kettyo
Seeker of Reality
Me too...........
AI Aggression levels (please discuss here).
- Thread starter Blake
- Start date
Me too...........
Arlborn
Legendary Noob
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2006
- Messages
- 1,939
I think dogpille makes sense, or they wouldent hacve the 'pleased but war' modifier..Would they?
jkp1187
Unindicted Co-Conspirator
I am very pleased with the aggression/unit action level in 1/29 (noble level). So far, seems to have hit it just right. I am actually trying for a culture win in my current game -- in a race with Mansa. Elizabeth is around too, though, and she's trying to stir up trouble where possible. I am not getting the "too many guns, not enough butter" thing that others have mentioned.
I am coming to the conclusion that my slow tech but normal unit build rate is my problem.
It allows the AI, with thier bonuses, to accumulate so many units that picking on a human who just cant keep up is enevitable.
I will modify my AI handicap to counteract this.
It allows the AI, with thier bonuses, to accumulate so many units that picking on a human who just cant keep up is enevitable.
I will modify my AI handicap to counteract this.
jray
King
My apologies if you guys worked this out already, but I don't have time atm to catch up on this whole thread...
But I see this so much that I just have to jump in and say: Unless a game was started with Lock Modified Assets turned on or the mod alters the savegame file structure, all you need to do is create an empty folder at My Games\Warlords\MODS with the same name as the mod (say "MyMod") and update CivilizationIV.ini to have Mod=Mods\MyMod. Then load the savegame and Civ4 won't know the difference!
Arlborn
Legendary Noob
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2006
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- 1,939
jray
King
WoW, one more thing to learn here!
I didnt know, thanks for the information
Let me know if you decide to try it, and whether it works. Maybe I've just been getting lucky
. But I switch mods all the time using this method... I'll start a game in my "jrayUGH" mod and then want to see how a certain turn looks in Ruff's mod, so I'll just re-name the jrayUGH folder to jrayUGHtemp and rename Ruff to jrayUGH and re-load the game, and there's the same turn rendered in Ruff's mod. I've never had any glitches so far.Iustus
King
Let me know if you decide to try it, and whether it works. Maybe I've just been getting lucky
This will only work for mods that do not alter the save game file in any way. If a mod adds new unit types (rather than replacing current ones), or basically adds anything else new, then problems could definitely occur.
BetterAI does not make any of these changes, so it can be taken in or out at will.
A different handicaps file does not make any of these changes, so it can be substituted at will.
Most mods add thing though, new civics, new units, etc. If anything new exists in the save, you are going to be in trouble.
-Iustus
kettyo
Seeker of Reality
In my understanding dogpiling is joining a war for booty or to take a city or 2 from the weaker looser and backstabbing is when someone attacks a rival with good relations.
Arlborn
Legendary Noob
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2006
- Messages
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Yes sure, the problem is that this situation is already covered by that other modifier. So maybe if a civ have big % of backstab AND of Attack when Pleased, maybe he will join a war against a friend CIV only because the CIV will get pwned then...
Sofista
Deity
Nevermind...
Wodan
Deity
Well, so far over the past 2 days (and 1.5 games) I've been VERY pleased with the AI. Good level of aggression and overall tactics. Nice mixed stacks, too. No more humongous piles of archers sitting in cities.
The only even semi concerning thing I've seen so far is Peter DOW'ed me from waaaay far away. He, Monty, and I were the only 3 on a long chain of 3 subcontinents, no links to the rest of the world. (This is pre-astronomy.) Peter sends a few triremes and a single galley with a spear and archer. I fight off the triremes while the troops clump around one of my cities for a few turns, then sit in a forest next to it for a few more. After a bit, they leave the forest onto one of my hamlets, but by that time I have 2 axes and 2 war chariots and take them out (I didn't bother attacking while they were in the forest as they were doing no harm).
Anyway, long story short, the distance didn't bother me so much, but the fact that apparently it was a "Total War" or something. (I didn't have chipotle turned on.) Evidence: he refused peace for a very long time, despite not sending more troops and despite any success whatsoever. And his messages to me were the "no way in the world I'm declaring peace" type of thing. He was willing to go to peace only after Monty finally joined in. It was long enough that I was able to get all the way to Education and Optics, so, yeah, a long time.
