A.I. Goals

[Robo-Star]

Just wondering...if all victory conditions are turned off, what goals does the AI act on? Score maximization i.e. identical to those with Time Victory turned on?

 

[karadoc]

The AI never explicitly tries to maximise its score as such, but rather it just tries to becomes as big and powerful as it can. If all the victory conditions are turned off then it will basically just focus on growing its economy, and attacking its enemies, and stuff like that.

When victory conditions are enabled, the AI usually doesn't choose a victory type to aim for right away. They tend to just focus on growing their civilization for the first part of the game, and then later if they think they are doing well in culture, or militarily, or whatever, they might start to focus on a particular type of victory. If there are no victory conditions enabled, they just won't make that transition.

Your question makes me wonder though... maybe the AI's conquest victory strategy should still be allowed even if conquest victory is disabled. After all, if they can conquer the world, then they're probably going to achieve victory in whatever other way is available anyway.

On the other hand, if the human player has explicitly disabled the conquest victory condition, they've probably done so because they don't really want civs to focus on trying to kill everyone. So maybe the AI should respect that...

 

[Zacar]

Well, if the conquest strategy makes weak AIs suicide, it is not good for them in any case.

One question is whether score is calculated in a fun way or not. If score is calculated in a fun way, then AI could have a time victory strategy for specifically maximizing its score.. unless the generic strategy exists for the reason that it is too difficult to maximize the score. That "mastery" victory thing was basically a re-implementation of time victory, I recall?

If no victory conditions are selected, it might be fun if the AIs still tried to reach some of them specifically. I think it might add to the flavour of the gameworld. Of course that assumes that other players who select no goals want that as well. With no victories it is more about roleplaying I think.

I think the situation is something like this:

Time -> depends on score function
Conquest -> conquest
Domination -> conquest
Cultural -> builder / conquest of rival top cities
Space race -> commerce (technology)
Diplomatic -> depends on AI code

There is quite a lot of conquest..

 

[Robo-Star]

Thanks for the explanation, karadoc.

If no victory conditions are selected, it might be fun if the AIs still tried to reach some of them specifically. I think it might add to the flavour of the gameworld. Of course that assumes that other players who select no goals want that as well. With no victories it is more about roleplaying I think.

I'd prefer no victory conditions to be distinct from having victory conditions turned on.

I think the situation is something like this:

Time -> depends on score function
Conquest -> conquest
Domination -> conquest
Cultural -> builder / conquest of rival top cities
Space race -> commerce (technology)
Diplomatic -> depends on AI code

There is quite a lot of conquest..

I guess the issue is that all victory strategies ultimately benefit from conquest - barring time victory - as in if only one civ remains, that civ can take as long as it likes to accumulate culture/build a spaceship/vote itself supreme governor.

 

[Zacar]

all victory strategies ultimately benefit from conquest - barring time victory - as in if only one civ remains, that civ can take as long as it likes to accumulate culture/build a spaceship/vote itself supreme governor.

From AI point of view it is good to be a bit careful about that assumption. For each winner there is a loser. So there are plenty of cases where defensive play is better than offensive play (for each AI that loses a war - though they may lose anyway). Also in case war is expensive enough, it may be too expensive to conquer the entire map (depending on settings?). In those cases you have to optimize the wars to avoid late wars basically. It is more about the (lack of?) alternatives to war than war being beneficial by itself (in every situation).

Then again it would be kind of silly to "lose" a game to some tiny tundra nation (for whom war is out of the question) because of some exotic victory condition.

Or would it be?

In the end I don't play with victory conditions enabled, so the AI goal side is of more interest to me.

 

[Robo-Star]

From AI point of view it is good to be a bit careful about that assumption. For each winner there is a loser. So there are plenty of cases where defensive play is better than offensive play (for each AI that loses a war - though they may lose anyway). Also in case war is expensive enough, it may be too expensive to conquer the entire map (depending on settings?). In those cases you have to optimize the wars to avoid late wars basically. It is more about the (lack of?) alternatives to war than war being beneficial by itself (in every situation).

Yeah...conquest is only good when you can pull it off!
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Then again it would be kind of silly to "lose" a game to some tiny tundra nation (for whom war is out of the question) because of some exotic victory condition.

Or would it be?

In the end I don't play with victory conditions enabled, so the AI goal side is of more interest to me.

Heh, I thought it would be, so I started playing without victory conditions enabled too, and that's what prompted me to start this topic.