A Better AI.

[eoc]

hey Blake,
There are two problems of the "Better AI". I posted screenshots here on the problems.
settings: Carthage is me, America is AI, large map, 7 civs, emperor difficulty.

1) this screenshot shows AI's archer is protecting the worker.my warrior is nearyby AI's archer and worker.

 

[eoc]

2) this shows the AI's worker leave the archer to work on another tile while the archer wouldn't keep the worker's step in that turn. so I declared a war on AI and caught the worker.

 

[eoc]

AI's archer attacked me but lost in the fighting. after that I made peace with AI.
now, you can see the AI's worker came out for working alone without fear to my healing warrior.
so, I declared a war on AI again, and caught its worker again

 

[eoc]

from above, I now realized why Firaxis can't make a better worker's AI now. there are so many dicey or unsure factors out of AI's thinking.
Blake, you have to figure out AI how to remember hates and how to learn a lesson. perhaps, it is too massive workload for you alone.

whatsoever, "the Better AI" is still an awesome patch. I love it.

 

[Craterus22]

Blake, you have to figure out AI how to remember hates and how to learn a lesson. perhaps, it is too massive workload for you alone.

I think paradox had a good idea - badboy ratings. Allow you to accumulate badboy points for doing "bad" things and allow time and "good" actions to reduce it over time...

 

[JBConquests]

This is just my opinion, but the new AI has some real problems. The patch itself has some irritating problems to the point where I call it broken.

It seems to me that the workers are cottaging to the point of insanity! I know the theory behind why to cottage now but it is ruining the game. It seems the production levels of cities post patch have gone down dramatically. I am seeing cottages on hills, flood plains (This is stupid, the river should wipe out the cottage every year when it floods... ), basically everywhere. This is resulting in cities with very low production levels. As a result, the only way I can survive on Prince level is to declare war on the civ's and fight, fight, fight. The AI's cannot compete in war because there cities are all geared towards blazing tech rates while I gear my cities towards a balance of production, science, and tech. Prior to the patch with my skill at war, I could not handle being at war against 4 civ's at once on Prince level. It is doable now.

I do like to play peaceful games sometimes, peaceful games are extremely difficult on Prince. Peaceful games are very doable on Noble. The difficulty gap is *huge* between the 2 skill levels. War-like games are fairly easy on prince. This isn't right. Peaceful games should be (relatively speaking) no easier/harder than a warlike game on a given skill level. (Though for different reasons...) I have played several of each on each of the two skill levels. Civ should support all modes of play equally. It is ridiculous to say that this game is only about making war. I have played Civ since Civ 1 and enjoy the peaceful games just as much as I enjoy the war like games.


In general, I am all in support of making the skill levels more difficult because the AI is smarter instead of cheating. However, I would appreciate some balance to the various modes of game play. And, the solution in my opinion is not to drop a skill level, because in my estimation, Noble isn't much harder than it was. Prince is quite a bit harder than it was. The skill levels need to be consistently more difficult as the they increase. Name them whatever you want.

Also, why is it, when I use a Catapult to bombard a city on some occasions, the defense rating goes up instead of down with every attack???? I drove the defense rating of a city from 60 or 80% to 118% in 3 turns of bombarding. I could see the messages announcing the results of each bombard go up!!!!

I am stripping off this patch. If some people like this style AI, I recommend making this an option so that those of us who don't can turn it off.

 

[civzombie]

"And, the solution in my opinion is not to drop a skill level, because in my estimation, Noble isn't much harder than it was."

You are saying that prince is WAY HARDER than before while noble is almost the same. I think this is an exageration.

For example, you started out your post by saying that, in prince level, there has been a fundamental AI behavior change whereby they cottage everything and tech WAY faster.

As far as my knowledge goes, the changes blake made to worker improvement do not scale on difficulty level. Accordingly, your observation about prince (if true) should apply to noble too. The workers should cottage everything and outtech the player.

Do you think you may have been facing different opponent types or something that may have made them seem to tech so fast on prince???

 

[kettyo]

They cottage much more with the Blake AI

 

[eoc]

As far as my knowledge goes, the changes blake made to worker improvement do not scale on difficulty level. Accordingly, your observation about prince (if true) should apply to noble too. The workers should cottage everything and outtech the player.

agree
Blake's patch is the same function at any difficulty level.
the screenshots i posted are not to negate Blake's did. i really mean that the worker AI should be improved in advance.

and when i playing with the patch, i found another interesting worker behavior. workers are more intent to build cottages though, when the city goes hungery they would change a cottage tile to a farm
AI's research speed more faster than before because of earning lots of money from towns. especially at emperor difficulty level.
but there is still one thing i got puzzled, why worker build cottages on hills and won't change it to windmills or mines?

 

[kettyo]

there is still one thing i got puzzled, why worker build cottages on hills and won't change it to windmills or mines?

This is break of the rules.
Cottages could not be built on hills.
I still didn't see this.

 

[Gr3yL3gion]

This is break of the rules.
Cottages could not be built on hills.
I still didn't see this.

Cottages can be built, on grassland hills.

 

[scu98rkr]

I have noticed in one game I was given the option to build a cottage on a hill, but using exactly the same setup I started a new game and the option was nt there.

Must be some kind of bug.

 

[Thedrin]

I have noticed in one game I was given the option to build a cottage on a hill, but using exactly the same setup I started a new game and the option was nt there.

Must be some kind of bug.

Were you using the same type of hill - grassland, plains, tundra, desert, ice?

