A Better AI.

[Uncle_Joe]

So I think the 5000 on buildings, 5000 on units is a gross misrepresentation of a middle age empire in version 2.08 of this game. Maybe you are far more militaristic than me, but you must have build some buildings in your cities in version 2.08 of this game.

Whatever the exact ratio is is completely irrelevant. The revelant fact is that the expense needed for military is now far in excess of its 2.08 equivalent yet the costs for improvements have remained the same. This means that the decision making is being very skewed.

Add to that the fact that a number of other mechanics do not scale with the added units in the game and its easy to see that the new builds are pushing the game off the baseline of the intended design.

I also still see cities being captured by the various AI nations, so the defences are not impregnable. Some nations are conquering others.

I see it too from time to time, but almost always in the Ancient or Classical Eras (rarely in Medieval on and almost unheard of past that). From what I've seen, this is a direct product of the massed military stacks that the AIs are building and the difficulty in overcoming that mass with added production. Newer units dont add as much 'punch' to the Military Rating when there are hordes of obsolete units figured in as well. That makes it much tougher for the AIs to engage in a successful war later in the game.

And again, more units does not necessarily translate into better defended against a human player. But it can be crippling against other AI players. As I said above, now that I'm used to it, I can easily build enough military to KO most AIs with little trouble...the same as I could do in 2.08. The main difference seems to be that I am no longer falling behind OTHER AIs elsewhere in the world to do so.

A side effect is that the game is far more tedious to have to fight with stacks of 20+ against AI stacks of 30-40+. The game's mechanics are just not meant to handle that and it shows.

Dont get me wrong, I feel that the newer builds DO make it harder for the player to win via conquest, but I dont believe that it really makes it harder to win the overall game. The AIs as a whole do not play as well when they have to be putting out and properly using insane hordes of units.

I just dont see what makes people that the AI is suddenly 'better' simply because the number of military units in the world as a whole are doubled or tripled. Yes, there are more units to have to slog through, but you have more units to do it. Your relative techs have stayed the same (since everyone is spamming units).

To use the Dilbert-ish mantra....I'd like to see the AIs work SMARTER, not HARDER. And it was doing that a few builds ago. Now its just forcing a unit spamming that doesnt play to the AIs' strengths. IMO.

 

[Todd Hawks]

Currently, I unfortunately have to agree with what most seem to see: It's no fun. I'd even go as far as saying that I'd rather have you take the 2.08 version and *take out* all your "improvements" instead of continuing the path you went with the last one or two builds.

Of course the best way would be to fix it and get the best of both worlds.

 

[Tiberias]

I understand the problems with the "mandatory arms race", and the problems with the computer player falling behind in tech, but let's be honest: a certain amount of the complaining is due to the simple fact that conquest wins are no longer easily attainable.

 

[jkp1187]

You have been writing very many posts on this subject and I can say that I disagree with many parts of them. No I don't think that it would be a good thing if the AI would build 20-30 defenders per city. But I haven't seen the AI do this. Yes, I've seen cities with 20-30 units in them and even more. But those were not the defenders of that city. That was an attack stack stationed in that city. The normal number of defenders that I see is more around 8-10 (continents, huge map, aggressive AI, emperor level).

I think it would be helpful in this discussion for others to mention their experiences in relation to game settings. So far, I've been playing only Techtonics/Noble/Small/7-9 civs. (I started out playing the builds on Noble, and am continuing at that level just to compare apples to apples, even though I have not been having trouble winning lately.) I do not use any cheats.

I have only played one game with the 1/8 build. I have not noticed the 'massive defender' issue with regard to AI civs. I have also noticed that the AI has been fighting wars rather regularly with other AI civs...in one case, Mansa Musa got more or less swept onto a lone island by Stalin. I have kept rather ahead of all of the AI in terms of tech as the game has progressed (helped in part, no doubt, by having my civ start by itself on a continent located near a much larger continent with 3 civs.) I noticed that Stalin hoarded a lot of obsolete units for a long time, then made what appeared to be an upgrade en masse to cossacks, which he used to take down Mansa's SAM Infantry. I also noticed Stalin use an amphibious assault to land a mess of cossacks to take one city (all the more notable because Stalin's homeland was adjacent to Mansa on the same continent -- he didn't need to use a navy at all to finish the conquest.)

