AI getting smarter at high difficulty levels?!

[Psyringe]

There is nothing to "admit", except that the AI is programmed rather effective in this respect. It has three war modes: Limited war (which you seem to mistake for "They don't hurt each other"), dogpile war (which you seem to mistake for "unfair ganging up"), and "Total war" (which you seem to mistake for "one AI gives in to another"). What exactly is your criticism regarding this design?

And of course it's fair to gang up on another player if ye provides the opportunity. It happens all the time in multi-player. I do it regularly on single player. Draw neighbours in a war against another civ, joining in, trying to get an advantage. This is strategy. I don't see where your problem is? (Besides, how do you get from "two AIs attacked me at the same time" to "five of six players sontaneously gang up on one"? Does your savegame show this? It doesn't seem so. Your savegame seems to show that *two* AIs gang up on *one* player. Where's your problem with that? You'll be hard pressed to find a multi-player game where this doesn't happen. If you think this to be unfair, I'd recommend to stay away from playing with real human beings.

The point why the other AIs don't capitalize on a weakness you see there should be investigated. There are many possible reasons (good relations, not wanting to lose trade, being too weak themselves etc.), but without seeing the savegame I obviously cannot say much about it yet.

One problem I already see, however, is that you saved too late. If I understood you correctly, there's no way for me to observe the AIs actually declaring war on you, od looking at the sitruation *before* war has been declared to investigate the reasons.

 

[Zorlond]

The war was declared centuries ago. There hasn't been a moment when I -wasn't- 'at war' since I met them (no, I didn't declare it). Up until that save point, the only other battle that happened was a weak-ass amphibious assault. Two greek units in a boat, taken out by a lone swordsman unit (heck, they chose to off-load right into him, fortified in the hills). Xander actually sued for peace twice, but his terms were that I hand over all my tech in excahnge for nothing but peace. Considering how the so-called-war had been going up to that point, can you blame me for throwing the offers back in his face? I've dealt with this kind of crap in every Civ since 1. The only way to get a fair peace out of an AI is to go across the whole continent and kick his butt on his turf, not something I was about to do given the distance involved. So, far as I was concerned he could declare war until he was blue in the face.

So then I've got a situation where the AI was apparently incapable of reasonably stopping the war, and thus he does something even more ludicrous, waste the time and resources to actually make an attack that I wouldn't shrug off. To force this to actually happen, the AIs have to work together deliberately, either by direct attack, aiding the attack (Open Borders), or just not doing anything to stall it (no weakness exploitation). This is an unrealistic conjunction of events. Human players would have stabbed them in the back the moment this went down, you know they would have.

 

[Psyringe]

Okay, I had a look on your savegame. I'm not sure how to put it ... you were kidding, right? Please tell me you were. Because if this save shows anything, then it shows that the AI does *not* gang up on the player even in a situation when this would be the only way to stop him.

First: In this game, you are leading the pack by a huge margin. You have nearly twice the score of anyone else. You founded five religions. If the AIs don't do anything against it, you are guaranteed to win (you're probably guaranteed to win even if they do, although your neglecting of your military *may* break your neck). Your only weakness is your military, you're defending 10 rich, wealthy, highly developed cities with exactly one archer in each city. You have by far the best cities in the whole game, yet you have by far the weakest defense of any civ in the game. And you wonder that other civs declare war on you, and take that as a sign of AIs unfairly dogpiling on you?

Second, you are Christian. With one exception everyone else on your continent is Hindu: Isabella, Monty, Tokugawa, Roosevelt, Alexander, and Genghis Khan. All these civs are on good or at least neutral terms with each other. You are the heathen who has a negative diplomacy modifier in effect where nearly everyone else has a positive one. And you wonder that other civs declare war on you, and take that as a sign of AIs unfairly dogpiling on you?

Third, why does Isabella grant open borders to Alexander and Genghis? That's easy, both share her religion, which gives them a huge diplomacy bonus especially with Isabella. Furthermore, as I said above, you are the score leader and about to win. Why should Isabella hinder other people trying to stop you? If anything, she should join in. I actually wonder why she doesn't. She doesn't have many offensive units, I think she focused more on expansion. She has more room left to expand into than any other civ in the game, Aleander and especially Genghis are much more boxed in. My guess is that Isabella will settle the remaining space and then attack you, if your military is still so weak then. (And about Isabella calling Genghis her mortal enemy 10 turns before; I don't really believe it. She has a +6 religion modifier in diplomacy towards him, and this modifier doesn't start at +6, it builds up over time. She may have called him an enemy before he converted to her religion (she is programmed to weigh religion heavily), but that should have been longer ago. In any case, switching to Isabella's religion will always greatly improve relations with her, no matter if an AI does it or a human player.)

