Has anyone played on Aggressive AI recently?

I'm sure it is part of the improved AI mod and been around for a while, but i've just discovered it. It is insane, i'm playing on Monarch and it is the first time I have actually felt intimidated by the AI's and actually lost!
They had huge number of units and actually used them to attack and counter in a well planned way.

I imagine that it must be more like playing another human, with everything focused on war.

I am going to start another game soon, if you haven't tried Aggressive AI for a while then I suggest giving it a go!

I read a report stating that one of the big cheese devs wanted that to be the default AI because the default AI of now... kind of really sucks. Ever since I read that, Aggressive AI every time.

That was Blake, the main programmer for the AI in BtS. He said that he wanted Aggressive AI to be the default setting, and the current default setting to be a checkbox labeled passive AI. But Sid or one of the main producers of BtS nixed his propossal and kept the current set up.

That's the one, Phun. I wish I could read that sucker again, it was very informative.

I think that's a pretty horrible idea for a default. Maybe it'd make the game harder, but I think it'd be hardcore boring if all the AIs were unjustifiably hostile. I'm not playing an RTS.

I almost always use Aggressive AI, because I prefer the AI to concentrate on his military instead of beating me to techs and wonders. With the Barbarian Civ Mod (I think the name was), a minor civ spawning from barbarians in the neighborhood usually comes at me with a Great General, some battering rams and melee units. Cost me a major city in my first LoR game, playing Emperor. Now I know that the former barbarians always go for a sneak attack sooner or later, so I prepare.

I think that's a pretty horrible idea for a default. Maybe it'd make the game harder, but I think it'd be hardcore boring if all the AIs were unjustifiably hostile. I'm not playing an RTS.

Have you tried it? It's not like every AI civ declares war on you the instant they meet you. I think it adds for a much more fun and interesting game (one AI may conquer another, leading to a giant civ), although I think it would be cool to have a random smattering of either aggressive AI or "regular" AI civs in the same game.

In my experience Aggressive AI only means that the AI civs tend to build more units, and they are quicker to declare war on you, if they are unhappy with you for some reason. They don't go on the warpath by default.

Why should every leader be so quick to declare war?

I think the mix idea is good, too. I just don't like the idea of homogeneously military-focused civs.

Don't forget neglecting your military. If they think they can smack you, they'll declare war on you. I love an AI that forced me to react as opposed to vice versa.

Why should every leader be so quick to declare war?

I think the mix idea is good, too. I just don't like the idea of homogeneously military-focused civs.

They're not "so quick" to declare war, and they're not all focused on military. As other people have said, they'll take advantage of weaker civs more quickly (so don't be stuck with archers in the industrial era), and they'll focus a bit more on military themselves.

They're not "so quick" to declare war, and they're not all focused on military. As other people have said, they'll take advantage of weaker civs more quickly (so don't be stuck with archers in the industrial era), and they'll focus a bit more on military themselves.
Okay, so, uh... they're quick to declare war on weak countries, and they'll all focus more on military themselves.

Moreso than the original un-aggressive setting, yeah.

Like if Ghandi was a 1 aggressively, he'd be a 2. If Genghis is a 10, he'd be an 11. Make sense?

I find Aggressive AI to be much more intresting than plain AI, but it is as for now a bit unbalanced.

Since all leaders are slightly more intrested in war, but it give BIG advantages to those that are already "hardcoded" as very aggressive [Cath, Monty, Alex...] or very prone to get vassals [Mehemed, Suvy, Qin] while some others [Ghandi anyone?] are almost alwais doomed to extinction.

To put it simply, the AI is more proficient in attack, but in defence it still sucks horribly - it only uses a couple more units. Could that be improved?

Not sure about that. Ghandi is in the lead in my game, with agressive AI.

It is only the medieval period, but several civs have come & gone already. Ghandi has a large chunk of land on the opposite side of the pangea to me, and almost all the wonders. Im not sure that there is much chance of me taking him on directly, or any point in me even taking his cities, not with revolutions.

Darius actually sneak attacked and took one of my cities in a suprise attack last night. I was impressed.

He's called Gandhi, GandHi, not Ghandi oder Gandi (which means "dirty" in his native tongue). Please try to type his name correctly.

He's called Gandhi, GandHi, not Ghandi oder Gandi (which means "dirty" in his native tongue). Please try to type his name correctly.
I don't know if there's a doctor in all of India who can remove that stick from your ass.

Kaje, look at it from his perspective and don't use such imagery here. I'm almost positive that's against the forum rules.

