A Better AI.

[HardCoder]

Agreed,
There will alway be new ideas for implementation. But every new idea needs a week or two to get it right, so it comes to endless loop bugfixing old ideas adding new ideas, bugfixing...

Best to cut at one point, and do only bugfixes and introduce experimental relase as seperate download.

Um, we here are mostly just along for the ride. At best we are doing a little testing.

We're not project managers.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Um, we here are mostly just along for the ride. At best we are doing a little testing.

We're not project managers.

True. OTOH feedback to Blake & Iustus gives them a feel for what some of the community think the directon should be. In the end I'm sure that they will go down the route that they think is best. However I personally believe that what they would really like is to have this mod in a state where Firaxis pick it up and (mostly) integrate into either the next XP (at worst) or better still incorporate it into a patch for Warlords. I would love to think that there might be a patch for vanilla but that looks pretty dubious.

 

[cymru_man]

Hey, has there been some change in the barb behavior? I've seen some spectacular rushes when the barb behavior changes from "stumbling around in the woods" to "rushing headlong at my cities and improvements." Like 8 or 10 barbs coming from all directions at once, on Prince level in ordinary playing conditions (no raging barbs). I don't remember it being like this in previous builds. There's this sudden huge wave of barbs and then they go away completely.

It's actually pretty difficult to defend against. I'd rather have a stack of 8-10 units coming from Shaka in one direction than the same number of axes and warriors coming from every which way not caring whether they live or die.

Did you suddenly start playing on a bigger/less populated map or maybe forgot your fogbusters?

 

[Blake]

In the next version the AI should do a considerably better job of killing off encroaching barbarians and other weak units - you just shouldn't see a couple of skirmishers cowering in a city while a barb warrior rips up everything.

While it's still fairly experimental I do have the AI's basically defending more highly threatened cities better - proximity to enemies (or those with a hostile attitude) plays the major role in determining how many units the AI garrisons a city with. The AI should also be more flexible in the use of it's defenders to generally bust up invaders - it is fairly conservative in doing so, IF it has an advantage in units and IF it has good odds, it'll kill off enroachers, it should be somewhat reluctant to attack choking units sitting in defensive terrain.

I think it should generally put up a much stiffer defense - this may make AI vs AI invasions less likely (invading a competent foe is actually very hard in CIV).

The new wonder building behavior works well too - the AI are building wonders at rather "human" times.

 

[JimMac99]

In the next version the AI should do a considerably better job of killing off encroaching barbarians and other weak units...

I think it should generally put up a much stiffer defense -...

The new wonder building behavior works well too - the AI are building wonders at rather "human" times.

After your good work on the AI city placement, cultural victory, city governor and specialists, -improvements in the above two areas will simply make your AI essential.

A thought: it would good if you could encourage the AI to prioritise The Great Wall. In some situations some Wonders are more useful than others to the AI, but it seems to me that The Great Wall would always be very useful especially for those of us who play Raging Barbs.

Now… just post this new build, I need to get a testing!

 

[Doomed_UK]

concerning the 24/12 build - it gave me my most enjoyable game of civ yet - however, when the Incans built the united nations things seemed to get a bit confused. Every few turns the AI seemed to get stuck in a loop after I hit end turn. The 'waiting for other players' would never end. I could still access the main menu etc, so I would reload the autosave, and sometimes I would get past the last 'stuck' point.
I ended up removing the betterAI.dll and it played fine after that.

(I ended up getting my first ever diplomacy victory - only just, and only because the Japanese started a war on the Incans which stopped them from completing the space ship, and also reduced thier vote in the U.N. - first game ever where I needed spies to keep sabotaging the Incans space ship)

 

[Elandal]

Note that the AI gets Settler-level bonuses against barbs and animals - on all levels. So if it gets clued in on how to handle barbs, those bonuses will be too big.
Out of the scope of this project, but maybe players want to mod the AI barb bonuses a bit down after this. And no - moving a level down doesn't work in this case because the AI barb bonuses are constant on all levels.

 

[phungus420]

In the next version the AI should do a considerably better job of killing off encroaching barbarians and other weak units - you just shouldn't see a couple of skirmishers cowering in a city while a barb warrior rips up everything.

While it's still fairly experimental I do have the AI's basically defending more highly threatened cities better - proximity to enemies (or those with a hostile attitude) plays the major role in determining how many units the AI garrisons a city with. The AI should also be more flexible in the use of it's defenders to generally bust up invaders - it is fairly conservative in doing so, IF it has an advantage in units and IF it has good odds, it'll kill off enroachers, it should be somewhat reluctant to attack choking units sitting in defensive terrain.

I think it should generally put up a much stiffer defense - this may make AI vs AI invasions less likely (invading a competent foe is actually very hard in CIV).

The new wonder building behavior works well too - the AI are building wonders at rather "human" times.

Glad to hear it Blake. Have you taught the AI to be an agressive A-Hole yet though?

 

[kettyo]

I think it should generally put up a much stiffer defense - this may make AI vs AI invasions less likely (invading a competent foe is actually very hard in CIV).

Yes they should implement a 'raze and vassalize' strategy when invading an opponent with similar military power.
But it may be a bit too far away

Anyway the new defense mechanic seems great.
Preemptive defense in bordercities near annoyed or furious opponents is a huge improvement.

 

[Elhoim]

In my last game I noticed that the civs don´t settle too much. I´m into the middle game and there is a lot of free space. Settings are: Huge Map, Archipielago, Snaky Continents, Low Sea, 18 civs.

 

[phungus420]

IF it has an advantage in units and IF it has good odds, it'll kill off enroachers, it should be somewhat reluctant to attack choking units sitting in defensive terrain.

