In BTS AI got greatly increased production bonuses.

[Swiss Pauli]

1) The fact that AI gets cheaper units means that it suffers comparatively more happiness penalty from whipping. For example an AI axeman may cost 29h due to discounts - this means it cannot possibly be 2-pop whipped. Since the AI wont really use 1 pop whips except in total desperation, this means that the AI almost never whips early units. It may whip later units a little, but by then slavery starts to lose much of it's appeal.
Basically the AI whipping potential is very limited by happiness - much moreso than with humans (and humans are already highly limited by happiness). It's not the perfect balance but it's workable.

2) The AI doesn't actually whip much anyway.
In Warlords 2.08 the AI gained a simplistic algorithm of "Always grow, and whip away the excess", that was because it was the simple strategy used to work around the abysmal governor.
In BTS the governor does an infinitely better job of balancing growth with bringing in hammers from the land. This means that players and AI alike don't need to use slavery as a crutch.

3) While in principle it would be possible, if extremely difficult, to optimize the AI to make use of it's growth bonuses in order to leverage slavery to the extreme, this optimization was not done. The AI does not systematically abuse slavery, basically the productivity the AI gains under Slavery is completely in line with the other AI bonuses.

Note: It is quite likely that strong early AI armies are chopped moreso than whipped.

There we have it: the AI doesn't (ab)use its theoretical advantages systematically. Debate closed

 

[Jet]

> AI is increased by 3*.85 which is then floored, so in effect the AI box increases by 2. This gives a 14 size city a food box of 54.

Oh my God. Horrifyingly plausible.

> I suspect the difference (51 or 53) happens due to changes in the food box being relative...

MY EYES!!!

 

[Yakk]

As a quickie, I looked at a Warlords Emperor/Epic save and saw that my size 14 city needed 72 food to grow, whereas Hatty's size 14 city needed 53 food to grow. 53 is 73% of 72, where my interpretation predicted 85% of 72. And then Napoleon's size 14 city needed 51 food. What the hell. Huh.

This so looks like a bug in the engine.

 

[LlamaCat]

Second bold: On many occasions Firaxis has claimed this is not the case.

well if Firaxis says so, then it must be the truth.

 

[LlamaCat]

In BTS the governor does an infinitely better job of balancing growth with bringing in hammers from the land. This means that players and AI alike don't need to use slavery as a crutch.

Could this be the reason some people are noticing their own city governor buttons are not as effective as previous versions of the game? Essentially the coding applies to all the AIs and your own city governor buttons?

Maybe that explains why I am frustrated when clicking emphasize hammers button and it does not really emphasize hammers, it seems to try to still find some kind of balance with food/growth. Because that's how you guys needed to program it to behave for the opponents.

The problem: that is NOT what I want out of my own city buttons and worker automation - I want them to really emphasize only what they indicate, and as the player I will fine-tune as needed to meet the given situation (hence, I will PLAY the game).

And if I wanted hammers AND food in a city, I would click both buttons, and only then would the AI try to find a balance. At least, that's how I always understood these buttons to work. Please enlighten me if I'm wrong on this.

I would be interested to learn how this works because there are some things in BTS that are pretty frustrating, and to the everyday player such as myself, it really appears the AI is dumber than before in this respect.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I would like to see a scientific explanation how Mutineer arrives at his 100-200 % bonus on production for the AI or the size 7 AI cities versus the size 2 human cities. That would be interesting to read. It's easy to make such claims, but far harder to back them up.

Since that is not going to happen, I'll add a bit about how the real growth and production modifier is calculated for the AI. It won't dramatically alter the (completely correct) table posted in post 19 by colony.

The reason that the figures ingame aren't exactly equal to the growth figures posted earlier by colony is the so called iAIPerEraModifier. It's not a big factor and almost non-existant at the start of the game. (It wouldn't help Mutineer defend his size 2 human cities versus size 7 AI cities theory.) The modifier has always been in the game and is applied on top of the growth modifier posted by colony.

The per era modifier is (100+iAIPerEraModifier*eracounter). This percentage is applied to the food needed to grow and hammers needed for construction.