The game is not finished yet -- I am on track to grab a space win, I think -- but the AI behavior has not been unsatisfactory so far.

 

[Roland Johansen]

So I think the 5000 on buildings, 5000 on units is a gross misrepresentation of a middle age empire in version 2.08 of this game. Maybe you are far more militaristic than me, but you must have build some buildings in your cities in version 2.08 of this game.

Whatever the exact ratio is is completely irrelevant. The revelant fact is that the expense needed for military is now far in excess of its 2.08 equivalent yet the costs for improvements have remained the same. This means that the decision making is being very skewed.

The ratio is indeed important. In your example it seemed as if there was barely any production going towards improvements because of the increase in unit production. And that is absolutely not true in my games. You have to invest more in units and thus the choises of which buildings to build becomes harder, but I still build most of the buildings that I would have build in a 2.08 game.

Add to that the fact that a number of other mechanics do not scale with the added units in the game and its easy to see that the new builds are pushing the game off the baseline of the intended design.

Why is the new balance between certain game mechanics worse then the previous one? Note that I'm not in complete disagreement with you here, but just saying that it the balance is different doesn't mean that the balance is worse.

For instance, I agree that the pacifism civic is not that useful in this build. But I didn't find it useful in 2.08. And for instance, I know few people who value the environmentalism civic in 2.08, so 2.08 is also unbalanced...
I disagree with your remark in a previous post that the nationhood civic is now not that useful. You could argue that you could use it more often to safe you when facing a monster attack stack from an AI opponent.

I see it too from time to time, but almost always in the Ancient or Classical Eras (rarely in Medieval on and almost unheard of past that). From what I've seen, this is a direct product of the massed military stacks that the AIs are building and the difficulty in overcoming that mass with added production.

I'm playing in the renaissance age and just saw a huge attack stack from the AI crash through 2 cities. It is about to crash through a third. All in about 8 to 10 turns. Not that bad. Maybe it has to do with my settings (huge, aggressive AI, continents, emperor level).

 

[Uncle_Joe]

I understand the problems with the "mandatory arms race", and the problems with the computer player falling behind in tech, but let's be honest: a certain amount of the complaining is due to the simple fact that conquest wins are no longer easily attainable.

For me, nothing could be farther from the truth. I think in all of my time playing Civ4, I have won only one 'Domination' victory. I rarely try and do the quick 'rushes' that I know the AI tends to be weaker to.

My problem with the current build is that it is enforcing unit spamming as a necessary strategy (for players and AIs) and that is messing with other aspect of the game.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

The ratio is indeed important. In your example is seemed as if there was barely any production going towards improvements because of the increase in unit production. And that is absolutely not true in my games. You have to invest more in units and thus the choises of which buildings to build becomes harder, but I still build most of the buildings that I would build in 2.08.

My observation has been that tech progresses quite a bit slower, relieving the 'backlog' of desirable buildings and thus leading to less crucial decision-making in that regard. I tend to have almost every possible city cranking out military most of the time, but will always pause to build the desired buildings when the tech rolls around. The constant pile of military makes that pause less of a risk and the slower tech means that the time between pauses is longer, further decreasing the risk.

In most basic terms: If my total army is worth 5000 hammer, and I want to pause to put in 6 Universities (to enable Oxford etc), then investing 1200 hammers into developments is a large chunk. If my total military is worth 10000 hammers when I get to Education (since teching is delayed), my 'risk factor' for stopping to build the Universities is FAR less....reason: if my otherwise equal enemy builds 1200 worth of troops instead of the 6 Universities, his margin of advatage over me is far lower when I have 10000 total worth of troops than 5000 worth.

Why is the new balance between certain game mechanics worse then the previous one. Note that I'm not in complete disagreement with you here, but just saying that it the balance is different doesn't mean that the balance is worse.

I dont see the benefit of making the balance worse. Like I said, there are other fixed items as well (like the 'weighting' that certain techs or building give the military rating, the number of 'free' units granted from a Civic, experience gain from attaching a Great General, and the utility of drafting). On top of that, like I said, the game's interface isnt really set up to be commanding huge piles of units.

I'm playing in the renaissance age and just saw a huge attack stack from the AI crash through 2 cities. It is about to crash through a third. All in about 8 to 10 turns. Not that bad. Maybe it has to do with my settings (huge, aggressive AI, continents, emperor level).

I'm guessing that 'Aggressive AI' is playing a big part here. I almost never see successful wars post Medieval.

