Playing with more or fewer victory modes

[Chris41336]

Hi all, I had a quick question that I'm unsure if anyone has experience in.

If I desire an AI that is as varied in their strategy as possible, should I select all victory types or reduce it to score only? ( Or another limited subset). For example if I want the AI to all play a balanced game instead of calculating the fastest route to a specific victory type that they think is the path to victory. I enjoy more "realistic", historical like games and there are times when I feel constrained by the victory types, almost like they are contrived.

I am operating under the assumption that the AI play differently with different victory modes enabled which I could be wrong about.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I pretty much leave them all on all the time.

I don't think the AI actually knows what the game settings are

 

[Chris41336]

I pretty much leave them all on all the time.

I don't think the AI actually knows what the game settings are

That might answer my question. So if only Domination mode is on, the AI still plays a standard game with regards to culture, religion, etc? If so then I suppose it does not matter!

 

[Noble Zarkon]

The AI does not realise it is in a game and has no knowledge of victory conditions so if you switch one or more of them off you get worse performance from them as they waste resources on irrelevant items!

 

[Chris41336]

The AI does not realise it is in a game and has no knowledge of victory conditions so if you switch one or more of them off you get worse performance from them as they waste resources on irrelevant items!

Thanks. I had assumed that there was some form of built in mechanism to adjust AI behavior based on victory conditions. I suppose I was wrong!

Still, leaving Score only might achieve closer to what I want.

 

[Finvola]

Nope, they will still build spaceports if you have SV disabled, still spam with religious units if you have RV turned off and so forth.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I pretty much leave them all on all the time.

I don't think the AI actually knows what the game settings are

Actually, updating myself: I've had fun playing monopolies mode with cultural victory off. Currently I'm going for a preserve-focused science victory as Bull Moose Teddy using some production-granting monopolies to help.

 

[Futumch]

I will frequently play with Religious and Culture victories off. In my current game as Kublai China I forgot to toggle off any victories, so I'm having to shore up a local religion just to get it out of the way. The religion's extra food and science bonus doesn't hurt though.

 

[Chris41336]

Nope, they will still build spaceports if you have SV disabled, still spam with religious units if you have RV turned off and so forth.

Thanks for clarifying this. I'm not sure why I find this surprising, but I had fully convinced myself the AI changed their gameplay based on victory conditions! Delusion, I suppose.

 

[cain3456]

Play what's fun. For me that's Societies, Heroes, shuffle, & corporations. Apocalypse & Dynamic are not fun, so I leave them off.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Disabling VC can be done to prevent the human player reaching ones the AI is rather bad at or to prevent too easy cultural victories with the I&C mode until a fix comes, but as other have already pointed out it will have no effect on AI behaviour. There are mods however, which add such checks. e.g. Real Strategy (AI)

 

[Linklite]

As other have pointed out, the AI doesn't change behaviour according to which victories are enabled/disabled.

On an amusing note, I will occasionally play with only one victory enabled if I'm trying to complete the HoF. If, say, I'm playing DomVic, I'll occasionally get a message saying that one of the AIs is no longer seeking a DomVic. So, what are they seeking then?

 

[c4c6]

[...] the AI doesn't change behaviour according to which victories are enabled/disabled [...] So, what are they seeking then?

Enlightenment, to overcome the imposed immaturity?