Better BUG AI

[Cicerosaurus]

I haven't noticed this reported above but I haven't studied the whole thread.

With my fishing boats, if I set them to explore they stay in port. I can simply take them one hex out of port and they behave normally.

 

[keldath]

hi fuyu,

the ai razes too much cities, just for your info.

 

[flitz]

Hi,

I just wanted to note that the AI still builds Fortresses instead of plantations, for example on silk ressources (BBAI v1.02).
Is this just me ?

 

[Fimbulvetr]

I hope it is just you. Are you using the lastest version from 5 days ago ? (2010-07-25)

City more frequent city razing is something from Better AI that I didn't have time to check yet but jdog said it was intended this way from the beginning, so this change was only a bugfix.

AI_exploreSea when inside a city might be broken, I will have to look at that. Would be really bad if that happens to the AI too.

 

[flitz]

It was in the newest Legends of Revolution base version which uses this version of BBAI (1.02 from 2010-07-25).

I saw it only once in my current game so far. But because I had seen this in older versions of BBAI I thought I mention it at least now.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

The important info would be: when the worker started buildign the fort, was the silk tile inside a city's radius or not? If yes, then there is a problem. Which I just tried to eradicate by removing the last remains of Forts Connect Resources from AI_bestPlotBuild, I think I might have missed one place before.

 

[flitz]

Hm right, that is important.

I re-checked and unfortunately it *is* in the city radius. Look here, it is the leftmost silk field which the AI had build a fort upon:

 

[Fimbulvetr]

As long as it knows to replace that fort when the real improvement is available, I can't even count this as a bug - building the fort before Calender makes the resource available the very turn the required tech is researched, so the AI is getting the happy bonus a few turns earlier then if it had waited.
Still, I hope it's fixed now.

@Cicerosaurus:
I just watched the AI build a workabout with UNITAI_EXPLORE_SEA an the boat could obviously leave the city. I assume what you are experiencing has something to do with enemy units close by, but I'm not sure. Do you have a savegame?

 

[flitz]

As long as it knows to replace that fort when the real improvement is available, I can't even count this as a bug - building the fort before Calender makes the resource available the very turn the required tech is researched, so the AI is getting the happy bonus a few turns earlier then if it had waited.
Still, I hope it's fixed now.

So if you build a fort on a ressource you can switch this to a plantation/farm/... within one turn ?

 

[Fimbulvetr]

No but the fort provides the resource already, while you build the plantation.

 

[Sidney Magal]

Hi,I don't know if this is a thing specifically related to your mod, but I only realized it when I was playing it. It is a very annoying function. Why does it default to building units indefinitely when you select one as the next build?

Spoiler :

I didn't even open the city screen when selecting those builds, but the game still selected *warriors and *galleys in both cases. Why does it happen? How can I turn it off? I don't micromanage that much that I can be sure I'll never forget switching back to a building or a settler or a worker or a workboat when the unit I needed was built.

If this issue is not specific to your mod, please let me know where I should ask for a solution. I've been playing with the 50civs dll if it makes any difference.

 

[Afforess]

Yes, I'm curious as to why the above is even a feature. You can already set a city to auto-build the same unit over and over by hold alt and selecting a unit in the city screen, why do we need a redundant option in the BUG menu?

 

[Sidney Magal]

So it's a problem with BUG?

 

[Afforess]

No, a feature of BUG. <.<

 

[Fimbulvetr]

It is a feature because EF wanted it
EF wants to do everything without opening the city screens and since ALT has no effect when you select a unit from teh pop-up, EF needed this. Or so. But you probably know the story anyway.

@Sidney Magal: It's a BUG feature, it can be turned off in the BUG Options Menu, City Screen tab, it's called "Train Military Units Forever". It should be off by default.

Actually it's more correct to say it IS off by default here. Only if you are on Vista/w7, and the BUG mod - or any other mod that shares options with the BUG mod and defaults to on for this option - is already installed and was played at least once including a visit to the BUG Options, only then the Better BUG AI default from the Config xml file is disregarded because there is already an .ini file to read from.

 

[Afforess]

It is a feature because EF wanted it

I have yet to find a player who likes it; it's universally hated. After all, I thought the point of BUG was BETTER gameplay, not worse!

 

[Fimbulvetr]

It might actually save some time later in the game if you are doing it like EF, never entering city screens..
It's universally hated because it's universally unexpected. I imagine every single user who had this option on built at least 1 warrior or some other military unit he didn't actally want to build at that time. Which should be a very good reason to leave it off.
Why it is still on by default even in the very latest BUG revision, I have no clue.

 

[EmperorFool]

Given that I have only heard from you two about this feature, I had no idea it was "universally hated." People don't give much feedback for BUG so I'm left to work in the dark. If you two are correct that it is causing the polar ice caps to melt and killing off baby seals, I am happy to disable it by default.

P.S. I had no idea I was seen as such an evil tyrant. Next time tell the emperor he has no clothes! I think I deserve at least that much respect.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

Ok, not so sure about 'universally hated', I was only assuming Afforess knows what he's talking about, given the amount of feedback he's obviously getting. I haven't heard all that much about it either. I have never heard anyone say he likes it though, while there have been at least a few who reported that they didn't like it and turned it off, me included, so maybe a tendency is visible. I am biased though, so maybe I got the wrong impression.

I did however give you all the feedback I could give, back then when you added it; and I never meant any disrepect.

 

[MarkJohnson]

I too dislike the auto build feature. I didn't mind the auto build feature after building the same unit 2 or 3 times in a row that I think is part of BUG, although not sure.

I stopped using BBAI as it was making war too difficult as the AIs were too smart and making an already difficult level even harder. Is there an easy was to disable the warring AI in the BBAI? I love all of the other features and use it when playing lower easier levels when learner new strategies. But on hard levels I use plain BUG only.

-=Mark=-