A Better AI.

[Arlborn]

Just play Age of Empires or something then. Or Rise of Nations with an Aztec neighbour.

SP is not = MP in Civ, and should never be. Call me dumb or inferior.

I prefer to play Civlization

What is wrong with the AI using human strategies? All I want is a smart and competent AI(lets not forget balanced, but its coming along). Dont mistake me, I'm a Real peacemonger, always in the last place in the power graph. I think that I won only 1 domination victory when I was bored and tried Quacha rush. I won 2 diplomatic victories, 1 by time and a dozen by Cultural, that is all. I'm ALWAYS aiming for cultural. But I normally ALWAYS have how to defend and kick off an AI any time it attacks me, even when Im last in power and the attacker is at first place. It always bugged me how the AI was so weak on that NEVER really going for any victory besides Space Ship. Then I insisted, again and again, and Blake added AI going for cultural victory, and surprise! It works! Now Blake is trying to put the warmongers to actually DO something in the game beside annoys everybody with laughfull threats. Yep, I like the perspective of watching the AI going for cultural victory while other is trying domination and other space ship, all in the same game, while Im there, just 1 more trying to win and perceveing that the world is not actually only me.

Dont get me wrong, I'm a REAL pacifist(as already mentioned!). Never had a vassal yet(almost getting my first!) and I know how bad would be my situation if the AI rushed really early. But you know what? Its only the beggining of the game then. I would laught on it and start a new one

Peace man, I dont know why I should call you dumb or inferior. Sorry if you got offended, its never my intention.

 

[Wodan]

The more I play this mod, the more I find the AIs are expanding overaggressively, to a point it doesn't just annoy the human player, it actually invites the human player to launch an early attack, e.g.

In this game I played as Fredick. Hatsy expands so fast that she basically sent her settler a dozen tiles away south from her capital to set up a city right near my two cities, including my capital. It's not like she has no other options. There is an ample amount of valuable space south of Thebes, which include what exactly she needs (horses to build her UU and stones for her Great Wall). It's true the spot she occupies have tons of resources as well, but it is filled with jungle tiles which she will not be able to do much till discovery of IW and a lot of worker actions. And what she does right now is essentially an invitation to me to war with her.

The funny thing is, she is not doing anything to prepare for an inevitable attack. Her two major cities are building great wonders! This is a recipe of disaster.

I don't mind aggressive expanding AIs. Human players are aggressive as well. But unless there is a really good choke point, a reasonable human player does not build a city far away and is near somebody's capital to invite an unprepared war. This overaggressiveness makes the game less fun (forces the player to choose war), at least for me.

The last couple of builds really favors food resources. You'll notice she went for the cows, with the dye as a bonus. I don't see any other food resources anywhere she could have settled.

Personally, I agree... the current situation really could use some tweaking. There is over-emphasis on food resources without good consideration for other drawbacks (such as the ones you list: strategic overreach, presence of unchoppable jungles, and little consideration for non-food resources such as the stone she needed for the wonders she was building).

Wodan

 

[Elandal]

When the computer gains "more intelligence" by doing eg. deeper tree searches, it's fairly easy to set up different levels by limiting the search depth.

Is it possible (or rather, reasonable) to have at least two levels of intelligence in the AI in cIV? That could allow for "low-IQ" AI for lower difficulty levels, "high-IQ" AI for higher. Remove all ishuman() bonuses, then start assigning bonuses to human on the lowest difficulties with no human bonus and "stupid AI" at eg. Noble, no human bonus and "smart AI" at Prince, and then start assigning suitable bonuses to the computer at higher difficulty levels.

That way casual players (who are the majority - anyone on these forums is in minority anyway) can have their fun as can those who have played strong games at high difficulty levels. And I think Noble/Prince is suitable cutoff point, hopefully so that Noble stays the invariant (games at Noble should stay the same difficulty originally set).

While I'd like to play against smart AI with no handicaps either way, then play against even smarter AI if the "smart" one wasn't smart enough, the choice of playing against the smart one on even field would be a nice starter.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I'm simply amazed by the improving AI performance from build to build...I'm still playing the game I started with the very first version of the mod (huge map, 18 players, epic, noble), which I updated whenever a new build came out.Watching the improvents wasn't difficult.

Being close to the end of the game, Ramesses is about to win an undangered Space Ship Victory, Mansa has cities with around 40000, 15000 and 10000 culture (the improvements towards AI cultural victory understanding came too late for this game, but it is already far more than in normal games), a major world war is going on (certainly around 25 AI cities have changed their owners among the AIs so far) and I haven't found the time to count born GGs for the AI -they have received tons and I only received few messages about dead warlords, while having seen some alive.So I guess the combat improvements have lead to better AI usage of Warlords.

