AI suggestions

[ori]

this is true, but again speaks against a flat anti-barb bonus, it would need to be a +50% or higher bonus even on deity which later on would just mean that any barb city would be taken by the nearest available AI.

Frankly what about a simple neanderthal malus, say -50% for city attack? that way they'll still be nuisance in raging barbs by destroying all improvements but won't wipe out AIs early on, hell, one could even remove that once neanderthal culture is built...

 

[EldrinFal]

Simple solutions can often be the best ones That's a good idea. I would lean towards -25% to start though and see how that fares. Raging Barbs should still be a challenge since, as an optional difficulty, it is meant to add challenge.

 

[Koshling]

As for AI suggestions: The poor AI is still lousy at city placement and/or doesn't evaluate for the third plot ring at all. On resources, one plot away from coast, in a heavy tundra/permafrost/ice region. This is with v17, still. And also still switch Civics a bit too often. In fact Civic switching by Assyria in my latest game had a very bad result for him:
Both of us were pressing culture against each other. With battles swaying the outcome to my side and with civic changes capping his culture growth he lost a city via culture flipping DURING his civic anarchy (which as far as I know is a time when you can't do much about it, if anything can be done at all).

Yeh. I haven't had time to look at either of these elements since about V12. On day (hopefully soon!)...

 

[Koshling]

Simple solutions can often be the best ones That's a good idea. I would lean towards -25% to start though and see how that fares. Raging Barbs should still be a challenge since, as an optional difficulty, it is meant to add challenge.

I agree - this seems a good suggestion (and doesn't need me to fiddle with the AI while I have about a million other things on my list so it gets my vote!). Should just require having a negative <iCityAttack> value on the Neanders I think.

 

[BlueGenie]

Good solution. Still won't play with them, but a good solution nonetheless.

 

[strategyonly]

Good solution. Still won't play with them, but a good solution nonetheless.

ahaha just like your name ID, popping in and saying wishful things, and poof gone, and not even using it yourself, NICE

 

[EldrinFal]

Pushed the -25% to SVN. To be fair I applied it to both the wild Neanderthals and the ones made with the Culture.

 

[BlueGenie]

Ok, been thinking about it and have a possible solution for the AI Civic switching:

Like you said Koshling, there's not really any way to set the AI's up with a good way to handle when to switch (bunch together and take all at once, for saving turns might work, wait until golden age will not) so an intermediate solution is this:

Have three (or four) hidden techs (not in the tech tree, if that's possible) that one can't tech normally, the only way to get them is from start of game IF one is an AI.
On Settler difficulty the AI doesn't get any.
Chieftain, Warlord, Noble; Free Tech: Civic Anarchy I (-25% Anarchy from Civic changes)
Prince, Monarch, Emperor; Free Tech: Civic Anarchy II (-50% Anarchy from Civic changes)
Immortal, Deity; Free Tech: Civic Anarchy III (-75% Anarchy from Civic changes)
With four it could be
Chieftain, Warlord; -20%
Noble, Prince; -40%
Monarch, Emperor; -60%
Immortal, Deity; -80%

Cheers

 

[Koshling]

Ok, been thinking about it and have a possible solution for the AI Civic switching:

Like you said Koshling, there's not really any way to set the AI's up with a good way to handle when to switch (bunch together and take all at once, for saving turns might work, wait until golden age will not) so an intermediate solution is this:

Have three (or four) hidden techs (not in the tech tree, if that's possible) that one can't tech normally, the only way to get them is from start of game IF one is an AI.
On Settler difficulty the AI doesn't get any.
Chieftain, Warlord, Noble; Free Tech: Civic Anarchy I (-25% Anarchy from Civic changes)
Prince, Monarch, Emperor; Free Tech: Civic Anarchy II (-50% Anarchy from Civic changes)
Immortal, Deity; Free Tech: Civic Anarchy III (-75% Anarchy from Civic changes)
With four it could be
Chieftain, Warlord; -20%
Noble, Prince; -40%
Monarch, Emperor; -60%
Immortal, Deity; -80%

Cheers

I'd prefer to try to fix the AI. I hate giving it artificial advantages that are not transparent to the user. If I can't resolve it with better AI we can fall back to this sort of thing.

