A Better AI.

[Iustus]

How do I keep Mr. Governor from allocating specialists that pollute my GP building? I've noticed that the governor seems to be getting creative that way, but not creative in a way that I always appreciate. It would be a good start if it didn't allocate specialists that don't correspond to either a) specialists that are set (forced) by the user, and/or GP points resulting from wonders or special buildings. Also, the obnoxious behavior of allocating an engineer whenever a forge shows up is just ... obnoxious.

If you are forcing specialists, then you should never get any other specialists unless there is no other choice (ie, no plots to work at all).

That said, I probably could add something where it always tries to pick the same type that you are forcing under this condition. First though, I would like to confirm your city was large enough (or boxed in enough) that it had no other actual plots to work).

It's not the governor's fault, but I wish there were a way to dump production when a city shouldn't be producing anything, for example, in an early pacifist government when money is tight, and there's nothing to produce (before you can build beakers/culture/gold) except military units that will have to be deleted to save cash. I wish I could build Nothing.

That is what building gold/research (and culture) is used for. Have you never done this? The new build automation governor will do this as well, try turning on auto builds on a city to see it in action.

How does the governor hold cities at "growing in 1 turn" in "don't grow" mode when it seems that the city must grow next turn?

If you click the "do not grow" button yourself, then it forces the city to never grow. This is not actually the governor, but rather just something hardcoded into the game. It is actually a feature Sirian requested. You are probably better off never using this button, as it is easy to forget about when your happy caps go up. The new governor will do its best to slow growth as much as possible (by running specialists). Use slavery (or nationhood) to get rid of the excess population until you can get your happy caps high enough that a city will no longer grow when you do not wish it.

I will let Blake deal with the start point questions.

-Iustus

 

[tonedog]

whats the latest with this mod? i use the the visa mod so can this be used alongside it?

the readme says put the dll file in the warlords custom assets folder which i have done but find it a bit strange that there aint already a dll file in there. is that the correct place to put it so that it works with all mods?

 

[Wodan]

I just witnessed what I would classify as pretty stupid AI behavior. I'm running the latest Better AI (12-9) and just started the game this morning.

I had a missionary running around so witnessed the whole thing. I saw a stack of Ragnar wander around... no settler, so it was either a dagger stack or simply a group of early leftover units. Of course I followed it, to make sure he wasn't coming for me. Nope, Frederick. Fine by me. I don't like Fred anyway.

Ragnar's stack consisted of 3 archers and 2 warriors. He declares war on Frederick, and moves into his borders. He then attacks the nearest city, which happens to be a hill city with 2 axes and 1 spear. Obviously, Ragnar's attack failed miserably. I think he did 10% damage to the defending troops.

I don't know if Ragnar scouted beforehand, but if he did, that would make it even worse. Regardless, scouting the enemy beforehand is good, if they aren't doing it already. There was a hill on the 2-diagonal spot where Ragnar could have seen the defending troops, if he cared to walk a unit and look.

In any event, I think there should also be some code where the AI takes a look at the current defenders before launching any assault. If outclassed then they should either go into pillage mode, or else they should go back home. I would think there would be this code already, but I can't otherwise explain what happened.

Wodan

 

[Iustus]

whats the latest with this mod? i use the the visa mod so can this be used alongside it?

the readme says put the dll file in the warlords custom assets folder which i have done but find it a bit strange that there aint already a dll file in there. is that the correct place to put it so that it works with all mods?

That is how custom assets work. If a file is there, it replaces the regular file (which you do not want to modify).

That is the correct place to put it to have it work with as many mods as possible. If you are using a mod which itself modifies the dll (which most of the big ones do), then there is no way to use both at the same time. The developer of that mod has to integrate the BetterAI changes into the dll that they distribute with their mod. I posted instructions in this thread and on sourceforge to help them do this.

-Iustus

 

[DevilJin]

Hi
In the lastest build, check the diplomacy screen and see that the name of the empire isn't appearing. For example, You see Peter-Peter(Pleased) instead of Peter-Russian empire- (Pleased).
This case isn't dramatic, but it souldn't happen.

 

[Wodan]

Hi
In the lastest build, check the diplomacy screen and see that the name of the empire isn't appearing. For example, You see Peter-Peter(Pleased) instead of Peter-Russian empire- (Pleased).
This case isn't dramatic, but it souldn't happen.

What do you mean by "diplomacy screen"? Do you mean the Foreign Advisor screen? Which subscreen, "Relations"? If that's what you're talking about, then this isn't happening to me (12-9 build).

Wodan

 

[DevilJin]

What do you mean by "diplomacy screen"? Do you mean the Foreign Advisor screen? Which subscreen, "Relations"? If that's what you're talking about, then this isn't happening to me (12-9 build).

Wodan

So look at the image
Mansa Musa-Mansa Musa

 

[HardCoder]

That is what building gold/research (and culture) is used for. Have you never done this? The new build automation governor will do this as well, try turning on auto builds on a city to see it in action.

Yeah, I'm aware of this. But if you don't have those techs ....

If you click the "do not grow" button yourself, then it forces the city to never grow. This is not actually the governor, but rather just something hardcoded into the game. It is actually a feature Sirian requested.[...]

I didn't know that! That's cool!

 

[weimingshi]

Yeah, I'm aware of this. But if you don't have those techs ....

In your game, does the AI have a significant tech lead over you? If the answer is no, then the difficulty level you playing at is too easy for you, start new game play higher difficulty level. If answer is yes, that means you gonna loose the game. Start a new game and play lower difficulty setting.

