[NFP] AI crazy about Science

[Kupe Navigator]

As it was found out, these three lines were modified/added in the April patch in the Victories.xml file and they gimp the AI the worst:

excuse me for being an idiot but... where do I edit it?

 

[MrRadar]

excuse me for being an idiot but... where do I edit it?

In your Steam folder: steamapps>common>

Spoiler :

 

[aieeegrunt]

Do you work for the CCP?

I have no idea what you are trying to say here

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

Here's a line I found today:

<Row ListType="RenaissancePseudoYields" Item="PSEUDOYIELD_GPP_PROPHET" Value="-100"/>

So, when I am using the mod where you can use 12 or 16 religions, people should be able to get great prophets later in the game. And you can. But, if I am understanding this right, doesn't this cut out the AI building this "district" associated with this pseudoyield? I'll tag @Infixo to confirm.

I'm using this as an example because 5 out of 13 civs in my game have no GPP's at all (now in the renaissance era). So, if I am setting up a game where I want later game religion to be relevant, I should remove this line, correct? There is a lot of potential in setting these pseudoyields, both good and bad.

 

[Infixo]

@DizzKneeLand33 Many civs have internal trait added „low religious preference”. They basically don’t build holy sites and don’t compete for a religion. Basically if a civ wants a religion, it should get in by Medieval era with no issues. So, this line from Renaissance is just a cherry on the top.
And, btw the above mentioned trait was added in GS as a response to players complaining that ALL civs build holy sites no matter what (which was true).

@DizzKneeLand33 So, if you really want all 16 civs to grab a religion - you should remove this low religious preference trait or at least weaken it. Now it has like -75 for GPP and -50 for Faith, if i remember correctly.

 

[Kotofei]

Well Potato McW just lost a game to an AI CV on turn 287 so there goes our theory about the AI not being able to win before T300, and my theory about it not being able to win CVs.

 

[MrRadar]

Well Potato McW just lost a game to an AI CV on turn 287 so there goes our theory about the AI not being able to win before T300, and my theory about it not being able to win CVs.

One of those days for AI, when the angle between the Moon and the jar was just right
Yes, on exceptional cases it can pull off a pre-t300 SV or CV. But those cases are truly exceptional. Worth uploading on YT for the views. Besides, he had a few modes on and he wasn't too keen on stopping that AI victory, which was quite feasible to do, I'd guess. A few purchases of some art would've helped, banning foreign rock bands and so on. But I suspect for this one lost game he hasn't uploaded a 100 or so that he'd won or was going to win

 

[Archon_Wing]

Well Potato McW just lost a game to an AI CV on turn 287 so there goes our theory about the AI not being able to win before T300, and my theory about it not being able to win CVs.

??? Was it one of the disaster saves?

 

[Kotofei]

??? Was it one of the disaster saves?

Nah, he was having fun trying a new strategy and wasn't paying attention. He said as much at the end of the video. I just didn't think it was possible for the AI to win CV at all, much less before turn 300.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Nah, he was having fun trying a new strategy and wasn't paying attention. He said as much at the end of the video. I just didn't think it was possible for the AI to win CV at all, much less before turn 300.

Maybe extra game modes?

Sometimes AI generates low culture randomly, making it easier to win culturally; I suppose this is still an outlier regardless.

 

[Buktu]

Maybe extra game modes?

Sometimes AI generates low culture randomly, making it easier to win culturally; I suppose this is still an outlier regardless.

I think he used SS, Barbarians (CS set to 0 though so there were none evolving) and monopolies. Since Vietnam (who won) conquered a decent amount of their continent I think the last one might have givem them a nice boost there.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I think he used SS, Barbarians (CS set to 0 though so there were none evolving) and monopolies. Since Vietnam (who won) conquered a decent amount of their continent I think the last one might have givem them a nice boost there.

Oh Monopolies is a broken game mode that makes culture victories much faster. I'm not crediting the AI with that especially if it barely makes 300.

Also from watching the video, that war against Vietnam was a complete waste of time. Not only was it too late, that's one of the worst ways to stop a culture victory unless you can destroy them completely. (Taking or even razing single cities does very little to cut tourism). Guess the open borders/trade route loss but ehh. Probably would have been better focusing on going to space faster.

But it's ok; I guess it's easy to caught off guard as this game doesn't really require you to halt other civs victories typically. And broken game modes are broken. I don't take any games using any of the extra game modes seriously.

 

[Aristos]

The best way to curtail any victory, but especially SV and CV, is by correct and aggressive use of spies. The AI has no clue how to defend against them (nor attack). You don't need one single shot to stop any CV, just a few Bonds. The same goes for stopping a SV. In fact, someone at FXS thought that it was brilliant to program the AI to go wide-SP strategy, when in fact it is worse. With a couple or three well promoted spies you can hit all AI's SPs before they can make use of them, and they cannot defend all of them even if they knew how to (which they don't). In the meanwhile, the human has their centralized SP in a city where 6-9 factories converge, with Magnus in charge, very easy to defend with one super spy... and game over.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Nah spies wouldn't have done much in that situation once all those tourism modifiers are set up and most tourism doesn't even come from static sources like great works but Rock Bands. Trying to "damage" them in that regards is a fundamentally flawed approach not to mention spies can only get off so many missions in the span of 20-30 turns.