 

[Blake]

Aggressive AI means it - not only will they attack more often, they'll also be far more likely to commit to a massive, full scale assault - throwing everything and the kitchen sink at their victim. This can be a risky move but I've decided (for now) that's what Aggressive AI means - they wont hold back in a war, they wont even really worry about defending themselves until a new threat actually presents itself - I mean ideally they'll throw EVERY unit except 1-2 per city into the war effort - they'll take a devil-may-care attitude to war and will "Cross that bridge when they come to it" when it comes to backstabbers (Ruthless AI's may be a more descriptive term).

At this point the AI can commit to this kind of "TotalWar++" on non-agg setting, but it's FAR less likely. This attacker spam is kind of just as experimental as the defender spam so you only see a lot of it under Aggressive AI.

Something to note about the unit spam - firstly, they are over spamming to some degree. Secondly, they aren't throwing enough units into war in general (except on AggAI). Thirdly - the unit counts you see aren't really any different to higher difficulties from before - the interface is equally unable to cope with Monarch BAI as it is Deity 2.08...

What wont be changing is the AI mounting a proper defense. In 2.08 the AI's are VERY much pinata's - bursting with goodies to be liberated with even trivial military investment. So while the unit spam will be toned down, the Pinata's will not be coming back.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

What wont be changing is the AI mounting a proper defense. In 2.08 the AI's are VERY much pinata's - bursting with goodies to be liberated with even trivial military investment. So while the unit spam will be toned down, the Pinata's will not be coming back.

Well, I dont think anyone is asking for 'easy to conquer AIs'. But being able to focus on something besides building piles of military every game would be far better IMO and would help the AIs as well.

 

[JBConquests]

I received the assert below. I went back to an autosave but couldn't reproduce it.

Assert Failed

File: .\CvPlayerAI.cpp
Line: 4823
Expression: GET_PLAYER(ePlayer).canTradeItem(getID(), pNode->m_data)
Message:

----------------------------------------------------------

 

[Bursk]

So while the unit spam will be toned down, the Pinata's
will not be coming back.

Sounds like a good approach. I'm curious, though, as to whether you've decided on a set number of defenders for a typical, not under threat city.

 

[Arlborn]

All I hope is to see m ore difference in the units building depending of the personality of each AI rather than they all build the same number of defensive(even agressive for that matter) units.

 

[zarakand]

Well, I dont think anyone is asking for 'easy to conquer AIs'. But being able to focus on something besides building piles of military every game would be far better IMO and would help the AIs as well.

Maybe this is because I'm playing on Prince, but I always tend to have about a third or in rare instances half of the AI's military. Sometimes they will invade, but I'm always easily able to beat them back with Cats and using counters. I do play with the aggressive AI enabled. More often than not, I'm able to out tech most of the warmongers near me and then go on an invasion with macemen/knights to their axemen/horsearchers.

 

[jkp1187]

I'm guessing that 'Aggressive AI' is playing a big part here. I almost never see successful wars post Medieval.

Uncle Joe,

For what it's worth, that 'Russian conquest of Mali' I described earlier took place in early Industrial -- Russia did it with Cossacks.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

For what it's worth, that 'Russian conquest of Mali' I described earlier took place in early Industrial -- Russia did it with Cossacks.

Does it happen? Yes it does. But my sense of it is that the AI is struggling more now when contending with larger number of units before than it did previously (at least when not using Aggressive AI).

There are always going to be 'weaker' Civs for whatever reason (placement, lack of resources, bad luck etc). Those Civs will be picked off even by the AIs. But what I'm seeing a lack of in the latest build is actual 'wars' between otherwise near equals. Perhaps its just my imagination, but in 2.08 and early version of BetterAI, the AI's fought and succeeded in wars that amounted to more than simply snuffing out significantly weaker AIs.

My feeling is that the AI did MUCH better with smaller numbers of better units. It doesnt know how to maximize using large piles of units so its not really benefiting from building these piles unless other Civs dont have them for defense. But as long as everyone is building similar masses, then the AI is struggling MORE than it did before IMO. Its still not 'easy' to take over, but it is easier to BEAT in the long-run.

