Improving the AI

[denyd]

If you were the programming manager for CIV III, which of these would be your #1 area for the staff to work on to improve the AI.

As always, most people would say fix the bugs first, but that's a given, so pick the one area where you'd like to see the AI get better.

 

[EddyG17]

I picked other. I say they should make the Ai better at caluculating.
The AI should be able to automaticaly know what is the optimun number of shields, commerce and food a city can produce due to its distance from the capital/FP and sourranding terrain, and mine and irrigate accordandly(?) instead of just irriagate every tile and chop every forest and jungles in their territory even does out side the city area of any city.
The AI should know the odds of their archer wining against my 4 tank army are.

 

[Gengis Khan]

Terrain. There's no reason the AI should be irrigating grasslands in despotism, and then keep irrigation when they're maxed out on city size.

 

[toh6wy]

I say smarter diplomacy. The AI is easily duped in this category, they never forgive you ever for some trivial things, and they don't realize whether a trade cut-off is your fault or not, among other things.

 

[Beam]

I say an AI that's learning from Human Play, how vague that may be. Otherwise the AI will never play any better than the best player at Firaxis.

 

[Berrern]

I voted Other.

IMO the most important thing is to make the AI more dynamic; i.e. it changes/adapts its strategy depending on what the enemy AIs (and most importantly, the human player) are doing.

Just as a small example; if you are placing stacks of units just outside his territory, he should counter that by moving units towards the closest city/ies. He should always be prepared..

 

[warpstorm]

Well, if I were the producer for Civ3, I'd move my talent to Civ4...

Of those choices, I'd have to say terrain. This will give the AI a good 25% more productivity fairly.

 

[zerksees]

I want to vote for combined arms, but the real problem is the AI does not know how to attack or defend very well. Pre-railroad, attacks are piece-meal.

I once took a city on an island that had 24 bombers and two MI in it. What's better is the bombers never once fired at my ships or my units when they landed right next to the city.

I can't tell you how many times I have baited the AI by leaving behind the lines cities undefended. Turn after turn the AI foolishly sends troops toward the city, only to get obliterated by my artillery and offensive units.

I think the entire AI defense strategy is to put the same number of units in every city, adding a few more for wonders or the capital, and then just sit and wait for you to pick off the cities one by one.

I could go on for hours about this.

Then there is the funnel of doom issue.

 

[TerriaMachine]

@zerksees: Could you please define "funnel of doom"? I never heard or seen that phrase used before. Thanks!

 

[Mr Black]

...............................................
I can't tell you how many times I have baited the AI by leaving behind the lines cities undefended. Turn after turn the AI foolishly sends troops toward the city, only to get obliterated by my artillery and offensive units.
....................................

This is what I hate the most! The programmers thought that the AI would outsmart the humans by going after the undefended cities. It has instead become the easiest way to kill the AI.

They should program the AI to go after border cities, over undefended towns deep inside enemy territory!!!

 

[Warwind]

I would say the ai need's to have better diplomacy right now there pretty clueless.

 

[Dragonlor]

This is what I hate the most! The programmers thought that the AI would outsmart the humans by going after the undefended cities. It has instead become the easiest way to kill the AI.

Why was this even programmed to begin with? How can you hold a city in the middle of enemy territory effectively? The AI should indeed always have been told to take border cities.

 

[Warwind]

My guess would be that it is a side effect of knowing where all your units are.

 

[Uncle Sam]

The AI needs improvement in Amphibious/Naval warafre above all else IMO. It has no idea how to handle Naval Battles or Aircraft Carriers, all it can do is bombard costal cities and improvements.

The AI also never lands more than like 4 units at a time in an Amphibious invasion, meaning it if you're at war with a Civ across the see you're pretty much safe from any real damage...

 

[Smidlee]

This is what I hate the most! The programmers thought that the AI would outsmart the humans by going after the undefended cities. It has instead become the easiest way to kill the AI.

They should program the AI to go after border cities, over undefended towns deep inside enemy territory!!!

it did make the AI smarter until I realize it did go after the undefended cities. I lost cities at first because I didn't have enough defenders. No matter how smart you make the AI a human brain will figure out how the AI thinks and then use it's own math againest it. Hopely We see small improvments in all these areas in Civ4 but expect anything like a D-day invasion anytime soon.

Personally I choose to improvement combine arms.

 

[Commander Bello]

since there was only one option available, I went for the combined arms. All other statements are valid as well, though.
In fact, the AI seems to lack decision matrix (what's the plural of it????) at all, which triggers the most, if not all of the mentioned problems.

 

[The Last Conformist]

"Matrices", I believe.

 

[plarq]

I say it's sudden attack. Sign a right-passage or alliance, then attack you suddenly!

 

[plarq]

I say it's sudden attack. Sign a right-passage or alliance, then attack you suddenly! Especially when the war is nearly over.

 

[plarq]

I say diplomacy. It's sudden attack. Sign a right-passage or alliance, then attack you suddenly! Especially when the troops staying in your territory.