How does AI advance so fast in science?

[AlextheGr8]

I just entered the industrial era in a game with 2 other ai, normal difficulty. Right after I entered the industrial era I get a note saying one AI has entered the modern era???!?!! How is that possible so fast?

 

[EmperorFool]

Hah! I was only a few techs into the Renaissance Era when Hiawatha entered the Modern Era in my current game. Lucky for me, we've been friends the whole game even though he now has 1 positive and 4 negative diplomatic modifiers visible. I'd say I should really start beefing up my military given that we just took out the only other AI on our continent.

 

[Seek]

I don't know what build you guys are playing, but I have definitely noticed that the AI is doing amazingly well at science in v131.12 beta - it's like they didn't get the memo that tech costs were raised 20%!

 

[lindanealmck]

I have noticed that as well. I was playing as England playing in a conquest fashion with massed longbows vs Artillery and Light Infantry (Prince level). I was 11 techs behind despite having a large empire. I tried Sejong, and I am still a few techs behind despite the Great Library and Porcelain tower.
It may have to do with the expense of Research Agreements. The AI usually has a lot more gold to spend then the player. When it gets to a 1000 gold, I usually don't have it. Previously, I would have agreements with most of the other civs.
For now, I have quit playing King games.

 

[Thalassicus]

I was getting feedback the game was much too easy, so I made it harder. If you feel I made it too hard I can tone it down a bit.

 

[lindanealmck]

Everyone has a different taste. I like to use the Game of the Month rules. You take what starting position you get, and if you make a mistake, you don't load autosave etc. For now, I will just play Prince level. It just takes too much time, effort, and restarts to win at king (for me).

If its the game of the month, or a grudge match, I am willing to take the extra time.

Most of time, if I am way ahead in a game, I restart those as well. I have the most fun in the early part of the game.

It is clearly hard to balance challenge with random events in the game. I am not complaining, just noting and adapting to the changes.

 

[Zaldron]

I don't know what build you guys are playing, but I have definitely noticed that the AI is doing amazingly well at science in v131.12 beta - it's like they didn't get the memo that tech costs were raised 20%!

Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking, you summed it up perfectly. This is based on emperor between v131 and v131.12. I actually was going for a science win in another 131.12 game and Egypt came out of nowhere and built the utopia project on me (I was still early late industrial/early Modern era as I recall).

 

[Aristos]

Well, from what I know Thal only levelled the field regarding happiness, all other bonuses for the AI are intact... AI still plays at Chieftain, which bonuses compounded by the Emperor+ AI bonuses give the AI a 2:1 ratio (or more) in every factor except happiness. That, plus the overabundance of food and gold in VEM makes what you see.

Personally, I think there is too much of those two key resources in VEM now.

 

[Dunkah]

Way too difficult for me!
I usually play at king epic or marathon and the gold and science the AI's have are off the charts!

It seems to me there are no boundries for the AI. They have 10 times the happiness I have have 2 or 3 times the number of cities I have and more gold then they know what to do with as well as huge armies and killer science.

I haven't won a game in ages!

Is it possible to get the community to play a couple of games at Epic or Marathon speeds to see what they think? Standard doesn't seem real to me. Other speeds are too difficult!

 

[Thalassicus]

@Aristos

The AI bonuses are:

• A few extra units at start of the game.
• Units gain extra experience and sight range.
• Production % modifier.
• Research % modifier.

For example, on Emperor difficulty the AI:

• Starts with 1 warrior, 1 worker, and 2 archers.
• Units spawn with 18 + 9 per era, and see 1 tile farther.
• Units/buildings cost 23% less, and get +15% per era.
• +15% rate + 15% per era.

The relevant values in Handicap_AI_Standard are:

• HappinessDefault = 8
• NumCitiesUnhappinessMod = 100
• PopulationUnhappinessMod = 100

This makes the AI happiness identical to human happiness. It gets all other values from the human player's difficulty setting. Yes, this is confusing and was organized poorly... it's mysterious why Firaxis would place these three values separately from the human difficulty settings, instead of creating "AIHappinessDefault" etc values in the human settings.

 

[Aristos]

@Aristos

I am not sure if it really works like that... my interpretation is as follows (not using exact numbers because I am away from my computer, but you will get the general idea):

AI plays at Chieftain-like values, say production = 67%. Then, human plays at Emperor, so in that diff xml data you see something like AIProduction = 80%.

