Improved AI?

[Dida]

I didn't notice any difference, the AI was as stupid/smart as they used to be.

 

[suspendinlight]

One thing that seems to have changed is that the AI seems more likely to bring allies into war against you or other AIs as far as I can tell. In general there were more and larger wars than usual.

I played a test game on Noble and didn't really have any problem winning by a large margin, but then I usually play a couple of levels higher.

 

[Dearmad]

Yes it does bring in allies and/or pay bribes to people to fight you MUCH more often. I *LIKE* this a lot!

 

[Garand]

After hearing about significant AI improvement and difficulty, I was looking forward to playing (I had bought it but had been too busy to play). I sat down a few days ago and started a game as the Romans on noble level, and I must say that I've never dominated a game this much. I'm just on the cusp of early industrial society and I've already built about half of all world wonders, have a sizable tech lead over some civs and a massive tech lead over the others, and have complete cultural domination over everyone else. I also have about 2-3x the population of the next largest civ, the largest and most advanced army, and a 400-500 point score lead over Montezuma, who is second (and only because he has two vassals). Perhaps this is just a rarity, but I've never seen domination quite like this before in any of my games.

Has anyone else noticed anything like this happening?

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I've dropped from Monarch to Prince and had to adapt my strategies (more mounted units, different research paths...).
But I have noticed that warmongering is easier. Their AI is now better in offense, but now they don't keep most of their armies in their cities they are easier to conquer after their initial attack has been countered.

I also have about 2-3x the population of the next largest civ, the largest and most advanced army, and a 400-500 point score lead over Montezuma, who is second (and only because he has two vassals). Perhaps this is just a rarity, but I've never seen domination quite like this before in any of my games.

Has anyone else noticed anything like this happening?

Do you have any vassals ? I think their population and land adds to your score.
In my current game (Otttomans, Prince, normal continents) I'm close to a domination victory, and have about 1200 points more than Brennus, who is second in score but pretty backward. Spain, Greece and Inca are my vassals.

 

[Garand]

Do you have any vassals ? I think their population and land adds to your score. In my current game (Otttomans, Prince, normal continents) I'm close to a domination victory, and have about 1200 points more than Brennus, who is second in score but pretty backward. Spain, Greece and Inca are my vassals.

I have no vassals at all... in fact I haven't even been at war yet. Despite sharing a border with the Germans and the Zulus, I managed to avoid war because I discovered Christianity before anyone else on my continent had discovered a religion. I spread Christianity to all of them so my entire continent (which is rather large since it's a huge map) of myself, the Zulus, Germans, English and Egyptians is Christian.

I guess I got so far ahead because I was blessed with a good starting area and was able to expand out to about 10 cities (with little to no overlap) without having to fight for it. I have plenty of resources and have been able to trade for those which I don't have... and although I went through a lean time because I overexpanded, after I broke out of the economic slump and Christianity came to completely dominate my continent, I was doing great.

The only thing I am concerned about now is that the continent west of me is dominated by Hinduism and although the Greeks are independent and will deal with me, the Aztecs and his two vassals control the rest of the continent. And well, Monty hates me. The other two continents house the balance of the 13 AI civs in the game (Brennus got a smallish continent to himself, but it's all tundra). My goal now is to spread Christianity as much as I can to win some more allies because I fear there will eventually be a World War against the Aztecs.

 

[Enkidu_Warrior]

I am just winding up a Noble game as the Egyptians (Hatty) on a small map with the Mongols (Ghengis), the Incans and the Persians, with aggressive AI and raging barbarians. I was caught by surprise at how much smarter the AI was fighting wars.

The Incans and I managed to pin Ghengis in a peninsula, and I let myself fall behind on military (not by much, but enough) that Ghengis took the opportunity to attack me. He had the only horses and the Incans had the only copper. So when he came at me with his Keshiks, all I had was archers

I sent an additional worker to help the one mining iron to finish quickly, then whipped a spearman at my closest border city. Although he pillaged everything, my borders held, and I brought axe, sword, and spear production online. Suffice to say, we pillaged him right back and he refused to surrender, so we eliminated him.

Partway through the war, the Incans declared on the Persians, who were easily the most backward on the continent. The Persians had joined us as Bhuddists, whilst Ghengis and the Incans were Jewish. So clearly I couldn't let my buddies be overrun (also, if the Incans grabbed the Persian lands, they'd be as like to turn on me quickly, and with more production power than I could counter). So I gave Macemen and Catapult techs to the Persians, who whipped/upgraded just in time to stop a beautiful couple of Incan stacks from taking their capital (as they had my religion, I got to watch the whole thing )

They eventually declared peace around the time I'd consolidated my Mongol holdings. So I turned on the Incans before anyone could found gunpowder. Boy was I in for a shock.

I opened a two-front war, figuring to take out his flank from two directions. I also had a third group of HAs to pillage.

First difference I noticed was that he didn't turtle in his cities while I pillaged. He sent catas and maces out from his cities to rid his lands of the HAs.

Second, His city resistance was excellent with beautiful groupings of mixed unit types and mixed promotions.

Third, he opened a third front making a direct thrust towards my core. Fortunately, I had the only horses (courtesy of Ghengis' capital) and had roving Knights to chop his groups before they got too far. A second Incan invasion wave hit my core around the same time that my second unit pulled back to support the few (but injured) troops I had left.

Fourth, he had a sortie force of about a dozen mixed units, including catas, mace, axe, sword, longbow and crossbow. Although it wasn't as sizable as the force of mine it met with, my force was spread into about 3 stacks, to minimise collateral damage.

This was when the AI made a mistake. Rather than taking a forested hill near the city I was heading towards (on the other side of a river, and flanking the city - forcing me to take 3 steps around it to get to a non-river side for the city), it tried to fortify on a grassland corn tile the same side of the river as me.

