does the AI become smarter?

[kaltorak]

Does the AI play different depending on the difficult level, or they just gets bonuses.

The higher the difficulty, the more bonuses they get, but is the AI at noble as smart as the one at deity, just with less bonuses? Or do they actually make smarter decissions at higher difficulties?

 

[phungus420]

The AI's logic is the same at all levels. It's a pre-programmed system, it does not learn or adapt. It also has no true memory, besides storing attitude modifiers; it can't even do stuff like see an enemies unit combination in stacks and plan accordingly.

About the most complex planning the AI will do is chasing a cultural victory (it actually does do what we could call planning here). Virtually every other thing it does is moment to moment decisions based on it's logic algorithms and what it rolls on it's decision dice.

 

[kaltorak]

Since I asked if it becomes smarter, it really looks like I asked if the AI learns ^^
But what I meant is only if there is any difference in the AI of each difficulty, or if they act exactly the same.

 

[bestsss]

The AI's logic is the same at all levels.

It's quite clear and accurate.

 

[phungus420]

They are the same. Higher difficulty means more bonuses. Of course the changes in AI output and such can cause different values to be entered in the variables, which in turn can lead to different decisions; but it's logic functions are unchanged.

 

[kaltorak]

Ok, thanks. That's what I though, but AI looks so stupid on lower levels I had to ask.
I guess it's just always stupid, but it doesn't look that way when it gets the big bonuses.

 

[Evil Beejeebers]

on the lower difficulty's it's stupid with a tech deficit, on higher ones it's stupid with a lesser tech deficit or slight tech lead.

 

[Badtz Maru]

There has to be differences in the aggressiveness at the very low levels. I know production penalties make it harder for the AI to build up a large enough army to feel safe attacking, but I did a test game on Settler (trying to see how quick I could lose, whether the AI would ever attack me) and I spent the entire game with one city, with one weak unit guarding it (I think it was a chariot, but I'm not sure) and I lost due to a score victory in 2050. Despite the massive production penalties, the AI still had more than enough troops to conquer me with ease, but they never declared war on me. They fought wars amongst themselves, even. There has to be some hidden "Leave the player alone" factor in Settler.

 

[r_rolo1]

Since I asked if it becomes smarter, it really looks like I asked if the AI learns ^^
But what I meant is only if there is any difference in the AI of each difficulty, or if they act exactly the same.

Neither

As phungus said, the AI logic is the same regardless of the level. But remember that applying the same logic to diferent enviroments will give diferent results, and the AI in this game is no exception. For a extreme example, I've seen a 2000ishs BC Brennus in a Deity game awnsering to my question if he would stop the war with other AI with a " We rather win the game...", the standart awnser of a AI that decided to win the game via Dom/conquest to people asking them to stop their wars ... obviously that Ai , by acident, got enough power in those early days compared with the competition to trigger that. The point is that this will probably never happen in a game below deity, where the AI is much slower gaining power

So, the AI gets smarter with higher levels? No .... the AI acts the same in every level? No again

 

[Willem]

Despite the massive production penalties, the AI still had more than enough troops to conquer me with ease, but they never declared war on me. They fought wars amongst themselves, even. There has to be some hidden "Leave the player alone" factor in Settler.

That probably has alot to do with the Attitude Change adjustment. At Settler that's +2 with every civ and it goes down by 1 for each level. So at Noble you have a default attitude with other civs at -1, making it much more likely that they will dislike you enough to declare on you.

 

[TheLazyHase]

That probably has alot to do with the Attitude Change adjustment. At Settler that's +2 with every civ and it goes down by 1 for each level. So at Noble you have a default attitude with other civs at -1, making it much more likely that they will dislike you enough to declare on you.

I MUST play one settler-level game with Toku, juste for the heck of being able to open border with him !

 

[Badtz Maru]

That probably has alot to do with the Attitude Change adjustment. At Settler that's +2 with every civ and it goes down by 1 for each level. So at Noble you have a default attitude with other civs at -1, making it much more likely that they will dislike you enough to declare on you.