Dude, that's cool. I'm going to love to see how the new AI deals with a Dagger Stack, also do Daggers keep punching through in this build, or do they sit in newlyowned cities?

, it should be somewhat reluctant to attack choking units sitting in defensive terrain.

I challenge anyone to tell me when in and MP game you hit a stack that's not next to your city and on a hill. Though if you have some Siege, it's good to hit that Prick, but that's a hard call. I have no idea how you told the AI how to make that call, but awesome job if you even got some sort of logical base to teach the AI when they getting played like that, and when to toast the mug. Things like that, the fact you can program an AI to differentiate, when even some humans can't figure out the best time to hit it is amazing.

 

[Wodan]

In the next version the AI should do a considerably better job of killing off encroaching barbarians and other weak units - you just shouldn't see a couple of skirmishers cowering in a city while a barb warrior rips up everything.

I think it should generally put up a much stiffer defense - this may make AI vs AI invasions less likely (invading a competent foe is actually very hard in CIV).

Interesting. In my current game the AI pwned Frederick... took his capitol and second city. Fred was left with only Hamburg up in tundra. He was building warriors while the Barbs had Axes. No wonder he got

I've noticed that the AIs don't seem to be building archers anymore. Did we de-emphasize the priority to build Archers? That's fine, but in some cases that backfires. Not just Fred... I took out Isabella quite easily with chariots against a pure warrior defense. She was busy researching Hinduism and Judaism and doing me a huge favor with her gift of two shrines.

I guess I'm saying that a human recognizes the need for at least ONE of the early units: axes, chariots, archers. The AI needs to do the same. Not to the exlusion of all else (an early religion for Izzy makes perfect sense) but I question her decision to go for Judaism before getting BW or Horse riding or something. (yes she did have horses and bronze).

Wodan

 

[Wodan]

Guys, here's another minor suggestion. Worker outside the fat cross. She already has rice, so that can't be it. There's plenty for the worker to do that will be of benefit besides improving a resource that a city can't work anyway.

Wodan

 

[vra379971]

I've been known to act in a similar manner, so that I settle there later, and not have to run a woker over there at ths time.

 

[Tiberias]

Hey, has there been some change in the barb behavior? I've seen some spectacular rushes when the barb behavior changes from "stumbling around in the woods" to "rushing headlong at my cities and improvements." Like 8 or 10 barbs coming from all directions at once, on Prince level in ordinary playing conditions (no raging barbs). I don't remember it being like this in previous builds. There's this sudden huge wave of barbs and then they go away completely.

Not sure about this, but the Barbarian may have their own map, complete with fog of war, to work from. I've noticed Barbarians stumbling around . . . until one of them stumbles upon one of my cities, and then the horde descends. The worst, of course, is when I build in the New World, and the Barbarians discover my colony, and then a stack of 234382978 Barbarians comes after me.

Not complaining about that behavior at all, I think it works fine. If the Barbarians were to be truly nasty, they could have no fog of war, so that they could make a beeline for vulnerable cities, but that's likely outside of the scope of this project.

 

[jkp1187]

concerning the 24/12 build

Wait -- was there a December 24 patch? Last one I have is December 21...

 

[TheOnlyDJCat]

concerning the 21/12 build - it gave me my most enjoyable game of civ yet - however, when the Incans built the united nations things seemed to get a bit confused. Every few turns the AI seemed to get stuck in a loop after I hit end turn. The 'waiting for other players' would never end. I could still access the main menu etc, so I would reload the autosave, and sometimes I would get past the last 'stuck' point.
I ended up removing the betterAI.dll and it played fine after that.

I had exactly the same problem. I'm not sure, whether the United Nations had caused the infinite loop, but it might be. Only after removing the dll, I could continue to the next turn.

 

[marioflag]

Blake i know i'm probably asking too much but there is any chance that AI can have a smarter behaviour in UN resolutions?
For example is it possible that AI will vote yes to unique currency or +1 trade routes if it has a lot of rights of passage and vote no if AI is in war with everybody?Or for example vote no to prohibition of nuclear weapons if it has already some ICBM and vote yes to prohibition of use of nuclear weapons if other AI have ICBM but this AI has no ballistic missile?

 

[cf_nz]

Further to the fix from revision 233.

The governor ... he should also always prefer hamlets over cottages.

I'm running a build from revision 235 (based on Warlords 2.08 + a few other modcomps) and the city governor is favouring a village over a town when emphasizing commerce or research.

Whilst the fix specifically mentions hamlets and cottages, I assume the idea is that the better plot is favoured, especially when using the emphasis buttons.

Using the debug tools (ALT+Shift), the tile values are (town plot; Village plot): value: 14460, 14710; juggle value: 1860, 2110; magic value: 156, 156.

If you want a save let me know and I'll email it (can't get it below the 500kb size limit).

 

[Iustus]

Further to the fix from revision 233.


I'm running a build from revision 235 (based on Warlords 2.08 + a few other modcomps) and the city governor is favouring a village over a town when emphasizing commerce or research.

Whilst the fix specifically mentions hamlets and cottages, I assume the idea is that the better plot is favoured, especially when using the emphasis buttons.

Using the debug tools (ALT+Shift), the tile values are (town plot; Village plot): value: 14460, 14710; juggle value: 1860, 2110; magic value: 156, 156.

If you want a save let me know and I'll email it (can't get it below the 500kb size limit).

Hmm interesting. I will try to take a look into this, I have been a bit out of comission for the holiday, I will first have to figure out the changes Blake made to my governor If you are willing to drop into worldbuilder, you can blast most of your world into ocean (including destroying most of the units and some civs) and that should easily reduce the savegame size down enough to fit in a post. All I need is that one city.

Needless to say, the fix will not make it into today's version.

-Iustus