AI really reluctant to expand in latest patch?
- Thread starter aimlessgun
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Lone Wolf
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I now have a funny mental image of Varn constantly touring all peoples of Erebus, making super-boring soporific speeches about the virtues of Empyrean values, 'till he annoys everyone so much, that everyone forgets their differences and kills him and his empire off.
I've awoken this thread as I've found another game where the Doviello haven't expanded. I've attached a screenshot of their position on turn 250, two cities.
They are in tundra so the next city sites might not be fantastic but they are the Doviello so they should get on with it. The best city site is north on the coast, in tundra, with 2 fish resources, a bronze, and the Ruins of Patria, so that should be settled! It's one of the best tundra city sites you could ever see. There are other city sites south and west and plenty of land further to the west for 4 more cities as well. More than that, there's a barbarian city with Yggdrasil on their north east border that they could easily take. They have 45 units (hunters, asenas) in one of their cities. They have an idle settler in their capital. There are no spiders or anything else in the land near Patria.
At a guess, is the AI discarding the tundra site, not seeing the fish resources, or ignoring resources 2 spaces away from the city?
They are in tundra so the next city sites might not be fantastic but they are the Doviello so they should get on with it. The best city site is north on the coast, in tundra, with 2 fish resources, a bronze, and the Ruins of Patria, so that should be settled! It's one of the best tundra city sites you could ever see. There are other city sites south and west and plenty of land further to the west for 4 more cities as well. More than that, there's a barbarian city with Yggdrasil on their north east border that they could easily take. They have 45 units (hunters, asenas) in one of their cities. They have an idle settler in their capital. There are no spiders or anything else in the land near Patria.
At a guess, is the AI discarding the tundra site, not seeing the fish resources, or ignoring resources 2 spaces away from the city?
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If they have 45+ units and only two cities, they're probably in financial meltdown and can't afford to build a new city. Just from my experience of watching the AI Autoplay over the last several weeks, I would hazard a guess that they don't have Festivals tech (for markets), and in fact, don't have any techs that allow them to build anything else besides troops, resulting in a constant cycle of troop production, strikes, unit disbanding, then rinse and repeat.
A relatively quick, simple solution is to increase the weight of grabbing Fishing and/or Festivals as early tech choices for the AI (this can be done in the python chooseProduction code).
A relatively quick, simple solution is to increase the weight of grabbing Fishing and/or Festivals as early tech choices for the AI (this can be done in the python chooseProduction code).
Onionsoilder
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I don't know about Doviello or Balserphs, but in M it almost seems like the Khazad are too eager to expand. I constantly see them gobbling up the tiniest bits of land, locted in far away areas with no resources, which doesn't seem right since they're supposed to have several really large cities and a giant treasury.
Just be sure you get the python console window (it will have the text python in it). There is another one that will just throw errors if you try this.
Sorry, I said ctrl instead of shift.
With a swedish keyboard:
Set the cheatcode as described above.
In a game press shift + ö to open the python console. As Tholal said make sure you got the python console and not just console (the console is an empty window).
Type what I said above.
If you want to stop the AI from playing with itself prematurely: press the up arrow and change the number of turns to something else (I use 1 to get it to stop, 0 should work too).
When you and the AI are done: press ö to close the console. You can do this earlier if you want to zoom around the map. It's slow however, as the computer is busy playing.
With a swedish keyboard:
Set the cheatcode as described above.
In a game press shift + ö to open the python console. As Tholal said make sure you got the python console and not just console (the console is an empty window).
Type what I said above.
If you want to stop the AI from playing with itself prematurely: press the up arrow and change the number of turns to something else (I use 1 to get it to stop, 0 should work too).
When you and the AI are done: press ö to close the console. You can do this earlier if you want to zoom around the map. It's slow however, as the computer is busy playing.
I did some brute force and to me alt + ö was the console and Ä was the python console.
My AI tests show that the AI have no idea on how to use conquest civic. you should not use conquest if your cities are not add happiness or health limit.
The worst that happened in my game with AI Bannor was that the blight reduced his cities to size 1 and he continued to have conquest completely removing his chances to recover.
