A Better AI.

[aelf]

So if the AI is improved, a shift towards more war is inevitable if you hope to win. At present, the shift is even more marked because the AI is still weak at warmongering while the building is improved, so war-heavy strategies will be favoured.

Exactly. This is what needs to be addressed. Either improve the AI's military skills (which Blake is working on) or adjust the AI bonuses accordingly.

But I honestly can't see why people finding monarch etc. too warlike can't drop down levels. Obviously, if you crank AI bonuses up it's going to distort the game. It shows how relatively weak the original AI is that the bonuses they get in unmodded Monarch don't make them unstoppable. And yes, I don't want to play a game that is so slanted it eg forces war strategies (that's why I don't play diety unmodded). And yes, Blake's mod above monarch is pretty much forcing war -based strategies for the reasons given above - just like unmodded does above Emperor.

But it's just about finding the sweet spot where AI bonuses are enough to compensate for its failings. That sweet spot will obviously vary with the player, and with Blakes improvements it will lie at a lower difficulty level than before. Higher levels will become redundant except for a very very few who like a hopelessly slanted game.

Your last sentence describes the problem percisely. Why should the game be hopelessly "slanted" for the higher levels? While I think this might be an acceptable situation on Deity and maybe Immortal, why should I have to live with this on Monarch or Emperor? How interesting would the game be if after Prince there's no way you can really move up unless you start playing very aggressively?

There are many things an Emperor player like myself can improve on. I don't mind having to move down to Monarch or even Prince, but I want to be able to move back up once I've improved on those things without having to be much more aggressive. Aggressiveness and skill is not the same thing. Not in a game like Civ.

I'm not going to comment further on difficulty levels as I think it's detracting from the real purpose of this thread.

You started it this time

 

[Arlborn]

Exactly. This is what needs to be addressed. Either improve the AI's military skills (which Blake is working on)

Just a last time to express my opnion, you are right in this statment! Just improove the AI in military according with its own build/research-abilities! Then the AI will be really balanced and any strategy againt it, warmonging or peaceful, will kinda result in the same resut depending of the player. Now warmongging is way better just because AI is not balanced.

But inevitable, when they balance both, it will be hard to dont drop a level or two

Great work Blake

 

[DevilJin]

Your last sentence describes the problem percisely. Why should the game be hopelessly "slanted" for the higher levels? While I think this might be an acceptable situation on Deity and maybe Immortal, why should I have to live with this on Monarch or Emperor? How interesting would the game be if after Prince there's no way you can really move up unless you start playing very aggressively?

:

What is the point to repeat it over and over again? Don't use this mod and play with the dumb AI in High levels..

 

[Iustus]

Quick update. An endless 'waiting for other civilizations' bug fixed. (It was related to healing units.)

A new build (11/18) is up on SourceForge

-Iustus

 

[Arlborn]

Quick update. An endless 'waiting for other civilizations' bug fixed. (It was related to healing units.)

A new build (11/18) is up on SourceForge

-Iustus

Thanks.

Are you progammeing it too or only helping Blake in the publicity? hehe

 

[marioflag]

Blake i have some questions about your amazing work on AI.Are you planning also to work on naval units AI because this is supposedly the main reason why we don't have an interesting sea combat.

 

[Abegweit]

Quick update. An endless 'waiting for other civilizations' bug fixed. (It was related to healing units.)

A new build (11/18) is up on SourceForge

-Iustus

Thanks. I got caught by it and before I could even report it, it's fixed!

 

[Harrier]

Blake i have some questions about your amazing work on AI.Are you planning also to work on naval units AI because this is supposedly the main reason why we don't have an interesting sea combat.

Yes - that would be great, if Blake could also improve the naval aspects.

 

[AKS1911]

I play with the "Civ4W_BetterAI_BleedingEdge_06-11-04" build currently. Yesterday, on a marathon/huge/18civ/monarch/snaky continents game, I was in a permanent alliance with a civ. I conquered one weak AI and when done with it, gifted all it's cities to my partner in one turn.

The turn right after, I see that my partner changed his civics to democracy (nearly no towns on this new territory, but culturally pressed by a neighbor and it came with few units). I would have done the exact same thing in this situation, for one reason : rush buying with gold, slavery being unavailable due to everyone using emancipation.

