FfH2 0.20 WarScript Feedback

[QES]

Repost (Didnt see the "warscript" thread initially)

On the Doviello Warscript:

I dig that they're all "in your face" Especially if your the only civ they know - but theres a fundamental problem with them. They dont know when its prudent to build up.

As My game progressed, there were constant wars. Lots of pillaging, etc. I was playing the amurites. I'd sue for peace as often as possible, because I felt like (and was) I was lagging behind other civs. THe doviellow were consuming my resources - more than barbs do. Now - thats awesome. But they themselves didnt benefit at all from it. They got gold from constantly pillaging my lands, but they never were able to surpass me in points. Consequently some 500 turns later, theyre the bottom of the barrel - and the only reason I havn't wiped them off the face of the world, was because they had iron and copper, and I did not. So despite me being more technologically advanced, they were able to keep on par with me militarily.

Honestly - they should have wiped me out, or thought better of attacking. Because they have to be at war at ALL times - they should get some benefit for it. I mean, I hope to god they dont suffer war weariness. They dont, do they? Has that been implemented/changed? As soon as the Lanun came in the picture, I sued for peace, and the Doviello immediatley declared war on them - despite the Lanun being even more powerful than I.

I dig the warscript - but it needs tuning. Perhaps the Doviello should have heavy incentives for war - but only with strength comparrisons (likely to win/take land/etc OR they should often threaten war instead of just instigating it - include in the war script demands for tribute. Hell, id have paid tribute several times just for the opportunities to work my lands for a while.

They're death became all but inevitable, because they couldnt conquer me, and had spent all their resources, for the entire game, on war. Yes - thats cool, but unless they win, they diie. And even if they win, there are other mitigatnig circumstances that will really hurt them in the mid/late game stages.

I suggest adding to the Dov. warscript the concept of "demanding tribute" just once, and no means war. (it could function like an extended peace maybe 20 turns?) That way, the doves can demand alot, get benefits, and advance their culture and civilization to remain competetive. I also suggest adjusting the "will attack the weakest player" to "will attack the player with the least comparitive strength in armies that is equal to or less the Doviello strength - so that they're not declaring war on stronger neighbors.

And for the love - if those poor bastards suffer war weariness...they'll never get anywhere.
-Qes

EDIT: None of this is in regards to Human gameplay - merel AI competitiveness.

 

[Love]

Just in the start the illians declared war at me i build some warriors and killd em

 

[onedreamer]

Charadon declared war on me, Kandros Fir, the turn after I met him (he was the first civ I met). I kept kicking his ass with a Giant Spider and the help of barbarian hordes (note: shouldn't barbarians be friendly to Charadon ?), without really the intention to crush him, since I wanted to see how things develop in Fire; I just slowed his expansion toward me a bit. After 150-200 turns of bashing him I decided to make peace. The turn after he declared war on Einion Logos
I don't really think he was in the position to declare, both of the times... but I only write it as "report" on current AI behavior. The other leaders I met (Einion, Rhoanna and Os-Gabella) have all been "peaceful" for now.

 

[TheBoatman]

I think the problem is that he always declares on the weakest civ he knows, so if he meets someone strong (e.g. cassiel) as the first, he attacks. This strong civ he meets is "weakest". The warscript shouldwait until there are enough enemies to choose from.

The vanilla script is very peaceful, because civs attack, if they are almost sure of success (gaining at least one city). They do not attack for early worker capturing and pillaging to cripple economy. This is also far from ideal, so making the game more aggresive is fine, if they learn to risk healthily.

 

[Frozen-Vomit]

In my game as the Amurites I was also constantly at war with the doviello (they declared on turn 26 epic speed) till they finally died about turn 400. The war was quite fun - Chardaron even took one of my cities once but in the end he still had only warriors against axeman and the drown. He send wave after wave of warriors that got slaughtered, fell behind in points (his 300 to 700 for me and os-gabriela his only neighbors.) because he didn't build up any non-war infrascructure...

The way he plays now he can easily be overhelmed when you turtle for some time and then crush him with higher tier units.

 

[Xuenay]

I think the problem is that he always declares on the weakest civ he knows, so if he meets someone strong (e.g. cassiel) as the first, he attacks. This strong civ he meets is "weakest". The warscript shouldwait until there are enough enemies to choose from.

Maybe change it so that he attacks the weakest civ he knows, assuming that the civ in question is weaker than him? (But if at least 50% of the map's living civilizations have been met and he's the weakest, declare war on the second weakest anyway - it's not like he'd have anything to lose at that point)

 

[zyrev]

Yeah there is a big difference between aggresive behaviour and suicidal behaviour hah

 

[Kael]

Right now Im trying to decide if we want to scale back the Doviello's aggresion or front load them. Meaning they would have an initial perk that would help with their early aggresion. After all they were powerhouses during the Age of Ice and should be in a decent position when the 4th age begins.

Maybe they will start with a few extra warriors? Maybe a few of their scouts will be scattered on the map? Or maybe their warriors will just be tougher than other warriors when attacking(3/2)? Maybe all three.

We could definitly help the Doviello survive by taking away their aggresion, but I wonder if we aren't better off to play into it?

 

[Sureshot]

Right now Im trying to decide if we want to scale back the Doviello's aggresion or front load them. Meaning they would have an initial perk that would help with their early aggresion. After all they were powerhouses during the Age of Ice and should be in a decent position when the 4th age begins.

