A "real" AI cheat

[r_rolo1]

Either way dan, even flanking I + II subs spam vs a enemy ( AI or human ) using patrol would be a huge way of getting XP. I bet that would be the best way of getting XP in the game per unit ( don't have the time/will to do the math now )

 

[J-man]

Sorry r_rolo1, but I have to disappoint you here.
GlobalDefines.xml has
<DefineName>MAX_WITHDRAWAL_PROBABILITY</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>90</iDefineIntVal>
so you can't give a unit a promotion which would push it over the 90% (Max is Sub with Flanking 1 + Tactics = 90%).
Still good enough for a lot of XP milk.

Woody1: Please tell me one clear drawback you would suffer from a regular game of yours with the proposed changes implemented.

I had that once in game. Attched a gg to a attack sub and gave it flaking 1&2 but couldn't give it tactics.

 

[r_rolo1]

@ori

I agree that this is mainly a AI vs human issue now ( but only because the AI is not programmed ( ask Firaxis why ) to use patrol ) and I agree that it would not be easy to leverage. I also agree that dan's proposed solution may be a little too strong....

But this IMHO ( and in here I strongly disagree with Woody and Jujulautre, just to name some ) is atleast a misfeature that is giving unexpected ( and undocumented ) wierd results if pushed to the limit, leading to clearly broken situations if your enemy uses patrol ( a unit without blitz can attack more than once ).

Now, solutions....... this is not a easy one to fix without breaking something else...like I said in the thread in the unofficial patch forum:

I don't think there is anything to handled in case of withdraw. The actual problem ( that causes all this mess ) is the fact that, in spite of theoretically being defending from the patrol ships, the pillager unit is actually attacking...... making that the unit gains the best out of the two worlds in this particular situation .

That would be, OFC far more dificult to solve, because, technically all of this happens in the AI turn, and technically the patroling units already played, so they can't be the attackers.... and as in a battle someone has to attack.....

In a nut shell: all of this happens because patrol function breaks the normal order of things in Civ IV by definition, allowing a unit to "attack" out of his turn. Simply the game is not prepared to cope with that.

 

[JujuLautre]

But this IMHO ( and in here I strongly disagree with Woody and Jujulautre, just to name some ) is atleast a misfeature that is giving unexpected ( and undocumented ) wierd results if pushed to the limit, leading to clearly broken situations if your enemy uses patrol ( a unit without blitz can attack more than once ).

Please, I also said that something should be changed, I think we agree at least on that

I agree on almost all what you said. Specifically that an easy solution can't be found because, as you said and as I wanted to show, the patrol mission breaks the basic rules of combat.

That said, I almost never used that mission, because I never kne what it was about; at least this thread thaught me that

 

[DanF5771]

2) the proposed "fix" really just makes patrol much more powerful since it not only disallows pillaging by the unit on patrolled resources but disallows pillaging period

??? Sorry, I don't understand what you mean here. In the often cited scenario (Hanni vs Vicky) a second Destroyer for Hanni will of course smash the other SotL and then pillage all Fishing Boats, so patrolling with outclassed units is not a safe way to go.

 

[ori]

but if you only have one destroyer the AI will not just wait for the next turn, kill the second patrol and pillage away - rather it will leave the area since it has so many movement points left - so it is much more powerful in preventing pillaging than it was before - basically making sure that two boats no matter how pathetic will prevent one superior ship from pillaging...

 

[Ninja2]

Very interesting thread. I agree with Dan and sirsnugglesalot that Patrol is not working as intended. However, I also agree that Patrol should come at a price.

I propose to modify the Patrol command, so that the engagement is not 100% automatic. If the patrolling unit has, say, less than 30% chance of winning the engagement against the pillager, it should not intercept (and that %-chance is of course debatable). Why would a trireme attempt to intercept a battleship anyway?

 

[r_rolo1]

Why would a trireme attempt to intercept a battleship anyway?

Because he was told so? We don't have mutinies in Civ IV

I don't think that the Ninja2 solution would work.... it would simply mask the problem by making it less likely.

 

[DanF5771]

but if you only have one destroyer the AI will not just wait for the next turn, kill the second patrol and pillage away - rather it will leave the area since it has so many movement points left - so it is much more powerful in preventing pillaging than it was before - basically making sure that two boats no matter how pathetic will prevent one superior ship from pillaging...