Noble with this Mod is more difficult than Prince under stock rules for me - thats what I call a great AI

 

[The Great Apple]

When the computer gains "more intelligence" by doing eg. deeper tree searches, it's fairly easy to set up different levels by limiting the search depth.

The Civ 4 AI has very little tree searching anywhere in the code, so it's not just a simple fix. It is possible to just increase the randomness of the AIs actions based on difficulty level, giving it more chance to play moves that it feels aren't the best. This might achieve what you're after... or might not.

 

[Mannu]

A fix I'd like to see for that is to have the AI civs tend frame their requests for help as trades. If the AI offers you even a nominal cash incentive to join their war, then there wouldn't be a diplo penalty for refusing. Ideally, the AI would tend not to demand aid unless they're backed into a corner, or if they're just the demanding sort of leader.

My opinion on how it should work. The penalty should be based on your relation to the CIV asking for your aid...

-2 if a friendly civ asks for war and you refuse
-1 if a pleased civ ask for war and you refuse
- 0 if you refuse any other civ asking for war

You get the idea, this could be tweaked probably... The trades idea is good too though... It would be nice to be a mercenary nation occasionally...

 

[gettingfat]

My opinion on how it should work. The penalty should be based on your relation to the CIV asking for your aid...

-2 if a friendly civ asks for war and you refuse
-1 if a pleased civ ask for war and you refuse
- 0 if you refuse any other civ asking for war

You get the idea, this could be tweaked probably... The trades idea is good too though... It would be nice to be a mercenary nation occasionally...

This idea can actually be expanded to other areas. For example, it is unrealistic for your citizens to get the same degree of war weariness fighting a war against a long time rivalry compared to a friendly civ. Say Bush still gets roughly half of the Americans supporting his Iraq war, but imagine what will happen if he declares a war against England or Canada.

I think backstabbing your friend should receive a penalty in diplomacy rating among ALL leaders. Or they may actually set up another parameter, name it credibility. You lose credibility for doing something like that and it may take you a much higher diplomacy rating to get other leaders to "pleased". I think by doing something like that, it will make the game a bit less warlike and instill some fun to the builder-first playing style again.

 

[V. Soma]

This idea can actually be expanded to other areas. For example, it is unrealistic for your citizens to get the same degree of war weariness fighting a war against a long time rivalry compared to a friendly civ. Say Bush still gets roughly half of the Americans supporting his Iraq war, but imagine what will happen if he declares a war against England or Canada.

I think backstabbing your friend should receive a penalty in diplomacy rating among ALL leaders. Or they may actually set up another parameter, name it credibility. You lose credibility for doing something like that and it may take you a much higher diplomacy rating to get other leaders to "pleased". I think by doing something like that, it will make the game a bit less warlike and instill some fun to the builder-first playing style again.

I like this idea - yes, it would support diplomacy,
the builder civs could have peaceful and friendly war-civs as buddies...

 

[glokkonn]

To slow down warmonger countries, make a penalty for razing.

Basically, "razing" a city means pretty much killing every man, woman, and child in the city, dynamiting/bulldozing all the buildings, disposing of the waste (human bodies and building materials), and building roads over the smooth terrain that is what is left of the city. This don't happen much in real life. Cities, once built, stay built. Even impoverished cities require electricity, close to potable water, waste removal, heat or air conditioning depending upon the climate, etc.

If a country "razed" a city there would be a huge world wide outcry. Razing cities irl is not so easy to hide. A "-5" diplomatic penalty with every other civilization for razing a city would make razing cities a bit pricier.

So you conquer a country. You now have 5 new cities to maintain. This is realistic. This is what, in the real world, keeps empires from staying in power for extended periods of time. The USSR collapsed economically under the weight of trying to provide even minimal economic assistance to all its client states, not by being defeated in the battlefield.

In the real world civilizations seem to die out because they can't maintain all the cities they control. Allowing players to snuff out cities for free short circuits a huge factor in empire maintainance.

 

[pholkhero]

you forget, though, that in ancient times, a few simple fires and a city was gone.

razing a city should get you a higher penalty in more modern times, say, after Emancipation is discovered or the UN is built, but not before.

 

[HardCoder]

Rather than worry about all that, the AI could choose a location with 3+ good food tiles and some ordinary farmable green land, and decide to build specialists (and perhaps a wonder or three) rather than the usual huge opulations the AI favors. An elaborate farming operation isn't necessary. Running 4-5 specialists early to midway in the game, with National Epic, will generate a healthy number of GPs.