The second civics changed was the AI going for... the no upkeep per distance civic. Wich was again the perfect choice in this situation, as it's initial territory was VERY far. Basically I gifted this territory to my partner to cut on maintenance (6 cities with 20+ maintenance per turn are scary when you have already built your forbidden palace!).

Wow. I knew there was civic changes in the build I'm currently using, but I didn't expect AIs to use them to *perfectly* match their needs.

About the worker AI improvements : when I signed the permanent alliance, I checked my partner's cities (you have all viewing access), to see if their was tiles I would change (this is allowed in this diplomatic situation). Well, there was so few and so unimportant changes I would have done that it was not even worth shipping one of my workers team to my partner's territory.

Amazing!

About the change in difficulty : the only way I found to survive was by using both vassalage and... pacifism ! Pacifism? At first it was because early warmongering was not a good option: I had no iron neither horses in my territory, my neighbor was ashoka (he never attacked my border cities with only one axemen in them), behind him was another AI wich would just have settled the 'freed' lands, fighting both was too hard and I was able to get 2/3rd of our 3 civs continent with some early city rush-founding. Now in the industrial era, using tanks, infantry, cannons and marines, I still use those two civics, because it's the cheapest combination, I'm figthing wars, and I MUST stick to my religion as the diplomatic game is very very tense too.

Vassalage was because even if I avoided land wars at all cost, I *gifted* my future 'partner' with many 2 promotions units during his wars with an AI wich would have gone after ME, had it won this AI-AI war. Also, giving it outdated (but nicely promoted) units and gold meant the AI used it's HUGE unit upgrade discount for maximum effect.

I had to enter naval wars several times, in order to prevent another one of the four "not-on-initial-continent" AIs I managed to convert to my religion from being obliterated by another, by intercepting invasion fleets. I don't think you can see frigate *stacks* duking it out on another map than snaky continents.

This is on monarch difficulty. Before, i was an emperor difficulty player, and it was basically 'do or die' : I was obliterated fast OR knew at mid-game that it was it, nothing would ever stop me and had to restart another game as there was no challenge left.

Now, i'm on a game I had to restart at 4000 bc several times besides having a wonderful starting position, I had to use all the tricks I know of: oracle, collossus, religion spreading, pacifism + GP farm, ultra specialized cities, beelining to astronomy, carefull tech trading, bribing huge warmongers to fight themsleves, 'cold war' with others by using gifts of units, naval wars on other places to protect other AI 'friends', signing a permanent alliance and using my partner's bonuses, etc...

I'm not finished yet in this game, and what I foresee is a race between 4 civs for the spaceship in a world where 11 of the 16 surviving civs will be at war using modern era units, where fleets will clash to prevent invasions, spies are already spotted, the UN is going to be a mess, and, finally, NUKES will be there soon! The game is entering it's finishing phase, and I have no idea if I'm going to win or not, and I don't even know if I'll go spaceship or domination or score!

This is AWFULL !

THANK YOU BLAKE !

 

[Iustus]

Since there is continued discussion about the difficulty level (handicaps), I thought it would be useful to be more specific. It is rather simple to edit the xml to change or add difficulty levels.

This may be in order to give everyone the choices they want.

That said, the first thing to understand is how things work currently.

If you look at this complete list, you can see everything that the difficulty level does and can do.

NeverMind posted an excel file on this thread (Gee I wish I had found that before I recreated it). He also made the following image, which shows just some of the values:

As you can see, there are quite a few variables to juggle.

-Iustus

 

[TopDog]

Thats amazing how you can do that Blake, I might even have to go out and buy warlords soon now...

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Since there is continued discussion about the difficulty level (handicaps), I thought it would be useful to be more specific. It is rather simple to edit the xml to change or add difficulty levels.

This may be in order to give everyone the choices they want.

That said, the first thing to understand is how things work currently.

If you look at this complete list, you can see everything that the difficulty level does and can do.

NeverMind posted an excel file on this thread (Gee I wish I had found that before I recreated it). He also made the following image, which shows just some of the values:

As you can see, there are quite a few variables to juggle.

