AIs almost never fight each other

[Naismith]

the sponsor (Sulla) did some testing and tried to set things up to encourage AI vs. AI wars, not just AI vs. human wars. he changed the map to make the non-warmonger AIs have completely terrible capitals, and chose some very warmonger types and boosted their own lands. his description of how he thought this would lead to max AI vs. AI wars, and report of his own game, is here.

Very interesting. One of my Civ-playing friends suggested the following XML mod to encourage AI vs. AI wars: Give a different number of traits to various Civ's, in an attempt to setup a wide disparity of power amongst the Civ's. That's analagous to what Sulla did with the map.

Can you imagine playing against Rome, with traits of Financial, Organized, Imperialistic, Charismatic, Expansive, Industrious, etc.? Ouch. If you really wanted to go overboard, you could give them a couple of extra UU's. Maybe one per era? Beware the Roman Quecha!

the way our games unfolded varied WILDLY. some people lost track of the amount of AI vs. AI wars. some people lost count of the times AIs declared on them, up to at least 4 at once. two people had isabella declare on them before 2000 BC. then there's oddball me, i saw multiple AI vs. AI wars but only ever the warmongers vs. the non-warmongers, and the only AI to declare on me was Monty, he doesn't even count!

if that sort of "case study" in how one particular save, with those artificial map/rules things in there, can turn out depending on luck and how the different players approach the game, go check it out. if not, don't, some are quite long. avoid mine--it's probably the longest, and not even done yet *giggle*.

That's the whole problem with trying out XML mods. How many games would you have to play to with those mods to get a good feel for the changes you've made, and what effect they really have? There's so much variation in how a single game can play out.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Very interesting. One of my Civ-playing friends suggested the following XML mod to encourage AI vs. AI wars: Give a different number of traits to various Civ's, in an attempt to setup a wide disparity of power amongst the Civ's. That's analagous to what Sulla did with the map.....................

That's the whole problem with trying out XML mods. How many games would you have to play to with those mods to get a good feel for the changes you've made, and what effect they really have? There's so much variation in how a single game can play out.

Something else I did ages ago, was to take away most of the bonuses the ai has against barbs (they still have slightly upped ones of the player's default monarch bonuses), and this combined with my 50% tech cost increase, tends to produce a similar effects in the early game as you mentioned above, without changing the core game mechanics . I have to say that the map and resources are now even more important, for example an ai that starts near copper or horses will do a lot better on average than one who doesn't. A modicum of luck is now essential, some ais will very often lose cities to barbs (as can the player if they're not very careful).

This can produce very large disparities in the early game. Some civs can have ten cities while others are struggling along with 3. I much prefer this, to every ai having its bog standard 7 or 8 cities, a tech parity, the same no of troops and therefore no inclination to warring. A recent extreme example was Hatty (probably with a Genghis personality) had horses and gold in her caps fat cross, to me a perfect start for Egypt. She researched BW very early, connected copper up, and went on a combo arms spearmen/war chariot/axe (and v soon after swords) rampage of Roman lands, and took 8 / 12 of Caesers overrexxed under defended cities giving her 20 pre COL or Currency!). I actually had open borders with both and followed her armies with a couple of scouts. It was as close to watching a plyr war as I've ever seen

Then she started making demands of me and my completely overrexxed Persians (Id completely destroyed Saldin in the meantime)....fortunately I wasn't such a pushover, and I took all of Rome's cities back for myself Saladins' former holyshrine city is creaking under the pressure of supporting 21 cities pre COL or Currency (heck, it's a real micromanagement test)....

It's really interesting though (Im again bigging up Rand Pers settings), because as in my example Hatty actually using War Chariots in the window of opportunity they have, same with Caeser and Praets in my earlier example. And don't get me started on Cyrus in an Shaka mask, expanding like mad then going to town on the world with Immortals, that was really using his traits and UU to their potential, and was just plain nasty to watch..

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Current game:- I've got most of my continent (21 cities), but it's taken me ages to finish the French off, Im a little tech backward, but catching up at a huge speed....then I meet Roosevelt from the other continent:-



Wow look at the city list, and a massive tech lead ! 25 cities I think, including all of Mongolia (I got the message they'd died a while ago), looks like all of Rome too AND he's got at least one vassal in Gandhi.....

How long before World War I ? Shaka and Fred on my continent are at least at Pleased status, because I'll need allies. There's no way Im going to be able to attack Roosy on my own, and with that many cities already, and a tech lead, he'll be unstoppable....could be very interesting