Aggressive AI = The Real Civ?

[winddbourne]

Uncle Joe makes a good point, and his request isn't actually hard to acomplish. The two AI styles could easily be mixed together on a single map.

Perhaps the initial AI style used by each computer player should be based on it's starting position, yet if the situation changes; it's last on the power graph . . . or way behind in tech/culture, then a quick change in AI style might be worthwhile.

The only problem is that . . . Unit spam breeds unit spam. If your facing a million units your going to need a lot of defenders yourself. Maintainence costs were supposed to prevent this from getting out of hand but . . . reading the posts it seems like some AI's can feild a 100 unit army. So the play balance appears to be off.

My solution to unit spam is to make it harder to do, not teach the AI to do it as well. Perhaps make it harder to upgrade units so your 80 units are a mix from warriors to tanks, and your constantly disbanding and rebuilding.

Or you could add additional costs for units above a certain threshhold. Perhaps you can have 6 units per city at normal costs, and every unit above that threshold costs you double for keeping such a large force trained and organized.

Unit spam is bad because:

1) Players have to MOVE all those units which takes time and isn't always fun
2) The AI has to move them too which takes both computing power & time
3) It doesn't take much thought to figure out that a lot of weak units will eventually kill one strong unit.
4) If your building hundreds of units your not fully experiencing other aspects of the game; which could also be balanced if other aspects were made more powerful. For example more common culture flips, or spies being able to bribe your units to join their empire.
5) Unit spam forces other players to counter it with the same strategy, which discourages diverse gameplay. One counter to this would be allowing spies to spread discontent among your units, turning a certain percentage of them into barbarians. The cost of the mission could go down as the stack size went up, and of course the more units in the stack the more barbs you get for your EPs.

 

[Lurking Liu]

Unit spam actually ensures that culture flips won't happen. In order to flip, you have to have two revolts within a certain time period (or so I've gathered empirically at least). However, the % chance to revolt depends on the relative cultures in the city and--more importantly--the number of units present. If you have 20 units, even at 1% your culture and 99% the other person's culture, you're not going to have a single revolt, thus making the culture game pretty much a wash.

 

[winddbourne]

I know Liu, that is part of the imbalance. Unit spam not only forces others to adopt the same strategy, but also makes other strategies weaker. Ideally I'd like to see a rebalance since the mechanic seems a bit broken. But that's just my opinion.

A builder with a high culture should have a chance that your huge military will revolt against you in city X and join his empire. That would be a drawback to devoting 100% of your production to units and not building any temples.

Similiarly if an espionage unit could turn some of your units against you (say 1 in every 5? then unit spam would be dangerous. And if spies could bribe your units then your stack might slowly fade away beneath you as you enter a high espionage civilization's borders. That would be your penalty for neglecting espionage to support such a large stack.

A few high tech units would again be less vulnerable to espionage, and able to stand up to a mid-sized stack of offensive units. Your reward for devoting your money to science rather than espionage or unit spam. But you'd have to keep that science rate high so you'd fall behind in espionage and those spies could steal your tech, or a horde of invaders could conquer the city and get a free tech (as they did in previous versions of the game)

It's all about checks and balances between science, espionage, culture, and the military. Total devotion to any one should make you vulnerable to one or more of the others.

 

[Thalatta]

And therein lies one of the problems of this 'dual-AI' approach. When I start a single-player game, I have no idea how I'm going to approach it. That will be decided by my starting positions, resources, and neighbors. Some times that leads to early wars, some times I go almost the whole game without one.

So having to decide pre-game if I should make the AI 'better' at fighting accomplishes very little for me. If I get a great start and have enough room and dont need to take out a neighbor then I'm almost assured victory if I play with Aggressive AI (and dont do something stupid like not keep my power up). The AIs will often take each other out or at least weaken themselves in arms races while I cruise up the tech tree for a tremendous advantage.

Conversely, if I get a cramped start but I get Copper/Horse while I have a neighbor who is simply expanding or spamming Wonders, then by all means I intend to attack them as early as possible to capitalize on my advantage of having the Strategic Resource early. In that case, it almost feels like cheating when my 8-10 Axes/Chariots/whatever arrive and fight 2 Warriors and an Archer defending the enemy cities. For these types of games, I would have preferred the AI to have built a few more units to make it a challenge.

But the point is, I dont like having to choose pre-game if I think I'm going to do early conquest or not. This is even considerably worse in MP games (of which I play a lot) since some people will punch out AIs early while other players will sit back and build and tech.

