How to better flavor techs and other stuff

[elotar]

When looking at flavors do AI takes other things into consideration?

For example if we got two techs with kind of the same +food effect, but from different eras. If in a situation when both are available I want AI to prefer earlier one (so it will be researched and implemented faster), should I give it larger food flavor? Or it'll be fine when the flavor correspond to the effect and AI will understand that one with lover beaker cost is more profitable.

The same question about buildings with similar effects? As I already understand for units flavors are much less important.

 

[LeeS]

As I recall technology flavors are meaningless. The Ai randomly selects from the "X" most-expensive (in beakers) techs it can currently research. "X" is a number like 4, 5, or 6 but I cannot remember exactly how many it selects from.

Building Flavors are kind of important and also kind of meaningless. The AI won't select from any buildings it may be able to construct if it has already decided a particular city should build units, for example. The building flavor values only really come into play when the AI is looking to decide which building is better for "food" (for example) from those buildings it can construct in a given city, but only if it has already "decided" it needs to make a "food" building in that particular city.

 

[elotar]

Are you sure you are right? In my games (with Smart AI) all looks like that AI got preferences in choosing techs (lower part of tech tree...).

 

[whoward69]

Flavour has a small impact on the (unmodded) AI's choice of tech, but it's mainly random from the available ones. Smart AI reworks the whole tech choice code.

 

[elotar]

Thanks.

So for vanilla AI there is generally no point in flavoring techs, but for modified one it may be worth doing, but obviously there will not be a single answer how.

I think I'll then in my mod will go with straightforward rote of giving flavors according to the effects, too much overthinking is pointless.