Expanding AIs

[The_Architect]

Well, when the Britons, French, Portugals and Spaniards went overseas to distant lands they did meet new people and new civilizations, however, these new civs were not occupying the whole of the continents they were on levaing a great opportunity for the travellers to settle down in the new world. However, in civ3 on eaching a new continent one would invariably find it already full with cities.

I think that the decision to expand should be made a little bit after the establishing of new 2 or 3 cities and hence the AI's should be programmed that way.

How to implement:
1. The decision to expand (say more than 4 cities or cities very distant from the original city (capital)) should be random in case of AI's - some AI's start expanding from the very first eras while other decide to wait, prosper, advance technologically and then proceede to build a big empire.
2. However, in early ages expansion is not an easy task due to thick forsts, zero knowledge of land and navigation and so many other factors. Hence, after four cities the expansion should be disouraged in the form of huge discontent in citiesd far away from empires, very little production, a settler getting lost once in a while when travelling too far from the capital.
3. In case of expansionist civs the settlers are not lost if sent in an already discovered area (i.e. areas discovered by scouts).
4. Finally, researching a technology should do away with these disadvantages.
5. All the above can be modded in with a little modification. I don't expect any new suggestions to be included now.

Advantages of such a system:
1. Obviously more realistic - the civilizations of very ancient times like Harappa and Mayans, etc. were limited to very small areas of land.
2. The civilization which is scientifically advanced gets to expand first - an obvious advantage in the real world also.
3. More scope to settle in new continents.

Changes required in the game for this to work:
1. The most important chage required heer is that the production should not be linked directly with the number of tiles owned - that would not allow the civs to prosper with only 3-4 cities owing to lack of capital and is also unrealistic.
2. Allowing the ships to cross oceans once in a while even when navigation is not researched.


So, what do you all think??

 

[Kurioku]

I think that if the AI has an expansive leader, they should expand.

 

[apatheist]

I think history books just give the impression that nobody was there. Certainly there were people in Africa, the Americas, and (especially) Asia where the Europeans colonized. In Africa and the Americas, the population was less settled, so maybe that's why you have that impression. Also, in the Americas, it's estimated that as many as 95% of Native Americans died before ever seeing a European due to the transmission of diseases like smallpox faster than the Europeans could explore. The Europeans thus often entered areas that had been depopulated decades previously, which gave an inaccurate impression of the population of those lands before the Europeans arrived.

 

[Slax]

In colonizing North America, it was probably more like encountering barbarian camps and goodie huts than actual cities, for the most part.

 

[Superkrest]

the problem i see with that small civs normally are weaker..and would rapidly dissapear. If there were lots and lots of these minor civs this wouldnt be a problem...but if there were only 8 total civs...and 5 dont expand..the game just wouldnt be that fun

 

[apatheist]

I don't like the idea of Native Americans being represented as just barbarians and goodie huts. But then, I'm not into the idea of barbarians in general, anyway. I prefer nomads and minor civs, as described here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=122550.

 

[Sullla]

Civs that don't expand are easy to defeat. The AI in Civ1 and Civ2 was incompetent at expansion, and that was a huge reason for the player's success in those games. Civ3's AI was deliberately made rabidly expansive, and put up a much stronger performance (though that caused its own problems). The Civ4 AI will have to be good at expansion as well if it is to put up a good fight.

Put it this way. If you had room to expand, would you deliberately limit yourself to just a couple of cities? (outside of a variant, of course) I know I wouldn't.

 

[apatheist]

That's only because the game engine itself emphasized expansion. You get more from many mediocre cities than you do from fewer excellent ones. The game shouldn't tilt the field towards one over the other; both are legitimate strategies. A nation like the Venetian Republic or the Dutch is not possible in Civ games.

 

[OLX]

I don't like the idea of Native Americans being represented as just barbarians and goodie huts. But then, I'm not into the idea of barbarians in general, anyway. I prefer nomads and minor civs, as described here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=122550.

Agreed, Why list The Cherokee as a Barbarian Tribe when They Were, and still are, among some of the most cultured Tribes in the Americas

PS: I have some Cherokee Ancestry, Also I live in Oklahoma where the bulk of the Cherokee Population lives now Thank You very much President Andrew Jackson.

 

[apatheist]

Agreed, Why list The Cherokee as a Barbarian Tribe when They Were, and still are, among some of the most cultured Tribes in the Americas

PS: I have some Cherokee Ancestry.

I'm sure there's no connection between those two sentences ;-)

 

[warpstorm]

That's only because the game engine itself emphasized expansion. You get more from many mediocre cities than you do from fewer excellent ones. The game shouldn't tilt the field towards one over the other; both are legitimate strategies. A nation like the Venetian Republic or the Dutch is not possible in Civ games.

