A problem with the AI

[haladwin]

Hi everyone!!
I have a request. I created a mod, taking a lot of hours in the development. I realy love what i did, but when me and my friends try to play with it, we noticed that the AI is useless in multiplayer. The mod was thinked to play in multiplayer WITH the AI.
I just change the agressive level of all the civs to the maximun.
When i play alone, the CPU players are realy difficult, but when another human is in it, the AI is just stupid and passive.
I need to know if there is a way to make the AI more active, more agressive.
Thak you!!!

 

[Fergei]

I am not an expert on this, but I do get competitive AI in my multiplayer games - so this works from me (after stealing the tip from elsewhere).

If you load up your disappointing mulitplayer game as solo player, it will probably say that the difficulty is Regent (even if you selected something other than regent under the difficulty selector in the Civ3 Editor). I believe this is a known glitch.

The way around this is to tweak the Difficulty settings in the Civ3 Editor, so that the figures for Regent match the difficulty that you want to play on. This applies to both scenarios and to just general maps.

As an additional point, I hate the extra corruption of higher difficulty settings, but like a challenge. So I usually play as Emperor but give the AI the starting units from a higher difficulty setting. This way you can tweak the difficulty to perfection for the human players.

 

[Fergei]

I should clarify the above point to say that the default difficulty in Multiplayer is Regent and that is why you have to change the Regent settings in the editor.

Also, on this topic I can confirm that war weariness is definitely not present for AIs in multiplayer. This means the Civs will find Republic and Democracy and never see any reason to leave them, regardless of length of war or number of units (there is a tiny exception to this when one AI might do something irregular). The AI behaviour is quite different as a consequence of this although it can still happily bully and fight you as a Democracy. Overall it does seem to make the AI more passive (presumably because they are paying so much in unit costs they don't build such massive armies) - but this isn't such an issue for this topic as the Regent difficulty bug.

 

[Lanzelot]

The way around this is to tweak the Difficulty settings in the Civ3 Editor, so that the figures for Regent match the difficulty that you want to play on. This applies to both scenarios and to just general maps.

Yes, this is a known glitch. However, there is an easier way around this:

1. Start a single-player game with the desired difficulty level (e.g. Demigod)
2. Save it after the first turn and go back to the game main menu. (Don't exit the game.)
3. Now start the multiplayer game, and in the "Multiplayer Setup" screen first set the Difficulty to Demigod (or whatever) and afterwards under "Game Mode" select the scenario you created.

Now the game should start with the desired difficulty. (We used this for PBEM, so I know it works. Haven't tested it for MP over network, though.)
You can check the difficulty level, if you establish an embassy in an AI capital and look at the size of the food box or the size of the shield box of what they are currently building.

 

[Fergei]

Yes, this is a known glitch. However, there is an easier way around this:

1. Start a single-player game with the desired difficulty level (e.g. Demigod)
2. Save it after the first turn and go back to the game main menu. (Don't exit the game.)
3. Now start the multiplayer game, and in the "Multiplayer Setup" screen first set the Difficulty to Demigod (or whatever) and afterwards under "Game Mode" select the scenario you created.

Now the game should start with the desired difficulty. (We used this for PBEM, so I know it works. Haven't tested it for MP over network, though.)
You can check the difficulty level, if you establish an embassy in an AI capital and look at the size of the food box or the size of the shield box of what they are currently building.

A good alternative, thanks.