A Mod helping the AI

[AIL]

The Idea behind this Mod was clear:

How can I change the game in a way that the AI becomes more competative?

I removed and changed a lot of things that a player could use much better than the AI.


What was removed?

Corruption
Land-Artillery-Units
Great Leaders / Armies

What was changed?

Governments
Wonder prerequisites
Terrain usage
Tech prerequisites
AI desire to build Factories

Something else in this Mod?

Unique colors for all Civs
3 Flavor-controlled Techtrees for the AI-players
removed adjactant start bug
Korea got new cool UU (since Land-Artillery was removed)


OK, now lets go into the details of the changes:

Governments:

-no more pop-rushing possible

Republic:
- high warweariness
Feudalism:
- low warweariness
- no costs for buildings
Democracy:
- free units as in Republic (1 town, 3 city, 4 metropolis)
Communism:
- low warweariness
- no costs for buldings
- units over the support limit (6/6/6) are as expensive as in Feudalism

Monarchy and Fascism were not changed.

Wonders:

Most of the Wonders now need 5 buildings of 1 type to be constructed. That is to prevent the AI building Wonders when it has to few cities.

3 Wonders now need another Tech:
Pyramids: Construction
The Great Wall: Masonry
Longevity: Medicine

2 Wonders have altered effects:
The Great Wall: In addition to its old effect it now also acts like Battlefield-Medicine
Cure for Chancer: Makes 2 instead of 1 citicen content in all cities.

Several Wonders run out at a later time/do not run out:
Great Library: Printing Press
The Great Wall: Sanitation
Artemis: never
Oracle: never
Hanging Gardens: never
Colossus: never
The Lighthouse: never

The 5 required buildings for the several wonders are:
5 Barracks: Colossus, Great Wall, Sun-Tzus, Knigths Templar
5 Temples: Oracle, Artemis Temple
5 Harbours: Lighthouse, Magellan
5 Aquaeducts: Pyramids, Hanging Gardens
5 Theatres (Theatre = new name of Colosseum in this Mod): Shaekesphere Theatre
5 Cathedrals: JS Bach, Michelangelos
5 Universitys: Newton, Internet
5 Hospitals: Longevity, Cure for Chancer
5 Factories: Womans Suffrage, Hoover Dam
5 Airports: UN

These Wonders dont need any buildings: Statue of Zeus, Mausoleum of Mausollos, Manhatten Project

Terrain usage:

Mines can only be built on Hills, Mountains and Forrests
Forrests can only be planted on Tundra and cannot be cut away anymore
Irrigation without fresh water only needs Construction

Tech prerequisites:

Great wall now needs Masonry
Pyramids now need Construction
Colosseum now is called Theatre and needs Philosophy
Longevity now needs Medicine
Guerilla now needs Fascism
Commercial Dock now needs Refining
!!! ATTENTION: Bombers and Carriers now need Advanced Flight !!!
SS-Lifesupport now needs Recycling
SS-Stasischamber now needs Genetics
ICBM now needs Smart Weapons
Nuclear Sub now needs Nuclear Power

AI-desire for Factories:

Factories are cheaper
Factories are prerequisite for all buildings after it in the Tech Tree (Commercial Dock, Airport etc.)

Unique Colors:

Damn pink was in there twice. That was a problem.
Now the Barbarians have one of the pinks.

Flavor-Controlled-Techtrees:

There are Military, Peaceful and Neutral-Flavors
Military and Peaceful is quite selfexplaining
Neutral-Civs will favour whatever does not fit to the others preventing the player from getting a trade monopoly. In the Modern-Age the Neutrals will go for Space-Race, while peaceful heads for maximized production and Military to Modern Armor first.

To determine what civ is what I simply made it according to their aggression-slider.

Koreas new UU:

Is a "Koryo Hwarag" heavy Crossbowman.
It uses the same Model as the babylonian Bowman but you wont mix them up thanks to the unique colors.
It has 4(2)/2/1 and a +1 HP Bonus. It replaces the Longbowman but is actually a better Med-Inf that does not need Resources (just like the Indian War-Elephant).

You may have fun now with the improved AI, that is harder to rush and will stay competative in Industrial and Modern Ages.


Btw: That Mod was not put up in a few hours. I was continually developing it since Decemer. So don't think the changes were not reasoned about and tested!

The Flavor-Controlled-Techtrees however are not tested to the end. If it shows that one of the flavors is just too inefficient (e.g. Military always beets the Peaceful) I will put an updated Version in this Thread.

Sorry for nonsensically zipping the file but the forum does not allow uploads of biq-Files...

March 1st:

Update the file that was attached here to be the one that was posted a bit below because some people downloaded the obsolete version when the newer one was already posted.

 

[AIL]

Forgot to mention:

Since there's no Corruption the Courthouse and the Police Station have another effect:

Courthouse: 1 Contentface, lowers War-Weariness
Police-Station: 2 Contentfaces, lowers War-Weariness

There are no combat boni against Barbarians on any difficulty level because their threat was just too pointless. To show their increased Power they are pink!