I'll have to try it again with some AIs that declare at Friendly to see if there's a difference. I can't remember who I was playing against when I did my attempt to lose at Settler. I also set rules for myself that probably helped more than I expected (they were supposed to be handicaps ) - I agreed to any demand any civilization made except for demands to go to war.

 

[Windsor]

DanF's post on how the AI decides if it wants to war did include a "be kind to the newbies"-check which reduced the probability of the AI declaring if you play below noble.

 

[Silu]

EDIT: to justify for an useless post I checked the probs Windsor referred above.

Chance to opt for peace because of difficulty level:

Settler: 75%
Chieftain: 50%
Warlord: 25%
Noble+: 0%

 

[PieceOfMind]

Yep. There's a couple of differences in levels that can be described as "be kind to newbies". At Prince and below you also get barbarian free wins. This can make it look like barbs are stronger at higher difficulty levels. There's also a better combat modifier against them at lower diffs, making barbs pretty much as weak as wolves at Settler irrespective of barb free wins.

I'm not sure if there's anything more to the AI decision making than what Windsor mentioned that changes with difficulty level.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Having a worker or even 2nd settler at turn 0 and a good chunk of the worker techs does wonders for the AI ---> it can improve tiles immediately. With its massive bonuses holes in its play become somewhat less apparent and it can give the ILLUSION of having better logic. It doesn't. But you still have to adjust. On noble, the AI will pretty much never clear the pre-reqs for war in time to declare in the 1500 to 1000 BC range. On deity, you can be a war target before that because it hooks up strategic metals fast and builds units cheaply. It still needs to be able to build 2 kinds of offensive unit in each case, but in the latter it can do so before 2000 BC and spam enough units to be threatening in time...in the former it is rare-to-impossible.

Edit: though basic strategy doesn't change, some things do. For example, the trade cap is lower at deity than noble...this kind of stuff is available in the handicap XML.

 

[Badtz Maru]

I had a custom modded difficulty back when I played Vanilla that took out all the "Be kind to newbie" kind of changes from Noble and made almost everything equal between the player and the AI. I think I also had the health and happiness caps from higher difficulties. In some ways, it could be easier than regular Noble, because I equalized inflation and unit maintenance, and the AI gets big bonuses on that even on Noble.

 

[Antilogic]

As phungus said, the AI logic is the same regardless of the level. But remember that applying the same logic to diferent enviroments will give diferent results, and the AI in this game is no exception.

I have to thank r_rolo1 for posting exactly what I was going to say. The AI seems more competent at pursuing conquest/domination victories on Monarch than it did years ago when I played Noble, simply because they got the productivity to afford wasting dozens of units in unsuccessful sieges and raids and still conquer an AI. The higher level AI also seems like it picks a fight with the human player more often because they get so many more units than the human their power score inflates and they feel more confident about declaring.

 

[Rusty Edge]

I still hope and dream that in a future version of Civ the A.I will have plans in it's pocket learned from players here, rather than impossible handicaps.-

The A.I. will have a bag of tricks, and know how to use it. The higher the level, the more strategies it knows- chokes, daggers, feints, blitzkreigs, amphib landings, airborne assaults, proxy wars, etc. / the more targets or objectives it would have - your strategic resources, your happiness resources, your trade network, your economy, your specialized city, your space elevator city, etc.

As with a clever human, you would be kept guessing as to how it intended to thwart you, and defending against a variety of possibillities and contingencies -more of them as you progressed through the levels.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I still hope and dream that in a future version of Civ the A.I will have plans in it's pocket learned from players here, rather than impossible handicaps.-

The A.I. will have a bag of tricks, and know how to use it. The higher the level, the more strategies it knows- chokes, daggers, feints, blitzkreigs, amphib landings, airborne assaults, proxy wars, etc. / the more targets or objectives it would have - your strategic resources, your happiness resources, your trade network, your economy, your specialized city, your space elevator city, etc.

As with a clever human, you would be kept guessing as to how it intended to thwart you, and defending against a variety of possibillities and contingencies -more of them as you progressed through the levels.

Reading through the betterAI forum should represent just how difficult it is to create dynamic AIs...