The best ways are to preemptively kill of a couple of the weakest civs so all tourism from them is lost. In a game with 7 other civs, killing off 1 civ is basically 13% of tourism lost. But alternatively, just devote everything to win faster, and ignore them.... sadly the best strategy of all.

Now if we weren't playing the extra broken gimmick modes, a cultural alliance would have worked fine too and is probably my first response.

 

[Aristos]

Obviously I was talking about a mid to long term strat, nobody can pretend to solve the CV gap in the last 20 turns... you have to be on top of the VCs to be able to pre-empt them, even with this AI... did not watch PMcW's stream, but if he did not monitor the VCs, of course he could not react in the last 20 turns... this AI will stumble into a CV by accident if the player does not even monitor VCs and is late with his.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Obviously I was talking about a mid to long term strat, nobody can pretend to solve the CV gap in the last 20 turns... you have to be on top of the VCs to be able to pre-empt them, even with this AI... did not watch PMcW's stream, but if he did not monitor the VCs, of course he could not react in the last 20 turns... this AI will stumble into a CV by accident if the player does not even monitor VCs and is late with his.

I was kinda talking about stopping CVs in general, too. And you can still take measures even in that time. Spies can be useful but not essential. They are good in SVs though.

In non-monopolies the AI just doesn't make enough tourism unless your culture is really low, so signing a cultural alliance is just going to constantly push the finish line forward indefinitely so I think that's the best plan overall.

 

[Pietato]

Nah spies wouldn't have done much in that situation once all those tourism modifiers are set up and most tourism doesn't even come from static sources like great works but Rock Bands. Trying to "damage" them in that regards is a fundamentally flawed approach not to mention spies can only get off so many missions in the span of 20-30 turns.

The best ways are to preemptively kill of a couple of the weakest civs so all tourism from them is lost. In a game with 7 other civs, killing off 1 civ is basically 13% of tourism lost. But alternatively, just devote everything to win faster, and ignore them.... sadly the best strategy of all.

Now if we weren't playing the extra broken gimmick modes, a cultural alliance would have worked fine too and is probably my first response.

Rock bands only get tourism from the civ they play in (unless you have the AoE upgrade), so wiping out the weakest civ would do very little.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Rock bands only get tourism from the civ they play in (unless you have the AoE upgrade), so wiping out the weakest civ would do very little.

It depends on how much tourism they've accumulated already. The AI isn't smart as the human in concentrating them vs the highest domestic tourist civ. I'm also assuming the human is the domestic tourist leader and is smart enough to run Music Censorship. And if not, even the AI is smart enough to do that once they get the chance.

We only target the weakest civs because they are easier to kill and killing them removes already established tourists, as well as preventing future tourists from them, whereas attacking the civ directly or stealing their great works will only affect the future tourists earning potential.

I suppose it is more accurate to say to target the weakest civs that they've accumulated the most tourists in but that's hard to guess and I don't know how to get the info, nor would it be worth the effort anyways. Perhaps if you notice where they've been sending the RBs too, you could wipe out that civ or simply raze cities with many wonders which will limit the places Rock Bands can play.

And finally I was meaning to compare it to methods like spying and trying to kill them. Spying isn't going to do much because stealing some great works isn't that much tourism plus there are almost always not enough spaces as opposed to great people so it can be replaced fairly easily. Not to mention you need your own space to hold stolen works too.

None of the other missions will do anything other than indirect damage. Killing them will surely work but is significantly more tedious and harder while probably distracting you from whatever win condition you had plan than just picking on the easy fruit and depending on how close the cultural game is, may just pass the problem to somewhere else, whereas wiping out some civs will hurt all CV players.


To be fair either method needs to be done a bit in advance. But the goal is just to delay them so that they can't overcome you anyways. Maybe just wipe out some civs in advance just to be safe?

 

[Buktu]

Rock bands only get tourism from the civ they play in (unless you have the AoE upgrade), so wiping out the weakest civ would do very little.

Wiping out does not help you against rock bands but than again what can you do about rock bands playing in other players countries?
If I understand the math correctly rock bands get worse and worse when more civs are in the game since the ammount of tourists you get from a given ammount of tourism gets lower with every civ that started in the game (Foreign Tourists = Lifetime Tourism Output to that Civilization / (# of civilizations * 200)). So if you get 1000 tourism for example you get 5 tourists in a duel but only 1 if you play with 10 civs. Since I have never seen the AI have a super rock band with lots of promotions I assume they lose them quite regulaly and they don't play a huge role in AIs CVs in most games.
Anyway if you kill a civ every other civs looses 100% of their tourists from that civ. Sure thats just a few percents in games with many civs, e.g. around 11% in game with 10 civs. But as already mentioned Rock Bands are not that huge on a large map as well. Then again if you just play with 4 civs rock bands are more impactful again but wiping out a civ kills a much higher % (33,3) of their passive tourism and thus cripples CVs alot more.

 

[MrRadar]

Since I have never seen the AI have a super rock band with lots of promotions I assume they lose them quite regulaly and they don't play a huge role in AIs CVs in most games.

Nearly a couple of years ago, post-GS and pre-NFP, Kupe AI managed a T263 CV on standard size&speed Terra map, and he did have a few super-rockbands which rocked my cities for up to 20000 tourism per concert and more. But I've never seen something like this again iirc, and for sure not recently. And with the current fixation on science AI does not accumulate much faith, I imagine. During those AI games that I've observed, there were periods when rockband sounds spiked, but after a while they just go silent, all bands lost.