[Vote] (5-72) Replace Current AI Experience Handicaps For One That Only Works VS Humans

[Legen]

Voting Instructions
Players, please cast your votes in the poll above. Vote "Yea" if you'd be okay if this proposal was implemented. Vote "Nay" if you'd be okay if this proposal wasn't implemented.

You can vote for both options, which is equivalent to saying "I'm fine either way", but adds to the required quorum of 25 votes in favor.

All votes are public. If you wish, you can discuss your choice(s) in the thread below. You can change your vote as many times as you want until the poll closes.

VP Congress: Session 5, Proposal 72

Spoiler AI handicaps :

From Recursive's 1-05 proposal:

Difficulty Setting	What does it do?	Settler	Chieftain	Warlord	Prince	King	Emperor	Immortal	Deity
AIFreeXP	Free XP given to units (except starting pathfinder), scaling with game speed	0	0	0	10	15	20	25	30
AIFreeXPPercent	% increase to XP gain from combat	+0%	+0%	+0%	+20%	+40%	+60%	+80%	+100%

Proposal

• Add a new "AIFreeXPPercentVsHuman" handicap, a version of AIFreeXPPercent that only works against human players, not against other AIs.
• Set AIFreeXPPercentVsHuman values to double of the current AIFreeXPPercent ones.
• Set AIFreeXP and AIFreeXPPercent to 0 on all difficulties.

Rationale

The idea behind the experience handicaps is that the AI isn't able to perform as intelligently as a human player and, consequently, has trouble keeping its units alive and on par in levels with a human's units when waring against us. However, the handicaps apply when an AI fights against another AI, a case in which they're facing an equally intelligent opponent and, therefore, don't need those handicaps. With this proposal, the experience handicaps stop applying to the latter case, but still helps the AI against human players.

If passed, this proposal may fix distortions in AI performance that currently result from experience handicaps. Possible distortions being fixed include:

• Militaristic civs performing worse on average at Emperor than on Warlord; one possible reason is of their combat bonuses (e.g. Sweden's extra 15% leadership) being diluted among more CS modifiers when units on both sides have extra levels.
• Assyria, Japan and Zulu, who have core mechanics that interact with leveling, performing substantially better at Emperor than at Warlord (in contrast to the trend of militaristic civs performing worse on average).

 

[Markal]

Wouldn't that be a nerf? The AI would be fighting (poorly?) against each other with a high turn out of units, so probably not leveling very much. Once the war with the human player comes online even if the units can XP very fast I'm not sure it won't be too late already.

A side effect would also be that against a human player the AI would get a lot of "free heals" from leveling super fast. It might be good handicap wise but from a gameplay perspective it's not fun (to me at least).

 

[Recursive]

Interesting proposal.

Militaristic civs performing worse on average at Emperor than on Warlord; one possible reason is of their combat bonuses (e.g. Sweden's extra 15% leadership) being diluted among more CS modifiers when units on both sides have extra levels.

This may actually have a significant effect w.r.t. warmongering AIs conquering other AIs at higher difficulties.

However:
- This makes the AI at higher levels significantly more vulnerable to early human assaults.
- Any XP bonuses gained from fighting humans could then be used against other AIs, giving the AIs who warred humans a significant and artificial advantage.
- As already pointed out, AI would get +10 HP to their units substantially more often when fighting humans.

Potential alternative: Keep AIFreeXP as is, but only add a % bonus to XP earned by fighting humans, not other AIs. This solves or mitigates all three of the above problems and would also have the side effect of preventing AI Pathfinders (after the first, which already gets no base XP or bonus XP %) from leveling up faster via exploration. It isn't, however, as effective at helping warmongering AIs get past the defenses of other AIs.

 

[pineappledan]

I agree that I don’t see the rationale for eliminating FreeXP on training. However I think the free XP from combat change has merit.

If it’s a separate column, you could start by halving all AI XP from combat bonuses, and then double them vs humans. So 60% combat XP becomes 30% vs all and and extra 30% vs humans.

 

[Rekk]

Potential alternative: Keep AIFreeXP as is, but only add a % bonus to XP earned by fighting humans, not other AIs. This solves or mitigates all three of the above problems and would also have the side effect of preventing AI Pathfinders (after the first, which already gets no base XP or bonus XP %) from leveling up faster via exploration. It isn't, however, as effective at helping warmongering AIs get past the defenses of other AIs.

Could you explain how this solves your three raised issues?

 

[Recursive]

Could you explain how this solves your three raised issues?

- This makes the AI at higher levels significantly more vulnerable to early human assaults.
AI still has the extra XP which makes their early units sturdier.
AI still gains the same amount of XP from combat with humans.
(Solved)

- Any XP bonuses gained from fighting humans could then be used against other AIs, giving the AIs who warred humans a significant and artificial advantage.
AI still has the extra base XP, making this less significant. In addition, it doesn't double the XP gain from combat from what it is currently.
(Mitigated)

- As already pointed out, AI would get +10 HP to their units substantially more often when fighting humans.
Because the AI will start with extra base XP, enough for 1 or 2 promotions, this will happen less often. In addition, it doesn't double the XP gain from combat from what it is currently.
(Mitigated)

 

[Legen]

- This makes the AI at higher levels significantly more vulnerable to early human assaults.
- Any XP bonuses gained from fighting humans could then be used against other AIs, giving the AIs who warred humans a significant and artificial advantage.
- As already pointed out, AI would get +10 HP to their units substantially more often when fighting humans.