Dear thekaje,

I'm not myself of Indian descent, just plain European. Not even Muslim, as my image may suggest. But I do think that spelling other's names is a token of respect for other cultures. Since I saw the mispelling happening several times, I felt compelled to react. If my tone was to rude, please excuse, it wasn't meant that way. But please consider an American hearing a German talking about Lincaulen or a Frenchman hearing about Naboo Lion. ;)

Yeah, people seem to misspell Gandhi all the time. I've even been to a website dedicated to Gandhi where they misspelled it (I was doing a report on Gandhi). I thought that was pretty funny... and depressing.

My impression with Indian friends is that they do not give particular importance to English orthography - words are spelled so you can understand, not for the sake of correct spelling. This seems to be an European heritage. At least with our native tongues.

My impression with Indian friends is that they do not give particular importance to English orthography - words are spelled so you can understand, not for the sake of correct spelling. This seems to be an European heritage. At least with our native tongues.

I think that the problem might also lie in "how" do you spell it. I'll take myself for an example. I always spell "Qin" as it was writen if it was an italian word: "Quin". If you do not activelly think of what you're writing, you simply "round up" words so that they have an assonance to your mother language. It is also why we have "Rome" instead of "Roma" or "Macedonia" instead of "Македониjа". And the glorious days of old, when we "romani" could march on barbarians ant beat some goold old fashioned latin in their head are long gone. Oh, wait, I do not speak latin. I'm a barbarian as well. Damn myself. :lol: And I don't think it is a specific european heritage - japaneese for example mispell most european words daily, because some R and T combinations have no sense in their mother language.


Overall I agree that one must try to write things up in the proper spelling, but it is not easy - expecially if you write, and thus try to think, somewhat fast. Until the mispelling is not done with offensive intents I think that it might be neglegible.

Or else we could purge all the illetteraded miscredent! It will be a glorious carnage - one that will leave very few people left. :king:

Spelling is a classic elitist-pedant tradition.

I think that the problem might also lie in "how" do you spell it. I'll take myself for an example. I always spell "Qin" as it was writen if it was an italian word: "Quin". If you do not activelly think of what you're writing, you simply "round up" words so that they have an assonance to your mother language. It is also why we have "Rome" instead of "Roma" or "Macedonia" instead of "Македониjа". And the glorious days of old, when we "romani" could march on barbarians ant beat some goold old fashioned latin in their head are long gone. Oh, wait, I do not speak latin. I'm a barbarian as well. Damn myself. :lol: And I don't think it is a specific european heritage - japaneese for example mispell most european words daily, because some R and T combinations have no sense in their mother language.

This is interesting, and accurate. I've been reading up on psycology (just for fun, I read random stuff all the time :crazyeye:), and currently I've been reading about development of speech. This is such an in depth topic, but anyway as it relates to this there are phonemes, or sylables that are used in our native tongues. While we can store non native phonemes, phonemes of our native language are more easily catagorized and stored and recalled. So in this context a syllable like andi to a native speaker (pronounced ah-nd-y) is more easily stored and recalled then a nonsensical to an english speaker's brain syllable of andhi. My brain see no difference in the pronounciation, and if I try to see one, it's a phoneme I do not recognize so my brain natively drops it. It's just basic human psych here at work.

@phungus
Yes, this sounds fascinating.
@thekaje
I know what you mean and in certain cases, yes, spelling is an elitist phenomenon to show and produce power in public discourse ("We are inside the power circle because we know the (often difficult) rules, you are outside"). But in some cases spelling matters, because it gives words another, not intentioned meaning.
Consider you are playing cards online. Someone writes in the chat: "Put your a-s-s on the table." But he means ace. A serious estrangement could result from it (or laughter). More important it gets when you deal with complex cultural exchange. There are so many words in Arabic, for instance, which sound similar. But they vary in meaning considerably.

@thekajeThere are so many words in Arabic, for instance, which sound similar. But they vary in meaning considerably.

In many asian languages (which are not based on the same construct as most of the Indo-european languages), there are many words that sound the same, but have different meaning due to intonation. And that's not even getting into isolated tribal dialects which can throw commonly accepted lingual standards out the window.

Another interesting part of human lingual development. For the first 6 months of normal (not brain damaged or deaf) baby's life they produce a multitude of sounds ranging the span of what is possible with the human larynx and other associated voice structures. Durring this time the parents (particularly the mother) will encourage the child to vocalize in any way possible (except of course crying :p). After about 6 months the child will segragate it's speech to focus onto phonemes of the the natively spoken tongue, and the parents adapt, and only encourage natively occuring phonemes. This is hard wired (instinctual) into human behavior as far as we can tell.

I'm fascinated by psychology and babies learning all the things they learn is crazy. When the wife and I have a kid, I'll be able to observe it up close (and try to integrate some German into the kid's speech pattern). I can't learn a second language unless I study. Babies learn languages like that *snap*.

Wild, man. Simply wild.

We should really all put our ass on the table now.

