AI Moding Questions

[n003lb]

I'll say sorry up front if this has been asked and answered. For some reason, Civ Fanatics' search function just doesn't work right for me. It rarely ever returns a hit, even if I search for something that is on the 1st page. As such, I can't search for this, and I didn't see it in the first few pages, though I may have missed it.

Question is, has anyone figured out how to code the AI to make use of land-based transports yet?

Also, how hard would it be for one of you SDK modders to modify the AI to use forts more? I would look into it, but I'm not much of a programmer. I can merge SDK mods together for the most part, but I can't do my own programming. What I am looking for here is some way to make the AI use Jeckel's JForts mod, or just forts in general. I mention JFort mainly because it's a mod that actually makes forts a usefull feature. If this is possible, how hard would it be to get one of you guys to do it, or help me figure out how to do it.

 

[The Great Apple]

As far as I can tell the AI will never use forts. There are very few instances where a human would use a fort, and convincing the AI to correctly identify these istances would be pretty tough.

I'm pretty sure land-based transports haven't been done yet, although I could be wrong. IIRC it's harder then it sounds.

 

[n003lb]

As far as I can tell the AI will never use forts. There are very few instances where a human would use a fort, and convincing the AI to correctly identify these istances would be pretty tough.

Thats the thing about JFort. It would make a lot more instances where a human would use a fort. With it's ZOC and auto attack abilities, it makes forts much more suited to border defence and patrol. Another use would be coastal defence.

Here's an idea. How hard would it be to code the AI to place a fort if certain conditions were met? Say, hills that are on a coast or cultural border without a city within say 4 spaces. Add in another condition that it would not place forts within 4 spaces of each other. Then, you might could continue to add conditionals to make the AI seem more intelligent. It might not make as effective use of forts as a human might, but then we'll never make the computer as good as a human. I would also decrease the time it takes to build a fort, to make them more feasible.

This should also be toggleable in a config file or something, so that if you don't have a good fort mod installed, the computer won't waste a bunch of resources building useless forts.

Wish I was a programmer. I'd be tempted to give it a shot.

 

[Jeckel]

I must say I officially support the request for some form of AI behavior modification in relation to forts. Its like they through forts in the game just because they didn't want to listen to complaints for leaving it out. But they reduced it to somthing that you only build for astetic resons or just to say you have a fort. Since they did put them in the game though, I think it would be nice if they worked atleast as good as forts in Civ3.

The technicals of it is a little complex, true, but no more so then many of the sdk mods out their that add new functions and systems to the game. But like all projects of its scale, the bottom line is their has to be someone with the knowledge, time, and desire to do it.

As of yet, there hasn't been anyone to jump up and do it, but new people come on this site every day, so it doesn't hurt to raise the issue every now and then.

For my part, I will continue to use what python skills I have to improve the fort. I am currently in the concept tweeking phases of a Fort Manager mod that will make the fort itself a waaaay more interesting improvement..