A Better AI.

[sveint]

For your holiday pleasure, new 12/21 build on sourceforge

Amazing, simply amazing!

My little test game last night went into a late night intense game, by far the most fun Civ4 game I've had. The Zulus went for the Koreans (next to me), and we fought over the ruined Korean empire non-stop from ironworking to gunpowder. Meanwhile other AIs were teching away, pursuing different victories.

I do have one minor suggestion about promotions, which would help the defensive AI alot: The Zulus would produce large stacks of City Garrison archers/longbows. If they would have been 50/50 City Garrison and Drill, I don't think I would have been able to take a single city from him. Drill is largely underestimated by alot of players, as they build/use city defenders very rarely.

Finally, I'd second make all AI use the Dagger strategy if Aggressive AI is checked. Would love to see that play out. Or gives some other way of forcing dagger strategies (perhaps if all victory options but the military ones are disabled?)

 

[Julian Delphiki]

I understand what you say but I don't totally agree. I think at least the warmongers (Napy, Monty, Alex, Shaka...) should attack more, even if not on 'aggressive AI' settings, because that's their game, that's their chance to win.

Would you like them to attack more against you (or the human player in general) or also to be more aggressive towards each other? AFAIK, turning aggressive AI on just sets (even more) hidden negative modifiers for AI's towards human player, but not towards other AI's. When i tried it first time i thought - cool, maybe i can get more AI<>AI wars this way too, but that was not gonna happen. Sometimes it just causes them to gangbang the player..

 

[Blake]

Are you sure you haven't gone too far with this one? Playing with the 21.12.06 version, Frederick of all people won't give me anything for my techs (guilds, paper) despite him having 670 gold in the bank.

Another question: have you changed the speed at which the +4 fair trade relations wear off? Maybe it's just me on that one, just curious.

The AI values gold twice as much, if previously it would give 440g for a tech, it'll now give 220g. Wheras once a luxury trade would go for about 22gpt, now it's 11gpt. If they have gold in the bank, they should give it to you for tech. They wont ever refuse to trade gold you can see - if they are it's a bug (saved game please!).

The diplomacy code is very fragile and requires a lot of reproduction of code to make it work consistently (making the same change in many places) - there was also no existing support for changing the value of gold, so I had to code that in. I ran some tests and it seemed that "What will make this deal work" was working fine before the build was uploaded, but it's entirely possible there are some cases I've missed.

Rate of decay for diplomacy modifiers is untouched. Fair trade has always worn off very quickly.

 

[sooooo]

They wont ever refuse to trade gold you can see - if they are it's a bug (saved game please!).

OK, here's the save. No one will give me any money in a trade.

 

[kettyo]

That's just plain wrong. There's a huge difference between trying to win (which the AI does... though maybe not enough yet) and actively preventing others from winning (which the AI thankfully does not). The former is fun, the latter is a cheesy and frustrating exercise. "Oh great, all of a sudden all my friends and allies loathe me and attack me... what a fun game... NOT". And every 4x game that worked with the latter idea invariably ended up on the "really bad" pile of gaming history. And rightfully so.

Civ 1 and 2 worked this way

I vote for not attacking friends even when they are close to victory.
Adding that i also won't attack any of my friends if they gonna win but i will do anything incl. wasting myself to stop an enemy from winning.
This might be nice to have. Just the enemies are attacking at full strenght if closing victory but surely not everybody.

 

[sooooo]

OK, here's the save. No one will give me any money in a trade.

Waitasec, they will give me money but won't advertise the fact. If I click liberalism and say "what will you give me for this", which I normally do when selling a tech, they offer nothing. If I manually type all of their gold, they will do the deal. A bug I suspect?

 

[Roland Johansen]

That's just plain wrong. There's a huge difference between trying to win (which the AI does... though maybe not enough yet) and actively preventing others from winning (which the AI thankfully does not). The former is fun, the latter is a cheesy and frustrating exercise. "Oh great, all of a sudden all my friends and allies loathe me and attack me... what a fun game... NOT". And every 4x game that worked with the latter idea invariably ended up on the "really bad" pile of gaming history. And rightfully so.

Okay, I would not put it that strong as Civ2 had this feature and while I didn't like civ2 as much as I like civ4, I don't think it belongs on the "really bad" pile of gaming history.

