Brainstorming: Weaknesses of the AI

[Chalid]

Does the AI terraform at all?

I would terraform the tile when it randomly ends a turn on it (as far as i know) but it does not specifically move their water mages to deserts to terraform them yet. Thats a thing i hope to include into one of the unitais for mages.

 

[woodelf]

I'm going to jump back onto my mapscript bandwagon and say that bad starting positions contribute to the weaknesses of the AI. Human players can restart if the start doesn't match the civ they are playing, but the AI has to play with the hand they're dealt. Luchuirp in the plains, the Elves in the mountains/desert, ect are all at a disadvantage that might possibly never be overcome. Just a thought.

 

[Kael]

I'm going to jump back onto my mapscript bandwagon and say that bad starting positions contribute to the weaknesses of the AI. Human players can restart if the start doesn't match the civ they are playing, but the AI has to play with the hand they're dealt. Luchuirp in the plains, the Elves in the mountains/desert, ect are all at a disadvantage that might possibly never be overcome. Just a thought.

Players that regen are giving themselves an advantage that the AI doesn't have. Nothing wrong with that if they choose to do it, but why code against it? I bet a lot of players play with the hand they are dealt (i never regen maps) and enjoy trying to makle the best of it.

Outside of that human and ai players starting settler has a huge move and sight bonus that allows them a lot more opportunity to pick their starting location than vanilla civ has. I think that accomplishs a lot of what your looking for in regards to fair starts (and makes it into a strategic decision instead of a process).

 

[Chalid]

Outside of that human and ai players starting settler has a huge move and sight bonus that allows them a lot more opportunity to pick their starting location than vanilla civ has. I think that accomplishs a lot of what your looking for in regards to fair starts (and makes it into a strategic decision instead of a process).

Thats only an advantage for the human as the AI always found its city on place when it does not have any city.
I have tested switching this "forced found" of. It works well, (mostly AIs settle in place) but sometimes they wander for several turns. The latest i had an AI built a city was about turn 15 (but that was on an very crowded map). If we want to include it in the mod its just a question of 2 lines in the SDK

 

[The Great Apple]

Hmmm. Could you not make it so that civs were more likely to start in regions that they have bonuses for? Something similar TheLopez's localized starting techs, but backwards...

 

[Chalid]

Actually woodelf has propsed the same yesterday or two days ago.. seems like we have to look into that but it might be rather complicated.

What do you think maybe we should keep the generated starting positions, evaluate the value for each participation civ/starting position and redistribute them so that each one starts at the most fitting position.

 

[The Great Apple]

Sounds like a very good way of doing it. I would have suggest tweaking the starting locations after the civs have been allocated, but I much prefer your method - alot tidier.

 

[woodelf]

Yay, some disciples of woodelf! Seriously, if a mapscript can be done easily you wouldn't have to use it, but I'd love to try it out. Either of those two proposed methods would work, but I think making the map, checking the civs picked, and then setting them in ideal locations would work best.

 

[Corlindale]

I'm not sure I like that idea. I like the complete randomness of map generation, so if this is implemented I think it should be as a toggle, if only for my sake . A great part of the fun of FFH comes from starting in an area ill-suited for your civ, encountering a neighbour with the perfect land, and start an epic battle to regain your lost homeland.

 

[woodelf]

Mapscripts are just a map option, like Panagea, Continents, ect. Purely optional.

 

[Chalid]

A comment form woodelf in an other thread made me think of something that should satsify corlindale as well.

We simply let the human player(s) where the map script places them and move only the AI players to the best fitting starting position for them. So Corlindale gets his (sometimes) crappy starting locations and the AI gets its paradise.

 

[woodelf]

A good compromise, but it's still just a map type, correct? Totally optional?

 

[Chalid]

at the moment it is nothing at all.

but later on...not sure. either it would be done in the map script or in the main file. but im sure one would set a kind of customization option to switch it on/off

 

[Chalid]

Added the road thing to the lists of things to check, the barbarian thing, too.

 

[Maian]

Repost from another thread:

The best TBS AI I've ever seen is GalCiv2's AI. If you need inspiration, just look there.

In particular, the latest version of GalCiv2 has a system where other races start ganging up on the most powerful race, usually you. Well, they don't simply gang up on you - they just start distrusting your intentions more and are much more likely to form an alliance against you. This "checks and balances" system is desparately needed in Civ4.

The other major AI blunder is more of a tactical one. The AI seems to always streams units to the front lines. This isn't so bad, until the front line collapses, in which case the units streaming in a slaughtered one-by-one. I'm not playing a hard difficulty, so maybe the AI doesn't stream at high difficulties. Nonetheless, this is one area the AI needs to focus on.

As for making the AI use spells intelligently, I don't envy your task Many spells are very tactical, and AIs make pretty bad tacticians.

If you really want the AI to be good, perhaps you should follow one of GalCiv2's design mottos: "only implement features that the AI can take advantage as well", or more concisely, "if the AI can't use a feature, don't implement it".

 

[The Great Apple]

In particular, the latest version of GalCiv2 has a system where other races start ganging up on the most powerful race, usually you. Well, they don't simply gang up on you - they just start distrusting your intentions more and are much more likely to form an alliance against you. This "checks and balances" system is desparately needed in Civ4.

This sort of system makes the game feel much more like a game, and kinda ruins the immersion. At the moment the AIs don't really play to win, they play to be opponents. This sort of dogpile effect is what you get when you play against humans, but lots of people are against it as a general rule against AIs.

 

[Chalid]

That why it has not gone into the list to fix.

 

[Sureshot]

This sort of system makes the game feel much more like a game, and kinda ruins the immersion. At the moment the AIs don't really play to win, they play to be opponents. This sort of dogpile effect is what you get when you play against humans, but lots of people are against it as a general rule against AIs.

It seems like AI that acts like humans is a good thing.

And from a personal standpoint, I hate when I've gotten stronger than everyone and its all boring work of one by one absorbing other empires into mine. Equally painful is trying to bring down an AI who's dominating when no one will help you (you just become their next target).

 

[Maian]

This sort of system makes the game feel much more like a game, and kinda ruins the immersion. At the moment the AIs don't really play to win, they play to be opponents. This sort of dogpile effect is what you get when you play against humans, but lots of people are against it as a general rule against AIs.

Really? I don't see how it ruins the immersion at all - it's perfectly realistic even in fantasy settings. You see examples of it everywhere. In the Warcraft 3 campaign, humans and orcs, which are bitter enemies of each other, unite against the Burning Legion. In LoTR, elves and dwarves dissolve their distrust for each other to stand against Sauron.

I don't see the distinction betwen "not playing to win" and "just being opponents". It's all a matter of challenge, which besides the immersion is what I play game for. And as I've just pointed out above, it's perfectly immersive.

Perhaps you're misunderstanding what I mean when I say "gang up on you". I don't mean that once you reach some critical threshold they'll all start attacking you. Now that's unrealistic and just annoying. Instead they'll be far more hesitant to trade techs, start forming closer relations with others instead of you, and in general start distrusting you. Naturally, you can just do what the US does today - no matter how much the world hates the US, the US holds them by the power of trade and economy. So a nation that focuses on trade and diplomacy can avoid other nations from forming an alliance against it.

I personally want AIs to be as human-like as possible at the highest difficulties, within the bounds of the lore of course. It's much more satisfying defeating a human-like opponent than having contrived handicaps to compensate for inferior AI.

 

[Chalid]

How about making it switchabe with the default beeing off. Kind of an option like Aggressive AI?