AI priorities

[jma22tb]

ya I went through the test game a bit more and found that everyone was expanding too much.

I think there's a way to fix that though - in the Cities AI file there's a strategy flavor setting that can emphasize or de-emphasize flavors at certain city size levels - "small, medium, or large".

Right now smalls only emphasize growth, which makes sense, but there's no production or gold. That might explain why England didn't do anything with the city - if they didn't research pottery, then they might not have built anything other than workers or military.

 

[Seek]

There's a typo at the top of the VEL flavors file: <\delete> I think it was. I erased this line before starting two test games this morning, and I saw normal growth - maybe that's the cause of the small city sizes?

 

[Thalassicus]

I've set things to these values for v151.2. The differences from v151 are:

• Growth was 4 for everyone (now 6).
• Expansion was 8 for conquerors, 4 for coalition/expansionist, and 2 for diplomats (now approximately doubled).

I think it should remain, for the reason Royco stated - militaristic AIs already do poorly in science, it makes sense for them to give some priority to science (just like any civ).

The AI builds units in cities with military_training buildings. Basically, if libraries have it, the AI thinks they provide an experience bonus like barracks. This might be one reason why AI units have such low experience in vanilla. It's building units in library cities instead of barracks cities.

Temple of Artemis - add growth
I meant to say raise the growth flavor here.

This would make AIs without a ranged UU more likely to build the Temple of Artemis. I consider it a low priority wonder for those leaders. The +10% food isn't much on its own, since population is limited by happiness.

There's a typo at the top of the VEL flavors file: <\delete> I think it was. I erased this line

That's not a typo - it deletes all the vanilla values. Without that line, you get a database error, and the file fails to load.

 

[Txurce]

As of t201 in an Emperor game, here is the city count:

7: Babylon (me, includes one conquered)
5: Rome (haven't found them)
5: Persia (despite being sealed off on one end by me)
4: Polynesia (haven't found them)
4: Songhai (room to grow, includes one CS)
4: Denmark (room to grow)
2: Arabia (room to grow, playing for culture)
1: Aztecs (lost too many wars)

Obviously this is much better than it's been recently, but still seems a bit low, don't you think?

 

[gdwitt]

What file does all this fit into in VEM?
I can only find VEL_personalities, and that only covers about 8 of the above characteristics.
Where else can I tune this?

 

[wobuffet]

As of t201 in an Emperor game, here is the city count:

7: Babylon (me, includes one conquered)
5: Rome (haven't found them)
5: Persia (despite being sealed off on one end by me)
4: Polynesia (haven't found them)
4: Songhai (room to grow, includes one CS)
4: Denmark (room to grow)
2: Arabia (room to grow, playing for culture)
1: Aztecs (lost too many wars)

Obviously this is much better than it's been recently, but still seems a bit low, don't you think?

Yes, this is definitely low for a Standard map. I'd expect a distribution more like
{15, 12, 9, 7, 6, 5, 3} for the AIs.

edit: That said, this is just compared to what AI Civs did before. If they're doing fine or better now, this doesn't necessarily need changing. I do suspect that they'd almost always do better with at least 6 or so Cities each (on a Standard map) though.

 

[Txurce]

I'm also ahead in science, but they seem to have dropped out of the GW competition. There's also no serious competition for CS alliances.

 

[Thalassicus]

What file does all this fit into in VEM?
Where else can I tune this?

It's in Leaders/VEL_Flavors.xml.

It might be easier to adjust things on the spreadsheet I use, attached it below. The tab you want is "Leader Priorities" in the green section. I set up the spreadsheet to automatically create the necessary xml data.

 

[Thalassicus]

v154.5 priorities:

• Reduced wonders for expansionists to 6 (was 8).
• Increased happiness for diplomats/expansionists to 6 (was 4).

Hopefully this should get them expanding more.

 

[gingaz]

Hello guys!

Just a quick question: does this patch deal in any way with AI's war tactics/algorithms?
(I assume this is the right thread to post about CivUP and GEM patches?)


In the original G&K I still get situations like:
1. AI attacks my fortified positions with trebuchets (undeployed) by simply ramming my armies
2. AI doesn't use siege units to bombard my fortifications
3. Sometimes AI "forgets" to use ranged units while half of its army is fighting.
4. AI keeps rallying in front of my fortifications until I cripple its forces from a distance, then it falls back and offers me a peace treaty with a plenty of gifts for the next 30 turns to thrive.
5. Strong AI unit embarks right in front of my citadel and get's finished off at least 2x quicker
6. Barbarians _usually_ do not use ranged attack from their encampments.

I'm really keen to try out this patch whenever I have time!

 

[Dunkah]

Welcome to the Forums gingaz!

I am not a modder, but have been on this forum for a very long time. I have both asked and seen this question asked many times.

With the exception of number 6, unfortunately no. None of the code deals with the AI's behavior. As far as we know that code is still buried in the core. But have hope new things are being found every day.

As far as number 6. Barbarians that shoot from camps are subject to being attacked and killed much quicker due to not having the defensive bonus. Typically they leave the roost and attack. Again, someday we will be able to actually program certain behaviors and then look out!

 

[mystikx21]

I haven't seen trebuchets attack undeployed in the mod. I assume they have a "no melee attack" flag.

I have seen the AI neglect to use them, but my suspicion is that the AI is trying to move units around too much rather than attack with them.

Fixing the embarked unit strength is supposed to be in the next update, though I don't think that will fix whether or not the AI deploys correctly around the coast. It will just make it cost less when it makes stupid decisions about unit positioning.

 

[Thalassicus]

I actually remember that - it's a rare bug in the unmodded game for over two years. Sometimes ranged units just glitch out and attack in melee. I don't think there's anything we can feasibly do to fix that in mods.

 

[mystikx21]

I have seen SoL do it (and a ranged sub in my mod-mod), but not an undeployed siege unit.

But it's very rare and I'm not sure I've seen the AI do it, it usually goes when I move somewhere I can't see. If that's what's happening, that might be fixed by the AI having sight bonuses on units by default.