There is some truth in this, but how is it worse to have many excellent cities instead of just a few? If it is not worse, then the AI should attempt to do this.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I think that what Apatheist is alluding to is the biggest failing of the Civ series to date (actually it is a couple of closely related failings). The first is that the land you control is a direct factor in how wealthy you are (and, therefore, how technologically, culturally and militarily powerful you are). The second problem is that this land based economic success becomes an 'Infinite Feedback Loop', where initial success breeds even greater success throughout the rest of the game. How to solve this problem is not immediately apparent, but a 'Quality over Quantity' approach is a good place to begin. That is, a city with a high culture, with a very happy, healthy and specialised population is more 'wealthy', and is thus worth more to the national treasury (which would require a rudimentary 'Income Tax' setting). In addition, the wealth of a city, and the number of commodities on a worked tile-should determine the value of that tile-not merely the act of working the tile itself. Allowing cities to benefit, financially, from any and all trade routes which pass through them will also make city placement a much more important factor than merely having a city any old place.
Certainly, imposing a maintainance cost on cities, and having greater diversity of tile improvements, will go a long way towards solving the twin dilemmas of 'quantity vs quality' and 'The Snowball Effect', but I also feel that implementation of my above suggestions could also go a long way towards making constant expansion a lot less essential for ultimate success in the game.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[warpstorm]

The problem isn't quality vs. quantity. Why settle for that when quality and quantity is even better? In real life, more land is better than less. Those countries that have more "stuff" in them are generally better than those that don't. Quantity has a certain quality of its own. It allows the the resources to buy more quality. This is as it should be. I'd be extremely disappointed if Civ4 didn't reflect this fundamental fact.

Fact of life, the rich get richer. I would probably quit playing Civ if that maxim were removed as the game would become pointless to me.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

My problem isn't that quantity can equal quality, its just that in Civ quantity almost always equals quality. Not only does this allow a sloppy player to succeed merely by dint of having the most land (a crime I confess to being guilty of ) but it also prevents smaller nations from ever getting ahead. My point is that having fewer high quality, well managed cities ought to allow you to keep pace with a civ that has lots of piddling little cities. For me its about BALANCE , not about keeping larger civs from winning. Other issues which prevent the 'Small is Beautiful' strategy is the non-binary resource system-IMO-the lack of Civil Wars, and the absence of any genuine limitations to early game expansion (unless you are unlucky enough to start on an island).
There are good gameplay reasons for allowing such a balancing mechanism, but it is also good from a realism perspective too. Consider 10th-11th Century England-the wealthiest nation in all of Europe at the time-or even modern day Switzerland, Belgium, Luxemburg or Japan. All of them are very powerful/wealthy nations, in spite of their size, and that gameplay option should be available in civ too.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[apatheist]

Aussie Lurker, what you said. I do question your 10th-11th century England factoid, though. That doesn't seem right. What about, say, Kievan Rus?

warpstorm, consider the following list of countries: Saudi Arabia, Russia, Republic of Congo. What do they have in common? Enormous wealth in natural resources and poor, primitive economies. Now consider this list: Taiwan, S. Korea, Singapore. What do they have common? Relatively little natural resources, and sophisticated, large economies.

Natural resources are relatively easily controlled and do not require skilled labor to harvest. This makes it easy for a few princes/oligarchs/warlords to take over and run the whole economy. There is no motivation to develop strong institutions and infrastructure and a well-educated, stable middle class. On the other hand, a nation without natural resources can either live in poverty (much of the world) or work to develop its institutions, infrastructure, and people. In the long run, the latter type is far more effective at creating wealth, advancing technology, and increasing standards of living.

In some ways, more is less, because a readily available bounty of natural resources can make you lazy, weak, and corrupt (Saudi royal family, for instance). Not only can Civ games not model this, but they model the exact opposite. That's fine for the world up into the late Medieval/early Industrial era, when most economies were based on agriculture. Once trade and industrial production become established, however, the model breaks down. That is how the Netherlands could be so powerful. That is how the Great Britain was so successful. The rich should get richer. The thing is, what makes you rich has changed drastically over the last 6000 years in the real world, but not in Civilization.

Now, it's obvious I was pretty selective. The USA, Canada, and Australia have both a large base of natural resources and well-developed sophisticated economies. On the other hand, Chad, Bangladesh, and Guatemala have neither substantial natural resources nor sophisticated economies. Nevertheless, I hope you still consider the point to be valid.

 

[warpstorm]

apatheist, I consider people to be a resource to be husbanded like any other. Good and poor husbandship should be rewarded and penalized as appropriate.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

But that is exactly the point which Apatheist and I are making, Warpstorm. In Civ terms, Japan, England, Switzerland and Belgium might all be considered as civs with only a small number of high-population cities. However, because the cities in question are above average happiness, with a high culture and the like, then it follows that they are wealthy cities which should earn the player a large amount of money each turn-money which can be fed back into their research, culture and diplomacy. This situation is not adequately represented in Civ at the moment, and is the reason why human and AI alike feel like they have to expand like crazy. I say make expansion more difficult-in certain ways-whilst at the same time allowing sufficient benefits and penalties for choosing to stay small or trying to get big.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[apatheist]

Then we are in agreement that the game should support that, but doesn't?

 

[warpstorm]

No, I disagree. Expansion should be the goal of all players (human or AI). To not get what you can as early as you can seems like you are intentionally handicapping yourself or the AI. You give the example of lots of crappy cities versus a handful of good cities. I never play that way. I build lots of good or great cities if I can pull it off and I expect the AI to do the same.

 

[Superkrest]

no..i think i get the point they were getting at...very rarely does expansion work...especially in the modern world...small countries are capable of doing big things. germany japan great brittain are great examples..and also isreal. germany japan and great brittain expanded to huge amounts using small but powerfull homes. but all 3 (germany and japan mostly) had massive problems once they acheived huge size and it back fired. now they are small once again..but make up a HUGE chunk of the world economy. Smaller countries shouldnt be as handicaped as they are in the game..its not accurate and doesnt make sense. but im still faced with a problem...if great citys make enough commerce and science to keep up...what happens if a civ gets a great early start..and is alot bigger early and holds multiple large and cultraly signifigant cities...they will once again..blow away the smaller civs