Wodan
edit: I'm not saying this is necessarily bad, but it might be. If there's a low % of having a Total War from across the planet, that's probably OK, and my experience was simply a vagary of chance. However, if distance doesn't affect the calculation, it probably should. Also, being across water without having galleys should be taken into consideration as well. Nothing wrong with having a "pillage" / casual war with only triremes, but a "Total War" should require the AI to pre-prepare with galleys.
The only even semi concerning thing I've seen so far is Peter DOW'ed me from waaaay far away. He, Monty, and I were the only 3 on a long chain of 3 subcontinents, no links to the rest of the world. (This is pre-astronomy.) Peter sends a few triremes and a single galley with a spear and archer. I fight off the triremes while the troops clump around one of my cities for a few turns, then sit in a forest next to it for a few more. After a bit, they leave the forest onto one of my hamlets, but by that time I have 2 axes and 2 war chariots and take them out (I didn't bother attacking while they were in the forest as they were doing no harm).
Anyway, long story short, the distance didn't bother me so much, but the fact that apparently it was a "Total War" or something. (I didn't have chipotle turned on.) Evidence: he refused peace for a very long time, despite not sending more troops and despite any success whatsoever. And his messages to me were the "no way in the world I'm declaring peace" type of thing. He was willing to go to peace only after Monty finally joined in. It was long enough that I was able to get all the way to Education and Optics, so, yeah, a long time.
Wodan
edit: I'm not saying this is necessarily bad, but it might be. If there's a low % of having a Total War from across the planet, that's probably OK, and my experience was simply a vagary of chance. However, if distance doesn't affect the calculation, it probably should. Also, being across water without having galleys should be taken into consideration as well. Nothing wrong with having a "pillage" / casual war with only triremes, but a "Total War" should require the AI to pre-prepare with galleys.
jkp1187
Unindicted Co-Conspirator
Is there a post anywhere explaining what the various AI strategies that show up in Chipotle mean? (I.e., Dagger, Missionary 1, Peaceful, etc.)
phungus420
Deity
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2003
- Messages
- 6,296
There is yes, I can't remember where though. Dagger is when the AI declares after building a planned attack stack (and can be very lethal) Total is when the AI goes for a mass city grab, limited is when the AI goes for a money making scheme basically, and Dogpile is just to take advantage of a civ in a bad situation (you can get lucky and gank some cities doing this, seen this plenty of times on multi). The big one that's a problem if you see is unplanned. unplanned war is a bug and should be reported in the bug thread.
jkp1187
Unindicted Co-Conspirator
Thanks. Is it okay if you don't see a strategy listed under Chipotle? (Not while at war or planning one, just nothing listed.)
phungus420
Deity
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2003
- Messages
- 6,296
The AI is at war, and it doesn't even say unplanned?
If that is true, I bet it's a bug, but I can't see how that is even possible.
jkp1187
Unindicted Co-Conspirator
Uncle_Joe
Prince
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2005
- Messages
- 491
1/30 Report:
I admit that I had been extremely critical of the earlier January builds. To me it seemed like they were heading down the path of almost requiring military action (even defensive) in order to succeed. I was also skeptical of some of the other AI changes that have been added recently.
After the 1/25 build, I had pretty decided that this mod was just not for me and was going to simply go back to 2.08 but with higher AI handicaps to make up for the lack of 'intelligence'. However I saw that a new build (1/30) was quickly released to correct a few bugs (but it also added some further refinements to the AI). So I decided to give it a go and see if it was something I thought I'd want to continue with.
Well I can say I'm glad I tried it. IMO, HUGE strides have been made in alleviating some of the problems that I routinely encountered in the earlier builds. I still believe that there is probably a need for some further tweaking, but I have to admit that I was very favorably impressed in the near two games I played out with 1/30.
I'll break it down into the Good and the Bad (Epic, No Aggressive AI, Fractal, Custom Handicaps):
The Good:
1) The AIs were much more competitive with each other. In the earlier builds, a warmongering AI would often go hell bent on KO'ing its neighbors. If those neighbors happened to be 'builders', they went down the toilet pretty quickly. The result was that AI competitors were being destroyed very early and the attacking Civs would bloat out and stagnate. With 1/30, the interior defenses are better so the 'house of cards' seems to be greatly reduced. Early wars have consisted more of snipping off a city or two rather than to the death.
2) The AI's seem to be actually 'blockading' coastal cities now. Whether that is by intent or was just happy coincidence (I didnt see anything in the version notes), it was most unpleasant to deal with. A few Caravels and Frigates moved up to my coastline and pretty much parked there starving out those cities. Does anyone know if its actually possible to 'blockade' trade routes/resource routes out in Civ4 as you could in Civ3? That could be horribly effective if it works.
