A Better AI.

[klokwerk]

Cyrus has a flavor preference for building farms.

Thanks for the crash save darrelljs, it crashes for me too.

Units not healing while exploring has been fixed.

Um next build has lots of stuff fixed. Close starts, gone, greenland starts, greatly reduced. Stupid long distance wars, staked through the heart (I hope), AI should defend itself better. New wonder building logic which leaves little to chance - if the AI can snag a wonder, it will tend to. The AI will pillage some too, not much, mainly targeting strategics. It should promote it's units better, following promotion lines... and more stuff .

Great stuff ! Upload it NOW !!!!

 

[PieceOfMind]

New wonder building logic which leaves little to chance - if the AI can snag a wonder, it will tend to.

Do the AIs know how to use the wonders they get?
Or perhaps more importantly, will they build only wonders they need?

For example (and these are only ideas),

• # of coastal cities determines desire to build Great Lighthouse. Similarly for Colossus.
• If AI manages to build Kremlin, make sure it is more likely to use US.
• Building Three Gorges Dam should encourage AI to build more factories (and not build other power plants) on the continent.
• Building Sistine Chapel makes AI more likely to employ specialists, especially in border and culture-pressed cities.

etc.

I'm guessing the AI at the moment will only build a great wonder if it is satisfied with its current military strength so it probably doesn't matter if they do happen to build wonders they don't know how to use. I'm not sure how cunning you intend to make the AIs but I doubt they'd get a case of wonder addiction. In any case, it'd be hilarious to see the player who tries building tonnes of wonders lose many of them to AIs who seize opportunities to snag them (using their new trick of chop-rushing).

 

[Wodan]

Wouldn't it be better to create a number of cottages on those rivers? Persepolis could have been a great commerce city by now while still maintaining a decent rate of production by using the mines.

See the screenshot below (build 21-12), I've also attached a second picture without the units for easy viewing (toggle bare map option).

By my count, he's running 3 specialists (there are 12 worked tiles).

What you're really asking is whether it's better for the AI to run a CE vs a SE.

Wodan

 

[Wodan]

I am playing with the 12/21 patch as Ragnar, standard settings Warlord, Noble difficulty (after a Monarch game involving interminable hours of killing dozens of units landed by Napoleon ...).

I found a lightly-defended size 11 city belonging to Brennus, landed, and took it with two berzerkers and a knight. While I was waiting for reinforcements to arrive by sea, a group of about 8 units belonging to the former owner showed up next to the city. My mental arithmetic told me the city would be taken so I figured I'd abandon it and come back for it in a few turns when I had more units. So I evac-ed ....

Turn passes, the city is still mine.

Why didn't the AI retake its empty city? It had a couple of longbows in the attacking stacks that would have made it difficult to retake.

So at that point reinforcements did arrive and I moved them in, and I suppose I have a toehold now, for no reason that I comprehend.

Brennus is at war with Monty (who is larger) and maybe the AI really really wanted those units somewhere else, but I can't quite believe that.

Exactly the same thing happened to me last week. Except, the AI had cats along, took 2 turns to bombard the defense of the empty city, and then took it.

Wodan

 

[Roland Johansen]

Go into world builder and see if the AI is running a SE in Persopolis, rather then a CE. The AI might be doing better then you think.

By my count, he's running 3 specialists (there are 12 worked tiles).

What you're really asking is whether it's better for the AI to run a CE vs a SE.

Wodan

I don't think that it's running a good specialist economy. It's too early in the game, the buildings that are required to enable specialists haven't been invented yet, Cyrus isn't using the caste system civic and isn't using the representation civic (I don't think he owns the Pyramids), the city doesn't have any World wonders. The size 15 city uses 13 tiles (maybe you forgot the cottage), so optimally it could be using 2 specialists. Maybe a priest from a temple and maybe he can already build forges and has an engineer. That would be the optimal situation for him, but that's still not a good specialist economy.

I'm not willing to look in the World Builder. It's a nice game and that would ruin it for me. I would know how the world looks like and that ruins the game for me.

The fact that the AI tends to over-build farms at the expense of cottages is well-documented. Wouldn't it be nice if the AI specialized it's cities? Now, there would be a challenge! If I ever get caught up, it's one of the things I'm thinking about...

Ok, but I remember Blake saying that he favoured the cottage economy and had tried to make the AI build more cottages.

Cyrus has a flavor preference for building farms.

Thanks for the crash save darrelljs, it crashes for me too.

Units not healing while exploring has been fixed.