I would stick to the low hanging fruit, like that, for now.

...However, building a Great Person Farm really requires the change in terrain as without a lot of farms, the Great Person Farm will not work at all. I think the major difficulty is in marking the city and making the AI understand that the terraforming logic is different around that city than in every other city. If the AI can be made to build Great Person Farms, than the other specialist cities will be rather easy I think.

 

[HardCoder]

This idea can actually be expanded to other areas. For example, it is unrealistic for your citizens to get the same degree of war weariness fighting a war against a long time rivalry compared to a friendly civ. Say Bush still gets roughly half of the Americans supporting his Iraq war, but imagine what will happen if he declares a war against England or Canada.

I think backstabbing your friend should receive a penalty in diplomacy rating among ALL leaders. Or they may actually set up another parameter, name it credibility. You lose credibility for doing something like that and it may take you a much higher diplomacy rating to get other leaders to "pleased". I think by doing something like that, it will make the game a bit less warlike and instill some fun to the builder-first playing style again.

If I recall correctly, the Civ II AI used to do something similar to keep track of your "trustworthiness." Launching nukes also figured into that.

The civs that don't raze cities when they capture them should view the practice negatively, unless it happens to someone they're annoyed or furious with. Likewise, if I attack my longtime friend Cyrus or Julius who is at +10 or +15 or something with me, that should create a trustworthiness penalty serious enough to kick me down to the middle of pleased with my friendly civs, and to cautious with my pleased civs ... the exception being when a hated enemy is involved. They should also stop trading with me immediately. What goes around comes around, et cetera.

This would lead to some entertaining moments with Alex, where he attacks out of the blue and then is embargoed immediately by most of the civs on the planet.

you forget, though, that in ancient times, a few simple fires and a city was gone.

razing a city should get you a higher penalty in more modern times, say, after Emancipation is discovered or the UN is built, but not before.

A little earthquake or volcanic eruption and a city was gone too. Civ needs natural disasters again. Seriously.

 

[kettyo]

The Diplomacy is racked against the human now. Too many war requests there is no way to really keep up. It's impossible not to have everyone pissed at you in large multi way games now. The AI is always warring, and you are getting war requests every other turn or so. There needs to be some diplo modifier for this new found behaviour. The original Diplo Rules with a -1 refusal to help penalty just rack up too quickly to keep up now. You can at best succede in keeping 4 or so Civs in Good standing, and everyone else ends up hating you now.

It's more simple to adjust the attitude threshold for declarewar requests in the leaders file.

 

[kettyo]

Having looked at this 11/02 build, I have noticed what the maxNearbyPowerRatio really is. The 200 value I had for Genghis actually is the opposite of what you were thinking (and I was completely way off): A nearby power ratio of 200 means that it will consider any 'nearby' civ (what ever that entails) that has a power rating no more than 200% of its own power rating. Iow, if the other civ has a power rating less than 2 times its own power rating, it will still consider it for war. Thus, the higher the value, the more 'brave' they are and the lower the value, the more 'cowardly' they are. Generally, the warmongers are over the 100% mark and the peaceful leaders are below 100%.
So, maxNearbyPowerRatio means the maximum power ratio the other leader can have in order for them to be considered a potential target for war. If the other leaders power ratio is greater than <maxNearbyPowerRatio> percent of their own power rating, then they will be scrubed out as someone to go to war with.
This explains why it went to war with a value of 200

You might be right on this.
I shall check out.

 

[kettyo]

re: the AI Warlord logic.

I saw the AI make a catapult into a warlord. Cool, I guess, except it then threw it at my stack which was resting on a forest. Suffice it to say, it didn't last long. (I didn't look at the combat log to see the odds though)

Maybe some warlord logic needs to be made as part of a future goal somewhere, where it looks after them better. Just some logic along the lines of not attacking with it unless it has a 95+% odds of success or something; Give it Leadership as its first promotion for the extra xp; Attach it to a successful swordsmen or axemen (for a warmonger) or something like that; MAYBE a well promoted Trebuchet (at least city raider III), etc. Stuff that people would do.

I think the same.
They let their warlord units die too easily.

 

[kettyo]

I think backstabbing your friend should receive a penalty in diplomacy rating among ALL leaders. Or they may actually set up another parameter, name it credibility. You lose credibility for doing something like that and it may take you a much higher diplomacy rating to get other leaders to "pleased". I think by doing something like that, it will make the game a bit less warlike and instill some fun to the builder-first playing style again.

I don't think any politicians have anything to do with credibility.
Only the will matters and the logic to come it real.
Most successful leaders/politicians were not honest ones at all.

