does the AI become smarter?

[lietkynes]

Civ4 has a decent AI compared to other Civ games

 

[phungus420]

Civ4 has a decent AI compared to other Civ games

Civ4 arguably has the most intelligent AI of any commercially available strategy game. That doesn't change the fact it's still dumber then a box of rocks.

 

[Badtz Maru]

Sorry to be a party breaker, but i find it hard to call that behaviour "inteligent". Call it "annoying to the human player", challeging to the human player" or something of that kind , but that is NOT inteligent behaviour by the part of that particular AI, especially in Civ IV, where you can win with one city and, barring PA, there is no way of making another player win my own ( as almost all of the GalCiv II wins are, atleast acording to the GalCiv II wiki ( since I never played the game )). So, there is no real incentive to a player to throw himself under the good graces of a protecting power just because it is being beaten to crap: being a vassal of someone who wins does not make you win in Civ IV That kind of behaviour can make the game more challenging , but that is in the exact oposite side of being inteligent, atleast seen in the prespective of the weaker civ in Civ IV that technically can win until the moment it loses the last city That said, in civ IV, where every civ can only win by themselfes barring PA, throwing themselfes into the mercy of a friendly civ or wait until vassaling to the agressor have the same value in terms of chances of winning... in fact vassaling to the agressor may even be a better strategy in a lot of cases This applies also to the argument that the AI should jump to burn UN/AP , the capital or one of the legendary cities to avoid a enemy win : ok, that might make the other guy not win the game, but it will make the attacker win it? Not necessarily ( and, given that those raids sometimes are pretty much kamikaze attacks, where you don't expect to see your soldiers back, in fact it can even make the player in question more prone to lose the game )

Other aspect to have in mind is that, unlike it seems to me from reading the victory conditions of GalCiv II, Civ IV victory conditions allow for very sudden jumps in the degree that a civ is close of winning via a certain VC and you can pass easily from having 50% of the win conditions fulfilled to 100% in one turn or even in the same turn for all the victory conditions. As it is easy to understand, gradual wins are far more easy to detect and counter by a AI than things that can sudently jump a lot. if you say to a AI " start preparing the ships to attack a civ when it reaches the second legendary city " ( for the sake of example .. it could be the first engine of the SS, or 40% of the expected votes in UN , or 30% of the land mass .... chose one, the logic behind is the same ), what the AI will do if I get the second legendary city at the same time as the third? How will the AI react to a player ( human or not .... ) that builds all the space parts in the same turn and relocates the capital to a spot inacessible in the turns that are needed to the ship to get to AC ? Or worse, what happens if the AI gets to be ready in time to burn the capital of a civ that built a slow SS just to be surprised by the launch of another SS in the other side of the world?

Bottom line, I strongly believe that the behaviour that people describe as being of GalCiv II AI is not adequate to Civ IV AI due to the diference between the victory rules. And , in another line of thought ( that I already used elsewhere regarding the same issue ), I have my serious doubts that making the life hard to a player that is in the way of winning can be described as inteligent behaviour in a enviroment that, besides one exception ( the already quoted PA ), doesn't allow comunal wins.

Civ4 has the AI giving up and throwing itself to the mercy of other civilizations as well, so you can't say it always plays to win and not just to preserve their people (or annoy the player). The difference is that the AI in GalCiv will do it before they are totally destroyed, and they will tend to do it to a civilization that is idealogically similar - GalCiv2 ranks civilizations along a Good/Evil sliding scale based on their choices on random events and their behavior in warfare, and a good civilization that is about to get beaten by an evil empire will surrender to the strongest good civilization in that area. If they are about to be conquered by an idealogically similar civilization, they will probably surrender to them. This causes the galaxy to coalesce into an empire of good races and an empire of evil races by the late game.

As to wins being more gradual in GalCiv2, I'm not sure I agree with that. Some quick diplomacy and vote buying can cause a surprise diplomatic win in GalCiv2. A conquest-type win could happen suddenly with some unexpected surrenders. The thing is, the AI in Civ4 does not adapt it's strategies at all when it is clear that one side is about to win. A civ can build an entire spaceship over dozens of turns or cultural victory with nobody declaring war on them if they play diplomatically. In GalCiv2, that just doesn't happen. If Civ4 had GalCiv2 AI, as soon as one side had a couple of Legendary cities, you could bet there would be a coalition striking directly at the city that is closest to being the game-winner. A GalCiv2 AI would not be building it's first spaceship parts when an AI was building the final pieces - it would be building an army to take the player on the verge of winning out, and if it wasn't in a position to do so it would probably be giving techs and military units to a neighbor of the spaceship builder.

