December Balance Beta - December 3rd (12/3)

[Grabbl]

The AI is definitely getting bonus yields on settle at higher difficulties, and that includes food. All AI cities from King diffilculty and up autimatically grow to 2 1 turn after being settled.

I think that's true, it's only the fact that they needed less food to grow that was omitted (as it effectively resulted in a double handicap in food /growth).

 

[Leondegrance]

I think people are asking questions to get answers. Does it really matter who answers? Kindly correct me if i'm wrong please

Okay thats fine. So I will answer you instead of ES.

So you guys telling me that VP is not a real AI overhaul but just a copy cat pasta from vanilla with just different traits ?

I didnt like the vanilla difficulty formula. Give the boss more health, elementary. In fact I find more unbalance in VP than vanilla. Swings from 64 happiness to minus 80 are lame.

 

[chicorbeef]

Okay thats fine. So I will answer you instead of ES.

So you guys telling me that VP is not a real AI overhaul but just a copy cat pasta from vanilla with just different traits ?

I didnt like the vanilla difficulty formula. Give the boss more health, elementary. In fact I find more unbalance in VP than vanilla. Swings from 64 happiness to minus 80 are lame.

No. Vanilla has bonuses front-loaded, they have much higher bonuses at the beginning of the game. Like the Vanilla AI on Deity starts with a Settler and free techs...VP AI starts with neither. VP gets bonuses spaced out during the game, they get a steady stream of bonuses from things like advancing eras. So the difficulty is preserved in the late game. The VP AI is way improved compared to the Vanilla one and it shows in their city management/battlefield tactics.

Here is the VP AI bonuses: http://civ-5-cbp.wikia.com/wiki/AI_and_Difficulty

Here is Vanilla: http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Difficulty_level_(Civ5)

I don't know why there are unhappiness swings but that doesn't have to do with the AI, it has to do with the happiness formula.

 

[Leondegrance]

Dont you think that giving the AI settler early is not equivalent to boosting their yields. In fact vanilla gives one time boost while VP does it every era. Over and over.

You shouldnt emphasize Diety by the way. Because everybody can play Diety. But the trick is to get the most with less time.

 

[chicorbeef]

Dont you think that giving the AI settler early is not equivalent to boosting their yields. In fact vanilla gives one time boost while VP does it every era. Over and over.

You shouldnt emphasize Diety by the way.

They're not the same, the old Vanilla AI system had problems like going for certain early wonders and getting a religion without good terrain/bonuses being virtually impossible because of how front-loaded the bonuses were and the fact that if you passed the AI in the midgame that meant you were probably going to win. If you don't want to play against an AI with bonuses play Chieftain...no bonuses there. Some bonuses are needed to make higher difficulty challenging.

 

[Leondegrance]

They're not the same, the old Vanilla AI system had problems like going for certain early wonders and getting a religion without good terrain/bonuses being virtually impossible because of how front-loaded the bonuses were and the fact that if you passed the AI in the midgame that meant you were probably going to win. If you don't want to play against an AI with bonuses play Chieftain...no bonuses there. Some bonuses are needed to make higher difficulty challenging.

You just confirmed what I was saying. Bonuses. And bonuses. And AI bonuses. Give em more.

A real AI overhaul doesnt come by %.

In defense, per capita concept is good. But it breaks down late game. Maybe I should play some more but kinda feeling it. It is many civs and policies and what not so it gets difficult to account all of it.

 

[Owlbebach]

You just confirmed what I was saying. Bonuses. And bonuses. And AI bonuses. Give em more.

A real AI overhaul doesnt come by %.

In defense, per capita concept is good. But it breaks down late game. Maybe I should play some more but kinda feeling it. It is many civs and policies and what not so it gets difficult to account all of it.

I'm pretty sure that VP AI plays better than you when it comes to decision making. And this is not an insult, because when i played Emperor - i actually watched what AI is doing and found a lot of good ideas.

 

[ashendashin]

A real AI overhaul doesnt come by %.

I'm sure you have an expansive frame of reference.

 

[Leondegrance]

I'm pretty sure that VP AI plays better than you when it comes to decision making. And this is not an insult, because when i played Emperor - i actually watched what AI is doing and found a lot of good ideas.

The AI knows 100% of the rules. We don't. We discover and takes time. And we don't have much of it either.

 

[Owlbebach]

The AI knows 100% of the rules. We don't. We discover and takes time. And we don't have much of it either.

Bingo! Stop whining about things being broken and unbalanced and go learn the game first!