3) The AIs are far less reluctant to DoW distant Civs later in the game. Same religion and happy relations only go so far now. You have to watch your back even against overseas Civs. In my second game, Stalin DoW'ed me about when we were all getting to Astronomy. He was pretty far away and on an island by himself so I pretty much ignored him. Shortly thereafter he blockaded a number of my cities and made some coastal raids with Knights/Grenadiers etc. It wasnt life-threatening, but it was effective and it made me think twice about blowing him off in the future. This is a much needed improvement IMO and makes the game feel much more fluid.
4) The AIs are using a good mix of units now. I think its still favoring Siege weapons a little too much (see screenshot), but overall its forces are varied and tougher to counter.
5) The AI CERTAINLY knows how to use Spies! I saw some people requesting this and BELIEVE ME, its already there. I must have had my Iron, Uranium, and Coal all blown up at least a half a dozen times each and at one point, I had not ONE luxury left alive in my empire. There were at least 2 AIs pouring spies into my land (I caught Ottos and Germans on a few occasions).
The Bad:
1) Some of the AIs are still perhaps overbuilding units. The attached screenshot is from my first game. The Ottomans had almost 50 units stacked in a nearby border city (including over 30 Catapults and Trebs which had been converted to Cannon by the time of the screenshot). To me, that is still too many for that time in the game. It takes a LOT of hammers to build that huge force and it literally sat there until the Modern Age when it was converted into Artillery. That is a huge expense to be sitting on that long. I hestitate to want to see it totally changed but perhaps redistributing it a bit so its not all sitting in one huge stack? In my second game, there have been a lot more smaller wars which generally has kept the SODs reined in a bit. I havent seen stacks bigger than 12 or so in that game and it feels pretty 'correct'.
2) Sometimes the AIs dont know when to call it quits in a war. I had the Mongols repeatedly DoW me trying to capture a border city (that they didnt border...they were moving through the Chinese to get to me). He must have lost 100s of units over 5-6 wars (he went to war about every 20-25 turns). And he wasnt making much progress. The first war, he ALMOST took it with a humongous pile of units, but it held out. After that, it was mostly half-hearted attempts. The ONLY thing he wanted for peace was that city too. Blowing up his sea resource, starving out his coastal cities and even having the snot nuked out of his homeland wouldnt change his fixation on that city. Obviously even if he had eventually taken that city, it certainly would not have been worth cost (most of his major cities were nuked).
3) The building of much larger number of units is slowing tech progression down to the point where no one even got close to launching the Space Ship by game's end. I think 2 Civs had built the Casings and one was working on Thrusters by 2050. At some point, I think the AIs need to release that enough units is enough and focus on teching them rather than adding to them (new types such as aircraft notwithstanding).
Overall:
Like I said above, I'm actually very favorably impressed. The AIs certainly played a much 'tighter' game in this build. The biggest complaint (early wars of extermination by massed units) seems to be corrected. I think with a few more tweaks and bug fixes, this AI is pretty close realizing what I believe were the original goals for BetterAI. I think it still might be a bit too militaristic (not necessarily warlike, but arms racing), but its feeling like its moving in the right direction towards more balanced play again.
Great job on the latest build!
I admit that I had been extremely critical of the earlier January builds. To me it seemed like they were heading down the path of almost requiring military action (even defensive) in order to succeed. I was also skeptical of some of the other AI changes that have been added recently.
After the 1/25 build, I had pretty decided that this mod was just not for me and was going to simply go back to 2.08 but with higher AI handicaps to make up for the lack of 'intelligence'. However I saw that a new build (1/30) was quickly released to correct a few bugs (but it also added some further refinements to the AI). So I decided to give it a go and see if it was something I thought I'd want to continue with.
Well I can say I'm glad I tried it. IMO, HUGE strides have been made in alleviating some of the problems that I routinely encountered in the earlier builds. I still believe that there is probably a need for some further tweaking, but I have to admit that I was very favorably impressed in the near two games I played out with 1/30.
I'll break it down into the Good and the Bad (Epic, No Aggressive AI, Fractal, Custom Handicaps):
The Good:
1) The AIs were much more competitive with each other. In the earlier builds, a warmongering AI would often go hell bent on KO'ing its neighbors. If those neighbors happened to be 'builders', they went down the toilet pretty quickly. The result was that AI competitors were being destroyed very early and the attacking Civs would bloat out and stagnate. With 1/30, the interior defenses are better so the 'house of cards' seems to be greatly reduced. Early wars have consisted more of snipping off a city or two rather than to the death.
