AIs almost never fight each other

[occam]

It is stated implicitly as: The AI will now seek all paths to victory.

Currenlty the AI seeks NO path to victory, which is a major part of the problem. Seeking a victory also implicitly includes preventing opponents from grabbing the victory before you can get there. Victory is a zero-sum commodity. In order to gain it, none others must gain it.

More accurately, the AI attempts to build spaceship parts quickly. That is NOT EVEN CLOSE to pursuing a spacechip victory. Harmlessly building parts when someone else is obviously much closer to launch (let alone some other victory) is a LOSING strategy.

Semantics you might say?

In my humble opinion, this is one reason why AI v. AI conflicts seem so offensively low... the AI will let their neighbor blast all the way into space, but come attack an island of mine. Which is the opposite of pursuing any path to victory.

Ignoring their neighbors at these critical endgame statis positions proves they are not aware of "victory conditions" at all. Not being aware of the victory conditions prevents you from pursuing any of them.

- O

PS: In short, the AI doesn't play DEFENSE against other victories... correct that, and it would be no big deal they only seek to go to space.

 

[CivCorpse]

I just finished a prince level game where the AI were at war almost the entire time. Usually multiple wars were raging the entire game, cities were taken civs destroyed vassals created. It was not set to aggressive AI either. It was a standard size pangea map with 18 civs. It was a nasty slugfest.
I have found that continents maps are the ones with the least AI wars. I think this is because usually one or two civs tend to grab the early religions. so if you have just one religion on the other continent or on yours then they will be buddies most of the game.

 

[Arkatakor]

the AI will let their neighbor blast all the way into space, but come attack an island of mine. Which is the opposite of pursuing any path to victory.

Exactly. Its feels like an idiotic coordinated inter AI alliance:

"i'll sacrifice myself in order to help the other AI win by putting strain on the only entity (human player) with enough intelligence to stop the winner"

How many games have I played where I would try and amass forces to launch an inter continental assault on the #1 Civ about to win the space race, only to be hindered by being forced to defend against 1-3 Civs that happen to dislike me... They wage war on the wrong person making sure we all lose the game.

 

[T.A JONES]

You've done well addressing the issue here. Don't worry if Fireaxis reads it. The message is still loud and clear this time and may it gets passed on come next sequal is all we can hope.
I saw another thread called 'What you don't like in Civ4" and more members who have not spoke here talk of the same problem.

 

[DilithiumDad]

I have lost several games on Prince with an AI taking my capitol, despite several hundred years of making nothing but military units. In my games, the AI unleashes an incredible stream of units, assembles them into Stacks of Doom, and attacks relentlessly with a good strategy of using "cannon fodder" of suicide catapults and trebs and green units.

One game, I was attacked by Monty with Axemen the turn after I had defeated the French. He attacked three places simultaneously and wiped out my damaged chariots and swordsmen. He took two cities I recently captured from the French. When I finally recaptured the cities, it was with Riflemen and Grenadiers! War wearniness was no problem because all the fighting was in my territory during 1500 years of fighting. I had more Great Generals than I knew what to do with. Shortly after finishing off Monty with my first few tanks, Mansa Musa launched the spaceship and I lost.

Most fun I ever had losing, though! Total of 40 hours of game play.

 

[MirvShag]

Just for a test here, I have started a 10 civ TINY map earlier to see if squashed AI's will fight more. Standard rules. Random Civs.

I'll post later tonight when the game is complete.

 

[MirvShag]

Well, basically just finished. One AI war, no interference from me. Isabella vs Ragnar. That was it. 10 smushed civs. Later on however, me as the greeks, I had my cities maxed out and had to expand. Unfortunately I was behind in tech like I always am on Noble. I really have to figure out how to keep up.

I had numbers though and attacked the island of Germany. And just as I was landing, Mansu attacks me from the north with overwhelming numbers and tech. I'm talking cannons vs my mace/swords/catapults.

I lost all of my cities but was able to hold onto Berlin with 1 unit.... 1 catapult held berlin. Germany was out of units.

So now I sit with a 99% German city as my new capital. This is the part where I vote for adding humans as vassals so I can stay in the game.

But back on topic. yeah one AI vs AI war on Noble difficulty, 10 civs, TINY map.

Does turning on AI aggression option help at all? I might test that next. I have a feeling its only aggression will be towards me....

 

[Naismith]

yeah one AI vs AI war on Noble difficulty, 10 civs, TINY map.

Does turning on AI aggression option help at all? I might test that next. I have a feeling its only aggression will be towards me....

One AI vs. AI war is pathetic. I've read elsewhere (Better AI forum?) that turning on Aggression AI does have one effect on AI vs. AI wars. Apparently there is some logic in the AI that checks to see if they can "afford" a war economically. If Aggressive AI is enabled, then that check is either relaxed or eliminated. If I remember correctly, the poster claimed that this logic was one of the main culprits in the lack of AI vs. AI wars.

If you want the AI to be more aggressive in general, but don't want more aggression just towards the human player, then you can mess around in the XML, I believe it's the handicap XML file. Just change the base AI attitude property value to be one or two higher on whatever level you play, and it will neutralize the extra negative diplo modifiers towards you that is caused by Aggressive AI.

 

[MirvShag]

That sounds like a good solution. Not for me however =) Even though more AI wars would be fun for a little while, I feel the balance is perfect just with standard rules. I am playing a 10 civ duel map right now standard rules on Noble and it is a blast. And has had a few AI wars.

I investigated the AI aggression option a little and I found that it basically just lowers the base or starting point value of everyone to everyone. So instead of most everyone starting at Cautious, more start out annoyed... and not just with the human player.

