Tweaking AI--increasing expansionism?

geeP · Nov 07, 2010, 02:41 PM

See title. I'm trying to tweak the AI's performance on a strategic level to make it more challenging (I suspect that tactically it's going to remain a hash until the code base gets patched up a bit.) I've been able to greatly improve the AI's ability to develop a runaway economy, which is a plus.

Unfortunately, I am running into a problem where in most games only one or two AIs really try: most AIs end up with a relatively small number of cities and then pretty much stop expanding altogether even if room is available. I'm pretty sure this is a leader trait since each leader behaves consistently from one game to the next: Ramesses rarely make more than 2-4 cities, Catherine and Montezuma flood the map with settlers, etc.

I've tried setting FLAVOR_EXPANSION high across the board, but this does not seem to produce any changes to settling patterns. Moreover, some leaders that had a high FLAVOR_EXPANSION to begin with are still reluctant to settle, and some that had only medium FLAVOR_EXPANSION are big expanders anyhow. What I'm noticing now though is that all the AIs are building settlers, but some civs just aren't using them. I've even noticed some civs sending their settlers to a juicy city spot and just leaving them there without building a city!

My other thought is that maybe it's a diplomatic issue? Maybe some leaders are overly sensitive to requests not to settle nearby. I'm not sure this is it, though, because non-expanders are perfectly capable of ignoring good territory that's not remotely near anywhere else.

At any rate, I've been looking through all the leaders' XML files and have not been able to find any pattern that separates the AIs that are willing to expand from the ones that aren't. The AIs that refuse to settle are consistently shooting themselves in the foot and I'd like to remove this behavior. Can anyone shed any light on what settings might help encourage them to make more cities?

smellymummy · Nov 07, 2010, 04:05 PM

flavors are pretty much it

Slowpoke · Nov 07, 2010, 07:07 PM

Hi

read what I wrote in A.I. modding A.I. flavors and bias. Mainly you want to set the weight thresholds for "enough expansion" strategy to 1000, and set early expansion to -1000.

geeP · Nov 08, 2010, 01:23 AM

Thanks for the heads up, it's not immediately clear what values are meaningful for the threshold settings. It does help a bit--the AI still seems to insist on leaving certain bits of perfectly good land unsettled for no apparent reason, but setting those weight thresholds to extreme values does seem to help with the "welp I built 3 cities time to stop expanding forever" issue that some AIs seem to get stuck on. Some further tweaking may be in order as the AI does not seem to manage its cities very optimally under the default settings for early expansion, but it's a start.

Slowpoke · Nov 08, 2010, 02:19 AM

I suppose you could try giving the basic settler unit some extra flavors like flavor_growth, and setting them high. It could end up messy late game, though. Also, look around, I think it's in dglobalAIdefines, there's some details provided for early expansion. Set the min tiles to 0, and the max cities to something like 20.

geeP · Nov 09, 2010, 07:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slowpoke

I suppose you could try giving the basic settler unit some extra flavors like flavor_growth, and setting them high. It could end up messy late game, though. Also, look around, I think it's in dglobalAIdefines, there's some details provided for early expansion. Set the min tiles to 0, and the max cities to something like 20.

Yeah, this helps. I've tried these things out earlier and individually they don't make much difference but coupled with the weighting changes they seem to help nudge things along further. I'm experimenting with the AI settling-too-close touchiness as well--it's clear that with more aggressive settling tendency this is needed or else diplomacy becomes even more unmanageable than it usually is.

smellymummy · Nov 10, 2010, 01:11 AM

the flavors arent all that great for tuning expansion, its either all in or not most of the time and from all ive tried you just can't try little nudges to move things in the right direction.

i hate to say it but fine tuning this has to wait for the source code so we can fix the settler/expansion problems which there are plenty of; or just write our own methods for expansion doing/decision that sits on top of the current game mechanics

