Is there a way to stop the AI repeatedly asking for the same thing e.g. help with war

[Bhruic]

I wouldn't mind the demands so much if they were interspersed with some offers. Demanding/requesting I go to war is one thing, offering me something to do it is something else. I wonder if it was just too exploit prone (although the AI can be just as useless when you bribe them to war), or if it was too difficult to get the AI to "value" your war declaration?

Bh

 

[Iranon]

It works in both directions... the AI tends to bother one quite a bit, but then they eagerly give you tech or resources when that isn't in their interest at all.

Either picking a few close friends and standing by them or joining the dogpile works; maybe Firaxis wanted to penalise a foreign policy of 'we do our thing, you do yours and don't bother us'.

 

[gettingfat]

I wouldn't mind the demands so much if they were interspersed with some offers. Demanding/requesting I go to war is one thing, offering me something to do it is something else. I wonder if it was just too exploit prone (although the AI can be just as useless when you bribe them to war), or if it was too difficult to get the AI to "value" your war declaration?

Bh

I wonder if those demands can be made in the form of some "quests". Instead of asking a civ to join the war (the broadest goal), some more specific goals can be set, like killing a minimum of 10 enemy units, taking a specific city, etc. When these goals are achieved the reward promised (e.g. a tech, some gold) will be delivered and the dip rating improves. Similar rules can be applied when a human player bribes an AI to war. The AI won't get a dozen of techs for doing nothing. I don't know if it may avoid exploit, but wish somebody can mod it to give a try.

 

[Yesod]

I can't stand the AI in this game, its like a monet, look closely and its flawed beyond recognition. The AI design team needs Jesus. Possibly an ignorant judgment, but my guess is all the money hires people to work on the graphics engine and the AI's up to some guys who'd rather play......"test" the product for 8 hours

Expect worse now that they found a newer, dumber market to release games into. May be a while before we see civ 5.

 

[Wodan]

What version are you playing with, Yesod?

Wodan

 

[Yesod]

On the other hand this is the most community friendly game I've ever played. Blizzard never cared what fans thought. Maybe we should make more threads like these so they change something.

 

[Yesod]

What version are you playing with, Yesod?

Wodan

I use BTS with the latest patch.

 

[Wodan]

Hunh. What don't you like about it? Specifically?

Wodan

 

[Yesod]

The AI seems to be augumented only by the bonuses it recieves. All of it's gambits are sloppy to me. I find myself thinking "If only they did it like this alot". For example, if oyu declare war in BTS, all the AIs with war interests will declare on you the same turn. And then they don't even send troops half the time. The demands they never forget needs a memory decay of course. Also, theyre not programmed to use UUs i dont think. Does ragnar ever beeline to CS and stack berserkers and galleys to sack coastal cities?? Imagine if they threw that in. This game would be cyber crack . The ALC 19 game was the only game Ive ever seen OR played where an AI succesfully conquered its entire continent without simply vassalizing. Taking lands as vassals deprives it of commerce and production and makes the endgame tedious and boring. And why dont they ever launch a spaceship in a decent time frame? I played my first game where an AI - Zara - actually built a couple of thrusters. But this was in 1960.

They could have them focus on a victory condition suitable to their personality and follow that through using gambits that actually work. Shaka should grow his capital, grab a copper resource and crank Impis non-stop, grabbing all those pre-border pop cities that dominate the landscape on the first turn of combat. People would be glued to their screen, watching for any sign of fleet-footed bandits outside their city radii. Instead he follows the cookie cutter coding and picks 1 civ to send mediocre stacks against. Most just sit in the cities. Its a miracle they ever expand their territory. I just assume that aggresive civs will be non-entities by the industrial age. What I want to see are 10 Mongolian raiding parties consiting of a horse archer and an axeman pillaging ALL of Byzantines border cities. Then every conquered city being whipped down to 1 pop to produce an insane army of bandits that can only be financed by the loot taken from rich luscious cities along the coastline. I'm not a programmer but I can't imagine it would be that hard to do. They could at least try, instead of tweaking usless wonder bonuses and calling them "gameplay fixes". Maybe I'll find some time to work on a Mod with somebody from these forums with a little more xp than me. Firaxis should get on their stuff, people would eat this up.

What do you think?

 

[Powerslave]

I agree with Yesod. The AI is a little underwhelming. With Aggressive AI (or even without, on higher levels), we should be scared to death of Persia spamming us with Immortals or Rome going crazy with Praetorians. But what happens? They just sit there, building markets and libraries, most of the time.

The AI should play more like a human -- at least, with Aggressive AI set.

I like peaceful games as much of the next guy, but sometimes I feel that the AI exists solely to die.

 

[Yesod]

And it can't even win correct peacefully. Do you think they actually gift techs to certain civs to pursue a diplo victory? Of course not. They probably wouldn't build temples and religious buildings for a cultural victory, or start designating buildings ahead of time. Has anyone even seen an AI win by culture? I'd be amazed if theres even code to allow an AI civ to do that. Cultural victories would be more dangerous than space. If it was implemented

 

[Julian Delphiki]

I've seen AI get cultural victory -- AI's do win cultural victories on BtS (Blake implemented it for BetterAI mod originally). It's easy to get surprised by AI cultural win if you don't keep checking victory conditions often enough.

 

[King Flevance]

Actually, old versions of Blake's Better AI Mod were alot closer to what you describe. Blake used to have alot heavier unit spam than the current Aggressive AI. But people complained that the computer was "too good" and the game "too hard". So he decided against putting this unit spam in BTS. He said that when he nerfed it, people complained the AI was too easy when he buffed it, people complained the AI was too hard. So for BTS he had to pick between too easy or too hard. (militaristically)
He even went as far as posting a post in reference to the fact that he doesn't really post anymore due to the fact that no matter how he changed the AI there were always alot of people telling him it was too hard/easy.