I realize this is probably asking the impossible (or improbable), but I'd prefer if the AI development were not split between Aggressive and Normal. I'd rather see it optimized a little better for one setting and be done with it. Which setting that is concerns me little, but I'd like for the game to be a challenge without me having to pre-determine my likely strat before the game even begins...

Here's exactly why I prefer aggressive AI, though. I don't think that it's necessarily more difficult - I think it's more challenging at first for people who haven't played it, but otherwise both types of AI have their weaknesses. Non-aggressive AI is usually passive, and when it is active it often focuses on the player, which can be annoying. Aggressive AI is active, and I think the increased interaction and conflict between AI makes for a more dynamic game. Aggressive AI is more likely to interfere with your plans - if you want to go military, it will put up a decent fight; if you want to spam wonders, you have to be careful.

As for unit spam, I wish something better could be done about it, but the AI often has to make up for quality of units with quantity. Here's a fun attachment, though, of what happens to aggressive AI when they attack with two stacks of twenty units...
(Cathy had axes/swords/WEs/HAs/cats, I had maces/cataphracts/trebs...)

 

[Spearthrower]

Hehe this is why this whole argument is so funny Thalatta - same thing, opposite feeling!... This is the precise reason why I am not convinced by the AGG:Ai.... it gets so bogged down in unit maintenance and supply that it loses tech parity and you end up fighting stacks of obsolete units.... which in turn gives your forces even more of an edge by providing endless experience fodder.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the occasional AGG:AI for a pure military challenge, but I personally find the standard AI to be a much more multi-faceted and complex challenge.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Hehe this is why this whole argument is so funny Thalatta - same thing, opposite feeling!... This is the precise reason why I am not convinced by the AGG:Ai.... it gets so bogged down in unit maintenance and supply that it loses tech parity and you end up fighting stacks of obsolete units.... which in turn gives your forces even more of an edge by providing endless experience fodder.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the occasional AGG:AI for a pure military challenge, but I personally find the standard AI to be a much more multi-faceted and complex challenge.

Exactly. In a recent game (emp/huge/agg ais/rand pers), Augustus seemed to be Monty like. His last attack was around 90 units in the first stack(mostly knights/maces/praets). He had already wiped out one civ, and now his only "logical" choice of enemy was me (logical in that he was at pleased status, same religion, open borders, I had AP)....anyways, his power graph was above mine BUT all my much smaller number of units, were rifles, cannon and cavalry.

This MUST be addressed in a patch, an ai thinks its stronger, when its actually far weaker in reality. His 90 ish units attacked a hill fort, with 20 rifles in of sensible promotions. When the dust settled, I had 19 rifles left, he had just 4 injured units that had withdrawn, and 1 injured praet that had won eventually.I got my 3rd gg(135 xp) from that lunatic attack. He then followed that up with another 50odd unit stack, with the same result, and then Gilgamesh dogpiled him, as he didn't have much left.

Augustus had 23 cities at this time, and when all the fighting ceased, he was still roughly top (apparently) of the power graph. And through passive espionage, I could see all his cities and what they were building. And you know what? Even though he was miles behind in tech, and at long last at peace, 20/23 of his cities went back to building units.

 

[Thalatta]

Well, when I want a challenge I often will play peacefully (or at least refuse to wardec) against aggressive AI. Thing is, this game (it's what I'm playing currently) has involved a fair few challenges:

It's on Emperor, a large map with 12 civs, and I went crazy early on, settling 9 cities before 1000 BC - recovering from that economically was tough, though building The Great Lighthouse in 1270 BC helped.
Darius took out Pacal II completely early on and had scary power. I got involved militarily right away because he had a stack of wounded units right by my borders; I whipped a few axes and killed most of his units. That was a tricky decision, but I managed to win him over and now he's Friendly with me.
Taking Cathy down that much was harder than it looked. I had about 20 units, and had to take 2 for 1 trades for the first few turns, but then I managed to lure her stack into a desert and whipped some cataphracts and that was it from there. The AI doesn't seem to suicide its stack into your walls anywhere near as often as it used to, and I could have easily have lost my stack if I had gotten more aggressive and moved off the forest I was holding. Cathy was a bit behind because of having so much military, but she took half of Boudica's cities earlier in the game.

The AI isn't doing too badly in this game, really. I've just gone kind of nuts; I have 30 cities and will finish Liberalism around 800 AD.

