AI tweaks - Battle AI

[Matte979]

After thinking some more about those bonuses, I am convinced the game will be harder if bonuses are less dramatic. Two main reason.

1. AI wont use bonuses anyway to their best advantage (Even with better AI) so they mainly benefit the human player, sure AI use terrain but those bonus will stay the same.
2. AI use more fresh troops as they "waste" troops, the player tries to keep their troops alive and promote single "uber" units, the less powerful these uber units are the better balance between new and old.

Personally I think the large bonus is a relic of stack combat where it did not matter as much as number was more important and you could still kill a unit with enough units attacking it and with collateral damage, when you have fever units every unit is critical, if the human player can much easier get higher bonuses it just make the game to easy. Another bengif is that Terrain will also matter more and upgrading old units which the AI sucks at will also be less of a problem.

 

[fmiracle]

I also have upped XP level to 15 from 10. Changed Range XP to 1 per attack or defence. This makes XP farming much harder and new units will have a chance against veterans , it also stops the powerful ranged units from climbing to fast.

It's true - right now XP for units goes up pretty high, even when you 'farm' on really weak units/cities. And humna player can easily recieve few overpowerd units, that can't be countered by AI at all.

Espetially it's effective on Archipelago maps for ships - 1000+ XP destroyers are real DESTROYERS - they destroy everything up to 3 tiles inland and then you need only single land unit to capture broken citites in this range.

 

[FRaGGaNOiA]

And is there any way to tell the ai to limit their army to a reasonable size?

to me it seems they ruin themselfes with it, which than leads to the situation that the losses they make in gold will be paid in research points. Leaving them damn unadvanced in lategame if u start in ancient. I had that situation pretty much in all games no matter what difficulty

 

[rspeer]

Really? The AI builds too many units and doesn't use them?

That's much the reverse of what I've normally seen, which is either that the AI neglects to build units, or when it builds massive armies it soon fights a massive war that loses most of them.

 

[Matte979]

Really? The AI builds too many units and doesn't use them?

That's much the reverse of what I've normally seen, which is either that the AI neglects to build units, or when it builds massive armies it soon fights a massive war that loses most of them.

The Ai actually do build units but if it does not loose them in war they cost them way to much. I hope firaxis address the whole unit upkeep cost soon. For now I just halved the overall unit upkeep cost. The bonus they get does not seem to offset the need for the AI to have more units due to being inferor in tactics.

 

[FRaGGaNOiA]

So there is no option to tell the ai to not build too much stuff? *g

 

[docnessuno]

No idea if this is doable, since i din't even take a peek in the AI files, but i think a way to partially fix the AI flaws in battle is to reduce their "suicidal" behaviour.
Before attacking a unit the AI should evaluate the losses (calculated from the hammer value of the units, so a 300 hammers unit is worth 30 hammer for each damage and additional 300 hammers on a kill/loss) for both sides, and attack only if the odds are for him (if possible factoring subsequent attacks in the same turn from other units he owns). If not it should either move to a defensive position (if being attacked there would change odds in his favor) or retreat out of range if possible. This wouldn't give it the strategic depth of a human player, but would remove one of the biggest AI flaws (units going banzai agains heavvy fortified enemy units).

 

[Elvince]

well some stuff will require the DLL SDK, here we can only tune existing behavior.
yet I have done another pass with V4 of my AI tweak, and I got attacked by a formidable american army pushing me to surrender in my test game.
you guys tell me what you think.
in V4 AI should be even more aggressive while at war while better at protecting already owned cities.
awaiting for your feedback!

 

[vince0018]

So far I'm really enjoying this mod. I'm only as far as the classical era on my current game using v4, I play on marathon; but I really like how when you're at war with someone they really bear down on you with their army. For some reason I haven't had them actually siege my cities yet though. I was playing as Rome, Germany was attacking me, they had one group of archers and 3-4 warriors, they were focusing on taking down my warriors but never once attacked any of my cities even though they were standing close to them. Maybe something else was going through their mind at the time.

Also I was wondering about naval units. Are you planning on having the AI take advantage of naval units a little better, if you haven't already; haven't had time to test the enemy AI's naval capability with your mod yet.

Awesome work so far, though, great stuff

edit: Playing a bit further it looks like the AI does siege, they just get into position first it seems, so all is good in that respect.

 

[Elvince]

glad you like it
for the naval I have not done anything yet and I doubt anything can be done but I'll look into it. were you on V3 or V4?

 

[vince0018]

I started with v3, but play 4 now since it was released. But haven't done any testing for naval on either version.

