AI STEAMROLLING TEST

[Engeez]

Okay so I put the AI to the test seeing why the hell they had so much problems taking cities.

What I did was add crazy bombard strength to archers, crossbows, cannons & machine guns so they could one shot walls and defenses to see what happens. I put it on auto play Deity and let the fun begin.

Gorgo was first to the party and ruined the human player Mali right away with hoplites. Three cities toast.

Literally one turn later Norway attacks France from the south (France borders Gorgo to the east). Norway destroys walls and has a swordsman right next to the city and doesn’t attack (had 5-6 chances to take city). I look around Norway’s land and I can find a single amenity?

This next part may be hard to follow: Gorgo immediately DOW on France. At the same time Norway get DOW by Japan to their East and Brazil to their South. Norway is completely swallowed in less than 5 turns by both.

Gorgo takes 4/6 of France’s cities within 10 turns, Leaving their Capital?? and a snow city.

Japan now DOW Brazil and destroys their walls and then sits around like Norway did to France??? Surrounding their city but never taking it.

There were some brief loyalty swaps after this and fast forward a little and nukes start flying left right and center.

Japan once again DOW Brazil and does the same damn thing. Ruins their defences and has a festival with their melee units around their city. All of the sudden after about 10 turns they take 3 of Brazil’s cities within 5 turns, then stop and wait again around another one of their cities.

In all this mess France still had their Capital and now 2 other snow cities while Gorgo is sitting there with about 40 GDR’s doing nothing but having a full out nuclear war with Netherlands to their S.E.

My conclusion: I have to believe it’s because of amenities that the AI refuses to take cities. Anyone else have thoughts on this? I know it’s not loyalty.

Also this AI playthrough was far and away the wildest thing I have ever seen. There must have been 1-2 hundred nukes dropped in the game.

Moderator Action: Changed a word in your post because it was not family friendly. Please follow the forum rules for language in future. Thanks, leif

 

[Victoria]

Lol, wild test, interesting results. Helps with understanding, thanks.
There are experts in the decision tree here that could comment far better than me but giving bombard strength ensured civs would be very confident to attack. Very interesting about the amenities, have you checked the state of their cities? Firetuner shows you city amenities I believe. I have always contended this and war weariness are in the decision. Quite possibly loyalty is a thing now if they took 3 at once.

 

[Infixo]

My conclusion: I have to believe it’s because of amenities that the AI refuses to take cities. Anyone else have thoughts on this? I know it’s not loyalty.

Before I comment - could you please explain what exactly do you mean by that? How amenities are related to the willingness to take cities in your opinion?
Also - did you perform a second test where conditions are opposite to see if results are opposite or at least meaningfully different?

 

[Victoria]

@Engeez , if you gave the attacking civ lots of extra amenities in their cities via firetuner and observed if there was a difference it would also give strength.

@Infixo I have seen some evidence of civs taking or accepting cities based on the happiness in their empire. The civs with many large cities sort of stop wanting to expand unless they have a large number of luxuries.
One such occasion Gilgamesh attacked and my horsemen and a scout took out a few of his luxe’s, he reduced my city but did not take it. Just loitered around, purely circumstantial and anecdotal. Fully respect any opinion you have.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Makes me wonder if the AI is programmed to play the way the devs think the game mechanics are supposed to work. So war weariness and a lack of amenities are supposed to slow down your warmongering. You are supposed to go "oh no, I got a bunch of cities with war weariness and they have become "discontent" because of lack of loyalties. I better pause my warmongering and focus on amenities". The issue is that the human player knows that it does not matter so they keep warmongering anyway. The player knows that it's better to finish your warmongering, take the remaining cities that will prevent any flipping and then when the war is over, it's easy to fix the lack of amenities problem.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Makes me wonder if the AI is programmed to play the way the devs think the game mechanics are supposed to work. So war weariness and a lack of amenities are supposed to slow down your warmongering. You are supposed to go "oh no, I got a bunch of cities with war weariness and they have become "discontent" because of lack of loyalties.

Would make perfect sense that the AI would reflect the Developer's view of the world I guess!

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Would make perfect sense that the AI would reflect the Developer's view of the world I guess!

