Divine Prophets Option

[hotrodlincoln]

I absolutely adore this mod. Previously in Civ I would avoid researching say, monotheism, because being the Korean ruler of the Jewish holy city would bug me to no end. When I started playing with revolutions, this went from a simple aesthetic concern to an actual gameplay concern, as non-state religion holy cities rebel like mad. This mod is great. When you research a religion granting technology, it gives you a great prophet instead of the free religion. You can then use this to found a religion of your choice or do whatever else you like with the Great Prophet.

However, I am not sure how well the AI handles this mod. At first they seemed to be doing alright, founding Shamanism, Druidic Traditions, Ngeiism and the other early religions at a decent pace. After that, though, they petered out. In my most recent game Hinduism wasn't founded until /200 BC!/. The game has almost reached the ADs and nothing newer than Hinduism has been researched.

Does the AI truly understand this option? I have the feeling they aren't bothering to research religion techs because they don't register that these techs grant a religion, so they only research them on the way to other things, which then causes them to finally use the great prophets for their intended purpose. This would explain why the early religions were founded just fine, but Polytheism wasn't researched until someone wanted Literature.

 

[little_cyclone]

I've noted this myself as well, I think its less that they aren't researching the religion techs and more using the Great Prophets for free tech's.

 

[Koshling]

I've noted this myself as well, I think its less that they aren't researching the religion techs and more using the Great Prophets for free tech's.

There is really only token AI code for the great prophets option. This is mostly because none of the people who have been involved in the AI use it I suspect, so it's never been worked on.

 

[Popcornlord]

Oddly enough, I have the opposite problem. I like starting with only a couple of civs to allow new civs to evolve naturally from barbarians. But the problem is that the civs that I do start with end up with an 8-religion holy city. If the AI already has a state religion and the new religion isn't significantly better, then they shouldn't found it.

I am playing on a slightly older version, so it's possible something was changed to address that problem, that started yours.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Oddly enough, I have the opposite problem. I like starting with only a couple of civs to allow new civs to evolve naturally from barbarians. But the problem is that the civs that I do start with end up with an 8-religion holy city. If the AI already has a state religion and the new religion isn't significantly better, then they shouldn't found it.

I am playing on a slightly older version, so it's possible something was changed to address that problem, that started yours.

That's a matter of Playstyle and preference instead of bad game mechanics. If you only start with a few AI then they Will end up with several religions as there is only limited competition get a religion founded. Unless you out tech all of them and found all the religions your self.

JosEPh

 

[Sgtslick]

I was tempted to choose this option in my games but I think the religions kinda progress logically in terms of there benefits relative to the tech.

Like the mongol religion that you get with horseback riding or the ship building one that gives some ship bonuses etc.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Does the AI truly understand this option? I have the feeling they aren't bothering to research religion techs because they don't register that these techs grant a religion, so they only research them on the way to other things, which then causes them to finally use the great prophets for their intended purpose. This would explain why the early religions were founded just fine, but Polytheism wasn't researched until someone wanted Literature.

As the designer of the Divine Prophets mod option I just found this and figured I could help to sort out what's happening that can help other developers to work with this mod more effectively.

The AI is simple, but should be pretty effective to create good decisions for the AI players provided some points are kept in mind when designing the religion XML coding and the Leader XML coding. I think I may go in and do some XML editing to get the system working a bit better soon as there's some niggly little annoyances with how its currently working out.

First, to address what you were suggesting: Religion achieving techs shouldn't be perceived any differently by the AI at this time and all evidence in my playtesting strongly suggests to confirm this.

Second, consider that the mod is designed for both Choose Religions on and off but is NOT currently compatible with Limited Religions (there's a surprising amount to consider to make that compatible that goes beyond my current programming skills.)

Third, the AI makes its determinations on Prophets exactly as it normally would AFTER it first considers the Divine Prophets concepts. These routines could be made a bit more complex taking some more things into consideration but its pretty effective in most cases now according to my own playtesting.

To explain what it will consider to do with a Prophet when DP is ON, the AI goes through the following 'thoughts':
1) What is my favorite religion? (leaders should have these thoroughly defined and this is one place some of them are lacking)
2) Has that religion been founded?
3) If not, can I found it?
4) If I can, found it with my prophet where my prophet stands (which is always in the capital if earned via the bonus by reaching a religious tech first)
5) If its founded, evaluate my preferences (in terms of Leader flavors) and compare them to the values of a given religion (in terms of Religious flavors). This gives me the ability to determine which religion I'd like next. Note: the last 2 religions have apparently gone undefined in regards to their flavors and thus are never being selected for founding by the ai, another fix on the list.
6) Has my next most valuable religion been founded?
7) If yes, re-evaluate.
8) If no, can I found it now? (when Choose Religion is 'off' the answer could well be 'no' based on the tech level of the ai civ)
9) If I can't found it now, I hold my prophet until I can (probably the source of some of the effects you were mentioning) or until someone else has founded it and I'm released from the ability to ever found it myself (then re-evaluate)
10) Otherwise, I found the religion and next time I get a prophet I go through the same routine.

Now this isn't 100% accurate... as I initially developed it, I first had them check to see if they had a holy city without its shrine and would use their prophet on that first before seeking to found another. But I think it was mentioned somewhere that this was changed to only consider the first religion's shrine and thereafter seek to found as many religions as they could before running out. If that was changed as such, it would leave them holding onto a lot of prophets that could be used for shrines as they wait for their tech to catch up to their desire.

This was a test model and one thing I think I may have caused here is that, since many leaders love gold and commerce, many will hold onto their prophets until Scientology opens up - so it works great for Choose Religions but some leaders not so much under Choose Religions off... I'll consider how to improve on that consideration. Not generally being a Choose Religions off player I had not personally encountered that 'problem'. A good fix might take me into realms of complexity I'm not sure how to program but I'll ponder the issue for a bit.

Anyhow, hopefully this explains some things to those who have faced some of these frustrations.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

@Thunderbrd, one change that has occurred is that I have added The_J's Real Favorite Religion mod which, when a religion is founded, spreads that religion to the capital of all leaders who have it as their favorite.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I've been noticing how that works and I don't see any problems or incompatibilities so far. Thanks for mentioning it anyhow I've been liking that effect and wondering where that came from