In order to build a cottage the tile must produce at least one food*. The only hill you can build a cottage on is a grassland hill.

* Oases excluded.

 

[aelf]

In general, I am all in support of making the skill levels more difficult because the AI is smarter instead of cheating. However, I would appreciate some balance to the various modes of game play. And, the solution in my opinion is not to drop a skill level, because in my estimation, Noble isn't much harder than it was. Prince is quite a bit harder than it was. The skill levels need to be consistently more difficult as the they increase. Name them whatever you want.

I like your argument. But I tell you in advance what you'll get as replies: "Move down a few difficulty levels", "This is historically accurate because all empires were forged by war" and "You are just playing to satisfy your own ego and can't face the fact that you have to play at a lower level now".

And this thread isn't even the right place to discuss this issue. Your post will be considered spam.

That said, Blake says he is (or will be) working on the AI's warmongering skills, so with any luck the game will eventually be more balanced than it is now.

 

[Arlborn]

I got a Crash To Desktop with your modcomponent It was the last version that you posted, I saved 1 turn before the CTD(after I tried to go on 3 times), then deleted your file in the custom assets, went back to the game, loaded and no ctd...I try to put now your file back there and check again (edit soon)

Here is the save also..(couldent upload to civfanatics, more than 500kb..)

http://rapidshare.com/files/3322990/Qin_Shi_Huang_I_AD-1590_bugged.CivWarlordsSave.html


EDIT

ARGH, CTD AGAIN, even after that turn :S I see I cant use your last version in tihs game :S Damn, it was nice!

 

[Blake]

That said, Blake says he is (or will be) working on the AI's warmongering skills, so with any luck the game will eventually be more balanced than it is now.

Is. Is working on AI warmongering.


Oh by the way guys, with the patch 2.08 AI, that was a transitional AI - I was only halfway through the worker AI stuff, so basically, it was barely tested and far from refined...

The worker AI in my most recentely uploaded build (uh, last weeks) is far, far better. It builds mines with much higher priority to get some production going, it spams less farms in stupid places, it spams less cottages in stupid places. The balance of food and hammers and commerce is nearly as close to perfect as I can get it. It balances out workers better over the empire, it's harder to disrupt with chokers.

I have a policy against releasing builds with known crashes or save game corruption (that is, when removing the DLL wont result in the save game recovering), that is why I haven't released a build for a week or so. I'll be trying my best to get something really stable to release in the next couple of days.

 

[Arlborn]

Is. Is working on AI warmongering.


Oh by the way guys, with the patch 2.08 AI, that was a transitional AI - I was only halfway through the worker AI stuff, so basically, it was barely tested and far from refined...

The worker AI in my most recentely uploaded build (uh, last weeks) is far, far better. It builds mines with much higher priority to get some production going, it spams less farms in stupid places, it spams less cottages in stupid places. The balance of food and hammers and commerce is nearly as close to perfect as I can get it. It balances out workers better over the empire, it's harder to disrupt with chokers.

I have a policy against releasing builds with known crashes or save game corruption (that is, when removing the DLL wont result in the save game recovering), that is why I haven't released a build for a week or so. I'll be trying my best to get something really stable to release in the next couple of days.

Well, my savegame above your post still working, but without the last versionyour mod..It works with a older one.

**EDIT**
OK, I decided to try again and put the last version in my customassets folder after playing 2 or 3 turns with the old version, and hey it worked >.< Dont ask me..

Isnt it weird? The turn right after the CTD didnt work as well..for 2 turns it generates CTD but not in the next? Why?

 

[cymru_man]

Guys, you got to remember that Blake isn't releasing this as the be all and end all of AI improvements, nor as a "finished product". Each new build is just that, a new build. Of course it's rough around the edges, just feed back and make constructive comments, or if you want to wait for a finished product, do that instead. I personally think it's a bit daft changing the balance for the difficulty levels before Blake has finished the majority of the changes he makes, otherwise the diff. levels have to be resynched with every build and start to lose meaning.

 

[V. Soma]

Blake, I just checked that post at Poly, and - uhhh

Just reassure me that noble is still noble - with no advantage given to AI

 

[Iustus]

Something to understand about how difficulty levels work, in 1.61, Warlords 2.08, and in every Better AI DLL so far:

The difficulty setting has zero effect on the decisions the AI makes. It is just as 'smart' at settler level as deity level. The only thing that is different are the bonuses the AI gets at various levels.

That may change in the future, but for the time being that is the case. I am of two minds about it. The whole way that civ is defined is that the difficulty affects only the freebies, but it plays just as smart at every level. I am not sure it makes sense to change this. When you play golf with someone who is better, you give him a few stroke handicap. You dont usually make him intentionally hit the ball in the wrong direction to give you an extra edge. I think it is more satisfying to defeat a smart opponent that may be working with a handicap than a dumb one that isnt.

Now, that isnt to say that there might be a larger difference in actual difficulty between various levels, but this is in an interaction to the bonuses and freebies.

I suspect that there might be a problem with the easy difficulty levels in that the AIs now prioritize workers and some buildings enough that without the huge production bonuses they get on the higher difficulty levels, they are not building enough troops. This could be part of the reason why the AI seems to be attacking with smaller stacks. Some recent changes (which are not in a built download yet) should address some of this.

What this means is that once again, if you are upset that the AI is teching too fast, you need to reduce the difficulty level. The AI will not get stupider. It will just have less production and teching freebies. Those are defined in the XML, and are unchanged from 1.61 to Warlords to BetterAI.

Hope this clarifies the situation,

-Iustus