 

[Arlborn]

Well, when I want a challenge I often will play peacefully (or at least refuse to wardec) against aggressive AI. Thing is, this game (it's what I'm playing currently) has involved a fair few challenges:

It's on Emperor, a large map with 12 civs, and I went crazy early on, settling 9 cities before 1000 BC - recovering from that economically was tough, though building The Great Lighthouse in 1270 BC helped.
Darius took out Pacal II completely early on and had scary power. I got involved militarily right away because he had a stack of wounded units right by my borders; I whipped a few axes and killed most of his units. That was a tricky decision, but I managed to win him over and now he's Friendly with me.
Taking Cathy down that much was harder than it looked. I had about 20 units, and had to take 2 for 1 trades for the first few turns, but then I managed to lure her stack into a desert and whipped some cataphracts and that was it from there. The AI doesn't seem to suicide its stack into your walls anywhere near as often as it used to, and I could have easily have lost my stack if I had gotten more aggressive and moved off the forest I was holding. Cathy was a bit behind because of having so much military, but she took half of Boudica's cities earlier in the game.

The AI isn't doing too badly in this game, really. I've just gone kind of nuts; I have 30 cities and will finish Liberalism around 800 AD.

The AI should learn how to play(in Agg. AI - in the situations it have the conditions to do a dagger stack) like some players playing in very high lvl. What I mean with it? I mean that if they are going to fall behind in tech anyway, then make good use of your units and live from the money that captured cities give you, at least for a while, then stop when the units you mass stacked get kind of obsolete. Because if you do a good unit rushing early on, you at least will get twice the size of your former land at the end, and it surely compensates the war costs later on.
But some players are against AI thinking more like humans...

 

[Thalatta]

No, I agree that part of the AI's problem is that it is, well, AI.

There are plenty of things you can "teach" a program - improved city/empire management, city placement, how to do a better job of warring, how to capture cities or recognize that retreat is necessary instead of suiciding a stack, etc. - but there are some abstract concepts that players can use that a program can't.

One of the things that I do is "isolate" the AI - pop my early cities towards them rather than close to my capitol so that they'll settle away from me, and then I fill in the space later. How do you teach an AI the concept of isolationism? (Well, maybe Frederick could pick it up. ) How do you get the AI to manage risk/reward calculations on an ongoing basis in terms of diplomacy, instead of just turn by turn? Or the difference between preferring war to peace to settle conflicts and being flexible and adaptable with both?

Since I think that aggressive AI is closer towards a "human-like" player that both affects and adapts to other players without being "too human" I like it more.

 

[DrJambo]

No, it is not self-evident. You are oversimplifying things and making the same mistake of putting war as the centre piece of the game. So what if I DoW on one AI? Does that mean the war will go as planned? By experience, that is certainly not true. You are seeing a great power imbalance that others who are derisive of the normal AI like to see, of a huge human stack steamrolling over the AI. So far, on Immortal, this does not prove to be the case. Frequently, we were outnumbered (most of the time greatly so) and only won by strategy, tactics and speed. Now if you say that this is not fair because it uses the advantage of human intelligence, then what is fair? Only if I build more units than the AI?

I may be oversimplifying things. Still for the sake of discussion the point still remains. If you're the one making the DoW on the AI you're still controlling the choices. It doesn't matter whether the judgement of declaring war is a sound decision or not; that's simply down to the individual skill of the player and a separate issue from normal AI vs Agg AI. Similarly, if the war doesn't go as planned, that's also an unknown, and therefore irrespective of either setting - if it proves to be a bad call or it goes sour that's a different issue.

I've played several Monarch BtS games using normal AI and Agg AI, and I've been beaten each time at Agg AI and won half at Normal. In general I didn't notice too much difference in the AI tech rate from one setting to the other, although I presume it must have been slower at Agg AI because it had more units. What I did notice was that the usual stacks I prepared for war using normal AI, which would often allow me to take 2-3 cities at Monarch, were barely able to let me take one at Agg AI and often got creamed outright! Therefore, in my experience the Agg AI was tougher.

And even then the victory is probably not that extensive and comes with a price. What about the other civs? What if they zoom past the player in the process? That happened in Immortal Challenge 2. Then the player can no longer just dictate anything to those AI civs.

Is this with reference to Warlords? Why I'm asking is Warlords AI is completely different. In fact it's so dissimilar from BtS it's almost an entirely different game. I remember spending many a Warlords game with no AI to AI DoW, unless that is, when I engineered them myself. Upon starting a game, the Warlords AI was designed to tech, as fast as the horrendous cheats would allow, to a space victory. AI to AI wars, and AI unpredictability were extremely rare. In truth I found Warlords AI a rather numbing experience. All Agg AI in Warlords did was handicap AI to human diplomacy by giving an unfavourable bias in relations.