-Iustus

I'm not being truly faecetious, but you totally missed the relevant AI bonuses (NOT boni guys, be real), which are the ones I mentoined many posts back, which are the fact that the player is sniped many accumulative bonuses (again not boni) in the form of refused help, war help, refusal to gift tech, refusal to change religion, you get the picture, which the AI isn't....oh and virtual free troop upgrades.

I'll say for the last time that these are the bonuses not..(well not again you get the message) the very easy changeable percentages quoted in the highly commendable post I quoted above. Changing those are complete child's play. Re-balancing the game of Civilization IV, now Blake has virtually made it Civilization V, is a whole new ball game. Just watch the Raiders now Brookes has gone down as an analogy (cos I'm a relocated Jets fan who sulks about having to watch them and the 49ers every week...nice weather C***sucking teams).

Sorry I digress, and must say again, Blake is doing a one man programming consortium job, which is GREAT (note caps GREAT again in case some missed it). He isn't the problem at all. Patch 2.08 is already CIV 4.5, this new stuff is CIV V. CIV IV isn't designed for it. Just taking AI bonuses away won't work. The whole AI hidden bonus system needs to be revamped , which is a good thing.

The next person who suggests that any constructive complainant "just moves down a level", without reading their full arguement, gets a job as the Raiders starting left Tackle.

Nuff said.

 

[Iustus]

Some of the things you mention are in the xml. Some, as you say are not.

For those who complaining about the actual xml handicap values, the attached file can be used as a mod to change them. Every difficulty level has the AI specific changes for that level removed.

AIs still get half their values from the Noble difficulty, so they still will have an advantage (or disadvantage if you playing lower than Noble), but it is greatly decreased from the default handicaps.

This is just one of many ways to modify the xml, no great amount of testing has been put into balancing these. I encourage you to download a comparison tool, like WinMerge, see what changes I made, and modify them yourself.

-Iustus

 

[aelf]

What is the point to repeat it over and over again? Don't use this mod and play with the dumb AI in High levels..

Because people like you don't ever get it and keep playing the "I'm better than you 'cause I like to play with a smarter AI" card. Let me get this straight one more time: I like to play with smarter AI too. Preferably something more intelligent than vous.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

I just played game with Civ4W_BetterAI_Warlords_06-11-17 and wanted to point out some things.

Settings: Prince/Terra/Standard/Epic/Egypt - Ramesses II.

This was my first actual try on Prince (noble usually) and Terra (which i read somewhere is supposed to be easiest map?) and Egypt. Map was really crowded so i took out 2 first rivals quick (Vikings and Incas) and started empire building after that. I felt it was better not to trade much with AI's as they seem always to pick up on speed after that (i guess they can take advantage of new techs so much more faster than human player). So after few basic trades i did not really trade with them. And did not subject to extorsion.. more on this later.

Whole game seemed much more dynamic (and fun!) since AI's were actually warring between them more than i'm used to. They also fought better - Alex declared his usual stupid war on me but actually managed to send some troops on my territory this time. Usually he is on another continent .

About tech speed and preferences.. Catherine discovered liberalism 1298 and took astronomy. She most likely bulbed philosophy etc to get there.. i just think that there would have been techs to take that would have been much more useful for her (AI values astronomy quite lot?).

Something that still needs improving is how AI decides to go to war. This was the only really stupid occasion on whole game, even if i basically set Catherine up (my immediate neightbour). I had Military Tradition (Cossacks for Cathy, AI aiming for their UU?) and refused to give that to her as tribute.

So she was 15-30 turns from MT and i voluntarily traded horses to her (to see what would happen). So, after a little while she gets Cossacks and is able to build them because of my horses. At this point she upgrades / builds her army and takes small lead in power because AI's upgrade so fast. Now she starts war on me and loses the horses and ability to build Cossacks. And as a icing on a cake i just started building tanks 2 turns earlier... Our relationship had detoriated from friendly->pleased->cautious because of my refusals to give her tributes.

Game ended on domination 1912 after taking over the new world.. i could have gone any way. One of the best games i've had and first win on prince.

Some general notes:

- Governor works much better
- Automated workers are much better
- Tech trading needs more thinking from players side to prevent AI running away (i tried older BetterAI build on noble and noticed same thing). I could keep up only because i had so much more land... and to get that land early war is needed.
- I entered industrial era 1673 and modern at 1814. For my games these are early dates.