But I agree that I would favour a game where the AI tries to get a great civilization and as a side-effect of trying to get a great civilization would win the game in various ways. An opponent who tries to build the best civilization by building and conquering would surely seem a quite realistic opponent and not a game-opponent. I think it depends a bit on how you view civ: do you view it purely as a game with a set of rules and the goal is to win the game or do you view it (at least partly) as a simulation of the rise of civilizations. I view it partly as a simulation of the rise of civilizations and thus would prefer opponents who behave according to the real life rise of civilizations.

All that said, it might be logical if a group of civilization would group together when they observe that a single civilization is trying to conquer everyone else. This could be achieved by a diplomatic penalty related to capturing cities. The penalty would decrease over time so that if you have behaved aggressively 100 turns ago, then this would barely hurt you now. However, if you go into fast conquer mode, then the other civilizations would quickly start to hate you and thus trade with you less or declare war on you. This would be a natural (not gamey) response to someone trying to conquer the world. At present there is almost no response from other civilizations when you start conquering civilization after civilization.

What do the rest of you think?

 

[Psyringe]

Basically, what would be needed is a slider to set the weight of "roleplaying" vs. the weight of "gameplaying". If the slider is set to max "roleplaying", rival civs will never act out of character, even if that means that they are just helping you to win the game. If the slider is set to max "gameplaying", then the AI will always band together against a leading player (or AI), as human player would likely do.

I don't see another reason to solve this as both playing styles are mutually exclusive. I don't know whether this is feasible though.

 

[Psyringe]

Civ 1 and 2 worked this way

Not only those, basically any strategy game of that period did. At that time, with very limited CPU resources that the AI could use, it was a viable method of giving the player a challenge in the endgame.

 

[Roland Johansen]

The AI values gold twice as much, if previously it would give 440g for a tech, it'll now give 220g. Wheras once a luxury trade would go for about 22gpt, now it's 11gpt. If they have gold in the bank, they should give it to you for tech. They wont ever refuse to trade gold you can see - if they are it's a bug (saved game please!).

The diplomacy code is very fragile and requires a lot of reproduction of code to make it work consistently (making the same change in many places) - there was also no existing support for changing the value of gold, so I had to code that in. I ran some tests and it seemed that "What will make this deal work" was working fine before the build was uploaded, but it's entirely possible there are some cases I've missed.

I'm glad that you're working on the gold trading in diplomacy. I (among others) suggested a decrease in the valuation and so I'm happy to see that it was considered. I wonder if the same decrease in valuation was implemented for strategic resources? I don't exaclty know how much gold it costs to buy a technology compared to how much it costs to research one, but I guess that you have taken into account that it shouldn't be cheaper to buy a tech than to research it.

Could you also implement on option that the AI could initiate a trade of gold per turn for a resource. I guess that it might be very difficult to implement, but I definately think it will be good for the AI that is low on resources.

 

[Todd Hawks]

Okay, I would not put it that strong as Civ2 had this feature and while I didn't like civ2 as much as I like civ4, I don't think it belongs on the "really bad" pile of gaming history.

Alright, I admit it was a little strong. Let's say that none of today's games should have that feature. At least not per default.

GalCiv II's implementation probably is best: Once you start conquering everyone, the others will notice and accordingly grow cautious and eventually will want to put a stop to your megalomaniac tendencies (same goes for other conquering AIs, of course). I can accept that since it somehow reflects reality because that's what nations (or races in this case) would do if threatened in such a way.
And if they notice you building up influence (=culture, more or less), they also react by countering with their own influence. Again, a logical and believable action.
Of course your allies are inclined to jump in instead of opposing you.

But piling up on a nation/race just because the artificial time limit is coming up or something like that... no thanks.

 

[kettyo]

Not only those, basically any strategy game of that period did. At that time, with very limited CPU resources that the AI could use, it was a viable method of giving the player a challenge in the endgame.

I don't remember Master of Orion 1 and 2 doing this.
AI players even voted for you in the galactic senate if they liked you more than your rival while you were on the lead. (it was nice they voted for you too if they were neutral with you but hated your rival very much )
This way winning wasn't too difficult indeed.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I don't remember Master of Orion 1 and 2 doing this.
AI players even voted for you in the galactic senate if they liked you more than your rival while you were on the lead. (it was nice they voted for you too if they were neutral with you but hated your rival very much )
This way winning wasn't too difficult indeed.

I remember that in Master of Orion 1, the other races would get mad at you if you became too large (say 40% of the star systems or something like that). Master or Orion II didn't have this feature, I think.

Old games, but still good memories.

 

[Harrier]

It would be nice if we could put all these off topic discussions (that do not relate to improving the AI) in another thread.

The thread starter could call it "Blakes AI - off topic Christmas thread".

