Cultural Victories and the AI

[Afforess]

I know Better AI has improved the AI's ability to get cultural victories, but that's not really the issue. Rather, how the AI responds to another player's imminent victory. I've noticed that many times, I can just slip past the AI's radar, with a 3rd of 4th place top score, but still attain a cultural victory over my more advanced foes. I think this is silly.

Instead, the AI should factor in how close a player is to victory into it's military plans. That way, if I'm 10 turns away from my last legendary culture city, it realizes it needs to get out the heavy guns and take my capital (Capitals get the most culture, so it would be one of my cities with legendary culture), and if nukes are available, rain down fire on me. Of course, I want exactly the same behavior if AI #2 is getting close to victory and not me.

I suppose this might applies to Phungus's cutthroat AI, but, when a player is getting close to any sort of victory, the AI should just completely dogpile that player. That would make any victory condition harder to meet. After all, who would want to get that last 1% of the land in a domination victory if they knew all the AI's were likely going to attack at once.


Also, on a related note, I would like the AI to work as a team better. If the AI has a vassal, I wouldn't mind a bit of cheating to allow the vassal to know which enemy cities in a war the Master is already going to capture, and which one's the master needs help with. That would make vassal a lot less useless, and more like they were in history, puppet-states.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Care, a lot of care, is needed to make some victory conditions viable. If the AI is just going to dogpile you if you get close to culture or space, it makes those conditions pretty stupid. Might as well run conquest or domination where you + vassals are actually capable of taking on the world.

 

[TheLazyHase]

Care, a lot of care, is needed to make some victory conditions viable. If the AI is just going to dogpile you if you get close to culture or space, it makes those conditions pretty stupid. Might as well run conquest or domination where you + vassals are actually capable of taking on the world.

I agree. If cultural victorie mean stockpiling infantery for 300 turn before making thoses cities legendary, I'd better conquer them. At least it will not be a total dogpile on me.

 

[r_rolo1]

A thing that definitely complicates the OP sugestion is that, in spite of being one of more gradual victories there is in the game ( only beaten by Space ), it is obviously possible to make big jumps towards the cultural win ( in fact there are atleast two ways of getting a insta Legendary city from 0 culture ... ). That pretty much burns out the sugestion you made in terms of effectiveness, besides all the issues a person might have with putting a Ai in auto attack mode vs someone that is close of winning ( as I already stated ad nauseam in other threads ).

IIRC this was already discussed in this forum .... need to find the link

 

[Afforess]

My suggestions are granted, a bit extreme, however, the point still stands.

Perhaps it could be moderated to appear more subtle.

For instance, if the AI notices you are getting cities that are highly cultural, it should focus their espionage on them, and target the most culturally significant buildings, destroying progress on any wonders, destroying theaters, etc... Anything it can do to slow you down. (I'm not sure, but does causing unrest in the city for 1 turn stop culture growth for 1 turn too? If so, that should be an option too. Every turn counts.) Also, if a particular AI was already planning to go to war with you, and you are nearing a cultural win, declaring war now, and and least stalling the culture wouldn't be a bad thing.

An even more subtle strategy could be applied with the UN. Say, I'm one of the most popular players, and I build the UN. What should the AI do, short of declaring war and razing the UN city? Well, it could undercut all my trades. The AI should see what resources I have an excess (and could potentially sell) and if they have those too, sell them to any of my friends, so I can't sell them anymore, and undercut my diplo bonus from trades. Then, the AI should try to convert all my friends to any state religion that I don't have. Together, that could easily be a -4 hit, diplomatically, and would lose a vote in the UN, stopping me.

More sinister yet, If I am going for domination, and the AI know this, AND I have vassals that Capitulated (Surrender, not just begging for protection), the AI should do everything in it's power to help the vassal become large enough to be released (Of course, if the vassal is a hopeless 1 or 2 city nation, ignore this.). That would be a peaceful way of ruining domination. Oh, and using spies to poison the water supplies in any cities I have that are borderline healthy or already unhealthy would cut my population down, making it harder for domination, too.

Perhaps that would be a more sinister way of getting the AI to win than just dogpiling at the end, but I don't think you should just write off dogpiling entirely. It might be a good option for Phungus'es cutthroat AI.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If you want to teach the AI a nasty trick with espionage:

1. Have it accrue about 10 spies in a player city. Maybe a few less will work if it has a big EP lead.
2. Have it poison water.
3. On the same turn, have it kill the granary, harbor, grocer, aqueduct, and any other building it can get rid of.

A city targeted in such a way will starve. It will starve at pop 1 and not grow. If an AI locks onto a culture city this way, only the most dedicated anti-espionage efforts could stop it from making that city useless.

Then for the love of god PLEASE make it do this to those crap annoying culture AIs, too .

 

[MartinHarper]

Well, the advantage in a cultural or space victory should be that you are fighting a war on your own territory, which is normally a big advantage. Additionally, you don't need to win the war: just drag it out into a stalemate. I think those are big enough that those victories will still be viable, especially for civs that have control of an entire continent.

Also, it shouldn't be a complete dogpile. If the Incans are 10 turns from victory, the Aztecs are 12 turns from victory, and the Americans are 14 turns from victory, then the Aztecs should declare war on the Incans, but the Americans should not get involved to start with.

 

[scu98rkr]

I kinda agree with martin, all civs should be trying to win and all civs trying to stop the others winning.

Dogpiles should only occur if one Civ is close to winning and the others are very far away. In this case its likely to be the Human has pulled out well in front and personally I think a dogpile would be a good idea.

Winning a cultural victory just isnt fun now because no one reacts. Remember this is nt the same as CIV III where Civ would dog pile for no reason there dogpiling to stop an immanent win.

In a fairer game several CIV might be close to winning and then the AI would have to choose a side to support. I think this is really what we need to be aimming for some kind of cold war scenario. Where minor CIVs gravitate (or are forced) towards one of the larger powers.