Thanks for making CIV even better .

 

[Powerslave]

Because people like you don't ever get it and keep playing the "I'm better than you 'cause I like to play with a smarter AI" card. Let me get this straight one more time: I like to play with smarter AI too. Preferably something more intelligent than vous.

What, exactly, is your problem? Do you not like the AI getting so many bonuses at high levels? Change the XML or drop a level. Do you not like the AI treating you as a special case? Mod the SDK. I fail to see why you're beating this dead horse in this thread.

If you don't have the ability to understand XML, drop a level. If you don't know C/C++, read a primer on the web.

Where exactly is your problem? I just fail to see it. Please tell me.

Hell, I might even help you with the programming issues, if you post in an appropriate forum and thread.

You have the power! Use it. Civ4 isn't like other games (e.g., Gal Civ II) that advertise the ability to create mods, only to give you the power to create new icons or something. You can actually change the way the game works.

 

[aelf]

What, exactly, is your problem? Do you not like the AI getting so many bonuses at high levels? Change the XML or drop a level. Do you not like the AI treating you as a special case? Mod the SDK. I fail to see why you're beating this dead horse in this thread.

Look, I'm not going to be bothered to explain myself anymore. If you don't like what I said, then just ignore it, because I'm going to ignore what you guys are going to say about this subject from now on.

If you look around the forums, you'd notice that I am involved in walkthrough games that allow people to download and play along at different stages. If I fiddle with the XML, then people are not going to be able to do that. Simple.

I really fail to see why people continue ignoring the clear explanations that have been given or take things out of context. Then they turn around and say I'm spamming or beating a dead horse. Alright, then. I'm not going to continue giving my opinions. Honestly, I don't give a damn about Firaxis or Civ anymore. They can remove everything except military stuff. If I can't live with it, I'll silently stop playing. I've gotten my money's worth. Maybe it's time to move on.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

What, exactly, is your problem? Do you not like the AI getting so many bonuses at high levels? Change the XML or drop a level. Do you not like the AI treating you as a special case? Mod the SDK. I fail to see why you're beating this dead horse in this thread.

Ok, I'll try and make a stab at it. As I understand it the issue (discussion?) is about balance and leaving options for those players that don't want to war all the time. I forget whether it was this thread or one of the Apolyton threads where Blake said that not all of his changes were implemented by Firaxis due to balance reasons.

Whether or not people agree with their decision the fact remains that the makers have always tried to leave options open to those players as to how they can play and win the game.

I fully appreciate that Blake is only making changes in discreet areas and I can understand why that should be. I think the point that Aelf and others are making is that , at some point, changes will need to be made to rebalance the game. By flagging up the subject now it ensures that it is not overlooked.

On your point about making additional mod changes, be they XML or C++, that means an ongoing requirement to keep making changes in response to Blake's updates. It's far better if we can persuade Blake/Iustus to start taking them into account alongside their other changes. The only way that Blake etc. will be aware of the need/demand for this is if the subject is raised in this thread.

 

[player1 fanatic]

To be blunt, all bonuses AI ever got where economic.
It never happens that AI unit wins combat more often on higher difficulties then normal. It's just economic power then makes them harder.

So, if AI economy is better due to better economy AI, it just means pretty much similar thing as increasing a difficulty with old AI by one.
You get similar effects. More difficult game, war more important. Nothing is changed. It was always like this.

So, dropping the level is sound advice. That is indeed a proper compensation to keep game pace as intended. And higher levels still serve purpose for hard-core players, who where already used to fast paced tech, advanced AIs with lots of units etc...

 

[kettyo]

A bit offtopic but it relates to the AI bonuses theme.

I've always wondered why AI to AI attitudes are calculated a different way then human to AI.
Like an AI could be pleased toward someone with +1 modifier or even with 0.
The human attitudes always come from the modifiers while AI to AI attitudes tend to be better than they should according to the modifier points.
I thought i may lower the Attitudechange setting in XML but it would distort my own relations to foreign civs too making diplomatic agreements harder to make.

It would be better if attitudes would be calculated in an universal way.