At this point I should probably ask whether you've tried Agg AI in BtS? My opinion as to whether one is better than the other is still very much open. This is mainly because the default AI is just so much better than Warlords. AI to AI wars are still rarer than I'd like under Normal, but the AI does seem more intelligent overall. Kudos to Blake for that. I'm also using Solver's updates as they're generated, so in the process of my playing BtS, the AI is probably better now. Because I'm getting my ass handed to me on Monarch Agg AI, I'll either go back to Prince and retry or move back to regular AI. I'd like to try regular AI with Solver's update anyhow.

Some people say it means more war, some people say it means less. They have different experiences of what Aggressive AI actually does. One thing is always true, though, which you mention yourself - Aggressive AI causes unit spam. That is what I don't like.

Unit spam or proper unit numbers to defend their empire from a wily human? - I guess it's a subjective view. I've noticed carriers laden with fighters (something I'd never seen the AI do before), I've noticed large and effective stacks, but I haven't noticed the 'unit spam' that some claim to have seen under Agg AI. I've lost major cities, I've lost cities and whole islands I'd claimed and thought impregnable - none of this had happened to me before under normal AI. I guess if they're left to their own devices without any war for the length of the game then this 'unit spam' that people are seeing might be possible.

I also do not like the much greater tendency of the AI not respecting diplomatic relations. Some people say that this in fact makes diplomacy more important as you need to keep civs as friendly as possible in order to avoid being declared on unexpectedly. But you can put so much effort into maintaining relations and still run the risk of them not working out anyway. So what's your fallback plan? Did I hear more units?

Is this Warlords or BtS? Using Agg AI in BtS I've not noticed any major change to how diplomacy works. It's still important and I'd argue possibly even more so. In one Monarch Agg AI game I managed eventually to get the top of the score chart round about Combustion and I embarked on an mission to cripple the top civ and land/pop leader by taking their capital. Initially this worked and I got peace afterwards thinking this would now be a stroll to a space win. Later on he redeclared when we had nukes. He nuked my 2 main cities when I was building SDI and I returned the favour only more so. However, the upshot was the rest of the world hated me. When my forces were threadbare and stretched, one by one the other civs starting joining the war effort against me. I ended up holding, just, but lost several key cities and colonies. I launched a half-finished spaceship but it was too late and I ended up coming second in score... Great stuff.

You know, I really don't wish to rehash everything that I've said before, as I've promised. I'm only doing so now because I respect you as a poster. You are reasonable and haven't resorted to implying that non-Aggressive AI players are dumb or ********. You also have not said things that you have proven to be unqualified to say, such as complaining that the normal AI can be rushed easily when one puts 11 of them on a standard size map. But I do want to hear your views out, so perhaps you could PM me to continue this discussion? If I'm starting to repeat points that I've already said to you, though, I would say so.

Well, I guess these are discussion boards - join in if you like or not if you are put off by others. It's your prerogative. Just don't rise to the bait.

Regards

 

[DrJambo]

Hehe this is why this whole argument is so funny Thalatta - same thing, opposite feeling!... This is the precise reason why I am not convinced by the AGG:Ai.... it gets so bogged down in unit maintenance and supply that it loses tech parity and you end up fighting stacks of obsolete units.... which in turn gives your forces even more of an edge by providing endless experience fodder.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the occasional AGG:AI for a pure military challenge, but I personally find the standard AI to be a much more multi-faceted and complex challenge.

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

 

[peter450]

I do think the standard AI needs to invest a bit more in military at the very start, i think solver's unofficial patch has tweaked that, i also think it needs to invest more at the very end, seeing as the end game units, paratroops, tanks, bombers etc mean there are far more ways to effect war and distances become much less of an issue, a good human player can usually get the best out of the late game units, going missiles, bombers arty etc as it suits, the AI seems less comfortable with the greater variety in strategy that the late game/modern units allow, and the late game is when i feel the AI seem's most exposed sometimes, i think the standard AI should invest more heavily in it's army late game to counter act this effect.

Other than that weakness i think the standard AI plays a solid an in many ways far more rounded game than AGG which although i like, has only one playstyle.

 

[Thalatta]

DrJambo, I think, too, that diplomacy proves even more important on aggressive AI, especially with the BtS random events. True, you have to be wary of pleased neighbors, but that's better than the alternative of them being annoyed...

 

[DrewBledsoe]

DrJambo, I think, too, that diplomacy proves even more important on aggressive AI, especially with the BtS random events. True, you have to be wary of pleased neighbors, but that's better than the alternative of them being annoyed...