Wiping out the stack slowed my advance, but at that point, he only had the city stacks left to defend, and not enough units for even a sally to slow me down.

So whilst it was a win, the strategic thrusts into my territory, and the tactical use of a sortie force were welcome developments, and actually scared me into thinking I might have bit off more than I could chew!

Looking forward to further developments, Firaxis! Thanks

EW

 

[GIO888]

Ai is much more creative in combat it seems, mixed stacks, multiple fronts - combine this with much more proactive alliance making, it makes Noble a whole new and more difficult ballgame.

I see more wars between the AI too, especially if they have different religions. The whole game has become more dynamic and fluid as a result.

I hardly built any naval power with Vanilla Civ, never needed it - I have to now, or my improved sea resources are toast about two turns in to any war with another Civ!

 

[The Navy Seal]

And well, Monty hates me. Don't worry he hates everybody.

 

[Commander Bello]

Yes, there have been some combat AI tweaks in Warlords that also affect barbarians.

Could you please elaborate this?

In Vanilla-Civ4, the AI is almost completely unable to handle their units right. They attack regardless of bad odds (typically with a probability of success <10%), they attack across rivers and uphill against units fortified in forests and, finally, they tend to combine siege and mounted units in stacks, while their foot soldiers are somewhere else.

Has any of those issues been adressed and, if yes, in which way?

Any information would be very much appreciated.

 

[Dearmad]

stakcs are more mixed.

barbarians walk AROUND obviously well-entrenched and not-worth-taking opponents when a city is a better target, so you ned to hunt them down and attack them, not the other way around.

although, in a modern war I jsut fought versus a civ, I someone knew that they would go for this one hill I had... and I fought a lot of defensive battles for it... successfully. But that doesn't happen as much.

 

[The Navy Seal]

Commander Bello The AI won't attack if the odds are bad.

 

[Dearmad]

Not true anymore.

I've had two AI's, no 3 in 2 different games declare on me whn I was either larger than they and mroe advanced or very very close.

aggressive game, prince.

 

[bennos76]

AI WILL go for the nukes... haven't been victimized by them yet... One fun example (a premptive one on myh part): England was technologically advanced of me (though smaller in size/productivity) and she went for the Manhatten project (I spy a LOT). Would have had it and the bombs many turns before me and was at FURIOUS with me. I didn't want to see that play out so I invaded lacking any airpower versus her weaker land units and superior airforce. She raped my units but I took her capital (only my >productivity saved me) and destroyed the project and some other buildings. War ended. I gave her back her capital...

Can confirm the nukes. I just had Alex nuke one of my cities. As far as I know, it was the first use of nukes in the game. First time I've ever seen the AI initiate a nuclear war. It was the only nuke he had too, and it was after signing the non-proliferation treaty. Admittedly, my tanks were at the gates of his capital.... I'd also managed to build 6 of my own before the treaty kicked in. You can guess what happened next.

 

[kernok]

AI tactics are improved?
AI is nuking around?
AI is much better than b4?

mince alors I gonna spent my entire life on this game and I won't see the sun anymore si &#231;a continue

good job firaxis people!!

 

[Older than Dirt]

I cant' see much change. The AI will still send out a catapult (which is certain to be destroyed the next turn) to capture worker-bait (late in the game when it doesn't need workers) even when it is overwhelmingly outnumbered and behind technologically and should be conserving units.

 

[The Navy Seal]

Older than Dirt What do you play Settler?

 

[Buffbot]

that is making the great wall usefull in emperors games

IMHO, I think Firaxis (and Sid) go a bit overboard with the random factor of the barbarians. I have watched them build cities & road networks, attack and raze half an empire and pillage everything in sight when they can't breach the defenses of a heavily fortified city. Pretty much acting like a rabid dog. You can't negotiate with them in any way shape or form, and IMO (again) the randomness of their placement (They spawn cities from goody huts left too long) leads to gross inequities in the balance of the game.

At least they gave a couple responses. Turning them off used to seem like cheating until I put them on raging barbarians and saw what the extreme was. The great wall's side effect of keeping barbs at bay is HUGE from my peaceful, empirebuilding perspective, and I aim for it 1st in any game where barbs are on.

The only tweak I really think needs to be addressed is the XP=10 max you get for beating up barbs. THAT is a crock (again IMHO). If you have to defend against an unruly AI, you get full xp for defending yourself... Why not against an even more unruly for (barbs) that can spawn from any area you can't see into!?!?! (fog of war). I remember one raging game I played just to see how long I could survive against the hordes. After watching (rather quickly I might add) a set of 6 fortified archers (all with city defense 3) get eaten by an endless stream of barbs (They had a size 4 city in the dark) I came to the conclusion that to the programmers, randomness is the great equalizer to devising expert level game strategies.

Perhaps given enough time, Firaxis will find testers who are good at informing the programmers on strategies to include in the game. Maybe then we won't see such a reliance on random game equalizing mechanics such as barbarians.

I just wish I could figure out how to do well in a noble game... Seems the barbarians are the great equalizer. When I turn them off, it's too easy, and when they're on, I lose because I have to play barb exterminator.

 

[parachute4u]

AI is waiting for the right time to declare wars. It happened to me, that some furious/annoyed guy declared on me, right after I moved my stongest troops into enemy territory to win another war I was involved in at that time.

So AI seems to take into account how much of your military is available to fight THEM, if they declare. If you have your army somewhere else, they will not be scared anymore and declare on you.

 

[parachute4u]

About the barbs:

When I was looking who had marble (cause I didn't), I saw something interesting:

How is THAT possible??