Civ4 has a good AI, and is a superior game to GalCiv2 in my opinion, but GalCiv2 has a clearly superior AI which is not just incrementally better than Civ4s, it is a leap forward. I hope that Civ5 has a similar AI.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Civ4 has a good AI, and is a superior game to GalCiv2 in my opinion, but GalCiv2 has a clearly superior AI which is not just incrementally better than Civ4s, it is a leap forward. I hope that Civ5 has a similar AI.

I don't really wish to challenge that statement here, but what I would ask you to consider is what exactly is meant by "better" when you say galciv has a better AI.

If I claimed chess computers had better AI than civ 4, what exactly would that mean? Comparing AIs between different games is already difficult because of rule differences.

Since Galciv is a dedicated single player game, it's quite possible to design the game from the ground up with the aim of having the AI being a more important feature. In Civ4, the game rules have to be balanced for multiplayer as well. For example, I don't see (at the moment) how a good/evil system could work in MP in civ 4.

I'm just very dubious that you can compare the AIs without yourself going and examining the code and seeing which one has more advanced decision making processes.

 

[Badtz Maru]

I don't really wish to challenge that statement here, but what I would ask you to consider is what exactly is meant by "better" when you say galciv has a better AI.

If I claimed chess computers had better AI than civ 4, what exactly would that mean? Comparing AIs between different games is already difficult because of rule differences.

Since Galciv is a dedicated single player game, it's quite possible to design the game from the ground up with the aim of having the AI being a more important feature. In Civ4, the game rules have to be balanced for multiplayer as well. For example, I don't see (at the moment) how a good/evil system could work in MP in civ 4.

I'm just very dubious that you can compare the AIs without yourself going and examining the code and seeing which one has more advanced decision making processes.

Something like the Good/Evil system would work fine in a multiplayer game. You'd probably want to call it something different in a Civilization game (make it more of a reputation thing), but it would be possible to implement a reputation rating to a civilization that is adjusted by how it acts (do you raze cities? practice slavery? choose the evil choice in events?). It might not have any effect on how players treated each other, but it could affect how the AIs reacted to you. There's actually already something like that in Civ4, with the hidden warmonger respect factor in diplomacy.

GalCiv2 is very similar to Civilization 4 in it's victory conditions - I'd say that it was ripping off Civ4, but I think a lot of them came from the original GalCiv which was from back in the 1990s. Comparing GalCiv2 to Civ4 is not like comparing Civ4 to chess. The two have far more in common with each other than either has with simpler games.

GalCiv2 just has a stronger focus on the AI than Civ4 did. When they made Civ4, the model of having an AI that can manage a war and build up it's cities but is otherwise dumb and reliant on bonuses to be a challenge was already established. That's how Civ games have always been, and there was no motivation to build a much stronger AI than in previous Civ games because they had a fanbase who would buy a Civ game that had no AI improvements over earlier versions. When the developers of GalCiv2 designed the game, the top priority was to make the AI intelligent and dynamic.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I'd be a bit surprised if the game rules between the games is similar in an absolute sense. Just because the gameplay is similar doesn't necessarily mean the rule design is similar, and that it is equally accommodating of easier AI design.

Anyway, it's hard for me to comment much without having played galciv, I just again would question the proposition that the AI is 'better'. Civ4 AI probably has to roleplay more than the galciv AI. In a game that has no tie to history whatsoever, the AIs can be developed to behave in any way that looks intelligent within the game rules.

Is the code for galciv's AI publicly available?

There's actually already something like that in Civ4, with the hidden warmonger respect factor in diplomacy.

I don't agree. That particular modifier can not be affected by any action during the game at all. As such, it's nothing like a good/evil system (where I assume the point is that you choose your path based on various decisions you make).

 

[TheLazyHase]

*sick*

You're plain wrong on the AI focus.I can ensure you that Civ have a big focus on AI. Don't forget how complex can be Civ4 gestion ; this is why you think the Civ4 AI as dumb (and also because I don't think it's created with the help of AI expert).

 

[Badtz Maru]

I'd be a bit surprised if the game rules between the games is similar in an absolute sense. Just because the gameplay is similar doesn't necessarily mean the rule design is similar, and that it is equally accommodating of easier AI design.

Anyway, it's hard for me to comment much without having played galciv, I just again would question the proposition that the AI is 'better'. Civ4 AI probably has to roleplay more than the galciv AI. In a game that has no tie to history whatsoever, the AIs can be developed to behave in any way that looks intelligent within the game rules.

Is the code for galciv's AI publicly available?

I don't agree. That particular modifier can not be affected by any action during the game at all. As such, it's nothing like a good/evil system (where I assume the point is that you choose your path based on various decisions you make).