Potential alternative: Keep AIFreeXP as is, but only add a % bonus to XP earned by fighting humans, not other AIs. This solves or mitigates all three of the above problems and would also have the side effect of preventing AI Pathfinders (after the first, which already gets no base XP or bonus XP %) from leveling up faster via exploration. It isn't, however, as effective at helping warmongering AIs get past the defenses of other AIs.

Another option I had thought of was to have a "AICombatBonusVsHuman", which would give them a flat X% CS bonus if in combat vs humans only. I had settled for a XP percent instead and have it at double the current AIFreeXPPercent, but maybe both could be proposed at once. In such case, the AIFreeXP would be replaced by a AICombatBonusVsHuman bonus instead, while AIFreeXPPercentVsHumans would remain at the same values as the current AIFreeXPPercent, instead of doubled. This hybrid approach would solve both the first and third point you raised, while mitigating the second one. The proposal would look roughly like this (changes underlined):

• Add a new "AIFreeXPPercentVsHuman" handicap, a version of AIFreeXPPercent that only works against human players, not against other AIs.
• Add a new "AICombatBonusVsHuman" handicap, which grants a flat X% Combat strength bonus when fighting human units/cities only, not against other AIs.
• Set AIFreeXPPercentVsHuman values to the current AIFreeXPPercent ones.
• Set AICombatBonusVsHuman to the following values:
  • Settler/Chieftain/Warlord and Prince: 0%
  • King: 5%
  • Emperor: 10%
  • Immortal: 15%
  • Deity: 20%
• Set AIFreeXP and AIFreeXPPercent to 0 on all difficulties.

 

[azum4roll]

Anti-warmonger fervor is already a thing that caps way higher for the AI than the human. An AICombatBonusVsHuman simply makes this difference wider, and cancels the human player's own anti-warmonger fervor.

 

[Stalker0]

I want to try an example to ensure I understand.

So on Immortal:

A melee attack gets 5 xp, or 9 with the 80% bonus (aka +4 xp). So it would take 3 melee hits to beat the old 25 freexp.

Like-wise a ranged unit gets 2 xp, or 3.6 xp (I assume that drops down to 3, can someone confirm?). So it would take 9 ranged hits to beat the 25 free xp.

 

[pineappledan]

XP always rounds down.

What I find interesting is that Emperor is the first difficulty where Ranged units get any benefit from this handicap to combat XP. you need at least 50% XP for ranged attacks to increase to 3XP. There must be a pretty big jump in this handicap's impact at that difficulty as a result.

 

[Legen]

XP always rounds down.

It used to in much older versions, but it seems to store down decimals nowadays. I've just tested (IGE) attacking twice with a Samurai (+50% xp) and the experience goes +7xp first attack, +8xp second attack, for a total of 15xp.

 

[pineappledan]

interesting....

 

[N.Core]

It used to in much older versions, but it seems to store down decimals nowadays. I've just tested (IGE) attacking twice with a Samurai (+50% xp) and the experience goes +7xp first attack, +8xp second attack, for a total of 15xp.

Yeah, XP is decimal. As I experimented with IGE promote button somehow it gave a decimal number. But the XP for the level requirement is still rounding down.

 

[azum4roll]

Experience is stored with 2 decimal places, but possibly not every mechanic gives experience with that in mind.

Edit: I had a quick look, and basically base XP gained from combat has to be integers, and decimal is only for modifiers. You can't have a melee attack gives base 4.5 XP, for example.

 

[Recursive]

Sponsored.

 

[pineappledan]

Conflicted about this proposal. I think it’s the right direction, but the specific numbers are way too drastic.

This is going to hit all militarist civs disproportionately, and most of them are already on the bottom of the rankings.

 

[Legen]

the specific numbers are way too drastic.

Let's check it. At Emperor, the AI would have an extra 60% experience gain; in order for the AI to make up for the lost 20 exp back from AIFreeExp at this difficulty, each of its units would need:

20 / (2*0.6) = 16.67 -> 17 ranged attacks, or
20 / (4*0.6) = 8.34 -> 9 melee combat defenses, or
20 / (5*0.6) = 6.67 -> 7 melee combat attacks

Against a human, that's a lot of turns in combat for the same unit to survive, just for the suggested values for AIFreeXPPercentVsHuman to catch up with the current AIFreeXP. Unlike the AI, we are overall better at focusing fire and exploiting weaknesses in their formation, so it's hard for an AI unit to live long enough to pull off the above amounts of combat. As such, the AI has a good likelihood of ending weaker than they currently are against a human; the values for AIFreeXPPercentVsHuman would have to be much higher before the AI can make up for its current AIFreeXP at a pace a human player can't outmatch.

EDIT: Double checked numbers.