I'm fascinated by psychology and babies learning all the things they learn is crazy. When the wife and I have a kid, I'll be able to observe it up close (and try to integrate some German into the kid's speech pattern). I can't learn a second language unless I study. Babies learn languages like that *snap*.

Wild, man. Simply wild.
If you think about it, though, it actually takes a baby several years of total immersion to learn to learn a language, and even longer to speak it gramatically. That's not that impressive, in my opinion.

Of course, what is really mind-blowingly impressive is how they all intuit the nature of the grammar in the first place, but the point still stands.

If you think about it, though, it actually takes a baby several years of total immersion to learn to learn a language, and even longer to speak it gramatically. That's not that impressive, in my opinion.

Actually it is overwhelmingly impressive. Considering the total amount of information a child is absorbing and having to deal with in its childhood. Everything from learning to speak correctly to learning to not touch its eyeball. Every single thing is a major breakthrough, considering it is starting for like zero knowledge, and that it is able to learn most of it own its own.


I know what you mean and in certain cases, yes, spelling is an elitist phenomenon to show and produce power in public discourse ("We are inside the power circle because we know the (often difficult) rules, you are outside"). But in some cases spelling matters, because it gives words another, not intentioned meaning.

True, but thats what a small number of people tried to warp spelling into, and that seems to be what alot of people seem to think it is about. But spelling in every language has always been about others understanding the word. The grilling of children to learn correct spelling is just a means to accomplish that, whether it has been misconstrued or not.

EDIT: Wait what was this thread originally about?

True, but thats what a small number of people tried to warp spelling into, and that seems to be what alot of people seem to think it is about. But spelling in every language has always been about others understanding the word. The grilling of children to learn correct spelling is just a means to accomplish that, whether it has been misconstrued or not.

EDIT: Wait what was this thread originally about?
I hait to brake it too you freind, but their are a couple a speling errors in ur post. Nott 2 menchun punkchu-a-tion miss-takes.

Now I wuld nevar holdd such a theng agaanst u, b/c it dint mayk ur postt hardar 2 reed, butt their r sum who wuld laye there ass on tha tayble...

I hait to brake it too you freind, but their are a couple a speling errors in ur post. Nott 2 menchun punkchu-a-tion miss-takes.

Now I wuld nevar holdd such a theng agaanst u, b/c it dint mayk ur postt hardar 2 reed, butt their r sum who wuld laye there ass on tha tayble...

Yes there are some punctuation mistakes, never my strongest suit. And I also start alot of sentences with conjunctions. And I put a "w" in a word, because I suck at typing.

Not sure if you are just trying to be argumentative or if you are actully arguing against the merits of proper spelling. Since I did make mistakes in the post then it most certainly does make it harder to understand, for somebody atleast. Especially for people who dont spend alot of time on the internet or texting. Whether or not I can properly spell words or punctuate properly doesnt negate my point. It just shows I suck at punctuation and made a typo.

I don't know if there's a doctor in all of India who can remove that stick from your ass.

It sounds as if someone should be following thier own advice.

Now maybe we should get this thread back on track, since over half of it we have talked about something other than aggresive AI.

lol, I'm just playing around with you. I do think that spelling is trivial, though.

Atfer all, if the frsit and the lsat lttres of a wrod are lfet in pclae, eevn jmbuled wdros are rlbeadae.

I always use aggressive AI so as to add dynamism into the game.

There, topic de-hijacked.

Do you find that Aggressive AI opponents have much lower economies?

I just won my monarch game where I had 550 :science: in my Oxford City in the industrial era, and all the AI's only had about 50 -70 :science: in each of their cities.

They never seemed to get their economies off the ground.

Do you find that Aggressive AI opponents have much lower economies?

I just won my monarch game where I had 550 :science: in my Oxford City in the industrial era, and all the AI's only had about 50 -70 :science: in each of their cities.

They never seemed to get their economies off the ground.

They are a little slower in the beginning, at least in my games, but then in the reinassance era most of them play normally - losing 40 or 80 gold to troops over 700 isn't much of a difference. Some of them manage to maintain big armies [100+ troops in SoD] before rifling but have no economic problem at all.

Aggressive AI works best when you're playing at high difficulty levels. Of course, any AI will have an easier time at higher difficulty levels, but the aggressive AI is affected stronger by this. The AI will want to build more troops when the aggressive AI option is selected and thus have more upkeep and more upgrading costs. The long construction times of those units and the high upkeep and upgrading costs will slow it down on lower difficulty levels. But on high difficulty levels, it can produce the units quicker so that it can also focus on buildings, the units cost far less upkeep due to handicap bonuses and it will have a better developed economy to upgrade its troops. Higher difficulty levels have a huge effect on the aggressive AI. The economy of the AI will be slowed only a little bit by the aggressive AI option on the highest difficulty levels.