Its really not that hard to defeat 2 Grenadiers, 1 Cavalry, 15 Longbows and 10 Cats etc when you have a handful of Cannon and Riflemen. The AI chokes on the obsolete stuff and actually makes the conquest EASIER than if it had half as many units, but they were up to date.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

Maybe this is because I'm playing on Prince, but I always tend to have about a third or in rare instances half of the AI's military. Sometimes they will invade, but I'm always easily able to beat them back with Cats and using counters. I do play with the aggressive AI enabled. More often than not, I'm able to out tech most of the warmongers near me and then go on an invasion with macemen/knights to their axemen/horsearchers.

Numerically, so do I. And as I said above, this is one of the problems with the current hordes. The AIs are stressing quantity over quality way too much.

 

[Iustus]

Here is an assert I received. It looks like it was the same as one posted earlier by Uncle Joe but just in case I thought I would post it. Just load and press enter.

By the way, I was playing multiplayer and I received an OOS. Sorry, it didn't occur to me to go back to my auto saves and stash it.

Assert Failed

File: .\CvTeam.cpp
Line: 1612
Expression: iCount >= getAtWarCount(bIgnoreMinors)
Message:

----------------------------------------------------------

View attachment 146183

Does either of you happen to have a save from before war was declared? Or do you happen to know the sequence of events that lead to the current state of war?

In your save, Jon (Germany) are at war with Kublai Khan who is also at war with Alexander. Now, his war with Alexander is set up properly, but for some reason his war with you is not set up properly (no warplan). Do you recall what method you used to declare war? Or did he declare war on you? Did Alexander declare war many turns after you did? (It is listing as a dogpile war, but its possible that is in error).

In order to track this down, I really could use a save file right before war is declared. I am trying to reproduce this on my own, but so far, no luck. Looking at the code, I do not see a way that it could get into this state.

-Iustus

 

[Uncle_Joe]

I posted the same Assert a few pages back and there are a few save games with it.

I dont know if that will help you or not I believe it is the exact same error message.

 

[JBConquests]

Does either of you happen to have a save from before war was declared? Or do you happen to know the sequence of events that lead to the current state of war?

In your save, Jon (Germany) are at war with Kublai Khan who is also at war with Alexander. Now, his war with Alexander is set up properly, but for some reason his war with you is not set up properly (no warplan). Do you recall what method you used to declare war? Or did he declare war on you? Did Alexander declare war many turns after you did? (It is listing as a dogpile war, but its possible that is in error).

In order to track this down, I really could use a save file right before war is declared. I am trying to reproduce this on my own, but so far, no luck. Looking at the code, I do not see a way that it could get into this state.

-Iustus

Sorry, the game I posted is the only save I kept. Here is what happened. I was expanding nicely, when out of the blue, Kublai Khan declared war on me. However, he definately wasn't prepared as no units came across the border. Next turn only one unit came after me to pillage. (I was weak he could have done some real damage had he been prepared). Well, 4 or 5 turns later (I think), I talked to Alexander and gave him some tech to declare war on Kublai Khan. (He wanted 6 tech's!!! Highway Robbery!!!) The assert happened immediately after that. (1 or 2 turns) Just for fun, I reloaded a save I had after Kublai Khan declared war on me but before I convinced Alexander to go to war with Kublai Khan. This time, I didn't talk to Alexander and didn't bring him in on the war against Kublai Kahn. The assert didn't happen then and the game continued with no asserts.


I hope this helps.

What is a dogpile war?

 

[Ralgar]

there is one thing that stops me playing this game and that is because its to easy.

There is one thing that stops me playing Civ and that is when its getting painstaking tedious. (Civ 3 on a huge map?)

Before I tried out Better AI i thought: "10 Units! Wow look at this, it is a large army!" Now i think, okay, where is the main attack stack of the enemy?

It is fun to have a large battle and kill a dozen units... but every turn? Again and again? Not.

Furthermore it prevents that I and my friends use the Better AI Mod for multiplayer. We play quite regularly and use some AI opponents to spice it up. I would love it, literally, to use the various enhancements like a working governor. (Seriously, was this automatic nightmare of "we only have a dozen cities and a sizeable army, so lets build a few more settlers and tons of random units instead of wealth" never tested by the developers?).

But fighting every turn many battles against the AI is not only tedious, but is in multiplayer impossible without ****ing up! You only have 2-3 Minutes every turn. You simply don't have enough time to (micro)manage a huge army, even with stack-attack. Not to mention the long (and boring) time you need to build an capable invasion force.