But the AI behaviour would be exactly the same if I had the outclassed units sitting on top of the improvements--it does what it can do during one turn (destroy 1 SotL) and then moves away. I only need more outclassed SotLs to begin with, and I think this is the major idea (besides the defense bonus) behind the Sea Patrol Command = it makes protecting my stuff easier. The given example is again an extreme case, because one doesn't find 4 Fish resources clustered like this that often.

I guess a more realistic estimate would be something like 2 Fishing Boats covered by 1 Sea Patrol tile, which would allow me to use only 2 outclassed patrol boats instead of 2*2 boats on top of the improvements. --> is this really overpowered???
No gain for single resources, the more the better.

 

[ori]

But the AI behaviour would be exactly the same if I had the outclassed units sitting on top of the improvements--it does what it can do during one turn (destroy 1 SotL) and then moves away. I only need more outclassed SotLs to begin with, and I think this is the major idea (besides the defense bonus) behind the Sea Patrol Command = it makes protecting my stuff easier. The given example is again an extreme case, because one doesn't find 4 Fish resources clustered like this that often.

but you do find 2 resources clustered quite often and 3 not too seldom - if you have 2 boats effectively protecting 1 of 2 (or 3) by sitting on it the other is 1 or 2 are toast - if you use the same 2 to patrol you get to keep both (or all 3) - in essence this is the advantage of patrol. Just that with the proposed fix it does not come at any price...

 

[Balderstrom]

What happens when you have

  R
  - F -
  P P P

R = Raiding Ship, F = Fishy Resource, P = Patroling Ship

Do all three patrolling ships attempt an intercept ?

I agree with Dan that the issue is being exagerrated by using severely outclassed ships. I also don't leave my borders unViewed. A ship moving into my coast will be seen since I leave at least one unit in the nearby city as not fortified (I manually skip its turn, after a quick glance of the area).
This is one of the issues people are complaining about - not having "time" to upgrade their boats... to me that is a "boo hoo hoo" - stop procrastinating, upgrade your boats, or keep an eye on your coast.

Free XP for a non-combat seems to be the only bug that I see - but then I guess theres lots of disagreement going on here ;-)

 

[DanF5771]

So next we need a sophisticated statistic about the average clustering probability of sea food resources depending on map scripts and sizes to determine the appropriate price to keep this "monster" in balance.

 

[DanF5771]

What happens when you have

  R
  - F -
  P P P

R = Raiding Ship, F = Fishy Resource, P = Patroling Ship

Do all three patrolling ships attempt an intercept ?

The best interceptor in the adjacent tiles of F is determined and will be attacked by the Raiding Ship.

 

[Woody1]

I don't think the "free" XPs are much of an issue, since you can only get 90% withdrawl odds and only with a great-general attack sub. Even with 90% odds, I don't think it's worth losing the GG just to gain a few XPs. You'll lose a GG only to gain a few XPs towards replacing it with a new general. It's a losing gamble.

The complainers seem to be complaining about losing a stack of vastly outclassed ships to a powerful AI ship. I really don't see that as happening very often, and even if it does, you're facing a losing war anyway. If you really want to lose them all one-at-a-time instead, then park them on your resources instead of using patrol.

It's an issue blown way out of proportion by the complainers in this thread.

 

[karadoc]

Please read the thread/download the scenario and watch, please!

What makes you think I haven't read the thread? Is it because I'm disagreeing with you?

The pair of crumby ships get killed by a destroyer in one turn because they were told to attack whoever tries to pillage the resources. Protecting the resources was deemed more important than the survival of the ships. Too bad. If the defending ships were stronger, there would be no problem. I can understand why one might think the current behaviour is strange; but I do not think it is unfair or unbalanced or anything like that. If you don't want your weak ships to throw their lives away trying to protect your fish, then don't put them on sea patrol.

 

[Ninja2]

I don't think that the Ninja2 solution would work.... it would simply mask the problem by making it less likely.

I disagree that there is a problem seen from the pillager's point of view. But the patrol command potentially gives the pillager unwarranted free XPs, especially if the patrollers are severly outclassed. And there's just no realism in telling a windpowered vessel to attempt to intercept a oil or coal powered ship.

 

[DanF5771]

What makes you think I haven't read the thread? Is it because I'm disagreeing with you?

