Aggressive AI = The Real Civ?

[vilemerchant]

Woah! Wrong time of the month for some

 

[Lars_Domus]

Woah! Wrong time of the month for some

Well, we are only four days away from a full moon...

I just get unnaturally annoyed by how some of the people in this thread seem to have to concluded that the aggressive AI is the correct AI, and that the solution to my problem (even though I keep saying there really isn't one) could therefore only be to move up a level. It's like they don't want to believe that I'm actually getting the challenge I want from the default AI. (And I refuse to believe that I'm the only one.)

 

[Spearthrower]

This is definitely not my experience of Agg AI. If this is the case, then I'd advise upping your difficulty level.

As another poster said, this simply means you're not playing on a high enough difficulty.

Here it is again!!!

Sorry DrJambo and vilemerchant, but people keep saying this.... and I keep saying:

If I normally play the standard game at X level, and then I play AGG:AI and find that I now need to turn up the difficulty level - does that make AGG:AI more or less challenging?


We're just going to have to agree to disagree because my experiences lead me to different conclusions than you both.......

 

[PieceOfMind]

Spearthrower it's possible you're right that if you fix the difficulty level then under some circumstances the AI will be less challenging.

However I find that Agg. AI, for the same level of challenge, gives me a more enjoyable game and that is what matters most to me. It may be that for the same level of challenge I need to up the difficulty by one notch but so what.

The whole debate of aggressive girlyman AI vs. sandbox AI is getting mostly pointless now. As someone else already pointed out, people will just defend their preferred setting anyway.

I would be interested if this were made into a poll question:

"Assuming you play at an appropriate difficulty level for your chosen setting, do you find default AI or Aggressive AI to be a more challenging game?"

 

[CivScientist]

I guess I can see Blake's point here that playing with aggressive AI turned on is playing CIV 4 without the throttle. Mind you, I don't think it's simply because some or all of the AI are more aggressive. Being more aggressive for the sake of being aggressive is usually a poor strategy. Rather, it sounds like there is a wider range of behaviors among the civs your playing against. Aggressive civs (like Monty) will be as aggressive as you can get without just being stupid. Other civs will be moderately aggressive but still hold back. Others still will play a game of moderation all around while the final group (probably containing Ghandi) will only fight if attacked.

If the civs your playing against can have a wider range of behaviors, there's a greater likelihood that one of those civs will accidentally get it right for their situation and be able to thrive. If all the civs are essentially playing varying shades of gray as in what happens in the default CIV 4 mode of play, it's quite easy that they will all miss the appropriate way to play given the situation.

I guess the real question is, how much can the optimal mode of play for a given civ's situation vary from game to game? If I was playing the same civ in multiple games but I couldn't control the military units of that civ, would I need to access the situation I'm in and dramatically alter my strategy where I was sometimes playing as a warmonger and other times playing as a builder? Or could I simply implement a tried and true one size fits all strategy (like a CE or SE economy) each time and always do well? If the latter is the case, then I'd reject Blake's opinion that the aggressive AI setting is the "default" mode of play for CIV 4 because then the civ's really woudln't be playing any better, just some would be more aggressive for no good reason.

 

[Spearthrower]

PieceOfMind - yeah absolutely, 150% behind you - people should play the game the way they like and that is after all why we have so many options in a custom game..... but let's go back to the original question of the thread "is AGG:AI the real game?" I would still say no, because it is a more militaristic game and civ is not just a wargame. Really, its warfare is not its strong point - playing a game like Medieval 2: Total War is a game which focuses on war.... civ is an empire builder and does so many other things so well!


and...

"Assuming you play at an appropriate difficulty level for your chosen setting, do you find default AI or Aggressive AI to be a more challenging game?"

Please don't take offense, but that is really funny from my perspective. You may just as well ask "Does playing on a higher difficulty setting make the game harder?" Let's say that on Monarch I find the game a 50/50 win loss ratio, but with AGG:AI on Monarch I win 75% of the time - we do not need to look at changing the constant factor (the difficulty level) to see that this immediately indicates that the AGG:AI is weaker at playing the game civ..... I dont think anyone will disagree that it is more of a militaristic challenge and that obviously survival is more of a concern for the player, but the human always has the advantage in tactical combat, so all it is doing is pushing the AI to commit to a strategy it can't genuinely hope to compete at.


I know, I know - 40 people will now jump in and tell me I am wrong..... but each to their own. This IS my experience and someone telling me that I am wrong is hardly going to convince me against my empirical observation.


Ultimately, we might just as well call it preference and leave it at that. None of this "the real game" condescension that clearly is getting up people's noses!

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Having played a lot of Aggressive AI games, I can say without a doubt that's a bunch of nonsense.

Pleased civs have a much lower chance to declare war on you, but annoyed civs are much faster to pull the trigger, so you do have to pay more attention to diplomacy if you don't want a war.