 

[Julian Delphiki]

It would be nice if we could put all these off topic discussions (that do not relate to improving the AI) in another thread.

The thread starter could call it "Blakes AI - off topic Christmas thread".

Hey, but that thread would take over whole christmas like BetterAI has done for Civ.. uups. Sorry. Me backing out.. still bit worried about the date when BetterAI reachess consiousness and becomes self aware and and and .. well, you know rest of the stuff!

Deitys gonna be hard after that day!

 

[HardCoder]

It's not 'The Sims' it's Civilization. There are many games where you can play a sandbox game...

Civilization has almost never been a sandbox game, unless you were experienced and playing Civ I or II on Monarch or Emperor back in the good old days. You still had to wipe out another puny competitor or two.

Many people enjoy building in relative peace. Many people enjoy building some, fighting some. Warlords is the best version of Civilization available now - even for builders. You can certainly win a game without a single great general.

My point is that Civilization is not and should not be a game where you must fight extended wars to win. You may have to abort some games, or start fighting, if you are caught next to the effective warmongers (Napoleon in particular), but if you're a darn good builder, that should be enough if you're willing to fight a border scuffle or two.

The game is about giving a wide audience an entertaining and challenging playing experience. Right now it does that. It's a mistake to try to steer it away from people who just want to play in peace, even if it is "Warlords," because Warlords is a better game than vanilla, even for builders. As I said earlier, and as many other people will no doubt agree, extra aggressive AI that won't leave you alone should be an option, not a given.

In fact I'd be happy to see another checkbox called "Less Aggressive AI."

I'm not saying you shouldn't have the game you want to play, just that it's not what the majority of players want.

 

[HardCoder]

GalCiv II's implementation probably is best: Once you start conquering everyone, the others will notice and accordingly grow cautious and eventually will want to put a stop to your megalomaniac tendencies (same goes for other conquering AIs, of course). I can accept that since it somehow reflects reality because that's what nations (or races in this case) would do if threatened in such a way.

In the real world that's true only in certain circumstances. Empire builders that acquire territory by means other than war (spreading of democracy, or spreading of a police state) can grow in relative peace. Obviously you can view the US and the former Soviet Union in this way. The Soviet Union did not break up because other nations ganged up on it. For that matter, Rome didn't, and it acquired many smaller civilizations and peoples by war and annexation. On the other hand, Nazi Germany (I am not invoking Godwin's Law!) was defeated by an assortment of nations who were not friendly with one another so much as unwilling to let the oppressive German empire grow further.

Perhaps the Right Thing to Do in this case is to make the other AIs more aggressive - and friendlier toward one another - if a particular civ has grown large, and its people are unhappy.

 

[HardCoder]

Rate of decay for diplomacy modifiers is untouched. Fair trade has always worn off very quickly.

"You declared war on us" should wear off, and fairly quickly. It drives me nuts that it lasts forever.

Historically war itself has been no cause for prolonged periods of bad relations between countries. Fifty years has made Western Europe peaceful and (fairly) friendly within itself even though those same countries were at war much of the time for two thousand years before that.

Atrocities like, perhaps, "You razed a holy city!" on the other hand, should never go away, or go away very very slowly. The penalty for razing a holy city is too low. A permanent minus 10 perhaps would be better.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

In fact I'd be happy to see another checkbox called "Less Aggressive AI."

I don't remember seeing this idea ever before, and as all simple ideas it's just great (meaning its opposite of aggressive AI, and in category of "why, why didnt i think that before, it was so simple that its almost genious"). How different would this be from aggressive AI-s hidden minuses compared to giving them similar hidden plusses towards human player on "less aggressive?" - knewing that it's easier game where AI still builds great empire and army, but instead of you first AI target might be Isabella or Monty?

 

[HardCoder]

I don't remember seeing this idea ever before, and as all simple ideas (meaning its opposite of aggressive AI, and in category of "why, why didnt i think that before, it was so simple that its almost genious"). How different would this be from aggressive AI-s hidden minuses compared to giving them similar hidden plusses towards human player on "less aggressive?" - knewing that it's easier game where AI still builds great empire and army, but instead of you first AI target might be Isabella or Monty?

I think just turning down some of the values used to define aggression would be enough. Making Napoleon and Alexander et al. slightly trustworthy might also be appropriate. Basically, make it so that you will probably not be attacked unless you are weak, or provocative (which would include culturally forcing back the borders of a warmongering country). I don't have any problems with the idea that a "less aggressive" game would still put the smack down on you if you start attacking other civs.