Why?

If (as in my experience) they are almost as likely to attack you on pleased as on annoyed, with the only real clinching factor being if they think themselves stronger than you, then why make any effort at all with them? Just treat them as they appear to treat you, as enemies all, some of which you happen to be trading with. That is the fact that annoys me, Aelf and others more than any other.

 

[peter450]

Yes the random who am i gonna attack today, spin the bottle oh it's facing at you! style that AGG AI uses to declare war is a major spoiling feature, theres no logic, strategy or subtlety to it, its completely random as is totolly at odds with the concept of smart AI

 

[DrJambo]

I've rarely found 'pleased' AIs declare war on me. Cautious and annoyed yes, but rarely pleased and never friendly. Anyway, I've declared war on civs that were pleased with me before; it just comes down to location and convenience sometimes...

 

[floppymoose]

Is there a good breakdown somewhere on exactly what the differences are between BTS Aggressive AI and the BTS Standard AI? I've seen different claims in this forum that don't seem to reconcile.

 

[vilemerchant]

Hehe this is why this whole argument is so funny Thalatta - same thing, opposite feeling!... This is the precise reason why I am not convinced by the AGG:Ai.... it gets so bogged down in unit maintenance and supply that it loses tech parity and you end up fighting stacks of obsolete units.... which in turn gives your forces even more of an edge by providing endless experience fodder.

As another poster said, this simply means you're not playing on a high enough difficulty. Since even the normal AI techs much slower than warlords you really need to move up at least 1 difficulty level for BtS whichever AI option you choose. Oh and ANYONE who posts saying they're seeing longbows against rifles and cavs is not playing on any decent difficulty. The AI was made a little bit smarter but not much smarter, I'm starting to think it actually did need those bonuses which were taken away, which is why the relevant difficulties are now all easier at BtS.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the occasional AGG:AI for a pure military challenge, but I personally find the standard AI to be a much more multi-faceted and complex challenge.

I don't find anything multi-faceted about knowing that if build any sort of stack you can steamroll neighboring civs early in the game simply because they won't build any units (and if they're churchill won't even move or attack with the ones they have). You don't have to be a 'rusher' for an early invasion to come up in a game as the right thing to do, but Normal-AI just ruins any credibility of the move.

Also, for me the BtS agg-AI has FINALLY ended the charade of moving a SoD from city to city unopposed militarily, taking 1 city at a time. Warlords 2.08 such stacks would rarely even be attacked except by solitary cats/trebs.

Also diplomacy is a massive improvement on Agg-AI. Because there are actual AI-AI wars with real consequences (ie/ cities, or perhaps entire countries changing hands) there is much more opportunity to get positive aswell as negative relations. Yes, sometimes it's beneficial to declare war on behalf of a friend in order to maintain good relations, even if you're nowhere near the guy and can't really help. Other times you might have to actually pay tribute! Often it will degenerate into a huge world war and you better choose a side otherwise before long EVERYONE will be getting annoyed at your refusals to help or stop trading with the enemies. For me, just far more realistic and fun.

 

[FrancisMarion]

Why?

If (as in my experience) they are almost as likely to attack you on pleased as on annoyed, with the only real clinching factor being if they think themselves stronger than you, then why make any effort at all with them? Just treat them as they appear to treat you, as enemies all, some of which you happen to be trading with. That is the fact that annoys me, Aelf and others more than any other.

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.

 

[Lars_Domus]

Oh and ANYONE who posts saying they're seeing longbows against rifles and cavs is not playing on any decent difficulty.

For the umpteenth time, I FIND SUFFICIENT CHALLENGE IN SIMPLY SWITCHING THE AGGRESSIVE AI OFF! Comprende? If it is to be said I'm playing below my difficulty level, then that only holds true so long as the aggressive AI is switched on. Actually, since the last time someone suggested that, I've tried going a level up with aggressive AI on, and it did indeed provide a more balanced challenge - but if I switch it off I'm eaten alive.

Now, I'll spell it out for you people one more time, and do try and pay attention this time: When I posted the comment about the longbows the point I was trying to make was this, and only this: The aggressive AI does not provide more of a challenge than the default AI, it simply invites another style of playing. Apparently I'm quite talented in this style, and not so talented in the style the default AI requires. For many others, it's obviously the other way around.

I could turn the tables here, and tell the people who find the default AI easier than the aggressive AI that they have to move up a level, but I wont because that is not the point!

Now are we quite finished discussing my choice of difficulty level, or do I have to fetch my cutlass?

(PS: Oh, and I never said anything about Cavalry.)