And with replys like this, you wonder why Aelf gets too wound up, and loses his temper. It doesn't really matter if they "pull the trigger" quicker, as long as you or any ai in the same position has more/better troops. I myself have played nothing BUT agg ais since I got BTS. I can categorically state as fact, not heresay, that virtually any ai will dow on you if it deems you "weaker" or weak enough, All being slightly better relations means, is that this dow will generally take longer to occur. I actively try and induldge BAD relations now with my neighbours, as its generally free xp for my guys, with no backlash that I attacked them, and also normally nets me a city or 2 in wars.

This is not one game, or 10 games or even 20 games, its EVERY game I've yet played. I still get open borders and trade plus resource trade, but (and this bit really is just my opinion), every game feels dirty. There's absolutely no honour left in the game. I've joined wars with a smaller civ, just to help them get their cities back, and then umpteen times, had them end up dow on me, not long after. Which disgusts me so much, I've even unplugged the comp from the wall (which ok is a bit of a hissy fit, but surely SOME people feel the same)...

Anyways, I don't do personal attacks, so please persuad me, that with agg ais, there really IS any point to diplomacy. I'm completely open to rational arguements, its just that I haven't heard any yet.

 

[Spearthrower]

Good post Drew - why people have to try to undermine each other by claiming that each other is lieing is beyond me. Especially people new to the forums.

I know who I trust having seen countless posts from you playing on AGG:AI.... not to mention that your own experience tallies with mine. It's not just AGG:AI - although this obviously makes it more likely to happen with the larger troop differentials - it also happens in the standard game. Friendly attacks just aren't cricket, they undermine the value of the diplomacy system and fit with the overall theme of BtS AI improvements which is that "only war matters". Nevermind, I expect to see this redressed in the future.

 

[Arlborn]

By the way, I always didn't like Agg. AI in vanilla and warlords because they would be normally dumber and they would mostly only attack you, so you could ONLY build military...And I am a builder.
I just tried the agg. AI in BTS, and I can say it is way more fun than in previous versions!
They won't only attack you, you don't need only to build military, although I am pretty bad in building military, so I had to build more than my normal.
Only CIV that attacked me at pleased was Napoleon, but he is a (a)normal Backstabber

Sure I saw more wars, but really, it wasn't that much more because now the pacific AIs actually build defenders. Wow. I even attacked Ragnar in the beginning of the game(I had iron and horse, he didn't. Bad luck) to grab a marble for wonders, and i was actually successful.
I don't know what kind of victory I will try but right now, from like 30 CIVS( ), only like 4 are annoyed with me! Not even Monty.

I can see now that the Agg. AI is much more fun to play as builder than before.
Sure, I won't be playing always with it on, but sometimes I will indeed
Did you guys try out Aggressive AI in BTS? I guess you will understand +- why it is so much better than vanilla and Warlords.

 

[winddbourne]

The fact that the AI is more likely to declare war if it feels it has a shot, and with almost no idea of the consequences feels almost like an EXPLOIT to me.

If the Ai has a hair trigger temper then it's just that much easier for me to goad him into DOW, which brings into play any defensive pacts I have, gives him the hit on diplomacy, etc . . . I remember duping the AI in this way back during the CIV II days.

Another trick I used to pull in Civ II was having a bunch of obsolete military, and all the money needed to upgrade it. Thus making myself look "weak" until the moment war was declared.

I haven't tried these tricks on the new AI, normally I try to play peacefully, but if what some people have said here is true aggressive AI might just be fairly gullable.

 

[Bad Brett]

Another trick I used to pull in Civ II was having a bunch of obsolete military, and all the money needed to upgrade it. Thus making myself look "weak" until the moment war was declared.

That's funny because as far as I know your "trick" is not possible to pull in Civ II, since you can't upgrade units without Leonardo's Workshop.

 

[winddbourne]

I usually built leonardo's workshop, and I believe it only cut the costs in half, though that could be civ 3. I'd have to go back to my old rulebooks. I've been playing since civ one.

I won't say for sure your wrong, because I'm human and it's almost 5 in the morning, but I'm fairly sure you could still upgrade in civ 2, though it might have been missing from the original game (civ I).

 

[DrewBledsoe]

But I used Windbourne's "trick" precisely in my current game. I'm not claiming it really made that much difference (I stated a while back that my name for "agg ais" mode is "suicide ais" and that stands), but I had an almost perfect economy (holy city/all courthouses 15 cities emp lvl STILL only 500 AD) and just didn't bother upgrading anything.

When the first ai I goaded into attacking me arrived, I upgraded 30+ swords and axes to maces (marathon over 6000 gold, but yes you can get it if you play well), and took out the Spanish. Then the Byzantines, who lived 30+ tiles away arrived (they must have decided when they left they were attacking me whatever), they encountered muskets, and gave me a free GG.