If the computer is to like conquest this much it needs to build more building in small cities to allow them to grow. But I would prefer if the AI only used conquest when it did not want it's cities to grow or perhaps never.
My AI tests show that the AI have no idea on how to use conquest civic. you should not use conquest if your cities are not add happiness or health limit.
The worst that happened in my game with AI Bannor was that the blight reduced his cities to size 1 and he continued to have conquest completely removing his chances to recover.
If the computer is to like conquest this much it needs to build more building in small cities to allow them to grow. But I would prefer if the AI only used conquest when it did not want it's cities to grow or perhaps never.
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I've played an number of patch M games with AI Doviello now, and I think their poor performance is caused by two problems related to their Worldspell. In every game I've played the Doviello have initially done just fine: expanding, teching, building an army, and attacking a weak neighbor. That's when it all goes wrong.
The first problem is that they automatically cast their Worldspell the turn they attack (rather than waiting until their army is next to an enemy city). This puts the Doviello into immediate economic stress, and they handle the problem poorly. Rather than combining wolves into Wolf Packs until costs were under control, or bottoming out research for a few turns until the Wolves can be used up in combat, the Doviello instead delete units. This would be inefficient and wasteful if they were deleting wolves (why cast the Worldspell at all, then, just save it for defense) - but what happens is that they keep the wolves and delete their other units! This is catastrophic, because it eliminates any hope of victory in the war they just started. If they had waited until their army was in position then they could have attacked with the wolves in that army. Most would die, and no support would every be paid for them. Then, wolves away from the front could be combined into Wolf Packs until costs were brought under control, and those Wolf Packs then moved toward the front to be used up to make room to support regular reinforcements.
The second problem, which I believe was already mentioned earlier in the thread, is that the Doviello no longer move their wolves. This finishes the Doviello off. After they have deleted many of their non-Wolf units they are then stuck supporting a large number of units with which they can't do anything. Often, many of these wolves are outside Doviello borders, so that they are also paying both Unit Cost and Unit Supply for these units. They don't move these units to attack their enemies or defend their cities, and the result of being stuck in a war with (an effectively) reduced army support potential is that they are either defeated or else simply never grow.
I'm not sure why the Doviello no longer move their wolves, but I know that they used to do so. Perhaps this is a recently-introduced bug that can be fixed in patch N. Addressing the other problem might be more complicated. If nothing else, at least the Doviello should be made to delete units from weakest to strongest if they feel that they must delete units. In this way their Worldspell would be wasted but their regular combat troops (and hope for victory) would remain.
The first problem is that they automatically cast their Worldspell the turn they attack (rather than waiting until their army is next to an enemy city). This puts the Doviello into immediate economic stress, and they handle the problem poorly. Rather than combining wolves into Wolf Packs until costs were under control, or bottoming out research for a few turns until the Wolves can be used up in combat, the Doviello instead delete units. This would be inefficient and wasteful if they were deleting wolves (why cast the Worldspell at all, then, just save it for defense) - but what happens is that they keep the wolves and delete their other units! This is catastrophic, because it eliminates any hope of victory in the war they just started. If they had waited until their army was in position then they could have attacked with the wolves in that army. Most would die, and no support would every be paid for them. Then, wolves away from the front could be combined into Wolf Packs until costs were brought under control, and those Wolf Packs then moved toward the front to be used up to make room to support regular reinforcements.
The second problem, which I believe was already mentioned earlier in the thread, is that the Doviello no longer move their wolves. This finishes the Doviello off. After they have deleted many of their non-Wolf units they are then stuck supporting a large number of units with which they can't do anything. Often, many of these wolves are outside Doviello borders, so that they are also paying both Unit Cost and Unit Supply for these units. They don't move these units to attack their enemies or defend their cities, and the result of being stuck in a war with (an effectively) reduced army support potential is that they are either defeated or else simply never grow.
I'm not sure why the Doviello no longer move their wolves, but I know that they used to do so. Perhaps this is a recently-introduced bug that can be fixed in patch N. Addressing the other problem might be more complicated. If nothing else, at least the Doviello should be made to delete units from weakest to strongest if they feel that they must delete units. In this way their Worldspell would be wasted but their regular combat troops (and hope for victory) would remain.
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