Against the chaos, experienced help please

[FinnMcCool]

One thing that always bothered me was the way the AI changes its alliances so randomly. It creates the impression that a mere machine has no loyalty. Duh. I wondered if any experienced modders out there knew of ways to "direct" the AI to remain loyal.

Is it merely a matter of how much can an AI civ profit by remaining loyal? I don't think so. Italy dropped its ROP in a LA with Germany and didn't renew its trade of Oil for Reich. No SS Tigers for you! Mere tanks from now on...

Many times I see AI civs create an alliance that doesn't even last the turn! Is there any way this can be minimized?

 

[The Omega]

One thing that always bothered me was the way the AI changes its alliances so randomly. It creates the impression that a mere machine has no loyalty. Duh. I wondered if any experienced modders out there knew of ways to "direct" the AI to remain loyal.

Is it merely a matter of how much can an AI civ profit by remaining loyal? I don't think so. Italy dropped its ROP in a LA with Germany and didn't renew its trade of Oil for Reich. No SS Tigers for you! Mere tanks from now on...

Many times I see AI civs create an alliance that doesn't even last the turn! Is there any way this can be minimized?

Put them in a locked alliance?

 

[WildWeazel]

If you make them favor each other's govs, they will tend to have better relations.

 

[FinnMcCool]

All good suggestions, to be sure. Thanks. But I was thinking of something a little deeper. LA and favored govs seem to work a little, but the AI is still acting too randomly.

For instance, Italy and Germany had LA, but Italy refused to renew trade and ROP, which I assumed would have been automatic. It isn't. The oversight is mine, since during one of those turns when Italy declared peace with my enemy Scandinavia, and I didn't do the same, she considers it an insult. Bah.

Flavors don't seem to be very effective; after all, it's only supposed to change the civ's tendancy to research or build something. But I'm wondering if it will work to create civ-specific wonders/buildings/units and assign them a flavor, would that (for instance) increase the AI's loyalty? Or at least tendancy not to declare war/peace outright?

Any other ideas?

 

[mrtn]

But I was thinking of something a little deeper.

Not to rain on your parade or anything, but people have tried to tweak the Civ 3 AI for years, with little success... :s

 

[Plotinus]

But I'm wondering if it will work to create civ-specific wonders/buildings/units and assign them a flavor, would that (for instance) increase the AI's loyalty? Or at least tendancy not to declare war/peace outright?

I can't imagine any way to do that. As you say, flavours are just meant to get the AI to build/research given things, not influence their foreign policy.

There are ways to make the AI more likely to declare war on a given civ, such as placing desirable resources in certain locations. But I don't know of any way to encourage them to be friendlier to a given civ. The only time an AI is really likely to be loyal to an ally is when they have a common enemy. If you want to encourage two civs to be hostile to a third, that might be a way of encouraging those two to be friendly to each other, but it would hardly be securely reliable.

 

[FinnMcCool]

at mrtn: if you'll recall the Joker in Batman the movie: "Ever dance naked in the moonlight?"... Rain is just another reason to have a parade.

at Plotinus: thanks for the input. Resources can be an excellent way of controlling the AI. A resource can be anything, from Uranium to Exploding Sheep (hello Zombified NY) and that's been where I'm tweaking.

For my mods, I've usually only added 1 extra resource in the equation, such as "Reich" for Germany which Italy can use to build heavy units, but only Germany has. Should promote trade. Perhaps if I turn on the highbeams and go overboard with numerous new resources, all placed specificly in the mod to encourage trade?