To myself, I've proved the opposite. Blake insinuated that if you're going to rush the ai (which is an absolute crutch for so many players) then you should have the courtesy to turn on agg ais. Except, as Uncle Joe and others have pointed out, I don't start a game with a pre defined strategy. Many games, I've got ample early land, and will play peacefully. In those games, the ai has often lost by the middle ages. I used to play master lvl Chess (honestly). My playing partner was national Blitz champion, he was possibly one of the best 5 minute chess game players in the world. Except, I could beat him around 66% of the time, with normal chess rules.

I WANT ais to fight each other, every now and again. They should. What I don't want, is a game, where I have to play a pre-determined strategy in every game.

That folks, isn't chess.

It isn't Civ either.

 

[Arlborn]

I WANT ais to fight each other, every now and again. They should. What I don't want, is a game, where I have to play a pre-determined strategy in every game.

That folks, isn't chess.

It isn't Civ either.

I understand your feeling, really.
But what changed from CIV4 vanilla to BTS in this aspect? Didn't we always have a agg. AI that could be off or on in CIV4?

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I understand your feeling, really.
But what changed from CIV4 vanilla to BTS in this aspect? Didn't we always have a agg. AI that could be off or on in CIV4?

Yeah we did. Except in Warlords and previous, it was loaded against the player. Now it isn't. Now its as exploitable by the player as anything that has ever existed in the CIv Iv series. Its a bold attempt, but its completely broken.

 

[Arlborn]

Yeah we did. Except in Warlords and previous, it was loaded against the player. Now it isn't. Now its as exploitable by the player as anything that has ever existed in the CIv Iv series. Its a bold attempt, but its completely broken.

That is your opinion, and not of everybody. Blake's statements were his opinions, not of everybody(including me )...
And of course you can debate it, specially because of his role in making the AI..
I am just saying that things don't necessarily need a fix only because you(as an example) 'didn't like it'.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

That is your opinion, and not of everybody. Blake's statements were his opinions, not of everybody(including me )...
And of course you can debate it, specially because of his role in making the AI..
I am just saying that things don't necessarily need a fix only because you(as an example) 'didn't like it'.

I agree, in that particular post, I did present a rather ubiquitous final opinion, and decided it was manditory. Sorry

I and others have tried to provide evidence to back up that opinion though, if we didn't care, we wouldn't get so cross about it...........

 

[DrJambo]

And with replys like this, you wonder why Aelf gets too wound up, and loses his temper. It doesn't really matter if they "pull the trigger" quicker, as long as you or any ai in the same position has more/better troops. I myself have played nothing BUT agg ais since I got BTS. I can categorically state as fact, not heresay, that virtually any ai will dow on you if it deems you "weaker" or weak enough, All being slightly better relations means, is that this dow will generally take longer to occur. I actively try and induldge BAD relations now with my neighbours, as its generally free xp for my guys, with no backlash that I attacked them, and also normally nets me a city or 2 in wars.

This is not one game, or 10 games or even 20 games, its EVERY game I've yet played. I still get open borders and trade plus resource trade, but (and this bit really is just my opinion), every game feels dirty. There's absolutely no honour left in the game. I've joined wars with a smaller civ, just to help them get their cities back, and then umpteen times, had them end up dow on me, not long after. Which disgusts me so much, I've even unplugged the comp from the wall (which ok is a bit of a hissy fit, but surely SOME people feel the same)...

Anyways, I don't do personal attacks, so please persuad me, that with agg ais, there really IS any point to diplomacy. I'm completely open to rational arguements, its just that I haven't heard any yet.

Drew,

I've had the AI declare on me while pleased even on regular AI, so I'm not sure that's necessarily an issue specific to Agg AI. It might be more likely under Agg AI since it'll have more units, and power disparity might be greater under Agg AI. Plus, more to the point, haven't you ever declared war on an AI that you were pleased or friendly with, but thought you could benefit from taking a couple of poorly defended juicy cities? I know I have. AI civs that typically spring to mind are the tech monsters like Gandhi and Mansa.

Just look at Sistuil's last ALC on BtS. He creamed Gandhi and as far as I recall their relations at the time were excellent... reason? He was his main competitor, that's all.

 

[PieceOfMind]

PieceOfMind - yeah absolutely, 150% behind you - people should play the game the way they like and that is after all why we have so many options in a custom game..... but let's go back to the original question of the thread "is AGG:AI the real game?" I would still say no, because it is a more militaristic game and civ is not just a wargame.

In my experience, AIs in aggressive girlyman AI have appeared more like they are playing to win the game. For that reason I would argue aggressive girlyman AI is the real civ.