Um next build has lots of stuff fixed. Close starts, gone, greenland starts, greatly reduced. Stupid long distance wars, staked through the heart (I hope), AI should defend itself better. New wonder building logic which leaves little to chance - if the AI can snag a wonder, it will tend to. The AI will pillage some too, not much, mainly targeting strategics. It should promote it's units better, following promotion lines... and more stuff .

Ok, this explains Cyrus's choise to build so many farms. But it's still a rather subobtimal decision. I understand that leaders need a bit of personality, but I don't want them to play this bad for a bit of personality.

The upcoming improvements sound very good!

 

[Mannu]

I think Cyrus has more than enough advantages to overcome this one bit of "personality". Thats just my opinion though...

 

[Wodan]

I don't think that it's running a good specialist economy. It's too early in the game, the buildings that are required to enable specialists haven't been invented yet, Cyrus isn't using the caste system civic and isn't using the representation civic (I don't think he owns the Pyramids), the city doesn't have any World wonders. The size 15 city uses 13 tiles (maybe you forgot the cottage), so optimally it could be using 2 specialists. Maybe a priest from a temple and maybe he can already build forges and has an engineer. That would be the optimal situation for him, but that's still not a good specialist economy.

Well, sure. But it's just as good as working a couple of early cottages. Let's face it... any economy in the early game is going to be pretty bare bones.

Another thought... he might be running slavery and whipping a lot.

Anyway, all this aside, I think you have a good point. Blake/Iustus you guys might want to consider cottage spamming in the capitol, even for AIs that favor farms (as you say Cyrus does). Possible exception: AIs whose favorite civic is a legal civic besides Bureaucracy (e.g., Bismark).

Wodan

 

[WuphonsReach]

I've definitely noticed in the 12/21 build that the AI seems to not understand the concept of sea invasion. In my latest warlord-difficulty huge/fractal/marathon game, there are 2 major continents, 1 small continent (mine, all mine!) and 1 even smaller island (with a single civ). We're past the point of map trading, so I doubt that it's because the AI doesn't know where I am.

Even a civ like Ragnar isn't building ships to defend their coastal food tiles. And that's a civ that I'd expect would build a sizable navy.

Which brings me back around to AI defense. In addition to defending cities, the AI should put moderate value on defending it's resources. Just like it should allocate a minimum of 1 unit per city, maybe 0.5 units per strategic resource, 0.3 units per food resource, and 0.15 units per luxury resource. And it should include those resources in the weighting algorithm to decide where to put defenders.

...

In my latest game, I think Monty has decided to stop warring (he's blocked in) and is going for a cultural victory. All of a sudden, his cultural graph has spiked into a very steep climb. One of his cities has over 400/turn culture. Fortunately for me you need 150,000 points to get to Legendary status so I have 300-400 turns to stop him.

Asoka also seems to be pursuing a culture win (his culture output has also spiked). But I'm about to go warring and gobble his civilization up so I can solidify control of the 2nd largest continent.

...

PS: One thing the old vanilla AI would do is to station anti-aircraft defenders right on top of the strategic resource (SAM infantry, Mech Infantry). This was its attempt to stop enemies from being able to bomb strategic resources.

 

[jkp1187]

Cyrus has a flavor preference for building farms.

Thanks for the crash save darrelljs, it crashes for me too.

Units not healing while exploring has been fixed.

Um next build has lots of stuff fixed. Close starts, gone, greenland starts, greatly reduced. Stupid long distance wars, staked through the heart (I hope), AI should defend itself better. New wonder building logic which leaves little to chance - if the AI can snag a wonder, it will tend to. The AI will pillage some too, not much, mainly targeting strategics. It should promote it's units better, following promotion lines... and more stuff .

Dare we hope it'll be ready before next week, so I can spend my two-day mini vacation playing it????

 

[Wodan]

I've definitely noticed in the 12/21 build that the AI seems to not understand the concept of sea invasion.

Even a civ like Ragnar isn't building ships to defend their coastal food tiles. And that's a civ that I'd expect would build a sizable navy.

Your entire post is talking about defending coast food tiles, not sea invasion.

As for invasion, they seem to be doing just fine in my games under 12/21. In fact, I'm suffering through multiple invasions by Genghis and Alexander right now. They've declared on me 4 times now, each time with a handful of caravels accompanying a half dozen or more galleons. I wasn't quite prepared to see 7-8 elephants/maces and a half dozen trebuchets dumped on my shores each time....

Which I'm totally fine with. I think they current "sea invasion" algorithm is just about perfect.

I agree on defending the sea resources, though. Not a single one is defended. It's trivial to send a single unit over to pillage left and right.

Wodan

 

[HardCoder]

PS: One thing the old vanilla AI would do is to station anti-aircraft defenders right on top of the strategic resource (SAM infantry, Mech Infantry). This was its attempt to stop enemies from being able to bomb strategic resources.

