PCZone magazine preview

[da_Vinci]

There are six types of quarks, known as flavors: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom.

So the next four can be expected to be right, left, front and back? But let's not confuse quarks with quirks ...

All the personality aspects should perhaps be called: traits (have to differentiate from civ4 to avoid confusion), aromas or odors (ooh! smelly stuff), aspects, or perhaps ... characteristics, attributes, features, qualities, properties, habits, customs, mannerisms, idiosyncrasies, peculiarities, quirks, oddities, foibles.

predilections perhaps ... which opens up others ...

"Condition of favoring or liking; tendency towards; proclivity; predisposition"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/predilection

Condition of favoring ... I see, the l in flavor was a typo! It is FAVORS ...

Proclivities might work very nicely instead of flavors.

Yah, I suppose quirks or foibles might be better than how something tastes.

My point exactly!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Growth v. Expansion is probably
Big cities v. many cities

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

I kept growth and city growth as separate flavors because I think of a farmer/gp dichotomy !
Maybe I'm wrong but who knows.

 

[Ahriman]

Growth v. Expansion is probably
Big cities v. many cities

Except that there is already a City Growth flavor, which would be Big Cities.

Its hard to conceive of 3 separate goals of Growth, Expansion and City Growth.

I kept growth and city growth as separate flavors because I think of a farmer/gp dichotomy !
Maybe I'm wrong but who knows

Are you meaning: growth means food tiles (to work specialists), while city growth means actually getting the cities bigger (food tiles + health/happy)?

Seems plausible.

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

I guess we will have to wait and see !

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Yes very interesting. thanks Bantams for providing this review.

CS

 

[The Cosmic Kid]

I like it. For starters, it sounds like modding a new AI personality will be a little less... intimidating... than that long long list of un-annotated values in the Civ4 leaderheads XML.

 

[Dale]

Please note that I said flavours are GROUPED into sections such as Wide Strategy, Military preferences, Recon, Naval recon, Naval growth, Expansion, Growth, Development preferences.

They are not the actual flavours themselves.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Hopefully the AI personalities will be as complex as they say they will become.

And it looks like Wu won't be too unreasonably old...

 

[meznaric]

Hmm ... are they really going to call these things FLAVORS?

About as sensible as having "rocky" be a CLIMATE!

A better term might be "inclinations". A leader may be highly inclinced to pursue land power, moderately inclined to pursue sea power, and disinclined to pursue culture. I am not sure if it makes sense that leaders are "flavored" (although maybe that is what is meant by a "seasoned leader"? )

Alternative terms could include "tendencies" or "leanings" (hmm ... since an incline is a slope maybe leanings and inclinations are related? )

dV

Agreed. The name is ridiculous. I really hope they change that to something more sensible.

 

[Sub]

I just read a scan of the article and I have to say, I have a hard time believing someone was paid to write that. It was so poorly written that I actually felt bad for the author. Plus it was filled with at least 20 spelling and grammar mistakes that anyone with even a slight grasp of the English language would catch ("a article"... "Firaxis's"...)

 

[Kid R]

I've read a couple of times about these "flavours" and people saying how good it sounds. I don't really understand any fundamental difference though from what Civ4 already defines in the XML for each leader, e.g.

Spoiler :