For a small time I can enjoy having civs stick to their personalities and just exist in the game without any real purpose. But eventually I get tired of this and want to see the AIs actually compete with me. (I want to stress this is my view and I understand others prefer to see less crazy randomness in leaders and more historical accuracy - to each his own.)

Really, its warfare is not its strong point - playing a game like Medieval 2: Total War is a game which focuses on war.... civ is an empire builder and does so many other things so well!

Whether there are other games which depict war better than civ is irrelevant. Since civ1 the franchise has in fact been mainly empire building and then clashing of empires ie. war. I can just as easily argue that empire building is not civ's strong point either, by comparing it to games like simcity etc. When you think about it, the way the economy works in civ is probably more unrealistic than the warfare aspects eg. you use resources from mines to help you build horses faster?? . Anyway...

Please don't take offense, but that is really funny from my perspective. You may just as well ask "Does playing on a higher difficulty setting make the game harder?" Let's say that on Monarch I find the game a 50/50 win loss ratio, but with AGG:AI on Monarch I win 75% of the time - we do not need to look at changing the constant factor (the difficulty level) to see that this immediately indicates that the AGG:AI is weaker at playing the game civ.....

No offense taken. But you're missing, or possibly avoiding, my point. Consider this analogy.

Suppose you play monopoly against a bunch of ten year olds who each start off with ten times the normal starting money. Then consider playing a bunch of 20 year olds but on a level playing field. It's likely that you'll find it more difficult playing against the 10 year olds. Yet you would probably find playing the 20 year olds more of an interesting challenge because they are more competent.

Do you see the point I'm trying to make? You will disagree anyway because you happen to think the sandbox AI is more competitive.

I dont think anyone will disagree that it is more of a militaristic challenge and that obviously survival is more of a concern for the player, but the human always has the advantage in tactical combat, so all it is doing is pushing the AI to commit to a strategy it can't genuinely hope to compete at.

Besides, the AI is also pretty bad at empire management compared to the human player as well. It is only because it gets bonuses left right and centre to things more economic that you think it puts up more of a challenge there. If AIs got bonuses to combat eg. better odds, then I don't think you'd be so quick to say the AI is being pushed into a game it can't hope to compete at.

I know, I know - 40 people will now jump in and tell me I am wrong..... but each to their own. This IS my experience and someone telling me that I am wrong is hardly going to convince me against my empirical observation.

The main thing I'm disagreeing with you is your evaluation of the aggressive girlyman AI. Obviously I can't argue whether or not you find one setting more challenging than the other.

I guess as you said we will have to agree to have this difference of opinion. For me, I don't mind how difficult an AI is because I can always adjust the handicap until it is an appropriate balance for me. I care more about seeing interesting, dynamic games where I feel like I'm only one player in a game. I'm more bored when it is fairly samey from game to game. I like fighting against AIs more than I like competing in space race. This may mean I compete at a higher difficulty to compensate for the fact the AI is worse at war than space race, but that suits me just fine.

Ultimately, we might just as well call it preference and leave it at that. None of this "the real game" condescension that clearly is getting up people's noses!

Precisely. I would say aggressive girlyman AI is the real civ because the game is not militaristic enough without it. Clearly that is pure opinion and so there is no reason that others can believe that is complete rubbish.

By the way, in my most recent agg AI game, gilgamesh was going crazy building wonders (about 11 across two cities) so I invaded the two cities which were defended by no more than about 5 or 6 units apiece. This despite the fact it was clearly lower in power than most of the world. Oh dear... it seems agg AI is not so unit spammy necessarily after all.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Drew,

I've had the AI declare on me while pleased even on regular AI, so I'm not sure that's necessarily an issue specific to Agg AI. It might be more likely under Agg AI since it'll have more units, and power disparity might be greater under Agg AI. Plus, more to the point, haven't you ever declared war on an AI that you were pleased or friendly with, but thought you could benefit from taking a couple of poorly defended juicy cities? I know I have. AI civs that typically spring to mind are the tech monsters like Gandhi and Mansa.

Just look at Sistuil's last ALC on BtS. He creamed Gandhi and as far as I recall their relations at the time were excellent... reason? He was his main competitor, that's all.

I know that its a personal playing style, but I really, really try and avoid ever doing this. If an ai is "too close" I generally take them out in the prehistoric days (axes etc), when they are cautious at best. (and agg ais really doesn't make this much harder). Once we are in a proper trading relationship, I will avoid this at all costs. Always.

Like a fool (from Blakes programming perceptive) I value my friends and allies. I would rather walk to the other end of the continent with an army, to fight someone rather more apt. As I said, call me a fool, but isnt this diplomacy in action, oh yeah, until my "ally" who I didn't attack, decides Im now weak and should attack me while my troops are away. Great move. Really clever. What happens next game?, oh yeah I attack my friends before they attack me.

Great idea.

Not Civ.