 

[Nevets_]

I'm not sure if anyone's noticed this, but since the government civic changed from hard caps on # of cities to unhappiness penalties for going over the limit, the AI has gone back into 'settle everything you can' mode. My current game has every AI over-expanded, they haven't even discovered bronze working yet and some of the have 12+ cities. Every city but their capital is unhappy, most of them have shrunk to size one.

I'm playing on Prince, and I was at/near the bottom of the score board all through the prehistoric age, but after we got tribalism all the other civs did was build tribes and overexpand, to the point where they are spending all their income on city maintenance and unit support costs and barely researching. Is it possible to hard-code the AI to respect over-expansion limits, and only go over the limit if they capture a city during wartime?

 

[Koshling]

I'm not sure if anyone's noticed this, but since the government civic changed from hard caps on # of cities to unhappiness penalties for going over the limit, the AI has gone back into 'settle everything you can' mode. My current game has every AI over-expanded, they haven't even discovered bronze working yet and some of the have 12+ cities. Every city but their capital is unhappy, most of them have shrunk to size one.

I'm playing on Prince, and I was at/near the bottom of the score board all through the prehistoric age, but after we got tribalism all the other civs did was build tribes and overexpand, to the point where they are spending all their income on city maintenance and unit support costs and barely researching. Is it possible to hard-code the AI to respect over-expansion limits, and only go over the limit if they capture a city during wartime?

I'm sure there will be n easy fix for this when i get some time.

 

[JosEPh_II]

That's with a SVN version right?

Original v17 isn't doing that. Especially with City Limits turned Off and No Rev. I have vital full blown AI Empires to deal with, not hollow shells. The Ottomans at 1695AD are still out teching me, though I have just passed them in # of cities built (24, they have 22). I do get redfaces every time I capture a barb city though. They eventual subside after I build Another Unhappiness Reducing building. (Too Much WW and unhappiness penalties in this version)

JosEPh

 

[strategyonly]

(Too Much WW and unhappiness penalties in this version)
JosEPh

I would have to agree on that.

 

[Koshling]

I would have to agree on that.

WW has been allieviated a fair bit with the changes I pushed a couple of days ago, but obviously that won't retrospectively effect any WW you already had built up in existing games.

 

[Hydromancerx]

WW has been allieviated a fair bit with the changes I pushed a couple of days ago, but obviously that won't retrospectively effect any WW you already had built up in existing games.

What are the main causes of WW? Civics? I know there are some buildings like the market ones or graveyards, but they should not effect games if people just don't build them.

 

[Nevets_]

Koshling figured it ou and posted it:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=439574

Basically the problem is WW never goes down while you are at war, and goes up after every battle (though more for the loser and less inside of your borders). The problem is it's normalized for Vanilla BTS army sizes and maps, not the 3x-5x army sizes and 2x-3x number of armies you have in a typical C2C game, so the WW engine thinks every battle you fight is worse than Antietam and after a couple of them you are at +100% in every city.

 

[strategyonly]

WW has been allieviated a fair bit with the changes I pushed a couple of days ago, but obviously that won't retrospectively effect any WW you already had built up in existing games.

ah ha, that might be my problem then.

 

[Koshling]

ah ha, that might be my problem then.

It also might be that I have not tweaked it enough yet, but the changes made so far will mean you get far less WW if you are basically having a fairly decisive win (winning most battles that you choose to fight, even if the war as a whole drags on). If however, you are trying to stage an invasion of enemy territory using sheer weight of numbers, but crappy units (so LOSING most battles even though you eventually are winning the war) it'll still be almost as bad as ever (but that was a deliberate choice sincle I felt it modelled somethign closer to reality better)

 

[strategyonly]

It also might be that I have not tweaked it enough yet, but the changes made so far will mean you get far less WW if you are basically having a fairly decisive win (winning most battles that you choose to fight, even if the war as a whole drags on). If however, you are trying to stage an invasion of enemy territory using sheer weight of numbers, but crappy units (so LOSING most battles even though you eventually are winning the war) it'll still be almost as bad as ever (but that was a deliberate choice since I felt it modeled something closer to reality better)

No its fine, i will deal with it, and thx for letting me know.

btw, dont worry about those <tags> for a up to a month , its no biggy right now.

 

[Koshling]

To be perfectly honest, I could use a period of a few weeks with relative stability in underlying mechanisms, so I have time to spend on some of the more important existing AI issues:

• Tendency to civic switch far too often
• Tendency to over-expand when its causing them stability or happyness issues
• City placement
• Inappropriate use of defend-only units