Lobotomized AI

[Iceciro]

Is anyone else noticing that in Fall Further the AI just seems to be utterly anemic with technology?

I think this may be related to the "Scouts-as-defenders" issue, in that they don't have anything better.

Example - in my current game as the Scions I was able to reach Redactors, and the AI hadn't even advanced beyond Freaks. One would think at that point they'd at least be walking around Mimics, or archers... Some AIs get archery, most don't, and I have no real idea what they're actually building/researching because it doesn't seem to be much of anything when I get the silvertounged-diplomat-spy guy of the Scions into a city to look. I have no idea where they're putting the hammers/beakers but it's not doing them a bit of good.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

Difficulty level is significant, as is AI starting location.
However, what should someone expect when the AI suggest to you to build Scouts(Growth)? I wonder who told the AI that, if it needs to grow, it should build scouts. Another interesting thing is suggesting workboat(military). OMG! If someone has the AI thinking that workboats are military units, then what can you expect?
The same list goes down for a number of buildings and other units as well. We can only hope that it will be changed, soon. And Xienwolf declared that he won't be satisfied untlil noone will be able to win on Deity.

Personally, I do not think it is such a difficult thing to make the AI unbeatable, considering it runs the game on itself. However, making it unbeatable without cheating is difficult. Anyway, Civ4 AI is a cheater by default, so, I guess the above statement can be adjusted as making it unbeatable without cheating more .

 

[Iceciro]

For me, all of the AIs were being stupid and therin lies my problem. I expect one or two weak players that me or the other AIs eat, but they all had half the points as me. And I wasn't really playing very well.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

If you are playing at Deity, I cannot argue with you. If you are not, try playing at Deity .

 

[Iceciro]

*little bit of silliness here*
I don't like to play too high up because the AI just spams me with it's low cost production units. It's still stupid, it just has a lot of ridiculous bonuses. I may try in patch E though... I honestly think the AI is playing that poorly right now.

 

[Tarquelne]

*little bit of silliness here*
I don't like to play too high up because the AI just spams me with it's low cost production units. It's still stupid, it just has a lot of ridiculous bonuses.

I like the new increasing-difficulty option. Seeing a huge stack of units at the beginning of the game annoys me. I don't really mind the computer going up to Deity later.

Same thing happened with MOO. I would have played at the highest difficulty but the huge # of units the AI got shattered my willing suspension of disbelief. I don't mind a cheating AI so long as my nose isn't rubbed in it.

Arg - anyone remember "Star General", of the "Panzer General" line?

 

[Thunder_Gr]

Arg - anyone remember "Star General", of the "Panzer General" line?

I do. Hmm, those 3 Star newly builded units was a nuisance at hard difficulty, but, really, those were fixed scenarios(PG), and no matter how good the AI was, there was nothing else to do to make it harder. As for the SG, I didn't play it much, since every turn took forever if you had a ship over rival planets. You had to see every single move the AI made on the planets, and it moved the same unit several times...OMG, it was the most hurting experience I have ever had with a strategy game!

 

[Iceciro]

I like the new increasing-difficulty option. Seeing a huge stack of units at the beginning of the game annoys me. I don't really mind the computer going up to Deity later.

Doesn't work in Multiplayer, so that option's out... I usually play with at least a single friend. (No, we don't work together or trade techs, it's just nice to have someone else on the same planet to bother about things sometimes.)

 

[Gray-Z]

I've noticed the same thing. Latest game I was running around with beastmasters and paladins and all I had to face was swordmen and archers. Monarch difficulty.

Might be because the AI doesnt seem to be improving his lands too much. Most of the capital cities I took were still swamped with forests and jungles. The few spots that were improved had forts in them. Hurray for the AI workers. Plots with special resources had the needed improvement but most were just forests.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I'm starting to wonder if the AI isn't getting royally screwed by the new "can build stuff at 10% rate without tech" mechanic... given how much they LOVE to build forts, I wouldn't be surprised if their workers spent 30 turns building forts instead of anything else ( Marnok's mechanic of having forts built by a spell instead of a normal build order would be great imho )

 

[Iceciro]

You know, that comes to mind! If their workers are out wasting time, they're mostly going to be using unupgraded things, which will slow down research, slowing down the time to get more techs... et al ad infinatum... a feeding-on-itself cycle.