Fourth, why don't the other civs capitalize on the Greek and Mongol armies being abroad? Counter question, why do you think the Greek and Mongols provide easy targets? They don't. Alexander has guarded his cities with Archers and Phalanxes, Genghis with Longbowmen (apart from the dozen of keshik's he has also running around). Contrary to you, Alexander and Genghis did not neglect their defenses. There's no reason for anyone to attack them: It would be much too costly to field an attack force capable of taking their cities, and neither Alexander nor Genghis poses a threat score-wise, so there's no reason to pillage their territory either. Also, since most civs are hinduistic, most other civs either like these two or are neutral towards them. So why on earth should anyone attack them?

Fifth, why do Genghis and Alexander wage war on you even though war is supposed to be costly? Because you basically invited them with your abysmal defense force. They have forces en route wjich *will* take your cities if you don't do anything against it. This means that they will be able to take some of the best cities in the world. Now tell me again that they are crippling themselves with this war.

I'm sorry, but again there is no basis for your claims whatsoever, and I actually wonder how you got these ideas. When two militarily strong civs attack you, with you being the by far richest and militarily by far weakest civ, then it might make sense to blame one's defense strategy instead of claiming that the AI cheats. You'll never improve your strategies if you blame your mistakes on others.

I analyzed this savegame because I *am* interested in AI behaviour and I'm very willing to test whether it cheats or not. But this savegame turned out to be a total waste of time.

 

[Thormodr]

Sounds like a typical builders lament, "Why can't they just leave me alone! I build up a beautiful empire and totally neglect my military. Why are they attacking me?" Man, when I get time, I am going to analyze this save game too.

 

[Zorlond]

Considering the joy you apparently had in hammering me down -yet- again, I question your definition of 'waste of time'.

Also, how did kingdoms on the far side of the globe, with no exploring units in my land, -know- my military was 'weak'? Now -that- cheat has been in since games had any form of AI at all.

Last thought: Hell with it. I'm sick of the insults. I'm officially Done with this place.

 

[Psyringe]

I can assure you that I definitely didn't feel any joy in "hammering down" your theory. In fact I would have enjoyed our discussion if there had been any basis for your claims, because in this case I could have learned something more about the AI behavior, a topic in which - as I said - I'm very interested. But unfortunately this wasn't the case.

To answer your question how the AI knows that your military was weak: Why shouldn't they, a rival's military strength is an information that you (the human player) can access anytime after contacting someone. Just enter the Info Screen (F9) and click through the score charts for production, gold, and power. They show clearly to anyone that your empire is rich, productive, and weakly defended. You can even see that Alexander and Genghis are stronger in their military (and could have prepared for their attack). Also, it's only fair to them to know that you don't have longbowmen yet - they can see that you don't have the necessary tech, the same way you can see this in the tech trade screen.

So if the human player accesses and utilizes this information from the score tables and the foreign advisor screen, then it's okay, but if the AI does so, it's cheating?

(Btw, I haven't tested whether the AI has more information on your military than these values. The AIs had specific information about your city defenses in Civ3, it's supposed not to have those in Civ4, and my gaming experience seems to support that, but I haven't tested it yet. So I can't say whether there is a cheat somewhere along that road or not. But my point is that such a cheat simply isn't necessary to spot you as an easy and worthwile target for attacks in your game. The AI can do so with no more means of getting information than the player has.)

Regarding your last sentence, I'm not sure what you're referring to. I don't remember insulting you; if I did so, I apologize. I did slam your arguments and claims, but prefer to think that I did so with my own arguments, not with insults. I usually prefer a "softer" style of discussion btw, but since you continually claimed cheats without having any basis for it, and didn't seem to change that even after several of your claims were proven to be wrong, I decided that there was no reason to go easy on further claims.

 

[Sorceresss]

Sounds like a typical builders lament, "Why can't they just leave me alone! I build up a beautiful empire and totally neglect my military. Why are they attacking me?"

I am a builder. I find this post offensive : makes me look naive & dumb.

 

[Thormodr]

What I meant was when builders complain, this is the usual style. I prefer the peaceful style myself and I know what happens when I neglect my military. It's all about balance.
If you play a well balanced game then you are neither naive nor dumb. You would then have no reason whatsoever to find my post offensive. Game on