The iAIPerEraModifier is:
0 at levels below Prince
-1 at Prince
-2 at Monarch
-3 at Emperor
-4 at Immortal
-5 at Deity

The modifier is there because an AI is less capable of perfectly developing its empire. This lesser ability of the AI is a compounded effect, so without such a modifier the AI would lose ground faster and faster during the ages in the game and that wouldn't be much fun. Since the game starts in the first age of the game (by definition), it won't have a big effect on city growth at that stage and won't overpower pop-rushing for the AI at that stage of the game.
When cities become bigger and the terrain improvements more profitable, the power of whipping decreases, so any growth bonuses in the late game won't help with whipping.

Like Blake correctly pointed out, the AI still suffers from unhappiness from whipping the same as the human player, so it can't fully use the growth advantages that it has for a whipping strategy.

Another point to make is that the health and happiness bonuses that the AI enjoyes in Warlords (and vanilla) civ4 have been completely removed. (All happiness and health bonuses are equal at the levels warlord to deity and AI has noble level bonuses). So the AI also doesn't have a bonus on happiness to deal with the unhappiness caused by whipping.

I hope that this helps a bit with a serious discussion about the advantages of the AI and not one based on assumptions by someone who hasn't yet played the game nor access to the relevant xml-files.

 

[facistal]

This is an interesting discussion and I can see it from both sides. I think it comes down to two points already raised:

1) Does the AI use this advantage properly

2) Is growth the real limit on Slavery or is it Happiness

On point one, I don't think any of us have played enough full games to really know, and maybe it will be come more clear later. For my part if anything the AI seems more varied. What I mean by that is all of the AI in game x are trying something different. Growing cities, or REXing, or even trying an axe rush (I really I got wiped out in 1700BC on Monarch - I actually kind of enjoyed it) and just like gambits humans use they can be make or BREAK.

On point 2, is it growth or happiness that limits slavery early? I have always thought it was happiness. How many times do you get two food resources in your capital AND your second city, and yeah, it makes for a strong start, but you can only wip so much without the happiness to back it up. Most of the time I have at least one city that is growing WAY faster than I can wip it.

Anyhow - I would like to say, that my impressions are that it is not perfect, it is still a computer, but it is WAY smarter

 

[InFlux5]

The AI does not have a large production advantage. Period.

It's blatantly obvious in your first BtS game.

 

[DaviddesJ]

IN Vanilla/Warlords AI did not used Whipping/drafting. In BTS it does.
AS result instead of Vanilla/Warlords AI’s 0-30% production bonuses, in BTS AI effectively have 100-200% production bonuses, making it impossible for player to compete with AI in area of production in principle. The only thin that limit BTS AI unit production is upkeep. But still, because of grow bonuses AI can afford to put mach more land to cottages, instead of farms. So, AI simply has more commerce to use.

This all sounds good. The AI (at interesting difficulty levels) has never played much like a human player, and it's neither important nor desirable that it do so.

 

[Zoolooman]

Most of the time I have at least one city that is growing WAY faster than I can wip it.

I've never seen this city. ;] You just whip them like a monster, and when you think that there is too much unhappiness, you whip them again. You'll find that you can dig pretty deep before the city really begins to fail.

 

[scooter]

This all sounds good. The AI (at interesting difficulty levels) has never played much like a human player, and it's neither important nor desirable that it do so.

You'd rather the AI be an idiot? You'd rather have the AI make a sneak attack with a decent stack when your cities are defended by archers, only to have it sit there and pillage like a moron while you whip an army? That's more fun?

 

[facistal]

I've never seen this city. ;] You just whip them like a monster, and when you think that there is too much unhappiness, you whip them again. You'll find that you can dig pretty deep before the city really begins to fail.

Really? - you get down to pop 1 pretty quick - counter productive.

 

[DaviddesJ]

You'd rather the AI be an idiot? You'd rather have the AI make a sneak attack with a decent stack when your cities are defended by archers, only to have it sit there and pillage like a moron while you whip an army?

No, I don't want that. But it seems from your comments that you want the AI to refuse to attack cities that begin with the letter P. Why??