<iWonderConstructRand>0</iWonderConstructRand>
<iBaseAttitude>0</iBaseAttitude>
<iBasePeaceWeight>0</iBasePeaceWeight>
<iPeaceWeightRand>0</iPeaceWeightRand>
<iWarmongerRespect>0</iWarmongerRespect>
<iEspionageWeight>0</iEspionageWeight>
<iRefuseToTalkWarThreshold>0</iRefuseToTalkWarThreshold>
<iNoTechTradeThreshold>0</iNoTechTradeThreshold>
<iTechTradeKnownPercent>0</iTechTradeKnownPercent>
<iMaxGoldTradePercent>0</iMaxGoldTradePercent>
<iMaxGoldPerTurnTradePercent>0</iMaxGoldPerTurnTradePercent>
<iMaxWarRand>0</iMaxWarRand>
<iMaxWarNearbyPowerRatio>0</iMaxWarNearbyPowerRatio>
<iMaxWarDistantPowerRatio>0</iMaxWarDistantPowerRatio>
<iMaxWarMinAdjacentLandPercent>0</iMaxWarMinAdjacentLandPercent>
<iLimitedWarRand>0</iLimitedWarRand>
<iLimitedWarPowerRatio>0</iLimitedWarPowerRatio>
<iDogpileWarRand>0</iDogpileWarRand>
<iMakePeaceRand>0</iMakePeaceRand>
<iDeclareWarTradeRand>0</iDeclareWarTradeRand>
<iDemandRebukedSneakProb>0</iDemandRebukedSneakProb>
<iDemandRebukedWarProb>0</iDemandRebukedWarProb>
<iRazeCityProb>10</iRazeCityProb>
<iBuildUnitProb>50</iBuildUnitProb>
<iBaseAttackOddsChange>0</iBaseAttackOddsChange>
<iAttackOddsChangeRand>16</iAttackOddsChangeRand>
<iWorseRankDifferenceAttitudeChange>0</iWorseRankDifferenceAttitudeChange>
<iBetterRankDifferenceAttitudeChange>0</iBetterRankDifferenceAttitudeChange>
<iCloseBordersAttitudeChange>0</iCloseBordersAttitudeChange>
<iLostWarAttitudeChange>0</iLostWarAttitudeChange>
<iAtWarAttitudeDivisor>0</iAtWarAttitudeDivisor>
<iAtWarAttitudeChangeLimit>0</iAtWarAttitudeChangeLimit>
<iAtPeaceAttitudeDivisor>0</iAtPeaceAttitudeDivisor>
<iAtPeaceAttitudeChangeLimit>0</iAtPeaceAttitudeChangeLimit>
<iSameReligionAttitudeChange>0</iSameReligionAttitudeChange>
<iSameReligionAttitudeDivisor>0</iSameReligionAttitudeDivisor>
<iSameReligionAttitudeChangeLimit>0</iSameReligionAttitudeChangeLimit>
<iDifferentReligionAttitudeChange>0</iDifferentReligionAttitudeChange>
<iDifferentReligionAttitudeDivisor>0</iDifferentReligionAttitudeDivisor>
<iDifferentReligionAttitudeChangeLimit>0</iDifferentReligionAttitudeChangeLimit>
<iBonusTradeAttitudeDivisor>0</iBonusTradeAttitudeDivisor>
<iBonusTradeAttitudeChangeLimit>0</iBonusTradeAttitudeChangeLimit>
<iOpenBordersAttitudeDivisor>0</iOpenBordersAttitudeDivisor>
<iOpenBordersAttitudeChangeLimit>0</iOpenBordersAttitudeChangeLimit>
<iDefensivePactAttitudeDivisor>0</iDefensivePactAttitudeDivisor>
<iDefensivePactAttitudeChangeLimit>0</iDefensivePactAttitudeChangeLimit>
<iShareWarAttitudeChange>0</iShareWarAttitudeChange>
<iShareWarAttitudeDivisor>0</iShareWarAttitudeDivisor>
<iShareWarAttitudeChangeLimit>0</iShareWarAttitudeChangeLimit>
<iFavoriteCivicAttitudeChange>0</iFavoriteCivicAttitudeChange>
<iFavoriteCivicAttitudeDivisor>0</iFavoriteCivicAttitudeDivisor>
<iFavoriteCivicAttitudeChangeLimit>0</iFavoriteCivicAttitudeChangeLimit>
<DemandTributeAttitudeThreshold>NONE</DemandTributeAttitudeThreshold>
<NoGiveHelpAttitudeThreshold>NONE</NoGiveHelpAttitudeThreshold>
<TechRefuseAttitudeThreshold>NONE</TechRefuseAttitudeThreshold>
<StrategicBonusRefuseAttitudeThreshold>NONE</StrategicBonusRefuseAttitudeThreshold>
<HappinessBonusRefuseAttitudeThreshold>NONE</HappinessBonusRefuseAttitudeThreshold>
<HealthBonusRefuseAttitudeThreshold>NONE</HealthBonusRefuseAttitudeThreshold>
<MapRefuseAttitudeThreshold>NONE</MapRefuseAttitudeThreshold>
<DeclareWarRefuseAttitudeThreshold>NONE</DeclareWarRefuseAttitudeThreshold>
<DeclareWarThemRefuseAttitudeThreshold>NONE</DeclareWarThemRefuseAttitudeThreshold>
<StopTradingRefuseAttitudeThreshold>NONE</StopTradingRefuseAttitudeThreshold>
<StopTradingThemRefuseAttitudeThreshold>NONE</StopTradingThemRefuseAttitudeThreshold>
<AdoptCivicRefuseAttitudeThreshold>NONE</AdoptCivicRefuseAttitudeThreshold>
<ConvertReligionRefuseAttitudeThreshold>NONE</ConvertReligionRefuseAttitudeThreshold>
<OpenBordersRefuseAttitudeThreshold>NONE</OpenBordersRefuseAttitudeThreshold>
<DefensivePactRefuseAttitudeThreshold>NONE</DefensivePactRefuseAttitudeThreshold>
<PermanentAllianceRefuseAttitudeThreshold>NONE</PermanentAllianceRefuseAttitudeThreshold>
<VassalRefuseAttitudeThreshold>NONE</VassalRefuseAttitudeThreshold>
<iVassalPowerModifier>0</iVassalPowerModifier>
<iFreedomAppreciation>0</iFreedomAppreciation>
<FavoriteCivic>NONE</FavoriteCivic>
<FavoriteReligion>NONE</FavoriteReligion>

You can tweak these figures on Civ 4 to get some really nasty AI personalities - I seem to remember TheMeInTeam said he cobbled together a virtually unbeatable one.

Perhaps exposing these numbers, and calling them flavours, and making them simple enough for the "general player" to understand rather than mod writers and "experts", could even be a step back in AI complexity terms? Not saying it is, because in other ways the Civ 5 AI system as revealed so far sounds very well thought-out. Just thinking aloud really.

 

[The_J]

I had completly the same thougts about the flavours and have already posted something about that loooong time ago.
Hopefully they'll just increase the AI behind it, so that manipulating one value becomes more obvious.