Because you repeatedly claimed it would be a fact that the patrolling ship is initiating the fight/attacking the pillager. That led me to believe you hadn't read the multiple explanations in the thread that the true game mechanics are exactly the other way around and forbid such unit acting outside of their own turn. It also indicated that you hadn't actually seen it happening, therefore my recommendation to download and test the scenario--the combat animations leave no doubt about which unit is attacking. If I misunderstood you and you stated your opinion/philosophy about how this function should work to reflect real situations better then I apologize for my rather impulsive reply.

---

I am a complainer because I feel that the situations totally differ when it comes to pillaging land improvements vs pillaging improvements on water.

Land: Ordinary land units (pre Gunships, no GG-Morale, no Commando) can move a maximum of 2 tiles in enemy territory, thus it is rather difficult to pillage, the number of pillagable improvements is very limited, pillaging with single unprotected units means risking them to get killed by counter attacks.
--> Strong advantage for the defender.

Sea: Naval units have high number of (upto 12 for Destroyer with Navigation1+2, Refrigeration, Circumnavigation, [13 with GG-Morale]), which they can use freely in enemy territory (no slowing down due to increased movement costs), a single unit can do devastating damage to a high number of improvements and return to the protection of a big stack/city/fort all in just one turn.
--> Strong advantage for the aggressor.

That's why I think they introduced the Sea Patrol Command, to make the chances to protect improvements on water comparable to the respective chances for improvements on land.
Unfortunately it is broken.

In my eyes the Sea Patrol Command is supposed to counter the increased mobility of naval units by the ability of a patrolling vessel to jump in as a defender of the improvements in the adjacent tiles whenever an aggressor attempts to pillage, thus it is simulated that the patrol is not occupying one tile but 9 tiles. No non-Blitz land unit can attack more than once in an attempt to pillage a protected improvement, but this is exactly the case now for naval units with the broken Sea Patrol function.

I chose the Destroyer vs SotL scenario because this is the moment in a game when the threat for sea improvements paramounts, also due to the lack of a naval unit of medium strength and good mobility (Frigates/SotL 8, Destroyer 30, Ironclad 2 can't enter ocean). Especially on higher levels where the AI is often first to Combustion and instantly upgrades its stack of Frigates it gets sooo annoying.
The situation is kind of similar later when MCs with Guided Missiles become available.

I just don't think babysitting one's sea improvements with a plethora of naval units that requires a lot of micromanaging and resources is a fun element of the game. It also distracts me from focusing on the really important goals/war fronts and makes me wish for an efficient means to protect my coasts (and we all know efficiency is everything) = a properly working Sea Patrol Command!

Any new thoughts besides "Yes, it's broken, if you don't like it, don't use it" ?
Do you really think the change would make it overpowered?

 

[Woody1]

Any new thoughts besides "Yes, it's broken, if you don't like it, don't use it" ?

Yes. It is NOT broken, if you don't like it, don't use it.

Do you really think the change would make it overpowered?

Yes.

 

[DanF5771]

Thanks, Woody1 .

 

[Ninja2]

Another point of view in support of Dan et al, is that pillaging on land is not that big a deal. You can simply move your workers back into the plot (with defenders, of course) and rebuild the improvement, once the enemy has cleared the area. Not so on water, where you actually need to build a new fishing boat. That means interrupting your building queue to replace a fishing boat, plus the loss of a resource for x number of turns. So, in a situation where a pillager takes out three fishing boats, plus possibly one or two defenders on patrol, that's similar to killing five units in a single turn, AND the loss of three bonus resources. That sort of pillaging can never be accomplished on land by a single unit in a single turn.

Now, I can live with the way pillaging works for naval units. I think it's fair. What I think is unfair, is the XP bonus the pillager gains, when the patrol unit is weak. The pillager racks up XPs in a way that would be impossible otherwise, if there are multiple weak defenders that all get knocked off in a single turn. That's why I've suggested the change that I have - to make it less likely that the pillager gets too easy XPs.

I chose the Destroyer vs SotL scenario because this is the moment in a game when the threat for sea improvements paramounts, also due to the lack of a naval unit of medium strength and good mobility (Frigates/SotL 8, Destroyer 30, Ironclad 2 can't enter ocean).

And this is actually an excellent point to show why the progression in naval units is rather bad in C4. Watch out for Wolfshanze coming here any second to advertise his mod!