The respect factor is not adjustable in Civ4, but I was trying to say it's possible for different civs to have an inherent factor that adjusts how civilizations of different types see them, and not just a general reputation towards everybody or relations specific between different civs due to their interactions. In GalCiv2, a good civilization is going to have diplomacy bonuses with other good civilizations as soon as they make contact, despite neither civilization having any knowledge of the other besides their alignment. In Civ4, there is the warmonger respect factor that will cause two warlike civilizations to like each other despite having no history between them. This is present in both single player and multiplayer.

Europa Universalis II had a factor that was called "Bad Boy" points where certain actions would cause you to build a negative reputation that would cause countries that were otherwise friendly to declare war on you regardless of how well you treated them that is similar in concept to what I imagine, and it had multiplayer as well.

The personalities in GalCiv were not as varied as in Civ4, and that is one of the things I did not like about the game. Some had a greater tendency to research, others to build ships, but diplomatically they tended to do whatever was best for the survival of their civilization, so by mid-game they all behaved in a fairly similar way. You didn't have stubborn AIs like in Civ4 who would rather die than give up a city in surrender, or civilizations that were non-aggressive to the point of self-destruction. When all AIs play smartly towards winning, they lose character.

 

[Badtz Maru]

*sick*

You're plain wrong on the AI focus.I can ensure you that Civ have a big focus on AI. Don't forget how complex can be Civ4 gestion ; this is why you think the Civ4 AI as dumb (and also because I don't think it's created with the help of AI expert).

Have you played much GalCiv2? I played it pretty heavily for a couple of months, and the AI is obviously much more complex than in Civ4. Civ4 AI does it's job, which is to provide opponents for the player, but it doesn't really try to win and often behaves in self-destructive ways. You can say it's intentional that the AI in Civ4 doesn't play to win, and maybe it is, but you can obviously make a simpler, weaker AI if trying to win isn't one of your goals.

 

[TheLazyHase]

Have you played much GalCiv2? I played it pretty heavily for a couple of months, and the AI is obviously much more complex than in Civ4. Civ4 AI does it's job, which is to provide opponents for the player, but it doesn't really try to win and often behaves in self-destructive ways. You can say it's intentional that the AI in Civ4 doesn't play to win, and maybe it is, but you can obviously make a simpler, weaker AI if trying to win isn't one of your goals.

Well, I don't have played GalCiv2. But then again, you dont have any real argument that would show that the galciv2 is more sophisticated. Your main example is something the Civ4 AI do. Simply, because there is no simple way to see what type of army you mass, it show on other area, like cultural war and such. All other example are of the same kind in my opinion : the same thing as in civ4, sometime it look even less good, and you say it's better. I'm not impressed.

 

[PieceOfMind]

When all AIs play smartly towards winning, they lose character.

Therein lies the problem. Civ4 probably would not be anywhere near as popular or fun to play if all the AIs had essentially been taught to play to win and give no consideration to roleplay. I'm sure you've probably already read some of the comments/articles by Soren, but basically great effort was put into making sure Civ4's AI wasn't just about beating the player. Putting it in words similar to what he'd use, a "fun AI" is better than a "challenging AI". The civ4 devs even had trouble grappling the question of whether to make the AI play to win. When Blake and Iustus were making Better AI way back in the day lol it was pretty controversial when it became clear they pretty much wanted to throw roleplay aside and make it harder for the human player to win the game. Some people to this day disagree with the attitude Blake took with Better AI.

 

[Badtz Maru]

Well, I don't have played GalCiv2. But then again, you dont have any real argument that would show that the galciv2 is more sophisticated. Your main example is something the Civ4 AI do. Simply, because there is no simple way to see what type of army you mass, it show on other area, like cultural war and such. All other example are of the same kind in my opinion : the same thing as in civ4, sometime it look even less good, and you say it's better. I'm not impressed.

Does the AI ever gift techs and resources to help another civ win a war? I had something mysterious happen to me in a game of GalCiv2 that wasn't so mysterious a couple of turns later. I was puttering along, lagging behind in military tech between my two neighbors, who weren't friendly with each other but were on decent terms with me. I was a buffer between them, and I had no reason to believe either was going to go to war with me. Suddenly, Civ A gives me some techs and a bunch of powerful warships that were beyond what I could build myself. I thought at first he was just trying to win favor with me for a galactic council vote, but a few turns later Civ B on the other side of me attacks me. Civ A could see that coming but I wasn't paying attention to Civ B's troop buildup. Because of the fleet I was given, I was able to beat back Civ B. If Civ A didn't give me that, I probably would have been taken over and he surely would have gone on to attack Civ A.

That was the only time I remember that happening before a war, but when you are invaded it's not uncommon at all to get gifted ships and techs from other civilizations, sometimes even ones that weren't friendly towards you but hate your enemy more.

The AI in Civ4 seems good at espionage, but it doesn't show any evidence of building specific counters to your units, either.