 

[Sephi]

I think the AI has problems to manage their workers and defend against barbs which makes it difficult for them to establish a good economy.
There are some ways to help the AI.

1. put them in teams (2-4). Really helps them to get some crucial early techs like education, calendar and mining
2. use barbarian leaders for the AI. No more improvents get razed which took 40+ turns to be build.
3. use the workers no xp option. That way AI workers will retreat from barbs as they should.
4. use the no savages and no lairs option (ok, that's just boring)
5. don't use raging barbs
6. use the option to start with some techs already researched

 

[lordrune]

The AI seems to be disinterested in certain important techs, like Festivals for Markets.

Instead a typical AI pattern is to beeline a mid-game religion such as Order/Veil, while REXing to the point that its city maintenance becomes crippling (and ignoring Cartography/City States into the bargain), and building so many low tech units that it passes its unit maintenance cap.

Basically: the AI's decision making just has to be better at every level.
The classic example is the single lone 2-pop Illian city, with no terrain improvements, that I spotted in WorldBuilder in the very first turns of my game building Samhain. But this is evident throughout the game as well. If the AI's military is weak, and it has Bronze Working, but not Hunting, it should build a Barracks, and then Axemen/Swordsmen - and not waste time with Scouts. It needs to not care about the fact that it thinks it needs 'more recon units'. Of course I know it's easier to say that, then to make the AI change its behaviour

But generally I prefer changing the game to improve the AI's decisions, then give it extra cheats, if at all possible. I don't understand how the AI is programmed, so I'm speaking from a position of ignorance there.

 

[shoggi]

Just seen this in my last game. I scouted a little bit into cualli lands (which i was at war with) and found a worker happily building a fort with something like 42 turns to go.
i think you should just scrap the abilty to build forts as a whole. they're not very usefull anyway, other than in erebus-style maps. and i doubt the ai would build them intelligent in that maps.

 

[Grimz101]

Difficulty level is significant, as is AI starting location.
... Another interesting thing is suggesting workboat(military). OMG! If someone has the AI thinking that workboats are military units, then what can you expect?...

Those are the only early boat units, and they recommend building them for scouting.

 

[Zurai]

Anyway, Civ4 AI is a cheater by default, so, I guess the above statement can be adjusted as making it unbeatable without cheating more .

Actually, with one exception, it's not. The only true cheat the AI has is that it basically has line of sight to the whole map for determining military actions. Everything else is just a handicap (faster research, more units at the start, etc).

 

[Iceciro]

Also in Fall From Heaven (most recent patch) they have Lumbermills in Archery... I don't know what-if-any carryover from core to FF AI there is, but there's also the fact that I've seen the AIs building forts AND lumbermills, both of which are late techtypes. (This is a change I'd like to see ported over to FF.)

If the AIs are trying to build Lumbermills, Forts, at 10% before the techs, then not running their workers away from the Barbarians so they lose them, then send those new workers out to continue the lumbermill/fort.... Wow. The math there for massive fail is pretty impressive already. Then the new, angrier barbarian stacks and you do have a recipe for a failing, confused AI.

 

[Sarisin]

Actually, with one exception, it's not. The only true cheat the AI has is that it basically has line of sight to the whole map for determining military actions. Everything else is just a handicap (faster research, more units at the start, etc).

I'm wondering if building Nox Noctis affects this AI superpower?

It certainly should, but I'm wondering if it does have any impact on where it sends units. Sometimes they march into the teeth of my defenses. Other times they cleverly move units away from them - as if they knew where my guys were.

 

[xienwolf]

Well, the "AI Superpower" is balanced by the fact that while the AI doesn't care about Fog of War and Explored Territory when making military decisions it ALSO doesn't get to see the whole map at once most of the time. It only gets to see within a 10 tile radius around the unit on the most wide-ranging function I can recall, and the player level AI is allowed to see one whole continent at a time to pick which city to pick on.

 

[Iceciro]

Well, as of current I have removed the 10%/+90% improvement thing and the ability to build forts in an internal ModModMod (This is getting a little silly now ) and the AIs seem to be playing better, but we only got in one game. I'm actually about to boot it up and see if this change continues... but if it holds up over 4-5 more testgames I think we may have found our culprit...

Not only did they seem to be keeping up in tech, they even built less scouts and things. One got screwed over by an early game Barbarian Diseased Corpse, though.