Maybe they will start with a few extra warriors? Maybe a few of their scouts will be scattered on the map? Or maybe their warriors will just be tougher than other warriors when attacking(3/2)? Maybe all three.

We could definitly help the Doviello survive by taking away their aggresion, but I wonder if we aren't better off to play into it?

one thing i was thinkin was that their palace could have copper and have them not need forges to apply it, and have it apply to scouts and the recon line

 

[Kael]

one thing i was thinkin was that their palace could have copper and have them not need forges to apply it, and have it apply to scouts and the recon line

Thats an interesting idea, allows them to keep their no building dependancy design concept and be aggresive right out of the gate.

 

[Agifem]

I am quite displeased with the new warscript.

Yesterday, i played as the Sheaim. My purpose was to test the new fire mod, so i played in lowest difficulty level, and tried my best to raise the armageddon count.

Well, when the counter reached around 50, everyone started declaring war on the enemies, and on the persons they were neutral to. Around 60-70, they started declaring war on everyone. Even friends. I was frequently prompted to help a friend fight a war against another friend. Needless to say, it heavily cripples diplomacy, and it doesn't help the AI.

I can understand that a rising armageddon count can make people nervous, especially after a blight and the four riders of the apocalypse set foot in our lands, but the AI should remain realistic ! Why declare war on a strong friend, when there is someone you are neutral to and that is responsable for all the bad things happening in the world ? I mean, i founded the Ashen Veil, i built an entropy node and a death node, i razed several cities, i spreaded my religion, yet the AI prefer to war each other. Surprisingly, one might think it is because i was too strong, but it didn't prevent a few of them from attacking me.

 

[Love]

Why are the fonder of the AV declaring war to hyborem? They do it like for no reason...

 

[onedreamer]

If I'd summon a Daemon whos intent is to destroy the world, I don't think I'd need a reason to attack anyone, and especially him, since I'm part of the world myself....

 

[Love]

So the armageddonhunting sheim? Its like desame reason...

 

[Kael]

In patch "e" Im going to reduce the warscript dogpile function a bit. Currently an AI player goes out and starts asking other players to join him in war. There are a few conditions that have to be met before the asked AI player will consider it.

The first is that it has to have a positive attitude toward the AI player making the request. If that is the case it currently checks to see if the attitude toward the player he is being asked to attack is less than the attitude toward the asker. So it may dogpile a player it is +7 with if it is +8 with the asker.

Im going to force a bit more of a difference there. So that it won't consider a request to dogpile a civ unless its at least 3 points higher. So if it is +8 with the asker it would have to be +5 or lower with the civ it is being asked to attack.

Additionally if the Aggresive AI switch isn't set on then it needs to be an additional 2 points. So if it is +8 to the asker it wouldn't consider the deal unless the requester is +3 or less.

 

[Sureshot]

will that work for players as well? i seem to have a hard time convincing an AI to attack its enemies even if we're great friends, on the hardest difficulties.

 

[Sarvoth]

In my current game as the Bannor, I've managed to convert the Lurchip, Ljosalfar, Amurites, and the Malakim all to the Order. After the Belseraphs founded Ashein Veil and summoned Hyborem, the only other two civilizations not converted to the Order were the Doviello and Illians. The Doviello adopted Ashien Veil and were quickly dogpiled onto and destroyed. A short span of turns later Basium is summoned by the Malakim and I forge a permanent alliance with the Amurites. Basium is sandwiched between the Malakim and Amurite empires, and so he declares war on the Illians immediatly and wipes them off the map cleanly. Afterwards he focuses his attention on Hyborem and the Belseraphs which are located on the opposite side of the continent. After raising a single Infernal city, the Infernals and Belseraphs both negotiate a peace treaty with the Mercurians and a few turns later Basium randomly declares war on the Amurites and myself (Bannor) for apparently no reason what-so-ever. Both my Amurite allies and myself had good diplomatic records and trade with both the Mercurians and the Malakim.. This is somewhat distressing because this pattern has repeated now a few times in this game. Hyborem keeps making peace, and Basium keeps declaring war repeatedly on the Amurites (which are of Good alignment, due to adopting the Order). It's year 430 with an Armageddon counter of 46.

Currently everyone is at peace, but I'm pretty sure that as soon as the peace treaty expires Basium will quickly declare war on the Amurites once more. And start sailing across the ocean to get to my home cities rather than warring with the two large Ashien Veil empires that share a continent with him :-(.

 

[Morganknight]

Just a suggestion:

Since "power" seems to play a large part in who the AI decides to war on, could you add a power ranking to the scores listed in the lower right corner?

It would sure beat cycling to the power graph every other turn to make sure I don't have the lowest power.

A simple numeric rating that included only the civs you had met would be lovely.

 

[triangle]

Orthus also messes with the warscript a bit.

In one of my test games I was attacked by orthus, and fought him off only after loosing one of my cities, and was immediately dogpiled.

While it is "realistic" I need a break after being attacked like that...

 

[Alasyre]

I find that the excessive dogpiling is terrible for my diplomacy rationgs. Often every turn I have people asking me to declare war, and when I don't, I recieve the normal penalty. Would it be possible to reduce the duration of this penalty? Unless you're lowering the dogpile function significantly, that is.