 

[kkkitten]

The AI knows 100% of the rules. We don't. We discover and takes time. And we don't have much of it either.

VP AI isn't Skynet... you know. It's still miles better than vanilla, but not as "smart" as us, so it ought to receive some form of handicap (that isn't as frustrating as vanilla, which is the case in VP). Otherwise play on Chieftan (no AI bonuses I THINK), or edit DifficultyMod.* files to your liking. Or maybe you can ask Mr Musk to implement OpenAI in CiV VP

 

[Zanteogo]

The AI knows 100% of the rules. We don't. We discover and takes time. And we don't have much of it either.

The biggest AI "fault" is it's not very good at playing civ's that don't do things the cookie cutter ways. Venice and Denmark for example. They need to be played differently but the AI generally plays both like any other civ. They are much better as the "standard" civs that get straight up number bonuses.

The AI also doesn't seem to "know" that other civs have different abilities. For example, if a human player starts a game and see's the Zulu's next door, they now to expect war all the time coming from that direction and get ready for it.

 

[Leondegrance]

Is it possible to have the whole changelog of all patches ? You know how some games list the changes in detail. It is not uncommon to learn new stuff just from the patch notes. And for newcomers you know the hunger for new information is high.

 

[kkkitten]

Is it possible to have the whole changelog of all patches ? You know how some games list the changes in detail. It is not uncommon to learn new stuff just from the patch notes. And for newcomers you know the hunger for new information is high.

For now I do this: https://forums.civfanatics.com/sear...c[title_only]=1&c[node]=497&c[user][0]=191587

You can go ahead and compile all of them if you want, then post it for us

 

[Gazebo]

Seriously its not the problem everyone have. It appears that only you are suffering it. And im sure its not the problem with the mod either, you can check my current let's play I posted on the forum using the current patch. Happiness is tough, as it should be, but managable.

My guess (since he/she mentioned 43 civ DLL) is that he/she is playing a mondo huge map and has gone extremely wide. Going extremely wide in VP requires very careful planning of growth and yields. A single new pop in every city in ~5 turns can spell doom for you if you aren't careful. Playing taller when learning VP is strongly recommended.

This is awsemo attempt to clarity. I endorse. Problem is it is almost incomprehensible to folks like me. This is coder language. Can we have it old fashion way with sigmas and signs please ?

I was thinking about a making a thread asking people to share their formula knowledge but I was afraid of similar "coder" problem.

His post was plain English. "Coder" language is called...code. He didn't post code, he posted an explanation. The best response is to say "thank you" when someone tries to help you, instead of being choosy.

G

 

[Leondegrance]

For now I do this: https://forums.civfanatics.com/sear...c[title_only]=1&c[node]=497&c[user][0]=191587

You can go ahead and compile all of them if you want, then post it for us

Thank you. That is what I meant.

Not perfect, for example changelogs like

• Fixed GG/GA supply issue

Are useless but still can find some helpful tips in the logs.Gazebo needs to improve the changelogs in some way but it is probably too late to suggest. And to reduce the number of unintended bugs. Like the city movement bug currently in effect. Dont know why he says will be fixed in next patch, if you ask ke needs immediate fix in 12-3. But maybe save issues prohibit him.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

@Gazebo Putting this current squabble to the side for a sec (IMO happiness is in a much better spot atm than where it was a couple months back), is there any news or preview of an upcoming version? I wouldn't ask, but the reluctance of the AI to trade has basically thrown everything off happiness and economy wise for me the last few versions.

 

[Gazebo]

@Gazebo Putting this current squabble to the side for a sec (IMO happiness is in a much better spot atm than where it was a couple months back), is there any news or preview of an upcoming version? I wouldn't ask, but the reluctance of the AI to trade has basically thrown everything off happiness and economy wise for me the last few versions.

No worries. @ilteroi has found some serious big-boy bugs in some deep tactical AI code, and they had ramifications on a few core aspects of the game, including plot memory. As such, the next beta won't be savegame compatible, unfortunately. It will, however, have some noticeable performance improvements (yes, 'bugfixes and performance improvements' will be on the patch notes).

Re: Deal AI, I've been working on that this week - this was an exceptionally busy week for me IRL, but I hope to have something for you all tomorrow evening, I want to give ilteroi a chance to double-check his tactical AI.

G

 

[pineappledan]

Finals marking season... oof.

 

[Gazebo]

Finals marking season... oof.

I ain't do that no more, brotha!


G