I always thought that was pretty effective. Works against marauding gunships too, especially on hills.

 

[Elandal]

I understand that leaders need a bit of personality, but I don't want them to play this bad for a bit of personality.

I would go the other way: no amount of effectiveness is as good as personality. Just hopefully the personalities allow for effectiveness as well - even if not the best play in all areas.
I don't play optimal play myself, preferring thematic games instead. Woe be the day when the AIs lose their personalities and play optimally..

 

[Roland Johansen]

A picture tells more than a thousand words, so here's another one (build 21-12):

As you can see, the city is using 2 cottages, but not the best 2. All three cottages are on the river. 2 have developed into hamlets, but the governer AI wants to use a cottage instead of a hamlet. It seems suboptimal to me.

cottages

 

[JMaltman]

A picture tells more than a thousand words, so here's another one (build 21-12):

As you can see, the city is using 2 cottages, but not the best 2. All three cottages are on the river. 2 have developed into hamlets, but the governer AI wants to use a cottage instead of a hamlet. It seems suboptimal to me.

cottages

Could it be that the difference of 1 commerce doesn't speed up the current research by a turn - so you may as well use that lost beaker to work the cottage up to a hamlet?

Not sure if that kind of nuanced forward-thinking is taking place, but I think I've seen similar behaviour before. And I know I sometimes do things like that myself in cities I'm monitoring closely - generally in PTBS games where I spend a little more time on such things, once a day.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I would go the other way: no amount of effectiveness is as good as personality. Just hopefully the personalities allow for effectiveness as well - even if not the best play in all areas.
I don't play optimal play myself, preferring thematic games instead. Woe be the day when the AIs lose their personalities and play optimally..

I never said I wanted an optimal playing AI instead of personalities. I said I didn't want the personality making them play very bad. There's a very big difference.

An AI can build many farms to enable a specialist economy and that gives him a certain personality which is nice. But if the AI builds many farms and cannot enable specialists because of a lack of the right civics/buildings/wonders, then it's just stupid. There's a big difference between personality and stupidity...

I personally prefer a decent playing AI with personality.

By the way, I realize that it is very difficult to program the AI to play 'smart'. I'm not bashing the BetterAI team here. I'm just picking some screenshots to show little 'problem areas'.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Could it be that the difference of 1 commerce doesn't speed up the current research by a turn - so you may as well use that lost beaker to work the cottage up to a hamlet?

Not sure if that kind of nuanced forward-thinking is taking place, but I think I've seen similar behaviour before. And I know I sometimes do things like that myself in cities I'm monitoring closely - generally in PTBS games where I spend a little more time on such things, once a day.

If a research project is at 950/1000 research points and you get 100 per turn, then the next research project will start with 50 research points (disregarding the research modifiers for number of AI's who know the technology and such). So there is no benefit in trying to get the exact number of research points to finish a research project. Every extra research point is useful. It might shorten the next research project by 1 turn.

By, the way, in this case, it happens to actually reduce the research time by 1 turn. An important research point in this case.

 

[WuphonsReach]

Of course, as soon as I write that the AI has forgotten how to do sea invasion... Monty shows up with a half-stack.

*Why* he chose a 1-city island out in the middle of the ocean rather then landing on my main continent, I'm not sure. Fortunately his calvary were no match for my infantry.

But he fought the battle oddly. Instead of using the cannons at the start of the battle (against 3, unpromoted infantry on a wooded hill), he attacked with the calvary first. Resulting in heavy losses for his side.

 

[WuphonsReach]

Also... I think I've found a bug.

According to my game settings, it should not be possible for cities taken by force to culture flip back to the old civilization. Yet I'm constantly seeing revolts in the cities that I've taken that are still pressured by the old culture.

Anyone else seeing that in their games?

 

[Wodan]

Also... I think I've found a bug.

According to my game settings, it should not be possible for cities taken by force to culture flip back to the old civilization. Yet I'm constantly seeing revolts in the cities that I've taken that are still pressured by the old culture.

Anyone else seeing that in their games?

Those settings don't prevent the revolts, the just prevent the act of flipping. If there's a lot of cultural pressure, the city might end up in a state of continual revolt the whole game.

Wodan

 

[jkp1187]

Those settings don't prevent the revolts, the just prevent the act of flipping. If there's a lot of cultural pressure, the city might end up in a state of continual revolt the whole game.

Wodan

Also, it doesn't stop flipping to OTHER civs, just the conquered civ. If England takes New York from the Americans, it can't flip back to the Americans, but the city could still flip to, for instance, the Incas, if they have a large cultural presence nearby.