svensgaard in the interturn 2255-2256. Additionally - it seems to depend on how you play that last 1 1/2 turns - you might trigger several other inter AI declarations or (2255 save) a YANG attack on yourself.
Also it is a game where the dominating AI is not Zhakarov.

Difficulty is Emperor BTW, Advanced Start, me playing Luttinen.

XML changes are the following (Leader/RefuseToTalkWarTurns/UnitBuildProbability%)

Lal: 20/40
Miriam: 20/60
Santiago 20/60
Morgan: 10/20
Yang: 30/80
Deidre: 20/40
Zhakarov: 10/20
Roze: 10/20
Domai: 20/40
Svensgaard: 20/60
Luttinen: 10/20

Now that we come closer to including Cha Dawn as 2nd Gaian leader it is also necessary to discuss how he should behave. Partly this will probably depend on the traits he will get and one question regarding this is to which extend he should share her traits. I would prefer him to have completely different traits (e.g. the +2 PV per base could be replaced by a yield bonus for fungus - he doesn't need the extra PV that much, he will go Hybrid anyway). Other ideas, partly inspired by original SMAX:

- free Brood Pit or Biolab
- starts with ability to build NL and/or some X00 free PV/starting unit mindworm
- no foreign trade routes
- can't built certain improvements
- NL only acts as MP
- his units/bases don't get attacked by NL at all (very close to his background description, but might be too strong)
- can use population to rush NL only
- automatic war with everyone below -1 PA

Overall I think it is clear that he will be Deidres more aggressive and radical "brother"
His favourite and disliked civics already hint on that - while Deidre still can go Terraformed, Cha Dawn will never do that. The free Infest promotion for NL is another fact suiting him more for aggressive foreign policies. Suggested characteristics:
- prepares full scale wars over limited/dogpile ones
- weights his odds carefully if it is time to strike
- razing bases (?- unless we want to reserve that completely for the Aliens, it would perhaps make sense that he razes big, polluting bases and gets something out of that...)
- high unit building probability
- isolationist in terms of signing OB, DPs and ressource trading