Of course. But I think it would also shed light into the "AI problem". Basically, the AI is "bad" because it is deliberately programmed to play in a way that the devs think makes sense but that the human players knows to be suboptimal.

 

[cvb]

giving bombard strength ensured civs would be very confident to attack.

Civs built randomly(?) the stronger units and gained only then from that the conviction of large superiority and attacked (because of that) other civs without such units??

Also - did you perform a second test where conditions are opposite to see if results are opposite or at least meaningfully different?

(the civs, which built the modified / weak units, could be now the victims)

I have seen some evidence of civs taking or accepting cities based on the happiness in their empire. The civs with many large cities sort of stop wanting to expand unless they have a large number of luxuries.

I've seen on youtube mods for a lot of extra amenities ... would /do those "surplus" amenities change that want to expand??! (provided the AIplayers find it at all useful to pick them or dig them out and not just let them be)
Ie. would those extra amenities make them more aggressive (with appropriate increased want to use them)?

 

[Victoria]

would those extra amenities make them more aggressive

There seem to be at least 2 decision trees here
Certainly there is one to assess attacking a city, I have seen that and what @Engeez has done is remove the limiting factor of having something that will take down the walls. So this allows the AI to attack a walled city based on superiority rather than having a siege engine near.
Whether there is another ... I have not looked at all the decision trees but I will look now. I doubt there is as @Infixo is querying the validity of amenities.

I have not added amenities either via a mod or in fir-tuner to see a difference but it is indeed a good test as is performing a negative test.

 

[agonistes]

Okay so I put the AI to the test seeing why the hell they had so much problems taking cities.

What I did was add crazy bombard strength to archers, crossbows, cannons & machine guns so they could one shot walls and defenses to see what happens. I put it on auto play Deity and let the fun begin.

Gorgo was first to the party and ruined the human player Mali right away with hoplites. Three cities toast.

Literally one turn later Norway attacks France from the south (France borders Gorgo to the east). Norway destroys walls and has a swordsman right next to the city and doesn’t attack (had 5-6 chances to take city). I look around Norway’s land and I can find a single amenity?

This next part may be hard to follow: Gorgo immediately DOW on France. At the same time Norway get DOW by Japan to their East and Brazil to their South. Norway is completely swallowed in less than 5 turns by both.

Gorgo takes 4/6 of France’s cities within 10 turns, Leaving their Capital?? and a snow city.

Japan now DOW Brazil and destroys their walls and then sits around like Norway did to France??? Surrounding their city but never taking it.

There were some brief loyalty swaps after this and fast forward a little and nukes start flying left right and center.

Japan once again DOW Brazil and does the same damn thing. Ruins their defences and has a bukkake with their melee units around their city. All of the sudden after about 10 turns they take 3 of Brazil’s cities within 5 turns, then stop and wait again around another one of their cities.

In all this mess France still had their Capital and now 2 other snow cities while Gorgo is sitting there with about 40 GDR’s doing nothing but having a full out nuclear war with Netherlands to their S.E.

My conclusion: I have to believe it’s because of amenities that the AI refuses to take cities. Anyone else have thoughts on this? I know it’s not loyalty.

Also this AI playthrough was far and away the wildest thing I have ever seen. There must have been 1-2 hundred nukes dropped in the game.

I watched Mexico City chain raze Canadian cities in my current game. Thought they were going to drive the canucks back into the sea. Obviously the ai isn't taking my cities, although I di have one unwalled coast city that I'm nervous about, as Norway, Dido, and England are about and my ocean navy is one force-rushed pirate ship.

I'm pretty sure you're right. Its the same with settling. Civs with more luxuries or arenas settle more. I've gifted several luxuries to one civ before to speed up settling. I often do with the leaders I like, or any runts.

 

[Infixo]

@Infixo I have seen some evidence of civs taking or accepting cities based on the happiness in their empire. The civs with many large cities sort of stop wanting to expand unless they have a large number of luxuries.
One such occasion Gilgamesh attacked and my horsemen and a scout took out a few of his luxe’s, he reduced my city but did not take it. Just loitered around, purely circumstantial and anecdotal. Fully respect any opinion you have.