Nov 07, 2010, 02:41 PM	#1
geeP Chieftain Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 10	Tweaking AI--increasing expansionism? See title. I'm trying to tweak the AI's performance on a strategic level to make it more challenging (I suspect that tactically it's going to remain a hash until the code base gets patched up a bit.) I've been able to greatly improve the AI's ability to develop a runaway economy, which is a plus. Unfortunately, I am running into a problem where in most games only one or two AIs really try: most AIs end up with a relatively small number of cities and then pretty much stop expanding altogether even if room is available. I'm pretty sure this is a leader trait since each leader behaves consistently from one game to the next: Ramesses rarely make more than 2-4 cities, Catherine and Montezuma flood the map with settlers, etc. I've tried setting FLAVOR_EXPANSION high across the board, but this does not seem to produce any changes to settling patterns. Moreover, some leaders that had a high FLAVOR_EXPANSION to begin with are still reluctant to settle, and some that had only medium FLAVOR_EXPANSION are big expanders anyhow. What I'm noticing now though is that all the AIs are building settlers, but some civs just aren't using them. I've even noticed some civs sending their settlers to a juicy city spot and just leaving them there without building a city! My other thought is that maybe it's a diplomatic issue? Maybe some leaders are overly sensitive to requests not to settle nearby. I'm not sure this is it, though, because non-expanders are perfectly capable of ignoring good territory that's not remotely near anywhere else. At any rate, I've been looking through all the leaders' XML files and have not been able to find any pattern that separates the AIs that are willing to expand from the ones that aren't. The AIs that refuse to settle are consistently shooting themselves in the foot and I'd like to remove this behavior. Can anyone shed any light on what settings might help encourage them to make more cities?

Nov 07, 2010, 07:07 PM	#3
Slowpoke The Mad Modder Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 1,321	Hi read what I wrote in A.I. modding A.I. flavors and bias. Mainly you want to set the weight thresholds for "enough expansion" strategy to 1000, and set early expansion to -1000. __________________ Art of War Mod! by Ordian. It rocks. France- A double Anceint Era Declaration of War on Deity against two clearly conquest geared civs that dredged on for 1500 years. Okay this one makes the above one look like a bunch of preschoolers out at a picnic getting attacked by baby ants. THIS ONE is awesome. Read it. Mega Mod What started as a balance fix is now getting massive. Now accepting suggestions (units/buildings in particular) Beatles/Elvis -4.3 Talker/Listener +7.2

Nov 08, 2010, 02:19 AM	#5
Slowpoke The Mad Modder Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 1,321	I suppose you could try giving the basic settler unit some extra flavors like flavor_growth, and setting them high. It could end up messy late game, though. Also, look around, I think it's in dglobalAIdefines, there's some details provided for early expansion. Set the min tiles to 0, and the max cities to something like 20. __________________ Art of War Mod! by Ordian. It rocks. France- A double Anceint Era Declaration of War on Deity against two clearly conquest geared civs that dredged on for 1500 years. Okay this one makes the above one look like a bunch of preschoolers out at a picnic getting attacked by baby ants. THIS ONE is awesome. Read it. Mega Mod What started as a balance fix is now getting massive. Now accepting suggestions (units/buildings in particular) Beatles/Elvis -4.3 Talker/Listener +7.2 Last edited by Slowpoke; Nov 08, 2010 at 02:24 AM.

Nov 07, 2010, 04:05 PM	#2
smellymummy King Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 703	flavors are pretty much it

Nov 08, 2010, 01:23 AM	#4
geeP Chieftain Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 10	Thanks for the heads up, it's not immediately clear what values are meaningful for the threshold settings. It does help a bit--the AI still seems to insist on leaving certain bits of perfectly good land unsettled for no apparent reason, but setting those weight thresholds to extreme values does seem to help with the "welp I built 3 cities time to stop expanding forever" issue that some AIs seem to get stuck on. Some further tweaking may be in order as the AI does not seem to manage its cities very optimally under the default settings for early expansion, but it's a start.

Nov 10, 2010, 01:11 AM	#7
smellymummy King Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 703	the flavors arent all that great for tuning expansion, its either all in or not most of the time and from all ive tried you just can't try little nudges to move things in the right direction. i hate to say it but fine tuning this has to wait for the source code so we can fix the settler/expansion problems which there are plenty of; or just write our own methods for expansion doing/decision that sits on top of the current game mechanics

Powered by vBulletin® Copyright ©2000 - 2013, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. This site is copyright © Civilization Fanatics' Center.
Support CFC: Amazon.com \| Amazon UK \| Amazon DE \| Amazon CA \| Amazon FR