Therefore, AI production bonus is 0.67 x 0.85 ~ .50

That is what I mentioned, and my understanding of the bonuses... seems to be online with my experimentation in vanilla, as I am right now forcing the AI to play at Prince, so the bonuses are 100% x 85%, and I see the slight advantage for the AI but not as blatant (and immersion-breaking) as when it plays at Chieftain.

Correct me if I am wrong, of course.

 

[Thalassicus]

The AI gets its happiness from whatever STANDARD_HANDICAP is set to in PostDefines. In vanilla this is chieftain, but in vem this is "AI_HAPPINESS" (previously called AI_HANDICAP). Non-happiness values come from these fields in the player's difficulty setting:

Spoiler :

<AIStartingUnitMultiplier>1</AIStartingUnitMultiplier>
<AIStartingDefenseUnits>0</AIStartingDefenseUnits>
<AIStartingWorkerUnits>0</AIStartingWorkerUnits>
<AIStartingExploreUnits>0</AIStartingExploreUnits>
<AIDeclareWarProb>100</AIDeclareWarProb>
<AIWorkRateModifier>150</AIWorkRateModifier>
<AIUnhappinessPercent>100</AIUnhappinessPercent>
<AIGrowthPercent>100</AIGrowthPercent>
<AITrainPercent>100</AITrainPercent>
<AIWorldTrainPercent>100</AIWorldTrainPercent>
<AIConstructPercent>100</AIConstructPercent>
<AIWorldConstructPercent>100</AIWorldConstructPercent>
<AICreatePercent>100</AICreatePercent>
<AIWorldCreatePercent>100</AIWorldCreatePercent>
<AIBuildingCostPercent>80</AIBuildingCostPercent>
<AIUnitCostPercent>80</AIUnitCostPercent>
<AIUnitSupplyPercent>70</AIUnitSupplyPercent>
<AIUnitUpgradePercent>50</AIUnitUpgradePercent>
<AIPerEraModifier>-6</AIPerEraModifier>
<AIAdvancedStartPercent>200</AIAdvancedStartPercent>
<AIFreeXP>30</AIFreeXP>
<AIFreeXPPerEra>15</AIFreeXPPerEra>
<AIFreePromotion>PROMOTION_HANDICAP_II</AIFreePromotion>
<AIResearchPercent>25</AIResearchPercent>
<AIResearchPercentPerEra>25</AIResearchPercentPerEra>
<AIProductionPercentPerEra>20</AIProductionPercentPerEra>
<AIGold>50</AIGold>

I admit it could be combining non-happiness values from different tables. It'd be a rather odd design. It's logical for AIConstructionPercent to control the AI's construction rate, and ConstructionPercent to control the human rate. Reading different values from two handicap tables would be very strange. Firaxis doesn't always code things logically, however... and it's difficult to test without access to the game core.

To eliminate that possibility I've set all non-happiness values in the AI_HAPPINESS table to 100% in the next version.

 

[Aristos]

The AI gets its happiness from whatever STANDARD_HANDICAP is set to in PostDefines. In vanilla this is chieftain, but in vem this is "AI_HAPPINESS" (previously called AI_HANDICAP). Non-happiness values come from these fields in the player's difficulty setting:

Spoiler :