 

[stgelven]

well, that's looks interesting, i will try it and say to u what i think of it. i thaught about a mode like this one, thanks i think your mode help me to do mine.

 

[AIL]

Fine, I am looking forward to read your opinion on it.

 

[AIL]

Some minor Improvements:

- UN now requires 5 Stock Exchanges instead of 5 Airports because the AI built Airports to rarely to stop the player from an too easy Diplo-Victory
- Subs and Nuclear Subs now have hidden nationality to prevent AI mistakely declaring war at someone because it rammed their Submarine this will also spice em up a bit more
- Palast cannot be built anymore to prevent Wonder-Prebuild (there was no corruption to fight anyways)

 

[stgelven]

what do you think about this:
1 unhappy citizen with the improvment nuclear plant,
-1 food with the resource tobacco. (because it's bad for health, lol)
i think that some modifications like that are on the way of your mod, istn't it?

 

[AIL]

How exactly would this help the AI?
My mod is not an unintended change of things that please me!

If you want to reflect the negative sides of tobaco and nuclear plants you might well go and make your own mod or modify my mod if you like the rest of it.

btw. it is since 4 month not til
That way it would mean that you'd start smoking in 4 month!

 

[Pfeffersack]

A lot of good ideas!

I have played a couple of turns in DEBUG-mode and notice a common AI flaw, which hurts exspecially the non-agricultural AIs.
After founding the first city, the AI tends to build their settler very early-often as first project, but at least as second task.This often leads to a situation in which the settler is built, but the city has still not grown beyond two citizien.So some turns are wasted to delay the settler.Human players are able to wait with building settlers, the AI isn't, so this is another reason why AI tends to fall behind.
My solution in own tests was the following: Raise the cost for settlers to 50 or 60 shields - this solves the problem at least to a large extend.
Another solution would be lowering the pop cost to 1, but I think this ruins a bit balance.

Another change I've tried was despotism without the tile penalty.
Of course, it is against the idea, but games in DEBUG mode show that the AI isn't able to cope with this penalty.A lot of ressources got wasted because of ineffective mining/irrigation.
To balance despotism I suggest to give a fix unit support of 10 or 20 and to cut back the support per town/city/met.This makes it a good choice for small empires (like at the beginning) and less attractive after some expansion.

 

[AIL]

Hi Pfeffersack, you could have saved you the work of translating all your thoughts into english by posting in this thread:

http://www.civ2-forum.gamigo.de/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15313

The resources that are wasted because of inefficient mining/irrigation is already fought against by the Mod as it is by not allowing mines on grassland.

You are right, however with the settlers problem.
From all the possibilities you mentioned I think the one that you would like least is the best.
Raising the cost of the settlers would make rushing a far too easy to execute option.
Changing Despotism to not have the tile penalty doesn't pleasy me aswell...
So I'd think lowering the pop-cost of the settler is the best of your ideas and i'll run a test if this can make it into the Mod.
But you may please tell me your concerns about how it would change the balance to drastically...

 

[loseth]

Hey AIL,

I've started incorporating some of your ideas into my own modded games, but I was wondering if you could tell me...

How do you make it impossible to build mines/irrigation on certain terrain types? Is it just by setting the bonus to zero? What about roads?

Thanks,

loseth

 

[AIL]

Wha! Where is my post, I just did? Ok, then again...

Yes, simply set the Boni for Mines/Irrigation to zero and you will no longer be allowed to build them.

I don't know if this works for roads aswell. I doubt it but why don't simply try it out.

However, I think the masterpiece of my Mod was how I got the AI to make factories immediately and in every city and not just a few now and then.

If you want detailed instructions on this feel free to ask.

 

[loseth]

Originally posted by AIL

However, I think the masterpiece of my Mod was how I got the AI to make factories immediately and in every city and not just a few now and then.

If you want detailed instructions on this feel free to ask.

I think I got that part OK. Just mark the stuff you want built as pre-reqs for everything else, right? I'll give that a try in my next game with a few improvements I really want the AI to build.

BTW, I think this field of 'how to help the AI' is really important. Many mod/scenario designers don't seem to have paid much attention to it, but IMO, poor attention to the AI's ability to perform has detracted from a lot of these mods/scenarios.

 

[Roluce]

I agree with the previous post. The AI performance should be heavily considered when making a mod. Thanks for the good work.

 

[AIL]

Originally posted by loseth
I think I got that part OK. Just mark the stuff you want built as pre-reqs for everything else, right? I'll give that a try in my next game with a few improvements I really want the AI to build.

Well you cannot make Factories a prereq for Libraries... But yes, that's a part of it: No Commercial Docks, Stock Exchanges etc. without a Factory...

Another thing is: Use Flavours!

I also changed all AIs "build often" listing to production and nothing else.... Takes a bit away from the uniqueness of the AIs but the Zulus e.G. having only a temple and an aqueduct all the time was not helping them so much either.

I have modded a lot of new things but only as a beta for now.

I've already written all changes down on german and uploaded the file in a german forum. I am too lazy to list everything again so I only give the link: http://civ2-forum.gamigo.de/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15313 (it is in the last post)

 

[stgelven]

loseth, just put to 0 the boni for road