 

[Matte979]

I can add some experience with Sieges, The AI seem to be smart enough to calculate overall success to take a city based on units around it, if the chance is to low they will just stay there and wait for more units (reinforcement). I guess thats a good thing, like a real siege.

I just think they should break off if there is no reinforcement coming soon, so they dont get killed by ranged attacks. But I guess thats more of a personal preference. I think if they AI overall gets more concern about their unit health and actually retreats damaged units, the AI would get a nice boost.

 

[vince0018]

I've been also using the mod that gives all units 25 hitpoints, as well as several other mods, and I find that mod quite nice especially in longer games such as marathon.

This way you'll have to make many attacks on an enemy unit before completely destroying it and it adds some more tactics, like more chances to attempt to retreat, and not getting cut down by city defenses so quickly.

But to counter the stronger units I'm also using the active city defense mod, so cities can hold out better.

At first I was wondering why the enemies didn't seem to be sieging but yes it appears, as you said, that they wait for reinforcements before sieging. I like how they do this because then there will be more units surrounding the city, pretty much like a blockage, then they just keep attacking the city, virtually suffocating it.

edit: Thinking about that siege system, has this been done in this mod for others situations as well? For example will the enemy scout out an area they wish to attack, then wait for reinforcements so that they can move a larger mo coherent force at their enemy?

 

[Orion66]

Elvince ----> can you put on forum your modified xml file used for your mod please. I would like to take a look into it.

 

[Elvince]

you will find them in your mod folder under my games, I only use the mod browser for files. I hope it helps.

cheers

Elvince

 

[bdict]

This mod breaks alot of early game AI. I had a game where 1-3 civs expanded like normal and became super power houses, usually the aggressive AI. Bismark had like 1200 score to my 700.

PROBLEM: majority of the civs like 12/15 all played on 1 city maybe 2 once it got to riflemen. The Ai had trouble making armies as set in your mod while expanding properly as to not screw itself completely.

My guess is bismark was able to develop properly cause he got free units from barbs. Ps i still beat bismark, with my 1 era back units, just goes to show how horrible this game is, and how uncompetitive the AI is. Without a huge advantage it is easy to attack retreat it to death just by using comon sense not even super cheap tactics. Bismark had gather 30000 gold im not kidding every other civ had like 1000, and he just kept fast buying riflemen and cannons and just was throwin them at me. Boring game, tactical game AI always dissapointing :X

 

[vince0018]

This mod breaks alot of early game AI. I had a game where 1-3 civs expanded like normal and became super power houses, usually the aggressive AI. Bismark had like 1200 score to my 700.

PROBLEM: majority of the civs like 12/15 all played on 1 city maybe 2 once it got to riflemen. The Ai had trouble making armies as set in your mod while expanding properly as to not screw itself completely.

My guess is bismark was able to develop properly cause he got free units from barbs. Ps i still beat bismark, with my 1 era back units, just goes to show how horrible this game is, and how uncompetitive the AI is. Without a huge advantage it is easy to attack retreat it to death just by using comon sense not even super cheap tactics. Bismark had gather 30000 gold im not kidding every other civ had like 1000, and he just kept fast buying riflemen and cannons and just was throwin them at me. Boring game, tactical game AI always dissapointing :X

This mod is still beta, I believe, and so far it's head over heels better than vanilla. It might take more work to iron out several things from both modders and the devs, but eventually the ai should take shape.
P.S. In my gaming experience 'eventually' won't be as long as you think.

 

[Orion66]

you will find them in your mod folder under my games, I only use the mod browser for files. I hope it helps.

cheers

Elvince

Can you write it down how exactly is named your mod in civ 5 mod browser? I can't find it.

 

[Elvince]

Can you write it down how exactly is named your mod in civ 5 mod browser? I can't find it.

as the name of the thread indicates AI tweaks - Battle AI

 

[Elvince]

This mod breaks alot of early game AI. I had a game where 1-3 civs expanded like normal and became super power houses, usually the aggressive AI. Bismark had like 1200 score to my 700.

PROBLEM: majority of the civs like 12/15 all played on 1 city maybe 2 once it got to riflemen. The Ai had trouble making armies as set in your mod while expanding properly as to not screw itself completely.

I will not pay attention to your last part which is not constructive for me, but can you give more details on what happened? I did not meet that in my games, I had one of all the civilizations I met indeed not expanding but then it attacked me and ... conquered me
but It is possible that in V4 as I added more importance to defense, maybe the AI lack enough to build settlers... could anyone else coroborate?