 

[Yesod]

. I imagine if firaxis changed the AI and made it "too hard" that many people would cry, when they could just move down a difficulty lvl. Anyhow if you add the AI intelligence in, then you can take off those ridiculous bonuses and the game should even out somewhat. That wasn't an option though for blake. Well it probably was but he evidently ain't try it out. I honestly am considering learning how to mod, if i can find some free time that is...

 

[King Flevance]

Actually, Blake's AI has in fact reduced the handicap bonuses the computer got. Even twice IIRC. As for the difficulty level, lowering that does not directly change this behavior. Difficulty still has the opponents use the same algorithms for unit spam but they just have modified bonuses. SO AI's use unit spam the same way on Chieftain as they do on Diety. They respond the exact same way they would only on Diety they can make a unit every turn and on Chieftain it takes 10 turns to make the same unit. SO it would effect you somewhat but not the same. I personally prefer the Blake AI pre-BTS back when you had to be afraid of rushes.

 

[Merkinball]

Sometimes I think you guys are playing a different game. One guy says, "Well for once the AI finally had some spaceship parts in 1960." MY current game I'm in the 1860's and the AI is producing spaceship parts. Everyone says, "the AI never hits you with an appropriate force." But in my current game, I've staved off numerous 40+ unit stacks. And check this out, a game on NOBLE, NO AGGRESSIVE AI!

This was an image of much debate. Damn near TWO HUNDRED units.

Powerslave notes: We should be scared to death of Immortal rushes and Praet's. And although I can't honestly say I've been immortal rushed, not a game goes by where one of the Caesar's isn't pounding on my doorstep with enough prat's to at least make me sweat.

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To address diplomacy...I find it extremely annoying. In order for me to get someone to go to war, I gotta give'em a tech, or two, or three. Yet...you give me a negative diplo modifier when someone asks me to join them a war? Hey buddy, I'm already getting dogpiled, and you didn't offer me jack. What's the deal with that? The AI has the lofty of privelege of "having enough on their hands." Why can't I? Nope...I'm already at war with numerous Civ's, and the nagative diplo modifiers perpetually tally up because I don't join in someone else's war.

One person in this thread says, "I like it when the AI asks me for stuff because I get a + diplo modifier." Screw that. If the game was balanced, and realistic, you wouldn't simply wouldn't have to make yourself a lap dog to the AI in order to get positive relations. Others say, "The game was prgrammed so you couldn't play Switzerland." Screw that. Sometimes I wanna play Switzerland. And if you play Switzerland you shouldn't have the entire freakin world blowing your doors in simply because you didn't wanna play with them EVERY FREAKIN TURN!

Sometimes I feel like Diplomacy is only there to hinder the human player in an effort to overcome bad AI. Diplo favors, and negative diplo modifiers are really the biggest thing at keeping the AI in the game. The gracious tech gifting and tech trading, tech bartering. The gracious dogpiling they do for one another when the human needs to be eliminated. At times it drives me insane.

I would much rather have a well programmed AI on even keel with the human, then a game that just offers gross, unrealistic favors to the A, and ridiculous unrealistic punishments to the human in order to achieve parity.

 

[Powerslave]

Merkin, you have nobody but yourself to blame if you get dogpiled by the AI, after refusing every demand and request.

Why don't you just give in? I don't understand.

 

[Merkinball]

I don't refuse every time. However, it's just as senseless to give into every demand as it is to not give into them. If I'm less powerful and they threaten to invade, I give in. I'll often give them open borders. If they are very low on the tech scale, I'll give them a tech.

However, the entire engine behind the perpetual AI demands it is utterly absurd. Come on. Seriously think about it. What is it's purpose? It's basically geared by the programmers as a method of creating parity instead of programming some decent AI. The AI gets ridiculous diplo helpers, and the player gets buried.

Why should I HAVE to give up everything? How realistic is that?

Or how about this:

Now come on bro. Hannibal fears I'm too advanced? He's got a generation of techs ahead of me. But since about 1100AD he's feared my advancement...along with the entire rest of the world. There's literally no telling how much more "advanced" he really is than me, how many techs he has, but he, nor anybody else in the game will trade techs. They're constructing spaceship parts in the 1800's, but I'm too advanced?

I'm sorry, but diplomacy in this game really needs an enormous overhaul, pretty much from top to bottom. An overhaul would create more parity in the game, would make a more realistic game, and best of all, it would make the game MORE FUN!!!

There's nothing fun about giving up everything you've gained just to keep some AI pleased.

 

[Yesod]

Ive never seen that many calvary. The AI will build up that kind of army at the end of the game though. maintenance for 200 units is negligible at that point. I didn't say the AI needs to send larger stacks at you. I meant that it should adopt simple human strategies that shouldn't take much to implement. For example, the zulu impi has the ability to sack a city on the first turn of war. Let them program shaka to slowly expand his borders through quick wars. Take 2 cities and call peace. No hard feelings, just move on to the next guy. Instead they all have the same cookie cutter rules. If they're at war they're and if they're aggressive then they're really mad and don't leave you alone for a long time. It's sad that people are impressed by large stacks and fast teching. I dont feel that makes the AI any better. Just more challenging with an overall duller experience.

As far as the spaceship thing. They can start in 1860 and just never finish at all. Rocketry is light years away from fusion when you research ever tech in between

Just read your part about the unrealistic demands. Yeah, thats the best they can do. It's not very realistic but its definitely a challenge. Give yourself a break and let some steam off.

 

[Powerslave]

Merkin, you just need to learn how to use the diplomacy system. Get Hannibal up to Friendly, and he'll trade with you again.

What difficulty level are you playing on? Maybe you should go down a level if you're falling behind so badly.