Great General AI
- Thread starter Cybah
- Start date
MadmanAtW
Knight
I wonder if there's something that could be done about that behavior? Which would, in turn, make multiply settling GGs more valuable, and make attaching them plausible.
MadmanAtW
Knight
(Bursk slipped in- "that behavior" is meant to be the AI not preserving higher level units sufficiently, aside from its reluctance to use them as sacrifice units.)
Roland Johansen
Deity
In this thread, it is mentioned a few times that a city producing highly promoted units isn't very useful to the AI because it doesn't protect them well. I strongly disagree with that. If I have a city that can produce 10 XP units, then I will use these troops. No, I won't use them to attack at 30% odds, that's what siege units and bombers are for, but the AI typically won't use these units for that job either (as explained by jdog5000 in post 13). But I will use them to attack at 70% odds when my lowly promoted units have 30% odds. I can produce more of them so they're not irreplaceable and I won't lose them as often as lowly promoted units meaning that I need less production power to win a war.
If two stacks of the same units meet, one promoted up to combat II, the other up to combat III, then the higher promoted stack will incur less than half the number of losses of the lower promoted stack in the ensuing battle. That's how dramatic the effect of even one measly combat promotion is on battles. And there exist far more useful promotions than the combat promotion that can be chosen.
Now there is a limit to the usefulness of adding Great Generals to a city. For non-charismatic leaders for instance, going beyond 10 xp (3 promotions) is not extremely useful. It takes 3,5 GG to go from 10 XP (3 promotions) to 17 XP (4 promotions). For that investment, you could also raise the experience level of another high production city from 3 to 10 adding two promotions to the units produced in that city. For charismatic leaders, you could argue whether 8 XP (3 promotions) is enough or you want units at 13 XP (promotions).
The AI should be aware of the minimum xp levels needed to reach a certain number of promotions (2, 5, 10, 17, .. for non-charismatic leaders, 2, 4, 8, 13, for charismatic leaders) and try to get to some threshold level of experience when it is using it's peaceful, non-war civics. If the AI can also be taught to create military production cities, then these cities should also be producing highly promoted units in peace time. The war-civics are mainly useful for the other cities that don't have great instructors.
If two stacks of the same units meet, one promoted up to combat II, the other up to combat III, then the higher promoted stack will incur less than half the number of losses of the lower promoted stack in the ensuing battle. That's how dramatic the effect of even one measly combat promotion is on battles. And there exist far more useful promotions than the combat promotion that can be chosen.
Now there is a limit to the usefulness of adding Great Generals to a city. For non-charismatic leaders for instance, going beyond 10 xp (3 promotions) is not extremely useful. It takes 3,5 GG to go from 10 XP (3 promotions) to 17 XP (4 promotions). For that investment, you could also raise the experience level of another high production city from 3 to 10 adding two promotions to the units produced in that city. For charismatic leaders, you could argue whether 8 XP (3 promotions) is enough or you want units at 13 XP (promotions).
The AI should be aware of the minimum xp levels needed to reach a certain number of promotions (2, 5, 10, 17, .. for non-charismatic leaders, 2, 4, 8, 13, for charismatic leaders) and try to get to some threshold level of experience when it is using it's peaceful, non-war civics. If the AI can also be taught to create military production cities, then these cities should also be producing highly promoted units in peace time. The war-civics are mainly useful for the other cities that don't have great instructors.
MadmanAtW
Knight
Those are very good points about the numbers. Churning out level 4 units is definitely valuable, IMO. In my mind the worry over protecting a high level unit is less for high XP units (which, if they die, your settled GG can still churn out more) and more for the more likely to be singleton very high XP units which may have a GG attached, have unit GG promotions, or just be way higher in XP than the rest of your army. I wonder if perhaps a unit with more than double the average XP of your army should get added consideration towards being kept alive (especially if it has defensive promotions rather than offensive- obviously it's being wasted if it doesn't at least sometimes utilize offensive promotions, but if it's the aforementioned supermedic...).
Some good points there, but one problem still is that all those GGs settled in that one city won't do much if that city isn't a specialized production city. Since the AI doesn't specialize its cities yet, will it be any good for the AI to concentrate the GGs so heavily?
Roland Johansen
Deity
The thing is that having slightly more experienced troops doesn't really help. Spreading the great generals around means that lots of cities will produce something like 7 xp troops which doesn't help a lot in the war effort as these troops will regularly die before getting their third promotion. There needs to be a level difference between the troops produced by the great general city in order for these troops to be more successful than enemy troops. Typical enemy troops will have 1 or 2 promotions, so having a city that can create troops with 3 promotions will help defeat these enemies with lower losses and thus higher efficiency.
Of course, it would be a lot better if the AI could create a unit production city that can create these units in great numbers. City specialisation is not that easy to teach the AI, but if this could be achieved, then it would help the AI a lot.
WuphonsReach
Prince
- Joined
- Nov 6, 2005
- Messages
- 426
There's some value in having troops that are 1 point shy of a promotion though. If they survive the first attack, they get healed up through the promotion and are instantly ready for a second attack.
But for the most part, you'll want troops to be just at or past the XP required for a 2nd/3rd promotion for the most efficiency. The problems are that it can be difficult to decide whether you aim for this while including the effects of civics or not. After all, a city that produces 5XP units, will produce 7XP units or 9XP units if the civics change.
So do we settle a GG for XP based on a temporary effect like a civic? Or only when that civic is the leader's favorite civic?
But for the most part, you'll want troops to be just at or past the XP required for a 2nd/3rd promotion for the most efficiency. The problems are that it can be difficult to decide whether you aim for this while including the effects of civics or not. After all, a city that produces 5XP units, will produce 7XP units or 9XP units if the civics change.
So do we settle a GG for XP based on a temporary effect like a civic? Or only when that civic is the leader's favorite civic?
GatlingGun
Warlord
It certainly would if the AI knows to put them either in the HE or IW cities... we are helping the AI specialize a little better in these cases... where they put national wonders is another issue entirely which probably deserves a little focus too...
MadmanAtW
Knight
Perhaps worth noting that if the AI wants to go for this effect it can also just not give the unit its last promotion until the unit is wounded. (Better would be if it can decide to either do that or see if adding the promotion before the fight will increase the chances enough that it's a better option.)
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