Now about the issue that I find game is easier than vanilla 2.0. The game I played on deity is on huge earth map, 18 civs, aggressive AI, raging barb. I did cheat a little to start out game though, But I do that when I play on vanilla too. I play chinese, I changed agriculture to mysticism, so I can grab buddism. And I gave myself bronze working at start. I was the game leader all the way till renaissance period. In vanilla, the best I can hope for is somewhere in the middle after anicient era.

 

[cymru_man]

weimingshi, I disagree. I've won games where I've spent a significant amount of time with nothing to build aside library/monument/barracks/granary (no religions). I play marathon, so maybe that drags out the time period. If you go for an early rush, you can kill your economy before you hit CoL. Not ideal, but it's happened to me and you can still win

A word of encouragement to teh BetterAI team; I just played a pretty cool game Monarch, pangea, 12 civ, aggressive AI, random personality, PA, no tech trading. Not gonna document it in full because no one really cares AIs were at each others' throats and there was a lot of back and forth warfare, the AIs were sometimes quite adept at turning the tide on their attacker or holding ground. None the less a few AIs died or got vassalled, the war features seemed very good. AI moved quite fast in tech also, I couldn't quite keep up. Signed a PA with Brennus who "turned off" research around flight and got us a culture victory ~1800. Overall, no complaints for the AI at all and the game was interesting all the way to the end. All the AIs were in a few wars, some more than others, but the aggressive civs didn't walk all over everyone else. Good job

 

[weimingshi]

I installed the 12-09 build, but in game when doing ctrl player name, still shows 12-07. Is that normal?

 

[Cookerygod]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cookerygod View Post
I've tried to use the better AI in my internet games with one of my friends. We both have the better AI file in the correct folder. The game goes out of sync every turn. I've read through the thread and do not see any one mentioning it. Anything that I can try to do for this to work?

(The games are with 2 humans and 6 AIs)

I will look into this. How did you have the teams set up? Simultaneous turns? Turn timer? What map? Settings?

-Iustus

Thanks for catering for a very tiny portion of players.

Game set up:
Team 1 and Team 2 are human players, team 3 to team 8 are AIs, each contains 1 civ. Random Civ. Simultaneous turns. Map should be fractal, difficulty of human players set to prince. Will try to get my friend to play once more to get a save for investigation.

 

[Cookerygod]

Originally Posted by Cookerygod
I've tried to use the better AI in my internet games with one of my friends. We both have the better AI file in the correct folder. The game goes out of sync every turn. I've read through the thread and do not see any one mentioning it. Anything that I can try to do for this to work?

(The games are with 2 humans and 6 AIs)

I am guessing you had something installed incorrectly.

Blake and I ran a test, using two different builds no less, and we had no sync issues.

We had the BetterAI dll in our custom assets folder using Warlords 2.08 exe.

Were you by chance using vanilla civ?

-Iustus

Both human players are using warlords 2.08. If some one gets this to work, it's probably my settings. There are many things that can go wrong. I believe that we can proceed further only after I test again and post a save game. Thanks again for testing.

 

[Blake]

Okay good/bad news for Noble players. Next version is going to be significantly tweaked to improve prince and lower performance. For long enough it's been tested at Monarch nearly exclusively.

Also the AI will build wonders considerably less obsessively... which is not to say the super early wonder will never happen it'll just be rarer.

 

[Doomed_UK]

Cookerygod:
I have been happily playing a 4 human 4 AI direct IP game for a while now with no problems - admmittedly it is with one of the earlier builds.

 

[mice]

Okay good/bad news for Noble players. Next version is going to be significantly tweaked to improve prince and lower performance.

This is good news. The size of the jump from Prince to Monarch was the problem.

 

[DrJambo]

Last game on Prince, most recent build - I've been finding the AI to be defending its cities rather poorly. I'm not sure if it's just the builder type civs that are guilty - Frederick was one, Isabella was the other. But I found both relatively simple to conquer with just a single war stack. I did struggle in my last Monarch game but I still find Prince fairly easy and the difference between the two seems quite noticeable. It's possible this will feature in the changes you're about to make, but maybe they're trying to build too many Wonders all the time and therefore neglecting their early military?

One other point - is there any way to get the AI to better react to neighbouring factions mobilising for war? If I see the AI building a stack for a dagger attack, I would also build up in preparation. Do AI factions still dogpile or instigate pillage wars?

Cheers for all the work guys. At least in my last Prince game Tokugawa vassalised two other civs - something which I've never seen the AI do before.

 

[Newcomer24]

Okay good/bad news for Noble players. Next version is going to be significantly tweaked to improve prince and lower performance. For long enough it's been tested at Monarch nearly exclusively.

Also the AI will build wonders considerably less obsessively... which is not to say the super early wonder will never happen it'll just be rarer.

Did you have the time to look into the starting points code?
I had my settler placed over a food resource (or the food resource placed under the settler.. it's the same) 2-3 times with the latest build while this never happened to me nor with vanilla Civ4 nor with Warlords 2.08 nor with earlier builds of the mod.

 

[Blake]

The starting point code is heavily tweaked in the next build. Both close starts and very bad starts should be considerably less likely (I've changed how some of the core logic works when it comes to avoiding close starts in order to make it much more flexible, it was the rigidness of it's method to prevent close starts leading to both very close starts and very bad starts).
The normalizer has also been adjusted to make it more fair / less stupid when it comes to placing food resources and there should be less chance of having a resource under the settler.

 

[Newcomer24]

The starting point code is heavily tweaked in the next build. Both close starts and very bad starts should be considerably less likely (I've changed how some of the core logic works when it comes to avoiding close starts in order to make it much more flexible, it was the rigidness of it's method to prevent close starts leading to both very close starts and very bad starts).
The normalizer has also been adjusted to make it more fair / less stupid when it comes to placing food resources and there should be less chance of having a resource under the settler.

Great news, can't wait to try the next build, keep up the good work.