2) The AI's seem to be actually 'blockading' coastal cities now. Whether that is by intent or was just happy coincidence (I didnt see anything in the version notes), it was most unpleasant to deal with. A few Caravels and Frigates moved up to my coastline and pretty much parked there starving out those cities. Does anyone know if its actually possible to 'blockade' trade routes/resource routes out in Civ4 as you could in Civ3? That could be horribly effective if it works.
3) The AIs are far less reluctant to DoW distant Civs later in the game. Same religion and happy relations only go so far now. You have to watch your back even against overseas Civs. In my second game, Stalin DoW'ed me about when we were all getting to Astronomy. He was pretty far away and on an island by himself so I pretty much ignored him. Shortly thereafter he blockaded a number of my cities and made some coastal raids with Knights/Grenadiers etc. It wasnt life-threatening, but it was effective and it made me think twice about blowing him off in the future. This is a much needed improvement IMO and makes the game feel much more fluid.
4) The AIs are using a good mix of units now. I think its still favoring Siege weapons a little too much (see screenshot), but overall its forces are varied and tougher to counter.
5) The AI CERTAINLY knows how to use Spies! I saw some people requesting this and BELIEVE ME, its already there. I must have had my Iron, Uranium, and Coal all blown up at least a half a dozen times each and at one point, I had not ONE luxury left alive in my empire. There were at least 2 AIs pouring spies into my land (I caught Ottos and Germans on a few occasions).
The Bad:
1) Some of the AIs are still perhaps overbuilding units. The attached screenshot is from my first game. The Ottomans had almost 50 units stacked in a nearby border city (including over 30 Catapults and Trebs which had been converted to Cannon by the time of the screenshot). To me, that is still too many for that time in the game. It takes a LOT of hammers to build that huge force and it literally sat there until the Modern Age when it was converted into Artillery. That is a huge expense to be sitting on that long. I hestitate to want to see it totally changed but perhaps redistributing it a bit so its not all sitting in one huge stack? In my second game, there have been a lot more smaller wars which generally has kept the SODs reined in a bit. I havent seen stacks bigger than 12 or so in that game and it feels pretty 'correct'.
2) Sometimes the AIs dont know when to call it quits in a war. I had the Mongols repeatedly DoW me trying to capture a border city (that they didnt border...they were moving through the Chinese to get to me). He must have lost 100s of units over 5-6 wars (he went to war about every 20-25 turns). And he wasnt making much progress. The first war, he ALMOST took it with a humongous pile of units, but it held out. After that, it was mostly half-hearted attempts. The ONLY thing he wanted for peace was that city too. Blowing up his sea resource, starving out his coastal cities and even having the snot nuked out of his homeland wouldnt change his fixation on that city. Obviously even if he had eventually taken that city, it certainly would not have been worth cost (most of his major cities were nuked).
3) The building of much larger number of units is slowing tech progression down to the point where no one even got close to launching the Space Ship by game's end. I think 2 Civs had built the Casings and one was working on Thrusters by 2050. At some point, I think the AIs need to release that enough units is enough and focus on teching them rather than adding to them (new types such as aircraft notwithstanding).
Overall:
Like I said above, I'm actually very favorably impressed. The AIs certainly played a much 'tighter' game in this build. The biggest complaint (early wars of extermination by massed units) seems to be corrected. I think with a few more tweaks and bug fixes, this AI is pretty close realizing what I believe were the original goals for BetterAI. I think it still might be a bit too militaristic (not necessarily warlike, but arms racing), but its feeling like its moving in the right direction towards more balanced play again.
Great job on the latest build!
Attachments
I had the same feeling in a game I was having. Frederick (who was on a nearby island) kept on landing stacks of units by my nearest city (using triemes for transport).
Each time I would wipe the stack (of between 3 and 10 units) out. He would try a few times and then accept peace, only to declare war again 10 turns later.
He declared war like this at least 4 times.
I had decided that this was how the entire game was going to go, and was watching his stack of boats prepare themselves for the next declaration of war, when he asked for open borders instead.
He then sailed along my coastline and attacked the chinese instead.
I was impressed.
I am now using the AI handicaps by the way, so I am unsure if the new build or the handicaps have improved the game for me.