 

[kettyo]

To slow down warmonger countries, make a penalty for razing.
Basically, "razing" a city means pretty much killing every man, woman, and child in the city, dynamiting/bulldozing all the buildings, disposing of the waste (human bodies and building materials), and building roads over the smooth terrain that is what is left of the city. This don't happen much in real life. Cities, once built, stay built. Even impoverished cities require electricity, close to potable water, waste removal, heat or air conditioning depending upon the climate, etc.
If a country "razed" a city there would be a huge world wide outcry. Razing cities irl is not so easy to hide. A "-5" diplomatic penalty with every other civilization for razing a city would make razing cities a bit pricier.

I don't see 'razing' in the game a mass murder.
The people could just scatter out unable to maintain a centralized economy which is the point of a city.
It's a bit odd that a SAM infantry unit can raze a metropolis while an ICBM can't though but nothing can be perfect.
Huge penalties is not a good idea because overseas invasions against a strong enough rival are often made though razing cities and forcing vassalation. In most cases you just couldn't hold cities on an enemy controlled continent.
By the same approach you can also penalize the pillage of towns. You can imagine murder, looting, rapes, burning houses etc. in such a case as well but it's a game after all so handle it as a game i suggest
The true evil is happening outside of our computers, at the streets, in the homes etc. you have to fight true evil in true life if you care just my opinion

 

[kettyo]

you forget, though, that in ancient times, a few simple fires and a city was gone.
razing a city should get you a higher penalty in more modern times, say, after Emancipation is discovered or the UN is built, but not before.

Yeah and what you would say on the Russians who 'razed' (burned) their own capital Moscow to avoid falling in Napoleon's hands?
Life is complicated sometimes.

 

[kettyo]

If I recall correctly, the Civ II AI used to do something similar to keep track of your "trustworthiness." Launching nukes also figured into that.

How i hated that!
Even attacing due to declarewar request by a friend dropped your 'trust rating'.
Even worse was that after taking the lead every AI started to hate you instantly, neutral was the best you can get.
Ruined diplomacy totally for me.

 

[HardCoder]

I think the same.
They let their warlord units die too easily.

I'd have the game make medics/etc out of them and keep them attached to large units with a number of more powerful (read: attacked first) units in them. If the GGs were used to produce Medic III units, that could be really helpful. (To them, not to me.) If the stack they're with becomes too dangerous, the GG should retreat to a city, perhaps with an escort.

The old AI used them inside cities that were under attack. I haven't seen that happen in this AI but it isn't a super frequent event. It could be very effective though.

The best plain old strategy for GGs for the AI is probably the following, especially if the AI can be persuaded to reserve a high production city for Heroic Epic + West Point (preferably coastal):

* Is there a city reachable by safe route that is under seige against unfavorable but not hopeless odds? If so, escort the GG to that location and apply it to the stack inside.

* Is there an offensive campaign underway that is succeeding but not finished? (The situation where the defender would get a poor offer for peace.) If so, and if the GG can be escorted safely to the main attacking stack, move it there and apply it.

Otherwise, define "Military Complex" as a location with good production potential (green and plains hills with special food tiles and farmable land), preferably coastal. If the Civ is a seafaring one or if the map is not a single land mass then a coastal location should be STRONGLY preferred. The AI should build a primary Military Complex but there may be opportunities to build secondary ones - far away or on separate continents, so on.

Note: The AI needs to know to escort the GG with speed 2 units of reasonable strength (if speed 2 is available), and to evade rather than fight.

First GG not used as above: Find or wait for a unit with 7 xp (or less for Cyrus et al.) and promote it to level 6 preferring Medic III, then Tactics (then have that unit follow around a major stack)

Subsequent GGs:

(try to enhance West Point)
A: Is there a city with West Point (completed or under construction)?
Yes: Can a Military Academy be built there?
Yes: Build it
No: Does it have less than two Instructors?
Yes: build one
No: Goto B

(try to augment Heroic Epic)
B: Is there a city with Heroic Epic (completed or under construction)?
Yes: Can a Military Academy be built there?
Yes: Build it
No: Does it have less than two instructors?
Yes: Build one
No: Goto C

(try to augment Ironworks city - it should have plenty production so don't bother with an Academy)
C: Has the Ironworks been built?
Yes: Does it have fewer than two instructors?
Yes: Build one
No: Goto D

(get a Military Complex started ... likely in early game)
D: Has a suitable Military Complex site been found, or has another one been sited because of expansion?
Yes: Attempt to build an academy or instructor there as per A and B,
else goto E

(dump any leftovers in the Capital)
E: Can a Military Academy be built in the capital?
Yes: Build it
No: Build an instructor in the capital