Since the relations start slightly lower then it is easier for everyone to become enemies and thus more wars. This does however make it much harder to have a good friend in the game. The highest I've been able to get a civ up to in relations is Pleased. I could not get to 'friendly' with AI aggression on and therefore did not have access to defensive pacts and some trading options.

 

[Spitefire]

I think i got the 4 most aggresive civ leaders all in one game and there was never a single war before i started one in the 1980s veary near games end Isabella and almost noone shared her religion (isnt she supposted to be the fanatic of the bunch?) Alaxander (i hear he is normally veary hostile) Napolian (he was a little testy but never war like) and Montazuma AKA on this forum Monty (he is supposed to be the most hostile isnt he?) you would think with that many nuts all mixed together there would have been at least one war but not one in that entire game and thay wernt all shareing the same religion eather, i got curious about the lack of hostilitys when i noticed the first GG to be spawned was from Facism, how odd.

 

[Naismith]

I think i got the 4 most aggresive civ leaders all in one game and there was never a single war before i started one in the 1980s veary near games end Isabella and almost noone shared her religion (isnt she supposted to be the fanatic of the bunch?) Alaxander (i hear he is normally veary hostile) Napolian (he was a little testy but never war like) and Montazuma AKA on this forum Monty (he is supposed to be the most hostile isnt he?) you would think with that many nuts all mixed together there would have been at least one war but not one in that entire game and thay wernt all shareing the same religion eather, i got curious about the lack of hostilitys when i noticed the first GG to be spawned was from Facism, how odd.

There are hidden modifiers, one of which is the "warmonger respect" modifier. Leaders that are warmongers tend to like each other, leaders that are builders tend to like each other, etc. I believe the property that controls this is called iWarmongerRespect, found in the leader heads XML file.

Other posters have suggested picking a mix of builders and warmongers if you want more wars.

Ridiculous, huh?

 

[Spitefire]

well it should not have such an effect as to lead to no wars in a game at all, i started the first war in 1980s as i said and shortly after made a small chain reaction. my guess is the entire game the others that joined were on edge almost all game and this pushed them over that edge, that hidden modifyer is a little overpowered if it can override diffrances in religion aswell as power diffrances like seen this game montazuma had plenty of time and oppertunity to hit many weak civs and never took it issabella never launched an unholy crusade to wipe clean the map of haratics and there kin. (if anything i think thay would be more hostile to one another, only giveing short rests to pick on someone stronger then them in a joint manner)

(After thought)
I wonder if i can find that modifyer and fiddle with it.

 

[Nacht]

WarmongerRespect will lead at most to an added +2.

 

[Naismith]

(After thought)
I wonder if i can find that modifyer and fiddle with it.

It's in Civ4LeaderHeadInfos.xml, and you have to change it separately for every leader. I got curious about making these types of changes some time ago, did a search in the forum on iWarmongerRespect and did some reading. I settled on changing three properties for every leader to the following values:

<iBasePeaceWeight>0</iBasePeaceWeight>
<iPeaceWeightRand>0</iPeaceWeightRand>
<iWarmongerRespect>-4</iWarmongerRespect>

Changing warmonger respect is an improvement to the game, AFAIK. But don't expect miracles, it doesn't result in a lot more AI vs. AI wars.

 

[Spitefire]

Thank you for the information but i already know how to find it and no i dont expect the whole world to devolve into endless war if i mess with the numbers i do expect to see or even have a little more then 1 fight that i myself start per game, as far as fiddleing with the numbers go i have to look closely to so i can clearly see how many of the mods i run will be effected, on top of the normal game.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Latest game with Better AI, Agressive AI on. List of wars:

Montezuma declared on me, I asked Washington to join in. He agreed , and vasalized Monty.

Louis, Ragnar and Brennus declared on Ghandi. After they took 1/2 of his cities, he vassalized to Louis.

Stalin declared war on Mehmed and captured some cities Mehmed had on Russia's island.

Alexander declared war on Atahualpa recently. I expect him to take some Incan cities, which are located faraway from the Incan core, despite being on the same continent as Cuzco.

Well, a decent amount of wars.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

I have a question about better AI, and mods in gernal I suppose:
Can I turn them off when I want? Like if I want a game with the good old fashioned AI, can I unload the better AI mod? My only real experiance with mods in games is WoW...

 

[Lone Wolf]

Yes. Just rename the old .dll file when installing.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

Yes. Just rename the old .dll file when installing.

Thanks


I think I'm going to have to get that mod, although in my current game there has been a ton of AI wars. My buddy Julias Ceaser has been quite the war monger and Monty is as crazy as people have made him out to be.

I don't think I'm good enough for noble, though

I think I spread myself out too thin too early wiping out Russia and now I'm too weak to take out my other continent neighbour, Shaka.

 

[Jondalar]

I noticed this while playing a game last night as well - there was one AI war with only one city changing hands (but a lot of pillaging).

The one thing that I also noticed that was absolutely driving me nuts was that when I had a common enemy with another AI, my units were the only ones that were ever attacked. For instance, both myself (Romans) and Mehmed were at war with Ramsses. I had two Praets within my borders - two tiles from an Egyptian city. Mehmed had a single horse archer sitting right next to the egyptian city. Instead of taking Mehmed's weaker horse archer out, Ramsses sends a war chariot two squares away to take on my two praets. Mehmed's horse archer continued to stay next to Elephantine for 8 turns, 5 of which my praets two spaces away were met with a war chariot from the city. Does that seem counter-intuitive to anyone else?