That would make sense and I would be happy if Firaxis actually implemented that.
However, the decision to start a war and capture cities is more complex, there are many more varialbles that AI considers.
The way one tests if a variable affects the outcome is to perform a base test, then change the variable and see the outcome.
So, to test if amenities affect behavior of the AI you need an empire that has lower amenities and the same situation with surplus of amenities. Then do 2 auto-plays and see if there is a significant difference.
In the OP test the parameters changed are walls and strength of units. So yes. It proves that AI considers if a city can be taken (walls) and how easy (strength of units). Anybody expected a different result? There is nothing about amenities, hence my question is: why a conclusion like this?

 

[Elhoim]

Try a test with:

UPDATE GlobalParameters SET Value = 20 WHERE Name ='CITY_AMENITIES_FOR_FREE';

And maybe we can see if it's the lack of amenities...

 

[cvb]

Engeez has done is remove the limiting factor of having something that will take down the walls. So this allows the AI to attack a walled city based on superiority rather than having a siege engine near. Whether there is another ...

I'm a bit puzzled. It seems, to attack another Civ a Civ needs
a) conviction of superiority (based on relative military strength) and
b) the will to expand (based on availability / scarcity of amenities)
Furthermore
c) having a siege engine near
would help in case of walled city (the critical case).

Your mention of b) is new to me. And I would find it quite funny, if added amenities via mod could help with the issue of passive AIs ... until now I found additional amenities rather uninteresting.

 

[Infixo]

I have not added amenities either via a mod or in fir-tuner to see a difference but it is indeed a good test as is performing a negative test.

Wrote my answer before reading that

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Makes me wonder if the AI is programmed to play the way the devs think the game mechanics are supposed to work. So war weariness and a lack of amenities are supposed to slow down your warmongering. You are supposed to go "oh no, I got a bunch of cities with war weariness and they have become "discontent" because of lack of loyalties. I better pause my warmongering and focus on amenities". The issue is that the human player knows that it does not matter so they keep warmongering anyway. The player knows that it's better to finish your warmongering, take the remaining cities that will prevent any flipping and then when the war is over, it's easy to fix the lack of amenities problem.

That would also be appropriate behaviour under Civ 5 rules, where investing in happiness before expanding is prudent strategy.

Seems funny if the AI was taught to fight the last war!

 

[Engeez]

Before I comment - could you please explain what exactly do you mean by that? How amenities are related to the willingness to take cities in your opinion?
Also - did you perform a second test where conditions are opposite to see if results are opposite or at least meaningfully different?

I ran a second test and changed entertainment complex & street carnival entertainment values to 20 and Kongo and let it run and went to bed when I woke up Kongo owned the entire map so amenities have to be a big reason why.

 

[Casworon]

This is actually fascinating. A big example of the difference between how the game is designed to be played vs how it actually is played.

Tbh i barely even pay attention to amenities since the penalties for having negative amenities really aren't that great.

Falling into negative amenities needs to be made much more costly before its a thing i will pay attention too

 

[Infixo]

I ran a second test and changed entertainment complex & street carnival entertainment values to 20 and Kongo and let it run and went to bed when I woke up Kongo owned the entire map so amenities have to be a big reason why.

And how is this different from the original game? Maybe run it through the night too and eventually one civ will own entire map too.

 

[Engeez]

And how is this different from the original game? Maybe run it through the night too and eventually one civ will own entire map too.

I have done that before many times and have never seen steamrolls occur. Maybe one to two cities but that’s it.

It’s possible the combination of strong urban defenses and lack of amenities prevents this from happening, that would be my guess.

Also on Deity, the AI has an large amount of units, and when trying to take another AI city with a large amount of units, both parties lose a ton each. I believe that contributes to war weariness/unhappiness but not 100% sure how that mechanic works.

Anyways if you guys want to try it out for yourselves and see how crazy the AI can get, give it a try. I definitely won’t have time to keep doing this as I probably only have another week of play b4 my busy season begins.

I will run one more game and be specific with civs. I believe Alexander’s trait is no war weariness so I’ll include him, and of course Gorgo cause she’s always up for a battle. My next play through I’ll document things a little better and be specific what I changed to what values.

 

[Casworon]

I would love to try this. If you could specify what values you changed i would be very grateful