<AIStartingUnitMultiplier>1</AIStartingUnitMultiplier>
<AIStartingDefenseUnits>0</AIStartingDefenseUnits>
<AIStartingWorkerUnits>0</AIStartingWorkerUnits>
<AIStartingExploreUnits>0</AIStartingExploreUnits>
<AIDeclareWarProb>100</AIDeclareWarProb>
<AIWorkRateModifier>150</AIWorkRateModifier>
<AIUnhappinessPercent>100</AIUnhappinessPercent>
<AIGrowthPercent>100</AIGrowthPercent>
<AITrainPercent>100</AITrainPercent>
<AIWorldTrainPercent>100</AIWorldTrainPercent>
<AIConstructPercent>100</AIConstructPercent>
<AIWorldConstructPercent>100</AIWorldConstructPercent>
<AICreatePercent>100</AICreatePercent>
<AIWorldCreatePercent>100</AIWorldCreatePercent>
<AIBuildingCostPercent>80</AIBuildingCostPercent>
<AIUnitCostPercent>80</AIUnitCostPercent>
<AIUnitSupplyPercent>70</AIUnitSupplyPercent>
<AIUnitUpgradePercent>50</AIUnitUpgradePercent>
<AIPerEraModifier>-6</AIPerEraModifier>
<AIAdvancedStartPercent>200</AIAdvancedStartPercent>
<AIFreeXP>30</AIFreeXP>
<AIFreeXPPerEra>15</AIFreeXPPerEra>
<AIFreePromotion>PROMOTION_HANDICAP_II</AIFreePromotion>
<AIResearchPercent>25</AIResearchPercent>
<AIResearchPercentPerEra>25</AIResearchPercentPerEra>
<AIProductionPercentPerEra>20</AIProductionPercentPerEra>
<AIGold>50</AIGold>

I admit it could be combining non-happiness values from different tables. It'd be a rather odd design. It's logical for AIConstructionPercent to control the AI's construction rate, and ConstructionPercent to control the human rate. Reading different values from two handicap tables would be very strange. Firaxis doesn't always code things logically, however... and it's difficult to test without access to the game core.

To eliminate that possibility I've set all non-happiness values in the AI_HAPPINESS table to 100% in the next version.

... and that will serve as a proof for yourself, the same way my experiment proved it to me, that the gamecore is combining both bonuses together. From some perspective it makes sense, you set an absolute for the AI in the AI's handicap setting, and then the variable part is read from the diff level the human player chooses. I understand civ4 worked the same way, only that the AI was set by default to Noble (which is what I replicated in vanilla by forcing the AI to Prince). I can asure you there is a difference with only that change (not only in happiness, but also in other factors, most noticeable the gold available to the AI), which should be proof enough that the game engine is combining both bonuses.

 

[AlextheGr8]

I have been using the latest beta, on normal difficulty, and would like the ai's science toned down. Personally I found it fun to advance at what I thought was a quick pace, having guns and cannons, and take out weaker ai. But now it seems everyone is advancing faster than me. I don't even want to imagine how horrible I'd do on more difficult levels.

 

[barzing]

Hi,

Playing Korean civ, i get no sense tech boosts. I'm going Modern Era in 1500 ... the tech boost comes randomly nothing to deal with building science buildings.

Am i the only one ?

Same happens when AI goes with Korean ...

 

[Thalassicus]

It sounds like that might be the problem described in this thread: click here

 

[AlextheGr8]

I don't play as or against Korea, so that isn't it. Unless that bug somehow affects the AI no matter who they are playing as?

 

[Thalassicus]

I was responding to barzing's concern about the Korean science bug. The overall AI science bonus is separate from that, and was raised to 5% per difficulty per era (was 4%). I did this because I was getting feedback the game was too easy.

 

[The Boz]

I can definitely attest to this. Since I've been away from the game for several months, I figured a short 10-hour Warlord game would help me get up to speed, figure out most of the changes in the new VEM on the go... So I grab Washington on a Continents map, and I go for a mid-wide empire that is focusing on research and wonders, but the Incans and Iroquois were beating the snot out of me! Not physically, since they shared the other continent with the Danes and Arabs, but by the end (I narrowly won a tech victory in 1966, Hiawatha was missing a stasis pod and a booster) they had 12 and 7 wonders to my 6, 36k and 27k to my 20k (which I was mostly spending on grabbing CSs to slow them down), 5 and 5 policy trees to my 4 and a half, and a total point count of 1749 and 1450 to my 1290. I literally had no idea what I was supposed to be doing half the time, they were racing through the tech tree so fast that they managed to get bombers before I could get my hands on my first anti-air gun.
Even the almost-dead civs that were floating 350 to 500 points were cruising around with destroyers and subs by the end of the game. Germany even had three Modern Armors at my borders (I didn't even research that tech, beelining straight for Nanotech).
Have you ever felt really really awkward when you see a City State with higher tier units than anything you can build?

 

[albie_123]

I play on Epic speed and on King difficulty, and haven't noticed this, to be honest.

Incidentally, Thal, is this mod centrered around normal speed? I've never played it on anything but Epic.